--- /dev/null
+\r
+\r
+Persuasion\r
+\r
+\r
+by\r
+\r
+Jane Austen\r
+\r
+(1818)\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 1\r
+\r
+\r
+Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who,\r
+for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there\r
+he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed\r
+one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by\r
+contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any\r
+unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally\r
+into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations\r
+of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he\r
+could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This\r
+was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:\r
+\r
+ "ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.\r
+\r
+"Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth,\r
+daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of\r
+Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born\r
+June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, November 5,\r
+1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791."\r
+\r
+Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer's\r
+hands; but Sir Walter had improved it by adding, for the information of\r
+himself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary's birth--\r
+"Married, December 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles Musgrove,\r
+Esq. of Uppercross, in the county of Somerset," and by inserting most\r
+accurately the day of the month on which he had lost his wife.\r
+\r
+Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable\r
+family, in the usual terms; how it had been first settled in Cheshire;\r
+how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff,\r
+representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of\r
+loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year of Charles II, with\r
+all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married; forming altogether two\r
+handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with the arms and\r
+motto:--"Principal seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county of Somerset," and\r
+Sir Walter's handwriting again in this finale:--\r
+\r
+"Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of the\r
+second Sir Walter."\r
+\r
+Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character;\r
+vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in\r
+his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women\r
+could think more of their personal appearance than he did, nor could\r
+the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with the place he held\r
+in society. He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to\r
+the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united\r
+these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and\r
+devotion.\r
+\r
+His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment; since\r
+to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character to any\r
+thing deserved by his own. Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman,\r
+sensible and amiable; whose judgement and conduct, if they might be\r
+pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never\r
+required indulgence afterwards.--She had humoured, or softened, or\r
+concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for\r
+seventeen years; and though not the very happiest being in the world\r
+herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children,\r
+to attach her to life, and make it no matter of indifference to her\r
+when she was called on to quit them.--Three girls, the two eldest\r
+sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath, an\r
+awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a\r
+conceited, silly father. She had, however, one very intimate friend, a\r
+sensible, deserving woman, who had been brought, by strong attachment\r
+to herself, to settle close by her, in the village of Kellynch; and on\r
+her kindness and advice, Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help\r
+and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had\r
+been anxiously giving her daughters.\r
+\r
+This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been\r
+anticipated on that head by their acquaintance. Thirteen years had\r
+passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they were still near\r
+neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower, the other\r
+a widow.\r
+\r
+That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely well\r
+provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no\r
+apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably\r
+discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not; but\r
+Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation. Be it\r
+known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with one\r
+or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications),\r
+prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughters' sake. For\r
+one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing,\r
+which he had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had\r
+succeeded, at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother's rights\r
+and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her\r
+influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most\r
+happily. His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had\r
+acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles\r
+Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of\r
+character, which must have placed her high with any people of real\r
+understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no\r
+weight, her convenience was always to give way--she was only Anne.\r
+\r
+To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued\r
+god-daughter, favourite, and friend. Lady Russell loved them all; but\r
+it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.\r
+\r
+A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her\r
+bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had\r
+found little to admire in her, (so totally different were her delicate\r
+features and mild dark eyes from his own), there could be nothing in\r
+them, now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem. He had\r
+never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name in\r
+any other page of his favourite work. All equality of alliance must\r
+rest with Elizabeth, for Mary had merely connected herself with an old\r
+country family of respectability and large fortune, and had therefore\r
+given all the honour and received none: Elizabeth would, one day or\r
+other, marry suitably.\r
+\r
+It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she\r
+was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been\r
+neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely\r
+any charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome\r
+Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter\r
+might be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least, be\r
+deemed only half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming\r
+as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else; for he\r
+could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance\r
+were growing. Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the\r
+neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow's foot about\r
+Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment.\r
+Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and\r
+directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have\r
+given the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years\r
+had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at\r
+home, and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking\r
+immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and\r
+dining-rooms in the country. Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had\r
+seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood\r
+afforded, and thirteen springs shewn their blossoms, as she travelled\r
+up to London with her father, for a few weeks' annual enjoyment of the\r
+great world. She had the remembrance of all this, she had the\r
+consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and\r
+some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as\r
+handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and\r
+would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by\r
+baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two. Then might she again\r
+take up the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth,\r
+but now she liked it not. Always to be presented with the date of her\r
+own birth and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister,\r
+made the book an evil; and more than once, when her father had left it\r
+open on the table near her, had she closed it, with averted eyes, and\r
+pushed it away.\r
+\r
+She had had a disappointment, moreover, which that book, and especially\r
+the history of her own family, must ever present the remembrance of.\r
+The heir presumptive, the very William Walter Elliot, Esq., whose\r
+rights had been so generously supported by her father, had disappointed\r
+her.\r
+\r
+She had, while a very young girl, as soon as she had known him to be,\r
+in the event of her having no brother, the future baronet, meant to\r
+marry him, and her father had always meant that she should. He had not\r
+been known to them as a boy; but soon after Lady Elliot's death, Sir\r
+Walter had sought the acquaintance, and though his overtures had not\r
+been met with any warmth, he had persevered in seeking it, making\r
+allowance for the modest drawing-back of youth; and, in one of their\r
+spring excursions to London, when Elizabeth was in her first bloom, Mr\r
+Elliot had been forced into the introduction.\r
+\r
+He was at that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of the\r
+law; and Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable, and every plan in his\r
+favour was confirmed. He was invited to Kellynch Hall; he was talked\r
+of and expected all the rest of the year; but he never came. The\r
+following spring he was seen again in town, found equally agreeable,\r
+again encouraged, invited, and expected, and again he did not come; and\r
+the next tidings were that he was married. Instead of pushing his\r
+fortune in the line marked out for the heir of the house of Elliot, he\r
+had purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of\r
+inferior birth.\r
+\r
+Sir Walter had resented it. As the head of the house, he felt that he\r
+ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man so\r
+publicly by the hand; "For they must have been seen together," he\r
+observed, "once at Tattersall's, and twice in the lobby of the House of\r
+Commons." His disapprobation was expressed, but apparently very little\r
+regarded. Mr Elliot had attempted no apology, and shewn himself as\r
+unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family, as Sir Walter\r
+considered him unworthy of it: all acquaintance between them had\r
+ceased.\r
+\r
+This very awkward history of Mr Elliot was still, after an interval of\r
+several years, felt with anger by Elizabeth, who had liked the man for\r
+himself, and still more for being her father's heir, and whose strong\r
+family pride could see only in him a proper match for Sir Walter\r
+Elliot's eldest daughter. There was not a baronet from A to Z whom her\r
+feelings could have so willingly acknowledged as an equal. Yet so\r
+miserably had he conducted himself, that though she was at this present\r
+time (the summer of 1814) wearing black ribbons for his wife, she could\r
+not admit him to be worth thinking of again. The disgrace of his first\r
+marriage might, perhaps, as there was no reason to suppose it\r
+perpetuated by offspring, have been got over, had he not done worse;\r
+but he had, as by the accustomary intervention of kind friends, they\r
+had been informed, spoken most disrespectfully of them all, most\r
+slightingly and contemptuously of the very blood he belonged to, and\r
+the honours which were hereafter to be his own. This could not be\r
+pardoned.\r
+\r
+Such were Elizabeth Elliot's sentiments and sensations; such the cares\r
+to alloy, the agitations to vary, the sameness and the elegance, the\r
+prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life; such the feelings\r
+to give interest to a long, uneventful residence in one country circle,\r
+to fill the vacancies which there were no habits of utility abroad, no\r
+talents or accomplishments for home, to occupy.\r
+\r
+But now, another occupation and solicitude of mind was beginning to be\r
+added to these. Her father was growing distressed for money. She\r
+knew, that when he now took up the Baronetage, it was to drive the\r
+heavy bills of his tradespeople, and the unwelcome hints of Mr\r
+Shepherd, his agent, from his thoughts. The Kellynch property was\r
+good, but not equal to Sir Walter's apprehension of the state required\r
+in its possessor. While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method,\r
+moderation, and economy, which had just kept him within his income; but\r
+with her had died all such right-mindedness, and from that period he\r
+had been constantly exceeding it. It had not been possible for him to\r
+spend less; he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was\r
+imperiously called on to do; but blameless as he was, he was not only\r
+growing dreadfully in debt, but was hearing of it so often, that it\r
+became vain to attempt concealing it longer, even partially, from his\r
+daughter. He had given her some hints of it the last spring in town;\r
+he had gone so far even as to say, "Can we retrench? Does it occur to\r
+you that there is any one article in which we can retrench?" and\r
+Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first ardour of female alarm,\r
+set seriously to think what could be done, and had finally proposed\r
+these two branches of economy, to cut off some unnecessary charities,\r
+and to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room; to which\r
+expedients she afterwards added the happy thought of their taking no\r
+present down to Anne, as had been the usual yearly custom. But these\r
+measures, however good in themselves, were insufficient for the real\r
+extent of the evil, the whole of which Sir Walter found himself obliged\r
+to confess to her soon afterwards. Elizabeth had nothing to propose of\r
+deeper efficacy. She felt herself ill-used and unfortunate, as did her\r
+father; and they were neither of them able to devise any means of\r
+lessening their expenses without compromising their dignity, or\r
+relinquishing their comforts in a way not to be borne.\r
+\r
+There was only a small part of his estate that Sir Walter could dispose\r
+of; but had every acre been alienable, it would have made no\r
+difference. He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the\r
+power, but he would never condescend to sell. No; he would never\r
+disgrace his name so far. The Kellynch estate should be transmitted\r
+whole and entire, as he had received it.\r
+\r
+Their two confidential friends, Mr Shepherd, who lived in the\r
+neighbouring market town, and Lady Russell, were called to advise them;\r
+and both father and daughter seemed to expect that something should be\r
+struck out by one or the other to remove their embarrassments and\r
+reduce their expenditure, without involving the loss of any indulgence\r
+of taste or pride.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 2\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr Shepherd, a civil, cautious lawyer, who, whatever might be his hold\r
+or his views on Sir Walter, would rather have the disagreeable prompted\r
+by anybody else, excused himself from offering the slightest hint, and\r
+only begged leave to recommend an implicit reference to the excellent\r
+judgement of Lady Russell, from whose known good sense he fully\r
+expected to have just such resolute measures advised as he meant to see\r
+finally adopted.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell was most anxiously zealous on the subject, and gave it\r
+much serious consideration. She was a woman rather of sound than of\r
+quick abilities, whose difficulties in coming to any decision in this\r
+instance were great, from the opposition of two leading principles.\r
+She was of strict integrity herself, with a delicate sense of honour;\r
+but she was as desirous of saving Sir Walter's feelings, as solicitous\r
+for the credit of the family, as aristocratic in her ideas of what was\r
+due to them, as anybody of sense and honesty could well be. She was a\r
+benevolent, charitable, good woman, and capable of strong attachments,\r
+most correct in her conduct, strict in her notions of decorum, and with\r
+manners that were held a standard of good-breeding. She had a\r
+cultivated mind, and was, generally speaking, rational and consistent;\r
+but she had prejudices on the side of ancestry; she had a value for\r
+rank and consequence, which blinded her a little to the faults of those\r
+who possessed them. Herself the widow of only a knight, she gave the\r
+dignity of a baronet all its due; and Sir Walter, independent of his\r
+claims as an old acquaintance, an attentive neighbour, an obliging\r
+landlord, the husband of her very dear friend, the father of Anne and\r
+her sisters, was, as being Sir Walter, in her apprehension, entitled to\r
+a great deal of compassion and consideration under his present\r
+difficulties.\r
+\r
+They must retrench; that did not admit of a doubt. But she was very\r
+anxious to have it done with the least possible pain to him and\r
+Elizabeth. She drew up plans of economy, she made exact calculations,\r
+and she did what nobody else thought of doing: she consulted Anne, who\r
+never seemed considered by the others as having any interest in the\r
+question. She consulted, and in a degree was influenced by her in\r
+marking out the scheme of retrenchment which was at last submitted to\r
+Sir Walter. Every emendation of Anne's had been on the side of honesty\r
+against importance. She wanted more vigorous measures, a more complete\r
+reformation, a quicker release from debt, a much higher tone of\r
+indifference for everything but justice and equity.\r
+\r
+"If we can persuade your father to all this," said Lady Russell,\r
+looking over her paper, "much may be done. If he will adopt these\r
+regulations, in seven years he will be clear; and I hope we may be able\r
+to convince him and Elizabeth, that Kellynch Hall has a respectability\r
+in itself which cannot be affected by these reductions; and that the\r
+true dignity of Sir Walter Elliot will be very far from lessened in the\r
+eyes of sensible people, by acting like a man of principle. What will\r
+he be doing, in fact, but what very many of our first families have\r
+done, or ought to do? There will be nothing singular in his case; and\r
+it is singularity which often makes the worst part of our suffering, as\r
+it always does of our conduct. I have great hope of prevailing. We\r
+must be serious and decided; for after all, the person who has\r
+contracted debts must pay them; and though a great deal is due to the\r
+feelings of the gentleman, and the head of a house, like your father,\r
+there is still more due to the character of an honest man."\r
+\r
+This was the principle on which Anne wanted her father to be\r
+proceeding, his friends to be urging him. She considered it as an act\r
+of indispensable duty to clear away the claims of creditors with all\r
+the expedition which the most comprehensive retrenchments could secure,\r
+and saw no dignity in anything short of it. She wanted it to be\r
+prescribed, and felt as a duty. She rated Lady Russell's influence\r
+highly; and as to the severe degree of self-denial which her own\r
+conscience prompted, she believed there might be little more difficulty\r
+in persuading them to a complete, than to half a reformation. Her\r
+knowledge of her father and Elizabeth inclined her to think that the\r
+sacrifice of one pair of horses would be hardly less painful than of\r
+both, and so on, through the whole list of Lady Russell's too gentle\r
+reductions.\r
+\r
+How Anne's more rigid requisitions might have been taken is of little\r
+consequence. Lady Russell's had no success at all: could not be put up\r
+with, were not to be borne. "What! every comfort of life knocked off!\r
+Journeys, London, servants, horses, table--contractions and\r
+restrictions every where! To live no longer with the decencies even of\r
+a private gentleman! No, he would sooner quit Kellynch Hall at once,\r
+than remain in it on such disgraceful terms."\r
+\r
+"Quit Kellynch Hall." The hint was immediately taken up by Mr\r
+Shepherd, whose interest was involved in the reality of Sir Walter's\r
+retrenching, and who was perfectly persuaded that nothing would be done\r
+without a change of abode. "Since the idea had been started in the\r
+very quarter which ought to dictate, he had no scruple," he said, "in\r
+confessing his judgement to be entirely on that side. It did not\r
+appear to him that Sir Walter could materially alter his style of\r
+living in a house which had such a character of hospitality and ancient\r
+dignity to support. In any other place Sir Walter might judge for\r
+himself; and would be looked up to, as regulating the modes of life in\r
+whatever way he might choose to model his household."\r
+\r
+Sir Walter would quit Kellynch Hall; and after a very few days more of\r
+doubt and indecision, the great question of whither he should go was\r
+settled, and the first outline of this important change made out.\r
+\r
+There had been three alternatives, London, Bath, or another house in\r
+the country. All Anne's wishes had been for the latter. A small house\r
+in their own neighbourhood, where they might still have Lady Russell's\r
+society, still be near Mary, and still have the pleasure of sometimes\r
+seeing the lawns and groves of Kellynch, was the object of her\r
+ambition. But the usual fate of Anne attended her, in having something\r
+very opposite from her inclination fixed on. She disliked Bath, and\r
+did not think it agreed with her; and Bath was to be her home.\r
+\r
+Sir Walter had at first thought more of London; but Mr Shepherd felt\r
+that he could not be trusted in London, and had been skilful enough to\r
+dissuade him from it, and make Bath preferred. It was a much safer\r
+place for a gentleman in his predicament: he might there be important\r
+at comparatively little expense. Two material advantages of Bath over\r
+London had of course been given all their weight: its more convenient\r
+distance from Kellynch, only fifty miles, and Lady Russell's spending\r
+some part of every winter there; and to the very great satisfaction of\r
+Lady Russell, whose first views on the projected change had been for\r
+Bath, Sir Walter and Elizabeth were induced to believe that they should\r
+lose neither consequence nor enjoyment by settling there.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell felt obliged to oppose her dear Anne's known wishes. It\r
+would be too much to expect Sir Walter to descend into a small house in\r
+his own neighbourhood. Anne herself would have found the\r
+mortifications of it more than she foresaw, and to Sir Walter's\r
+feelings they must have been dreadful. And with regard to Anne's\r
+dislike of Bath, she considered it as a prejudice and mistake arising,\r
+first, from the circumstance of her having been three years at school\r
+there, after her mother's death; and secondly, from her happening to be\r
+not in perfectly good spirits the only winter which she had afterwards\r
+spent there with herself.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell was fond of Bath, in short, and disposed to think it must\r
+suit them all; and as to her young friend's health, by passing all the\r
+warm months with her at Kellynch Lodge, every danger would be avoided;\r
+and it was in fact, a change which must do both health and spirits\r
+good. Anne had been too little from home, too little seen. Her spirits\r
+were not high. A larger society would improve them. She wanted her to\r
+be more known.\r
+\r
+The undesirableness of any other house in the same neighbourhood for\r
+Sir Walter was certainly much strengthened by one part, and a very\r
+material part of the scheme, which had been happily engrafted on the\r
+beginning. He was not only to quit his home, but to see it in the\r
+hands of others; a trial of fortitude, which stronger heads than Sir\r
+Walter's have found too much. Kellynch Hall was to be let. This,\r
+however, was a profound secret, not to be breathed beyond their own\r
+circle.\r
+\r
+Sir Walter could not have borne the degradation of being known to\r
+design letting his house. Mr Shepherd had once mentioned the word\r
+"advertise," but never dared approach it again. Sir Walter spurned the\r
+idea of its being offered in any manner; forbad the slightest hint\r
+being dropped of his having such an intention; and it was only on the\r
+supposition of his being spontaneously solicited by some most\r
+unexceptionable applicant, on his own terms, and as a great favour,\r
+that he would let it at all.\r
+\r
+How quick come the reasons for approving what we like! Lady Russell\r
+had another excellent one at hand, for being extremely glad that Sir\r
+Walter and his family were to remove from the country. Elizabeth had\r
+been lately forming an intimacy, which she wished to see interrupted.\r
+It was with the daughter of Mr Shepherd, who had returned, after an\r
+unprosperous marriage, to her father's house, with the additional\r
+burden of two children. She was a clever young woman, who understood\r
+the art of pleasing--the art of pleasing, at least, at Kellynch Hall;\r
+and who had made herself so acceptable to Miss Elliot, as to have been\r
+already staying there more than once, in spite of all that Lady\r
+Russell, who thought it a friendship quite out of place, could hint of\r
+caution and reserve.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell, indeed, had scarcely any influence with Elizabeth, and\r
+seemed to love her, rather because she would love her, than because\r
+Elizabeth deserved it. She had never received from her more than\r
+outward attention, nothing beyond the observances of complaisance; had\r
+never succeeded in any point which she wanted to carry, against\r
+previous inclination. She had been repeatedly very earnest in trying\r
+to get Anne included in the visit to London, sensibly open to all the\r
+injustice and all the discredit of the selfish arrangements which shut\r
+her out, and on many lesser occasions had endeavoured to give Elizabeth\r
+the advantage of her own better judgement and experience; but always in\r
+vain: Elizabeth would go her own way; and never had she pursued it in\r
+more decided opposition to Lady Russell than in this selection of Mrs\r
+Clay; turning from the society of so deserving a sister, to bestow her\r
+affection and confidence on one who ought to have been nothing to her\r
+but the object of distant civility.\r
+\r
+From situation, Mrs Clay was, in Lady Russell's estimate, a very\r
+unequal, and in her character she believed a very dangerous companion;\r
+and a removal that would leave Mrs Clay behind, and bring a choice of\r
+more suitable intimates within Miss Elliot's reach, was therefore an\r
+object of first-rate importance.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 3\r
+\r
+\r
+"I must take leave to observe, Sir Walter," said Mr Shepherd one\r
+morning at Kellynch Hall, as he laid down the newspaper, "that the\r
+present juncture is much in our favour. This peace will be turning all\r
+our rich naval officers ashore. They will be all wanting a home.\r
+Could not be a better time, Sir Walter, for having a choice of tenants,\r
+very responsible tenants. Many a noble fortune has been made during\r
+the war. If a rich admiral were to come in our way, Sir Walter--"\r
+\r
+"He would be a very lucky man, Shepherd," replied Sir Walter; "that's\r
+all I have to remark. A prize indeed would Kellynch Hall be to him;\r
+rather the greatest prize of all, let him have taken ever so many\r
+before; hey, Shepherd?"\r
+\r
+Mr Shepherd laughed, as he knew he must, at this wit, and then added--\r
+\r
+"I presume to observe, Sir Walter, that, in the way of business,\r
+gentlemen of the navy are well to deal with. I have had a little\r
+knowledge of their methods of doing business; and I am free to confess\r
+that they have very liberal notions, and are as likely to make\r
+desirable tenants as any set of people one should meet with.\r
+Therefore, Sir Walter, what I would take leave to suggest is, that if\r
+in consequence of any rumours getting abroad of your intention; which\r
+must be contemplated as a possible thing, because we know how difficult\r
+it is to keep the actions and designs of one part of the world from the\r
+notice and curiosity of the other; consequence has its tax; I, John\r
+Shepherd, might conceal any family-matters that I chose, for nobody\r
+would think it worth their while to observe me; but Sir Walter Elliot\r
+has eyes upon him which it may be very difficult to elude; and\r
+therefore, thus much I venture upon, that it will not greatly surprise\r
+me if, with all our caution, some rumour of the truth should get\r
+abroad; in the supposition of which, as I was going to observe, since\r
+applications will unquestionably follow, I should think any from our\r
+wealthy naval commanders particularly worth attending to; and beg leave\r
+to add, that two hours will bring me over at any time, to save you the\r
+trouble of replying."\r
+\r
+Sir Walter only nodded. But soon afterwards, rising and pacing the\r
+room, he observed sarcastically--\r
+\r
+"There are few among the gentlemen of the navy, I imagine, who would\r
+not be surprised to find themselves in a house of this description."\r
+\r
+"They would look around them, no doubt, and bless their good fortune,"\r
+said Mrs Clay, for Mrs Clay was present: her father had driven her\r
+over, nothing being of so much use to Mrs Clay's health as a drive to\r
+Kellynch: "but I quite agree with my father in thinking a sailor might\r
+be a very desirable tenant. I have known a good deal of the\r
+profession; and besides their liberality, they are so neat and careful\r
+in all their ways! These valuable pictures of yours, Sir Walter, if\r
+you chose to leave them, would be perfectly safe. Everything in and\r
+about the house would be taken such excellent care of! The gardens and\r
+shrubberies would be kept in almost as high order as they are now. You\r
+need not be afraid, Miss Elliot, of your own sweet flower gardens being\r
+neglected."\r
+\r
+"As to all that," rejoined Sir Walter coolly, "supposing I were induced\r
+to let my house, I have by no means made up my mind as to the\r
+privileges to be annexed to it. I am not particularly disposed to\r
+favour a tenant. The park would be open to him of course, and few navy\r
+officers, or men of any other description, can have had such a range;\r
+but what restrictions I might impose on the use of the\r
+pleasure-grounds, is another thing. I am not fond of the idea of my\r
+shrubberies being always approachable; and I should recommend Miss\r
+Elliot to be on her guard with respect to her flower garden. I am very\r
+little disposed to grant a tenant of Kellynch Hall any extraordinary\r
+favour, I assure you, be he sailor or soldier."\r
+\r
+After a short pause, Mr Shepherd presumed to say--\r
+\r
+"In all these cases, there are established usages which make everything\r
+plain and easy between landlord and tenant. Your interest, Sir Walter,\r
+is in pretty safe hands. Depend upon me for taking care that no tenant\r
+has more than his just rights. I venture to hint, that Sir Walter\r
+Elliot cannot be half so jealous for his own, as John Shepherd will be\r
+for him."\r
+\r
+Here Anne spoke--\r
+\r
+"The navy, I think, who have done so much for us, have at least an\r
+equal claim with any other set of men, for all the comforts and all the\r
+privileges which any home can give. Sailors work hard enough for their\r
+comforts, we must all allow."\r
+\r
+"Very true, very true. What Miss Anne says, is very true," was Mr\r
+Shepherd's rejoinder, and "Oh! certainly," was his daughter's; but Sir\r
+Walter's remark was, soon afterwards--\r
+\r
+"The profession has its utility, but I should be sorry to see any\r
+friend of mine belonging to it."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!" was the reply, and with a look of surprise.\r
+\r
+"Yes; it is in two points offensive to me; I have two strong grounds of\r
+objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of\r
+obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which\r
+their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of; and secondly, as it\r
+cuts up a man's youth and vigour most horribly; a sailor grows old\r
+sooner than any other man. I have observed it all my life. A man is\r
+in greater danger in the navy of being insulted by the rise of one\r
+whose father, his father might have disdained to speak to, and of\r
+becoming prematurely an object of disgust himself, than in any other\r
+line. One day last spring, in town, I was in company with two men,\r
+striking instances of what I am talking of; Lord St Ives, whose father\r
+we all know to have been a country curate, without bread to eat; I was\r
+to give place to Lord St Ives, and a certain Admiral Baldwin, the most\r
+deplorable-looking personage you can imagine; his face the colour of\r
+mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree; all lines and wrinkles,\r
+nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top. 'In\r
+the name of heaven, who is that old fellow?' said I to a friend of mine\r
+who was standing near, (Sir Basil Morley). 'Old fellow!' cried Sir\r
+Basil, 'it is Admiral Baldwin. What do you take his age to be?'\r
+'Sixty,' said I, 'or perhaps sixty-two.' 'Forty,' replied Sir Basil,\r
+'forty, and no more.' Picture to yourselves my amazement; I shall not\r
+easily forget Admiral Baldwin. I never saw quite so wretched an\r
+example of what a sea-faring life can do; but to a degree, I know it is\r
+the same with them all: they are all knocked about, and exposed to\r
+every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen. It\r
+is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach\r
+Admiral Baldwin's age."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Sir Walter," cried Mrs Clay, "this is being severe indeed. Have\r
+a little mercy on the poor men. We are not all born to be handsome.\r
+The sea is no beautifier, certainly; sailors do grow old betimes; I\r
+have observed it; they soon lose the look of youth. But then, is not\r
+it the same with many other professions, perhaps most other? Soldiers,\r
+in active service, are not at all better off: and even in the quieter\r
+professions, there is a toil and a labour of the mind, if not of the\r
+body, which seldom leaves a man's looks to the natural effect of time.\r
+The lawyer plods, quite care-worn; the physician is up at all hours,\r
+and travelling in all weather; and even the clergyman--" she stopt a\r
+moment to consider what might do for the clergyman;--"and even the\r
+clergyman, you know is obliged to go into infected rooms, and expose\r
+his health and looks to all the injury of a poisonous atmosphere. In\r
+fact, as I have long been convinced, though every profession is\r
+necessary and honourable in its turn, it is only the lot of those who\r
+are not obliged to follow any, who can live in a regular way, in the\r
+country, choosing their own hours, following their own pursuits, and\r
+living on their own property, without the torment of trying for more;\r
+it is only their lot, I say, to hold the blessings of health and a good\r
+appearance to the utmost: I know no other set of men but what lose\r
+something of their personableness when they cease to be quite young."\r
+\r
+It seemed as if Mr Shepherd, in this anxiety to bespeak Sir Walter's\r
+good will towards a naval officer as tenant, had been gifted with\r
+foresight; for the very first application for the house was from an\r
+Admiral Croft, with whom he shortly afterwards fell into company in\r
+attending the quarter sessions at Taunton; and indeed, he had received\r
+a hint of the Admiral from a London correspondent. By the report which\r
+he hastened over to Kellynch to make, Admiral Croft was a native of\r
+Somersetshire, who having acquired a very handsome fortune, was wishing\r
+to settle in his own country, and had come down to Taunton in order to\r
+look at some advertised places in that immediate neighbourhood, which,\r
+however, had not suited him; that accidentally hearing--(it was just as\r
+he had foretold, Mr Shepherd observed, Sir Walter's concerns could not\r
+be kept a secret,)--accidentally hearing of the possibility of\r
+Kellynch Hall being to let, and understanding his (Mr Shepherd's)\r
+connection with the owner, he had introduced himself to him in order to\r
+make particular inquiries, and had, in the course of a pretty long\r
+conference, expressed as strong an inclination for the place as a man\r
+who knew it only by description could feel; and given Mr Shepherd, in\r
+his explicit account of himself, every proof of his being a most\r
+responsible, eligible tenant.\r
+\r
+"And who is Admiral Croft?" was Sir Walter's cold suspicious inquiry.\r
+\r
+Mr Shepherd answered for his being of a gentleman's family, and\r
+mentioned a place; and Anne, after the little pause which followed,\r
+added--\r
+\r
+"He is a rear admiral of the white. He was in the Trafalgar action,\r
+and has been in the East Indies since; he was stationed there, I\r
+believe, several years."\r
+\r
+"Then I take it for granted," observed Sir Walter, "that his face is\r
+about as orange as the cuffs and capes of my livery."\r
+\r
+Mr Shepherd hastened to assure him, that Admiral Croft was a very hale,\r
+hearty, well-looking man, a little weather-beaten, to be sure, but not\r
+much, and quite the gentleman in all his notions and behaviour; not\r
+likely to make the smallest difficulty about terms, only wanted a\r
+comfortable home, and to get into it as soon as possible; knew he must\r
+pay for his convenience; knew what rent a ready-furnished house of that\r
+consequence might fetch; should not have been surprised if Sir Walter\r
+had asked more; had inquired about the manor; would be glad of the\r
+deputation, certainly, but made no great point of it; said he sometimes\r
+took out a gun, but never killed; quite the gentleman.\r
+\r
+Mr Shepherd was eloquent on the subject; pointing out all the\r
+circumstances of the Admiral's family, which made him peculiarly\r
+desirable as a tenant. He was a married man, and without children; the\r
+very state to be wished for. A house was never taken good care of, Mr\r
+Shepherd observed, without a lady: he did not know, whether furniture\r
+might not be in danger of suffering as much where there was no lady, as\r
+where there were many children. A lady, without a family, was the very\r
+best preserver of furniture in the world. He had seen Mrs Croft, too;\r
+she was at Taunton with the admiral, and had been present almost all\r
+the time they were talking the matter over.\r
+\r
+"And a very well-spoken, genteel, shrewd lady, she seemed to be,"\r
+continued he; "asked more questions about the house, and terms, and\r
+taxes, than the Admiral himself, and seemed more conversant with\r
+business; and moreover, Sir Walter, I found she was not quite\r
+unconnected in this country, any more than her husband; that is to say,\r
+she is sister to a gentleman who did live amongst us once; she told me\r
+so herself: sister to the gentleman who lived a few years back at\r
+Monkford. Bless me! what was his name? At this moment I cannot\r
+recollect his name, though I have heard it so lately. Penelope, my\r
+dear, can you help me to the name of the gentleman who lived at\r
+Monkford: Mrs Croft's brother?"\r
+\r
+But Mrs Clay was talking so eagerly with Miss Elliot, that she did not\r
+hear the appeal.\r
+\r
+"I have no conception whom you can mean, Shepherd; I remember no\r
+gentleman resident at Monkford since the time of old Governor Trent."\r
+\r
+"Bless me! how very odd! I shall forget my own name soon, I suppose.\r
+A name that I am so very well acquainted with; knew the gentleman so\r
+well by sight; seen him a hundred times; came to consult me once, I\r
+remember, about a trespass of one of his neighbours; farmer's man\r
+breaking into his orchard; wall torn down; apples stolen; caught in the\r
+fact; and afterwards, contrary to my judgement, submitted to an\r
+amicable compromise. Very odd indeed!"\r
+\r
+After waiting another moment--\r
+\r
+"You mean Mr Wentworth, I suppose?" said Anne.\r
+\r
+Mr Shepherd was all gratitude.\r
+\r
+"Wentworth was the very name! Mr Wentworth was the very man. He had\r
+the curacy of Monkford, you know, Sir Walter, some time back, for two\r
+or three years. Came there about the year ---5, I take it. You\r
+remember him, I am sure."\r
+\r
+"Wentworth? Oh! ay,--Mr Wentworth, the curate of Monkford. You misled\r
+me by the term gentleman. I thought you were speaking of some man of\r
+property: Mr Wentworth was nobody, I remember; quite unconnected;\r
+nothing to do with the Strafford family. One wonders how the names of\r
+many of our nobility become so common."\r
+\r
+As Mr Shepherd perceived that this connexion of the Crofts did them no\r
+service with Sir Walter, he mentioned it no more; returning, with all\r
+his zeal, to dwell on the circumstances more indisputably in their\r
+favour; their age, and number, and fortune; the high idea they had\r
+formed of Kellynch Hall, and extreme solicitude for the advantage of\r
+renting it; making it appear as if they ranked nothing beyond the\r
+happiness of being the tenants of Sir Walter Elliot: an extraordinary\r
+taste, certainly, could they have been supposed in the secret of Sir\r
+Walter's estimate of the dues of a tenant.\r
+\r
+It succeeded, however; and though Sir Walter must ever look with an\r
+evil eye on anyone intending to inhabit that house, and think them\r
+infinitely too well off in being permitted to rent it on the highest\r
+terms, he was talked into allowing Mr Shepherd to proceed in the\r
+treaty, and authorising him to wait on Admiral Croft, who still\r
+remained at Taunton, and fix a day for the house being seen.\r
+\r
+Sir Walter was not very wise; but still he had experience enough of the\r
+world to feel, that a more unobjectionable tenant, in all essentials,\r
+than Admiral Croft bid fair to be, could hardly offer. So far went his\r
+understanding; and his vanity supplied a little additional soothing, in\r
+the Admiral's situation in life, which was just high enough, and not\r
+too high. "I have let my house to Admiral Croft," would sound\r
+extremely well; very much better than to any mere Mr--; a Mr (save,\r
+perhaps, some half dozen in the nation,) always needs a note of\r
+explanation. An admiral speaks his own consequence, and, at the same\r
+time, can never make a baronet look small. In all their dealings and\r
+intercourse, Sir Walter Elliot must ever have the precedence.\r
+\r
+Nothing could be done without a reference to Elizabeth: but her\r
+inclination was growing so strong for a removal, that she was happy to\r
+have it fixed and expedited by a tenant at hand; and not a word to\r
+suspend decision was uttered by her.\r
+\r
+Mr Shepherd was completely empowered to act; and no sooner had such an\r
+end been reached, than Anne, who had been a most attentive listener to\r
+the whole, left the room, to seek the comfort of cool air for her\r
+flushed cheeks; and as she walked along a favourite grove, said, with a\r
+gentle sigh, "A few months more, and he, perhaps, may be walking here."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 4\r
+\r
+\r
+He was not Mr Wentworth, the former curate of Monkford, however\r
+suspicious appearances may be, but a Captain Frederick Wentworth, his\r
+brother, who being made commander in consequence of the action off St\r
+Domingo, and not immediately employed, had come into Somersetshire, in\r
+the summer of 1806; and having no parent living, found a home for half\r
+a year at Monkford. He was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man,\r
+with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy; and Anne an\r
+extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling.\r
+Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for\r
+he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love; but the\r
+encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were\r
+gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love.\r
+It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the\r
+other, or which had been the happiest: she, in receiving his\r
+declarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted.\r
+\r
+A short period of exquisite felicity followed, and but a short one.\r
+Troubles soon arose. Sir Walter, on being applied to, without actually\r
+withholding his consent, or saying it should never be, gave it all the\r
+negative of great astonishment, great coldness, great silence, and a\r
+professed resolution of doing nothing for his daughter. He thought it\r
+a very degrading alliance; and Lady Russell, though with more tempered\r
+and pardonable pride, received it as a most unfortunate one.\r
+\r
+Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty, and mind, to throw\r
+herself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen in an engagement\r
+with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no\r
+hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain\r
+profession, and no connexions to secure even his farther rise in the\r
+profession, would be, indeed, a throwing away, which she grieved to\r
+think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off\r
+by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a\r
+state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence! It must not\r
+be, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations from\r
+one who had almost a mother's love, and mother's rights, it would be\r
+prevented.\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession;\r
+but spending freely, what had come freely, had realized nothing. But\r
+he was confident that he should soon be rich: full of life and ardour,\r
+he knew that he should soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that\r
+would lead to everything he wanted. He had always been lucky; he knew\r
+he should be so still. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth,\r
+and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have been\r
+enough for Anne; but Lady Russell saw it very differently. His\r
+sanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently on\r
+her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil. It only added a\r
+dangerous character to himself. He was brilliant, he was headstrong.\r
+Lady Russell had little taste for wit, and of anything approaching to\r
+imprudence a horror. She deprecated the connexion in every light.\r
+\r
+Such opposition, as these feelings produced, was more than Anne could\r
+combat. Young and gentle as she was, it might yet have been possible\r
+to withstand her father's ill-will, though unsoftened by one kind word\r
+or look on the part of her sister; but Lady Russell, whom she had\r
+always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion,\r
+and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain.\r
+She was persuaded to believe the engagement a wrong thing: indiscreet,\r
+improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it. But it was\r
+not a merely selfish caution, under which she acted, in putting an end\r
+to it. Had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more\r
+than her own, she could hardly have given him up. The belief of being\r
+prudent, and self-denying, principally for his advantage, was her chief\r
+consolation, under the misery of a parting, a final parting; and every\r
+consolation was required, for she had to encounter all the additional\r
+pain of opinions, on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, and\r
+of his feeling himself ill used by so forced a relinquishment. He had\r
+left the country in consequence.\r
+\r
+A few months had seen the beginning and the end of their acquaintance;\r
+but not with a few months ended Anne's share of suffering from it. Her\r
+attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of\r
+youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting\r
+effect.\r
+\r
+More than seven years were gone since this little history of sorrowful\r
+interest had reached its close; and time had softened down much,\r
+perhaps nearly all of peculiar attachment to him, but she had been too\r
+dependent on time alone; no aid had been given in change of place\r
+(except in one visit to Bath soon after the rupture), or in any novelty\r
+or enlargement of society. No one had ever come within the Kellynch\r
+circle, who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth, as he\r
+stood in her memory. No second attachment, the only thoroughly\r
+natural, happy, and sufficient cure, at her time of life, had been\r
+possible to the nice tone of her mind, the fastidiousness of her taste,\r
+in the small limits of the society around them. She had been\r
+solicited, when about two-and-twenty, to change her name, by the young\r
+man, who not long afterwards found a more willing mind in her younger\r
+sister; and Lady Russell had lamented her refusal; for Charles Musgrove\r
+was the eldest son of a man, whose landed property and general\r
+importance were second in that country, only to Sir Walter's, and of\r
+good character and appearance; and however Lady Russell might have\r
+asked yet for something more, while Anne was nineteen, she would have\r
+rejoiced to see her at twenty-two so respectably removed from the\r
+partialities and injustice of her father's house, and settled so\r
+permanently near herself. But in this case, Anne had left nothing for\r
+advice to do; and though Lady Russell, as satisfied as ever with her\r
+own discretion, never wished the past undone, she began now to have the\r
+anxiety which borders on hopelessness for Anne's being tempted, by some\r
+man of talents and independence, to enter a state for which she held\r
+her to be peculiarly fitted by her warm affections and domestic habits.\r
+\r
+They knew not each other's opinion, either its constancy or its change,\r
+on the one leading point of Anne's conduct, for the subject was never\r
+alluded to; but Anne, at seven-and-twenty, thought very differently\r
+from what she had been made to think at nineteen. She did not blame\r
+Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her;\r
+but she felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, to\r
+apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain\r
+immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good. She was persuaded\r
+that under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and every\r
+anxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays, and\r
+disappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman in\r
+maintaining the engagement, than she had been in the sacrifice of it;\r
+and this, she fully believed, had the usual share, had even more than\r
+the usual share of all such solicitudes and suspense been theirs,\r
+without reference to the actual results of their case, which, as it\r
+happened, would have bestowed earlier prosperity than could be\r
+reasonably calculated on. All his sanguine expectations, all his\r
+confidence had been justified. His genius and ardour had seemed to\r
+foresee and to command his prosperous path. He had, very soon after\r
+their engagement ceased, got employ: and all that he had told her would\r
+follow, had taken place. He had distinguished himself, and early\r
+gained the other step in rank, and must now, by successive captures,\r
+have made a handsome fortune. She had only navy lists and newspapers\r
+for her authority, but she could not doubt his being rich; and, in\r
+favour of his constancy, she had no reason to believe him married.\r
+\r
+How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been! how eloquent, at least, were\r
+her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful\r
+confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems\r
+to insult exertion and distrust Providence! She had been forced into\r
+prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the\r
+natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.\r
+\r
+With all these circumstances, recollections and feelings, she could not\r
+hear that Captain Wentworth's sister was likely to live at Kellynch\r
+without a revival of former pain; and many a stroll, and many a sigh,\r
+were necessary to dispel the agitation of the idea. She often told\r
+herself it was folly, before she could harden her nerves sufficiently\r
+to feel the continual discussion of the Crofts and their business no\r
+evil. She was assisted, however, by that perfect indifference and\r
+apparent unconsciousness, among the only three of her own friends in\r
+the secret of the past, which seemed almost to deny any recollection of\r
+it. She could do justice to the superiority of Lady Russell's motives\r
+in this, over those of her father and Elizabeth; she could honour all\r
+the better feelings of her calmness; but the general air of oblivion\r
+among them was highly important from whatever it sprung; and in the\r
+event of Admiral Croft's really taking Kellynch Hall, she rejoiced anew\r
+over the conviction which had always been most grateful to her, of the\r
+past being known to those three only among her connexions, by whom no\r
+syllable, she believed, would ever be whispered, and in the trust that\r
+among his, the brother only with whom he had been residing, had\r
+received any information of their short-lived engagement. That brother\r
+had been long removed from the country and being a sensible man, and,\r
+moreover, a single man at the time, she had a fond dependence on no\r
+human creature's having heard of it from him.\r
+\r
+The sister, Mrs Croft, had then been out of England, accompanying her\r
+husband on a foreign station, and her own sister, Mary, had been at\r
+school while it all occurred; and never admitted by the pride of some,\r
+and the delicacy of others, to the smallest knowledge of it afterwards.\r
+\r
+With these supports, she hoped that the acquaintance between herself\r
+and the Crofts, which, with Lady Russell, still resident in Kellynch,\r
+and Mary fixed only three miles off, must be anticipated, need not\r
+involve any particular awkwardness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 5\r
+\r
+\r
+On the morning appointed for Admiral and Mrs Croft's seeing Kellynch\r
+Hall, Anne found it most natural to take her almost daily walk to Lady\r
+Russell's, and keep out of the way till all was over; when she found it\r
+most natural to be sorry that she had missed the opportunity of seeing\r
+them.\r
+\r
+This meeting of the two parties proved highly satisfactory, and decided\r
+the whole business at once. Each lady was previously well disposed for\r
+an agreement, and saw nothing, therefore, but good manners in the\r
+other; and with regard to the gentlemen, there was such an hearty good\r
+humour, such an open, trusting liberality on the Admiral's side, as\r
+could not but influence Sir Walter, who had besides been flattered into\r
+his very best and most polished behaviour by Mr Shepherd's assurances\r
+of his being known, by report, to the Admiral, as a model of good\r
+breeding.\r
+\r
+The house and grounds, and furniture, were approved, the Crofts were\r
+approved, terms, time, every thing, and every body, was right; and Mr\r
+Shepherd's clerks were set to work, without there having been a single\r
+preliminary difference to modify of all that "This indenture sheweth."\r
+\r
+Sir Walter, without hesitation, declared the Admiral to be the\r
+best-looking sailor he had ever met with, and went so far as to say,\r
+that if his own man might have had the arranging of his hair, he should\r
+not be ashamed of being seen with him any where; and the Admiral, with\r
+sympathetic cordiality, observed to his wife as they drove back through\r
+the park, "I thought we should soon come to a deal, my dear, in spite\r
+of what they told us at Taunton. The Baronet will never set the Thames\r
+on fire, but there seems to be no harm in him."--reciprocal\r
+compliments, which would have been esteemed about equal.\r
+\r
+The Crofts were to have possession at Michaelmas; and as Sir Walter\r
+proposed removing to Bath in the course of the preceding month, there\r
+was no time to be lost in making every dependent arrangement.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell, convinced that Anne would not be allowed to be of any\r
+use, or any importance, in the choice of the house which they were\r
+going to secure, was very unwilling to have her hurried away so soon,\r
+and wanted to make it possible for her to stay behind till she might\r
+convey her to Bath herself after Christmas; but having engagements of\r
+her own which must take her from Kellynch for several weeks, she was\r
+unable to give the full invitation she wished, and Anne though dreading\r
+the possible heats of September in all the white glare of Bath, and\r
+grieving to forego all the influence so sweet and so sad of the\r
+autumnal months in the country, did not think that, everything\r
+considered, she wished to remain. It would be most right, and most\r
+wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering to go with the others.\r
+\r
+Something occurred, however, to give her a different duty. Mary, often\r
+a little unwell, and always thinking a great deal of her own\r
+complaints, and always in the habit of claiming Anne when anything was\r
+the matter, was indisposed; and foreseeing that she should not have a\r
+day's health all the autumn, entreated, or rather required her, for it\r
+was hardly entreaty, to come to Uppercross Cottage, and bear her\r
+company as long as she should want her, instead of going to Bath.\r
+\r
+"I cannot possibly do without Anne," was Mary's reasoning; and\r
+Elizabeth's reply was, "Then I am sure Anne had better stay, for nobody\r
+will want her in Bath."\r
+\r
+To be claimed as a good, though in an improper style, is at least\r
+better than being rejected as no good at all; and Anne, glad to be\r
+thought of some use, glad to have anything marked out as a duty, and\r
+certainly not sorry to have the scene of it in the country, and her own\r
+dear country, readily agreed to stay.\r
+\r
+This invitation of Mary's removed all Lady Russell's difficulties, and\r
+it was consequently soon settled that Anne should not go to Bath till\r
+Lady Russell took her, and that all the intervening time should be\r
+divided between Uppercross Cottage and Kellynch Lodge.\r
+\r
+So far all was perfectly right; but Lady Russell was almost startled by\r
+the wrong of one part of the Kellynch Hall plan, when it burst on her,\r
+which was, Mrs Clay's being engaged to go to Bath with Sir Walter and\r
+Elizabeth, as a most important and valuable assistant to the latter in\r
+all the business before her. Lady Russell was extremely sorry that\r
+such a measure should have been resorted to at all, wondered, grieved,\r
+and feared; and the affront it contained to Anne, in Mrs Clay's being\r
+of so much use, while Anne could be of none, was a very sore\r
+aggravation.\r
+\r
+Anne herself was become hardened to such affronts; but she felt the\r
+imprudence of the arrangement quite as keenly as Lady Russell. With a\r
+great deal of quiet observation, and a knowledge, which she often\r
+wished less, of her father's character, she was sensible that results\r
+the most serious to his family from the intimacy were more than\r
+possible. She did not imagine that her father had at present an idea\r
+of the kind. Mrs Clay had freckles, and a projecting tooth, and a\r
+clumsy wrist, which he was continually making severe remarks upon, in\r
+her absence; but she was young, and certainly altogether well-looking,\r
+and possessed, in an acute mind and assiduous pleasing manners,\r
+infinitely more dangerous attractions than any merely personal might\r
+have been. Anne was so impressed by the degree of their danger, that\r
+she could not excuse herself from trying to make it perceptible to her\r
+sister. She had little hope of success; but Elizabeth, who in the\r
+event of such a reverse would be so much more to be pitied than\r
+herself, should never, she thought, have reason to reproach her for\r
+giving no warning.\r
+\r
+She spoke, and seemed only to offend. Elizabeth could not conceive how\r
+such an absurd suspicion should occur to her, and indignantly answered\r
+for each party's perfectly knowing their situation.\r
+\r
+"Mrs Clay," said she, warmly, "never forgets who she is; and as I am\r
+rather better acquainted with her sentiments than you can be, I can\r
+assure you, that upon the subject of marriage they are particularly\r
+nice, and that she reprobates all inequality of condition and rank more\r
+strongly than most people. And as to my father, I really should not\r
+have thought that he, who has kept himself single so long for our\r
+sakes, need be suspected now. If Mrs Clay were a very beautiful woman,\r
+I grant you, it might be wrong to have her so much with me; not that\r
+anything in the world, I am sure, would induce my father to make a\r
+degrading match, but he might be rendered unhappy. But poor Mrs Clay\r
+who, with all her merits, can never have been reckoned tolerably\r
+pretty, I really think poor Mrs Clay may be staying here in perfect\r
+safety. One would imagine you had never heard my father speak of her\r
+personal misfortunes, though I know you must fifty times. That tooth\r
+of her's and those freckles. Freckles do not disgust me so very much\r
+as they do him. I have known a face not materially disfigured by a\r
+few, but he abominates them. You must have heard him notice Mrs Clay's\r
+freckles."\r
+\r
+"There is hardly any personal defect," replied Anne, "which an\r
+agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to."\r
+\r
+"I think very differently," answered Elizabeth, shortly; "an agreeable\r
+manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones.\r
+However, at any rate, as I have a great deal more at stake on this\r
+point than anybody else can have, I think it rather unnecessary in you\r
+to be advising me."\r
+\r
+Anne had done; glad that it was over, and not absolutely hopeless of\r
+doing good. Elizabeth, though resenting the suspicion, might yet be\r
+made observant by it.\r
+\r
+The last office of the four carriage-horses was to draw Sir Walter,\r
+Miss Elliot, and Mrs Clay to Bath. The party drove off in very good\r
+spirits; Sir Walter prepared with condescending bows for all the\r
+afflicted tenantry and cottagers who might have had a hint to show\r
+themselves, and Anne walked up at the same time, in a sort of desolate\r
+tranquillity, to the Lodge, where she was to spend the first week.\r
+\r
+Her friend was not in better spirits than herself. Lady Russell felt\r
+this break-up of the family exceedingly. Their respectability was as\r
+dear to her as her own, and a daily intercourse had become precious by\r
+habit. It was painful to look upon their deserted grounds, and still\r
+worse to anticipate the new hands they were to fall into; and to escape\r
+the solitariness and the melancholy of so altered a village, and be out\r
+of the way when Admiral and Mrs Croft first arrived, she had determined\r
+to make her own absence from home begin when she must give up Anne.\r
+Accordingly their removal was made together, and Anne was set down at\r
+Uppercross Cottage, in the first stage of Lady Russell's journey.\r
+\r
+Uppercross was a moderate-sized village, which a few years back had\r
+been completely in the old English style, containing only two houses\r
+superior in appearance to those of the yeomen and labourers; the\r
+mansion of the squire, with its high walls, great gates, and old trees,\r
+substantial and unmodernized, and the compact, tight parsonage,\r
+enclosed in its own neat garden, with a vine and a pear-tree trained\r
+round its casements; but upon the marriage of the young 'squire, it had\r
+received the improvement of a farm-house elevated into a cottage, for\r
+his residence, and Uppercross Cottage, with its veranda, French\r
+windows, and other prettiness, was quite as likely to catch the\r
+traveller's eye as the more consistent and considerable aspect and\r
+premises of the Great House, about a quarter of a mile farther on.\r
+\r
+Here Anne had often been staying. She knew the ways of Uppercross as\r
+well as those of Kellynch. The two families were so continually\r
+meeting, so much in the habit of running in and out of each other's\r
+house at all hours, that it was rather a surprise to her to find Mary\r
+alone; but being alone, her being unwell and out of spirits was almost\r
+a matter of course. Though better endowed than the elder sister, Mary\r
+had not Anne's understanding nor temper. While well, and happy, and\r
+properly attended to, she had great good humour and excellent spirits;\r
+but any indisposition sunk her completely. She had no resources for\r
+solitude; and inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot\r
+self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of\r
+fancying herself neglected and ill-used. In person, she was inferior to\r
+both sisters, and had, even in her bloom, only reached the dignity of\r
+being "a fine girl." She was now lying on the faded sofa of the pretty\r
+little drawing-room, the once elegant furniture of which had been\r
+gradually growing shabby, under the influence of four summers and two\r
+children; and, on Anne's appearing, greeted her with--\r
+\r
+"So, you are come at last! I began to think I should never see you. I\r
+am so ill I can hardly speak. I have not seen a creature the whole\r
+morning!"\r
+\r
+"I am sorry to find you unwell," replied Anne. "You sent me such a\r
+good account of yourself on Thursday!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I made the best of it; I always do: but I was very far from well\r
+at the time; and I do not think I ever was so ill in my life as I have\r
+been all this morning: very unfit to be left alone, I am sure.\r
+Suppose I were to be seized of a sudden in some dreadful way, and not\r
+able to ring the bell! So, Lady Russell would not get out. I do not\r
+think she has been in this house three times this summer."\r
+\r
+Anne said what was proper, and enquired after her husband. "Oh!\r
+Charles is out shooting. I have not seen him since seven o'clock. He\r
+would go, though I told him how ill I was. He said he should not stay\r
+out long; but he has never come back, and now it is almost one. I\r
+assure you, I have not seen a soul this whole long morning."\r
+\r
+"You have had your little boys with you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, as long as I could bear their noise; but they are so unmanageable\r
+that they do me more harm than good. Little Charles does not mind a\r
+word I say, and Walter is growing quite as bad."\r
+\r
+"Well, you will soon be better now," replied Anne, cheerfully. "You\r
+know I always cure you when I come. How are your neighbours at the\r
+Great House?"\r
+\r
+"I can give you no account of them. I have not seen one of them\r
+to-day, except Mr Musgrove, who just stopped and spoke through the\r
+window, but without getting off his horse; and though I told him how\r
+ill I was, not one of them have been near me. It did not happen to\r
+suit the Miss Musgroves, I suppose, and they never put themselves out\r
+of their way."\r
+\r
+"You will see them yet, perhaps, before the morning is gone. It is\r
+early."\r
+\r
+"I never want them, I assure you. They talk and laugh a great deal too\r
+much for me. Oh! Anne, I am so very unwell! It was quite unkind of\r
+you not to come on Thursday."\r
+\r
+"My dear Mary, recollect what a comfortable account you sent me of\r
+yourself! You wrote in the cheerfullest manner, and said you were\r
+perfectly well, and in no hurry for me; and that being the case, you\r
+must be aware that my wish would be to remain with Lady Russell to the\r
+last: and besides what I felt on her account, I have really been so\r
+busy, have had so much to do, that I could not very conveniently have\r
+left Kellynch sooner."\r
+\r
+"Dear me! what can you possibly have to do?"\r
+\r
+"A great many things, I assure you. More than I can recollect in a\r
+moment; but I can tell you some. I have been making a duplicate of the\r
+catalogue of my father's books and pictures. I have been several times\r
+in the garden with Mackenzie, trying to understand, and make him\r
+understand, which of Elizabeth's plants are for Lady Russell. I have\r
+had all my own little concerns to arrange, books and music to divide,\r
+and all my trunks to repack, from not having understood in time what\r
+was intended as to the waggons: and one thing I have had to do, Mary,\r
+of a more trying nature: going to almost every house in the parish, as\r
+a sort of take-leave. I was told that they wished it. But all these\r
+things took up a great deal of time."\r
+\r
+"Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me\r
+one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday."\r
+\r
+"Did you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you\r
+must have been obliged to give up the party."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter\r
+with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not\r
+gone."\r
+\r
+"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant\r
+party."\r
+\r
+"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will\r
+be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a\r
+carriage of one's own. Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so\r
+crowded! They are both so very large, and take up so much room; and Mr\r
+Musgrove always sits forward. So, there was I, crowded into the back\r
+seat with Henrietta and Louisa; and I think it very likely that my\r
+illness to-day may be owing to it."\r
+\r
+A little further perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on\r
+Anne's side produced nearly a cure on Mary's. She could soon sit\r
+upright on the sofa, and began to hope she might be able to leave it by\r
+dinner-time. Then, forgetting to think of it, she was at the other end\r
+of the room, beautifying a nosegay; then, she ate her cold meat; and\r
+then she was well enough to propose a little walk.\r
+\r
+"Where shall we go?" said she, when they were ready. "I suppose you\r
+will not like to call at the Great House before they have been to see\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"I have not the smallest objection on that account," replied Anne. "I\r
+should never think of standing on such ceremony with people I know so\r
+well as Mrs and the Miss Musgroves."\r
+\r
+"Oh! but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible. They ought\r
+to feel what is due to you as my sister. However, we may as well go\r
+and sit with them a little while, and when we have that over, we can\r
+enjoy our walk."\r
+\r
+Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent;\r
+but she had ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that,\r
+though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither\r
+family could now do without it. To the Great House accordingly they\r
+went, to sit the full half hour in the old-fashioned square parlour,\r
+with a small carpet and shining floor, to which the present daughters\r
+of the house were gradually giving the proper air of confusion by a\r
+grand piano-forte and a harp, flower-stands and little tables placed in\r
+every direction. Oh! could the originals of the portraits against the\r
+wainscot, could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue\r
+satin have seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an\r
+overthrow of all order and neatness! The portraits themselves seemed\r
+to be staring in astonishment.\r
+\r
+The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration,\r
+perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English\r
+style, and the young people in the new. Mr and Mrs Musgrove were a\r
+very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable, not much educated,\r
+and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and\r
+manners. There was a numerous family; but the only two grown up,\r
+excepting Charles, were Henrietta and Louisa, young ladies of nineteen\r
+and twenty, who had brought from school at Exeter all the usual stock\r
+of accomplishments, and were now like thousands of other young ladies,\r
+living to be fashionable, happy, and merry. Their dress had every\r
+advantage, their faces were rather pretty, their spirits extremely\r
+good, their manner unembarrassed and pleasant; they were of consequence\r
+at home, and favourites abroad. Anne always contemplated them as some\r
+of the happiest creatures of her acquaintance; but still, saved as we\r
+all are, by some comfortable feeling of superiority from wishing for\r
+the possibility of exchange, she would not have given up her own more\r
+elegant and cultivated mind for all their enjoyments; and envied them\r
+nothing but that seemingly perfect good understanding and agreement\r
+together, that good-humoured mutual affection, of which she had known\r
+so little herself with either of her sisters.\r
+\r
+They were received with great cordiality. Nothing seemed amiss on the\r
+side of the Great House family, which was generally, as Anne very well\r
+knew, the least to blame. The half hour was chatted away pleasantly\r
+enough; and she was not at all surprised, at the end of it, to have\r
+their walking party joined by both the Miss Musgroves, at Mary's\r
+particular invitation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 6\r
+\r
+\r
+Anne had not wanted this visit to Uppercross, to learn that a removal\r
+from one set of people to another, though at a distance of only three\r
+miles, will often include a total change of conversation, opinion, and\r
+idea. She had never been staying there before, without being struck by\r
+it, or without wishing that other Elliots could have her advantage in\r
+seeing how unknown, or unconsidered there, were the affairs which at\r
+Kellynch Hall were treated as of such general publicity and pervading\r
+interest; yet, with all this experience, she believed she must now\r
+submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own\r
+nothingness beyond our own circle, was become necessary for her; for\r
+certainly, coming as she did, with a heart full of the subject which\r
+had been completely occupying both houses in Kellynch for many weeks,\r
+she had expected rather more curiosity and sympathy than she found in\r
+the separate but very similar remark of Mr and Mrs Musgrove: "So, Miss\r
+Anne, Sir Walter and your sister are gone; and what part of Bath do you\r
+think they will settle in?" and this, without much waiting for an\r
+answer; or in the young ladies' addition of, "I hope we shall be in\r
+Bath in the winter; but remember, papa, if we do go, we must be in a\r
+good situation: none of your Queen Squares for us!" or in the anxious\r
+supplement from Mary, of--"Upon my word, I shall be pretty well off,\r
+when you are all gone away to be happy at Bath!"\r
+\r
+She could only resolve to avoid such self-delusion in future, and think\r
+with heightened gratitude of the extraordinary blessing of having one\r
+such truly sympathising friend as Lady Russell.\r
+\r
+The Mr Musgroves had their own game to guard, and to destroy, their own\r
+horses, dogs, and newspapers to engage them, and the females were fully\r
+occupied in all the other common subjects of housekeeping, neighbours,\r
+dress, dancing, and music. She acknowledged it to be very fitting,\r
+that every little social commonwealth should dictate its own matters of\r
+discourse; and hoped, ere long, to become a not unworthy member of the\r
+one she was now transplanted into. With the prospect of spending at\r
+least two months at Uppercross, it was highly incumbent on her to\r
+clothe her imagination, her memory, and all her ideas in as much of\r
+Uppercross as possible.\r
+\r
+She had no dread of these two months. Mary was not so repulsive and\r
+unsisterly as Elizabeth, nor so inaccessible to all influence of hers;\r
+neither was there anything among the other component parts of the\r
+cottage inimical to comfort. She was always on friendly terms with her\r
+brother-in-law; and in the children, who loved her nearly as well, and\r
+respected her a great deal more than their mother, she had an object of\r
+interest, amusement, and wholesome exertion.\r
+\r
+Charles Musgrove was civil and agreeable; in sense and temper he was\r
+undoubtedly superior to his wife, but not of powers, or conversation,\r
+or grace, to make the past, as they were connected together, at all a\r
+dangerous contemplation; though, at the same time, Anne could believe,\r
+with Lady Russell, that a more equal match might have greatly improved\r
+him; and that a woman of real understanding might have given more\r
+consequence to his character, and more usefulness, rationality, and\r
+elegance to his habits and pursuits. As it was, he did nothing with\r
+much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without\r
+benefit from books or anything else. He had very good spirits, which\r
+never seemed much affected by his wife's occasional lowness, bore with\r
+her unreasonableness sometimes to Anne's admiration, and upon the\r
+whole, though there was very often a little disagreement (in which she\r
+had sometimes more share than she wished, being appealed to by both\r
+parties), they might pass for a happy couple. They were always\r
+perfectly agreed in the want of more money, and a strong inclination\r
+for a handsome present from his father; but here, as on most topics, he\r
+had the superiority, for while Mary thought it a great shame that such\r
+a present was not made, he always contended for his father's having\r
+many other uses for his money, and a right to spend it as he liked.\r
+\r
+As to the management of their children, his theory was much better than\r
+his wife's, and his practice not so bad. "I could manage them very\r
+well, if it were not for Mary's interference," was what Anne often\r
+heard him say, and had a good deal of faith in; but when listening in\r
+turn to Mary's reproach of "Charles spoils the children so that I\r
+cannot get them into any order," she never had the smallest temptation\r
+to say, "Very true."\r
+\r
+One of the least agreeable circumstances of her residence there was her\r
+being treated with too much confidence by all parties, and being too\r
+much in the secret of the complaints of each house. Known to have some\r
+influence with her sister, she was continually requested, or at least\r
+receiving hints to exert it, beyond what was practicable. "I wish you\r
+could persuade Mary not to be always fancying herself ill," was\r
+Charles's language; and, in an unhappy mood, thus spoke Mary: "I do\r
+believe if Charles were to see me dying, he would not think there was\r
+anything the matter with me. I am sure, Anne, if you would, you might\r
+persuade him that I really am very ill--a great deal worse than I ever\r
+own."\r
+\r
+Mary's declaration was, "I hate sending the children to the Great\r
+House, though their grandmamma is always wanting to see them, for she\r
+humours and indulges them to such a degree, and gives them so much\r
+trash and sweet things, that they are sure to come back sick and cross\r
+for the rest of the day." And Mrs Musgrove took the first opportunity\r
+of being alone with Anne, to say, "Oh! Miss Anne, I cannot help wishing\r
+Mrs Charles had a little of your method with those children. They are\r
+quite different creatures with you! But to be sure, in general they\r
+are so spoilt! It is a pity you cannot put your sister in the way of\r
+managing them. They are as fine healthy children as ever were seen,\r
+poor little dears! without partiality; but Mrs Charles knows no more\r
+how they should be treated--! Bless me! how troublesome they are\r
+sometimes. I assure you, Miss Anne, it prevents my wishing to see them\r
+at our house so often as I otherwise should. I believe Mrs Charles is\r
+not quite pleased with my not inviting them oftener; but you know it is\r
+very bad to have children with one that one is obligated to be checking\r
+every moment; "don't do this," and "don't do that;" or that one can\r
+only keep in tolerable order by more cake than is good for them."\r
+\r
+She had this communication, moreover, from Mary. "Mrs Musgrove thinks\r
+all her servants so steady, that it would be high treason to call it in\r
+question; but I am sure, without exaggeration, that her upper\r
+house-maid and laundry-maid, instead of being in their business, are\r
+gadding about the village, all day long. I meet them wherever I go;\r
+and I declare, I never go twice into my nursery without seeing\r
+something of them. If Jemima were not the trustiest, steadiest\r
+creature in the world, it would be enough to spoil her; for she tells\r
+me, they are always tempting her to take a walk with them." And on Mrs\r
+Musgrove's side, it was, "I make a rule of never interfering in any of\r
+my daughter-in-law's concerns, for I know it would not do; but I shall\r
+tell you, Miss Anne, because you may be able to set things to rights,\r
+that I have no very good opinion of Mrs Charles's nursery-maid: I hear\r
+strange stories of her; she is always upon the gad; and from my own\r
+knowledge, I can declare, she is such a fine-dressing lady, that she is\r
+enough to ruin any servants she comes near. Mrs Charles quite swears\r
+by her, I know; but I just give you this hint, that you may be upon the\r
+watch; because, if you see anything amiss, you need not be afraid of\r
+mentioning it."\r
+\r
+Again, it was Mary's complaint, that Mrs Musgrove was very apt not to\r
+give her the precedence that was her due, when they dined at the Great\r
+House with other families; and she did not see any reason why she was\r
+to be considered so much at home as to lose her place. And one day\r
+when Anne was walking with only the Musgroves, one of them after\r
+talking of rank, people of rank, and jealousy of rank, said, "I have no\r
+scruple of observing to you, how nonsensical some persons are about\r
+their place, because all the world knows how easy and indifferent you\r
+are about it; but I wish anybody could give Mary a hint that it would\r
+be a great deal better if she were not so very tenacious, especially if\r
+she would not be always putting herself forward to take place of mamma.\r
+Nobody doubts her right to have precedence of mamma, but it would be\r
+more becoming in her not to be always insisting on it. It is not that\r
+mamma cares about it the least in the world, but I know it is taken\r
+notice of by many persons."\r
+\r
+How was Anne to set all these matters to rights? She could do little\r
+more than listen patiently, soften every grievance, and excuse each to\r
+the other; give them all hints of the forbearance necessary between\r
+such near neighbours, and make those hints broadest which were meant\r
+for her sister's benefit.\r
+\r
+In all other respects, her visit began and proceeded very well. Her\r
+own spirits improved by change of place and subject, by being removed\r
+three miles from Kellynch; Mary's ailments lessened by having a\r
+constant companion, and their daily intercourse with the other family,\r
+since there was neither superior affection, confidence, nor employment\r
+in the cottage, to be interrupted by it, was rather an advantage. It\r
+was certainly carried nearly as far as possible, for they met every\r
+morning, and hardly ever spent an evening asunder; but she believed\r
+they should not have done so well without the sight of Mr and Mrs\r
+Musgrove's respectable forms in the usual places, or without the\r
+talking, laughing, and singing of their daughters.\r
+\r
+She played a great deal better than either of the Miss Musgroves, but\r
+having no voice, no knowledge of the harp, and no fond parents, to sit\r
+by and fancy themselves delighted, her performance was little thought\r
+of, only out of civility, or to refresh the others, as she was well\r
+aware. She knew that when she played she was giving pleasure only to\r
+herself; but this was no new sensation. Excepting one short period of\r
+her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the\r
+loss of her dear mother, known the happiness of being listened to, or\r
+encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste. In music she had\r
+been always used to feel alone in the world; and Mr and Mrs Musgrove's\r
+fond partiality for their own daughters' performance, and total\r
+indifference to any other person's, gave her much more pleasure for\r
+their sakes, than mortification for her own.\r
+\r
+The party at the Great House was sometimes increased by other company.\r
+The neighbourhood was not large, but the Musgroves were visited by\r
+everybody, and had more dinner-parties, and more callers, more visitors\r
+by invitation and by chance, than any other family. They were more\r
+completely popular.\r
+\r
+The girls were wild for dancing; and the evenings ended, occasionally,\r
+in an unpremeditated little ball. There was a family of cousins within\r
+a walk of Uppercross, in less affluent circumstances, who depended on\r
+the Musgroves for all their pleasures: they would come at any time,\r
+and help play at anything, or dance anywhere; and Anne, very much\r
+preferring the office of musician to a more active post, played country\r
+dances to them by the hour together; a kindness which always\r
+recommended her musical powers to the notice of Mr and Mrs Musgrove\r
+more than anything else, and often drew this compliment;--"Well done,\r
+Miss Anne! very well done indeed! Lord bless me! how those little\r
+fingers of yours fly about!"\r
+\r
+So passed the first three weeks. Michaelmas came; and now Anne's heart\r
+must be in Kellynch again. A beloved home made over to others; all the\r
+precious rooms and furniture, groves, and prospects, beginning to own\r
+other eyes and other limbs! She could not think of much else on the\r
+29th of September; and she had this sympathetic touch in the evening\r
+from Mary, who, on having occasion to note down the day of the month,\r
+exclaimed, "Dear me, is not this the day the Crofts were to come to\r
+Kellynch? I am glad I did not think of it before. How low it makes\r
+me!"\r
+\r
+The Crofts took possession with true naval alertness, and were to be\r
+visited. Mary deplored the necessity for herself. "Nobody knew how\r
+much she should suffer. She should put it off as long as she could;"\r
+but was not easy till she had talked Charles into driving her over on\r
+an early day, and was in a very animated, comfortable state of\r
+imaginary agitation, when she came back. Anne had very sincerely\r
+rejoiced in there being no means of her going. She wished, however to\r
+see the Crofts, and was glad to be within when the visit was returned.\r
+They came: the master of the house was not at home, but the two\r
+sisters were together; and as it chanced that Mrs Croft fell to the\r
+share of Anne, while the Admiral sat by Mary, and made himself very\r
+agreeable by his good-humoured notice of her little boys, she was well\r
+able to watch for a likeness, and if it failed her in the features, to\r
+catch it in the voice, or in the turn of sentiment and expression.\r
+\r
+Mrs Croft, though neither tall nor fat, had a squareness, uprightness,\r
+and vigour of form, which gave importance to her person. She had\r
+bright dark eyes, good teeth, and altogether an agreeable face; though\r
+her reddened and weather-beaten complexion, the consequence of her\r
+having been almost as much at sea as her husband, made her seem to have\r
+lived some years longer in the world than her real eight-and-thirty.\r
+Her manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust\r
+of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to\r
+coarseness, however, or any want of good humour. Anne gave her credit,\r
+indeed, for feelings of great consideration towards herself, in all\r
+that related to Kellynch, and it pleased her: especially, as she had\r
+satisfied herself in the very first half minute, in the instant even of\r
+introduction, that there was not the smallest symptom of any knowledge\r
+or suspicion on Mrs Croft's side, to give a bias of any sort. She was\r
+quite easy on that head, and consequently full of strength and courage,\r
+till for a moment electrified by Mrs Croft's suddenly saying,--\r
+\r
+"It was you, and not your sister, I find, that my brother had the\r
+pleasure of being acquainted with, when he was in this country."\r
+\r
+Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion\r
+she certainly had not.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you may not have heard that he is married?" added Mrs Croft.\r
+\r
+She could now answer as she ought; and was happy to feel, when Mrs\r
+Croft's next words explained it to be Mr Wentworth of whom she spoke,\r
+that she had said nothing which might not do for either brother. She\r
+immediately felt how reasonable it was, that Mrs Croft should be\r
+thinking and speaking of Edward, and not of Frederick; and with shame\r
+at her own forgetfulness applied herself to the knowledge of their\r
+former neighbour's present state with proper interest.\r
+\r
+The rest was all tranquillity; till, just as they were moving, she\r
+heard the Admiral say to Mary--\r
+\r
+"We are expecting a brother of Mrs Croft's here soon; I dare say you\r
+know him by name."\r
+\r
+He was cut short by the eager attacks of the little boys, clinging to\r
+him like an old friend, and declaring he should not go; and being too\r
+much engrossed by proposals of carrying them away in his coat pockets,\r
+&c., to have another moment for finishing or recollecting what he had\r
+begun, Anne was left to persuade herself, as well as she could, that\r
+the same brother must still be in question. She could not, however,\r
+reach such a degree of certainty, as not to be anxious to hear whether\r
+anything had been said on the subject at the other house, where the\r
+Crofts had previously been calling.\r
+\r
+The folks of the Great House were to spend the evening of this day at\r
+the Cottage; and it being now too late in the year for such visits to\r
+be made on foot, the coach was beginning to be listened for, when the\r
+youngest Miss Musgrove walked in. That she was coming to apologize,\r
+and that they should have to spend the evening by themselves, was the\r
+first black idea; and Mary was quite ready to be affronted, when Louisa\r
+made all right by saying, that she only came on foot, to leave more\r
+room for the harp, which was bringing in the carriage.\r
+\r
+"And I will tell you our reason," she added, "and all about it. I am\r
+come on to give you notice, that papa and mamma are out of spirits this\r
+evening, especially mamma; she is thinking so much of poor Richard!\r
+And we agreed it would be best to have the harp, for it seems to amuse\r
+her more than the piano-forte. I will tell you why she is out of\r
+spirits. When the Crofts called this morning, (they called here\r
+afterwards, did not they?), they happened to say, that her brother,\r
+Captain Wentworth, is just returned to England, or paid off, or\r
+something, and is coming to see them almost directly; and most\r
+unluckily it came into mamma's head, when they were gone, that\r
+Wentworth, or something very like it, was the name of poor Richard's\r
+captain at one time; I do not know when or where, but a great while\r
+before he died, poor fellow! And upon looking over his letters and\r
+things, she found it was so, and is perfectly sure that this must be\r
+the very man, and her head is quite full of it, and of poor Richard!\r
+So we must be as merry as we can, that she may not be dwelling upon\r
+such gloomy things."\r
+\r
+The real circumstances of this pathetic piece of family history were,\r
+that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome,\r
+hopeless son; and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his\r
+twentieth year; that he had been sent to sea because he was stupid and\r
+unmanageable on shore; that he had been very little cared for at any\r
+time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved; seldom heard\r
+of, and scarcely at all regretted, when the intelligence of his death\r
+abroad had worked its way to Uppercross, two years before.\r
+\r
+He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for\r
+him, by calling him "poor Richard," been nothing better than a\r
+thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done\r
+anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name,\r
+living or dead.\r
+\r
+He had been several years at sea, and had, in the course of those\r
+removals to which all midshipmen are liable, and especially such\r
+midshipmen as every captain wishes to get rid of, been six months on\r
+board Captain Frederick Wentworth's frigate, the Laconia; and from the\r
+Laconia he had, under the influence of his captain, written the only\r
+two letters which his father and mother had ever received from him\r
+during the whole of his absence; that is to say, the only two\r
+disinterested letters; all the rest had been mere applications for\r
+money.\r
+\r
+In each letter he had spoken well of his captain; but yet, so little\r
+were they in the habit of attending to such matters, so unobservant and\r
+incurious were they as to the names of men or ships, that it had made\r
+scarcely any impression at the time; and that Mrs Musgrove should have\r
+been suddenly struck, this very day, with a recollection of the name of\r
+Wentworth, as connected with her son, seemed one of those extraordinary\r
+bursts of mind which do sometimes occur.\r
+\r
+She had gone to her letters, and found it all as she supposed; and the\r
+re-perusal of these letters, after so long an interval, her poor son\r
+gone for ever, and all the strength of his faults forgotten, had\r
+affected her spirits exceedingly, and thrown her into greater grief for\r
+him than she had known on first hearing of his death. Mr Musgrove was,\r
+in a lesser degree, affected likewise; and when they reached the\r
+cottage, they were evidently in want, first, of being listened to anew\r
+on this subject, and afterwards, of all the relief which cheerful\r
+companions could give them.\r
+\r
+To hear them talking so much of Captain Wentworth, repeating his name\r
+so often, puzzling over past years, and at last ascertaining that it\r
+might, that it probably would, turn out to be the very same Captain\r
+Wentworth whom they recollected meeting, once or twice, after their\r
+coming back from Clifton--a very fine young man--but they could not say\r
+whether it was seven or eight years ago, was a new sort of trial to\r
+Anne's nerves. She found, however, that it was one to which she must\r
+inure herself. Since he actually was expected in the country, she must\r
+teach herself to be insensible on such points. And not only did it\r
+appear that he was expected, and speedily, but the Musgroves, in their\r
+warm gratitude for the kindness he had shewn poor Dick, and very high\r
+respect for his character, stamped as it was by poor Dick's having been\r
+six months under his care, and mentioning him in strong, though not\r
+perfectly well-spelt praise, as "a fine dashing felow, only two\r
+perticular about the schoolmaster," were bent on introducing\r
+themselves, and seeking his acquaintance, as soon as they could hear of\r
+his arrival.\r
+\r
+The resolution of doing so helped to form the comfort of their evening.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 7\r
+\r
+\r
+A very few days more, and Captain Wentworth was known to be at\r
+Kellynch, and Mr Musgrove had called on him, and come back warm in his\r
+praise, and he was engaged with the Crofts to dine at Uppercross, by\r
+the end of another week. It had been a great disappointment to Mr\r
+Musgrove to find that no earlier day could be fixed, so impatient was\r
+he to shew his gratitude, by seeing Captain Wentworth under his own\r
+roof, and welcoming him to all that was strongest and best in his\r
+cellars. But a week must pass; only a week, in Anne's reckoning, and\r
+then, she supposed, they must meet; and soon she began to wish that she\r
+could feel secure even for a week.\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth made a very early return to Mr Musgrove's civility,\r
+and she was all but calling there in the same half hour. She and Mary\r
+were actually setting forward for the Great House, where, as she\r
+afterwards learnt, they must inevitably have found him, when they were\r
+stopped by the eldest boy's being at that moment brought home in\r
+consequence of a bad fall. The child's situation put the visit\r
+entirely aside; but she could not hear of her escape with indifference,\r
+even in the midst of the serious anxiety which they afterwards felt on\r
+his account.\r
+\r
+His collar-bone was found to be dislocated, and such injury received in\r
+the back, as roused the most alarming ideas. It was an afternoon of\r
+distress, and Anne had every thing to do at once; the apothecary to\r
+send for, the father to have pursued and informed, the mother to\r
+support and keep from hysterics, the servants to control, the youngest\r
+child to banish, and the poor suffering one to attend and soothe;\r
+besides sending, as soon as she recollected it, proper notice to the\r
+other house, which brought her an accession rather of frightened,\r
+enquiring companions, than of very useful assistants.\r
+\r
+Her brother's return was the first comfort; he could take best care of\r
+his wife; and the second blessing was the arrival of the apothecary.\r
+Till he came and had examined the child, their apprehensions were the\r
+worse for being vague; they suspected great injury, but knew not where;\r
+but now the collar-bone was soon replaced, and though Mr Robinson felt\r
+and felt, and rubbed, and looked grave, and spoke low words both to the\r
+father and the aunt, still they were all to hope the best, and to be\r
+able to part and eat their dinner in tolerable ease of mind; and then\r
+it was, just before they parted, that the two young aunts were able so\r
+far to digress from their nephew's state, as to give the information of\r
+Captain Wentworth's visit; staying five minutes behind their father and\r
+mother, to endeavour to express how perfectly delighted they were with\r
+him, how much handsomer, how infinitely more agreeable they thought him\r
+than any individual among their male acquaintance, who had been at all\r
+a favourite before. How glad they had been to hear papa invite him to\r
+stay dinner, how sorry when he said it was quite out of his power, and\r
+how glad again when he had promised in reply to papa and mamma's\r
+farther pressing invitations to come and dine with them on the\r
+morrow--actually on the morrow; and he had promised it in so pleasant a\r
+manner, as if he felt all the motive of their attention just as he\r
+ought. And in short, he had looked and said everything with such\r
+exquisite grace, that they could assure them all, their heads were both\r
+turned by him; and off they ran, quite as full of glee as of love, and\r
+apparently more full of Captain Wentworth than of little Charles.\r
+\r
+The same story and the same raptures were repeated, when the two girls\r
+came with their father, through the gloom of the evening, to make\r
+enquiries; and Mr Musgrove, no longer under the first uneasiness about\r
+his heir, could add his confirmation and praise, and hope there would\r
+be now no occasion for putting Captain Wentworth off, and only be sorry\r
+to think that the cottage party, probably, would not like to leave the\r
+little boy, to give him the meeting. "Oh no; as to leaving the little\r
+boy," both father and mother were in much too strong and recent alarm\r
+to bear the thought; and Anne, in the joy of the escape, could not help\r
+adding her warm protestations to theirs.\r
+\r
+Charles Musgrove, indeed, afterwards, shewed more of inclination; "the\r
+child was going on so well, and he wished so much to be introduced to\r
+Captain Wentworth, that, perhaps, he might join them in the evening; he\r
+would not dine from home, but he might walk in for half an hour." But\r
+in this he was eagerly opposed by his wife, with "Oh! no, indeed,\r
+Charles, I cannot bear to have you go away. Only think if anything\r
+should happen?"\r
+\r
+The child had a good night, and was going on well the next day. It\r
+must be a work of time to ascertain that no injury had been done to the\r
+spine; but Mr Robinson found nothing to increase alarm, and Charles\r
+Musgrove began, consequently, to feel no necessity for longer\r
+confinement. The child was to be kept in bed and amused as quietly as\r
+possible; but what was there for a father to do? This was quite a\r
+female case, and it would be highly absurd in him, who could be of no\r
+use at home, to shut himself up. His father very much wished him to\r
+meet Captain Wentworth, and there being no sufficient reason against\r
+it, he ought to go; and it ended in his making a bold, public\r
+declaration, when he came in from shooting, of his meaning to dress\r
+directly, and dine at the other house.\r
+\r
+"Nothing can be going on better than the child," said he; "so I told my\r
+father, just now, that I would come, and he thought me quite right.\r
+Your sister being with you, my love, I have no scruple at all. You\r
+would not like to leave him yourself, but you see I can be of no use.\r
+Anne will send for me if anything is the matter."\r
+\r
+Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.\r
+Mary knew, from Charles's manner of speaking, that he was quite\r
+determined on going, and that it would be of no use to teaze him. She\r
+said nothing, therefore, till he was out of the room, but as soon as\r
+there was only Anne to hear--\r
+\r
+"So you and I are to be left to shift by ourselves, with this poor sick\r
+child; and not a creature coming near us all the evening! I knew how\r
+it would be. This is always my luck. If there is anything\r
+disagreeable going on men are always sure to get out of it, and Charles\r
+is as bad as any of them. Very unfeeling! I must say it is very\r
+unfeeling of him to be running away from his poor little boy. Talks of\r
+his being going on so well! How does he know that he is going on well,\r
+or that there may not be a sudden change half an hour hence? I did not\r
+think Charles would have been so unfeeling. So here he is to go away\r
+and enjoy himself, and because I am the poor mother, I am not to be\r
+allowed to stir; and yet, I am sure, I am more unfit than anybody else\r
+to be about the child. My being the mother is the very reason why my\r
+feelings should not be tried. I am not at all equal to it. You saw\r
+how hysterical I was yesterday."\r
+\r
+"But that was only the effect of the suddenness of your alarm--of the\r
+shock. You will not be hysterical again. I dare say we shall have\r
+nothing to distress us. I perfectly understand Mr Robinson's\r
+directions, and have no fears; and indeed, Mary, I cannot wonder at\r
+your husband. Nursing does not belong to a man; it is not his\r
+province. A sick child is always the mother's property: her own\r
+feelings generally make it so."\r
+\r
+"I hope I am as fond of my child as any mother, but I do not know that\r
+I am of any more use in the sick-room than Charles, for I cannot be\r
+always scolding and teazing the poor child when it is ill; and you saw,\r
+this morning, that if I told him to keep quiet, he was sure to begin\r
+kicking about. I have not nerves for the sort of thing."\r
+\r
+"But, could you be comfortable yourself, to be spending the whole\r
+evening away from the poor boy?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; you see his papa can, and why should not I? Jemima is so\r
+careful; and she could send us word every hour how he was. I really\r
+think Charles might as well have told his father we would all come. I\r
+am not more alarmed about little Charles now than he is. I was\r
+dreadfully alarmed yesterday, but the case is very different to-day."\r
+\r
+"Well, if you do not think it too late to give notice for yourself,\r
+suppose you were to go, as well as your husband. Leave little Charles\r
+to my care. Mr and Mrs Musgrove cannot think it wrong while I remain\r
+with him."\r
+\r
+"Are you serious?" cried Mary, her eyes brightening. "Dear me! that's\r
+a very good thought, very good, indeed. To be sure, I may just as well\r
+go as not, for I am of no use at home--am I? and it only harasses me.\r
+You, who have not a mother's feelings, are a great deal the properest\r
+person. You can make little Charles do anything; he always minds you\r
+at a word. It will be a great deal better than leaving him only with\r
+Jemima. Oh! I shall certainly go; I am sure I ought if I can, quite as\r
+much as Charles, for they want me excessively to be acquainted with\r
+Captain Wentworth, and I know you do not mind being left alone. An\r
+excellent thought of yours, indeed, Anne. I will go and tell Charles,\r
+and get ready directly. You can send for us, you know, at a moment's\r
+notice, if anything is the matter; but I dare say there will be nothing\r
+to alarm you. I should not go, you may be sure, if I did not feel\r
+quite at ease about my dear child."\r
+\r
+The next moment she was tapping at her husband's dressing-room door,\r
+and as Anne followed her up stairs, she was in time for the whole\r
+conversation, which began with Mary's saying, in a tone of great\r
+exultation--\r
+\r
+"I mean to go with you, Charles, for I am of no more use at home than\r
+you are. If I were to shut myself up for ever with the child, I should\r
+not be able to persuade him to do anything he did not like. Anne will\r
+stay; Anne undertakes to stay at home and take care of him. It is\r
+Anne's own proposal, and so I shall go with you, which will be a great\r
+deal better, for I have not dined at the other house since Tuesday."\r
+\r
+"This is very kind of Anne," was her husband's answer, "and I should be\r
+very glad to have you go; but it seems rather hard that she should be\r
+left at home by herself, to nurse our sick child."\r
+\r
+Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity of her\r
+manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction was at\r
+least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being left\r
+to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening,\r
+when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her to\r
+let him come and fetch her, but she was quite unpersuadable; and this\r
+being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off\r
+together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped, to be happy,\r
+however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself,\r
+she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps, ever\r
+likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the\r
+child; and what was it to her if Frederick Wentworth were only half a\r
+mile distant, making himself agreeable to others?\r
+\r
+She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting. Perhaps\r
+indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He\r
+must be either indifferent or unwilling. Had he wished ever to see her\r
+again, he need not have waited till this time; he would have done what\r
+she could not but believe that in his place she should have done long\r
+ago, when events had been early giving him the independence which alone\r
+had been wanting.\r
+\r
+Her brother and sister came back delighted with their new acquaintance,\r
+and their visit in general. There had been music, singing, talking,\r
+laughing, all that was most agreeable; charming manners in Captain\r
+Wentworth, no shyness or reserve; they seemed all to know each other\r
+perfectly, and he was coming the very next morning to shoot with\r
+Charles. He was to come to breakfast, but not at the Cottage, though\r
+that had been proposed at first; but then he had been pressed to come\r
+to the Great House instead, and he seemed afraid of being in Mrs\r
+Charles Musgrove's way, on account of the child, and therefore,\r
+somehow, they hardly knew how, it ended in Charles's being to meet him\r
+to breakfast at his father's.\r
+\r
+Anne understood it. He wished to avoid seeing her. He had inquired\r
+after her, she found, slightly, as might suit a former slight\r
+acquaintance, seeming to acknowledge such as she had acknowledged,\r
+actuated, perhaps, by the same view of escaping introduction when they\r
+were to meet.\r
+\r
+The morning hours of the Cottage were always later than those of the\r
+other house, and on the morrow the difference was so great that Mary\r
+and Anne were not more than beginning breakfast when Charles came in to\r
+say that they were just setting off, that he was come for his dogs,\r
+that his sisters were following with Captain Wentworth; his sisters\r
+meaning to visit Mary and the child, and Captain Wentworth proposing\r
+also to wait on her for a few minutes if not inconvenient; and though\r
+Charles had answered for the child's being in no such state as could\r
+make it inconvenient, Captain Wentworth would not be satisfied without\r
+his running on to give notice.\r
+\r
+Mary, very much gratified by this attention, was delighted to receive\r
+him, while a thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was the\r
+most consoling, that it would soon be over. And it was soon over. In\r
+two minutes after Charles's preparation, the others appeared; they were\r
+in the drawing-room. Her eye half met Captain Wentworth's, a bow, a\r
+curtsey passed; she heard his voice; he talked to Mary, said all that\r
+was right, said something to the Miss Musgroves, enough to mark an easy\r
+footing; the room seemed full, full of persons and voices, but a few\r
+minutes ended it. Charles shewed himself at the window, all was ready,\r
+their visitor had bowed and was gone, the Miss Musgroves were gone too,\r
+suddenly resolving to walk to the end of the village with the\r
+sportsmen: the room was cleared, and Anne might finish her breakfast\r
+as she could.\r
+\r
+"It is over! it is over!" she repeated to herself again and again, in\r
+nervous gratitude. "The worst is over!"\r
+\r
+Mary talked, but she could not attend. She had seen him. They had\r
+met. They had been once more in the same room.\r
+\r
+Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and try to be feeling\r
+less. Eight years, almost eight years had passed, since all had been\r
+given up. How absurd to be resuming the agitation which such an\r
+interval had banished into distance and indistinctness! What might not\r
+eight years do? Events of every description, changes, alienations,\r
+removals--all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion of the past--\r
+how natural, how certain too! It included nearly a third part of her\r
+own life.\r
+\r
+Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings\r
+eight years may be little more than nothing.\r
+\r
+Now, how were his sentiments to be read? Was this like wishing to\r
+avoid her? And the next moment she was hating herself for the folly\r
+which asked the question.\r
+\r
+On one other question which perhaps her utmost wisdom might not have\r
+prevented, she was soon spared all suspense; for, after the Miss\r
+Musgroves had returned and finished their visit at the Cottage she had\r
+this spontaneous information from Mary:--\r
+\r
+"Captain Wentworth is not very gallant by you, Anne, though he was so\r
+attentive to me. Henrietta asked him what he thought of you, when they\r
+went away, and he said, 'You were so altered he should not have known\r
+you again.'"\r
+\r
+Mary had no feelings to make her respect her sister's in a common way,\r
+but she was perfectly unsuspicious of being inflicting any peculiar\r
+wound.\r
+\r
+"Altered beyond his knowledge." Anne fully submitted, in silent, deep\r
+mortification. Doubtless it was so, and she could take no revenge, for\r
+he was not altered, or not for the worse. She had already acknowledged\r
+it to herself, and she could not think differently, let him think of\r
+her as he would. No: the years which had destroyed her youth and\r
+bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no\r
+respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same\r
+Frederick Wentworth.\r
+\r
+"So altered that he should not have known her again!" These were words\r
+which could not but dwell with her. Yet she soon began to rejoice that\r
+she had heard them. They were of sobering tendency; they allayed\r
+agitation; they composed, and consequently must make her happier.\r
+\r
+Frederick Wentworth had used such words, or something like them, but\r
+without an idea that they would be carried round to her. He had\r
+thought her wretchedly altered, and in the first moment of appeal, had\r
+spoken as he felt. He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him\r
+ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a\r
+feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident\r
+temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others. It\r
+had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been weakness and\r
+timidity.\r
+\r
+He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a woman\r
+since whom he thought her equal; but, except from some natural\r
+sensation of curiosity, he had no desire of meeting her again. Her\r
+power with him was gone for ever.\r
+\r
+It was now his object to marry. He was rich, and being turned on\r
+shore, fully intended to settle as soon as he could be properly\r
+tempted; actually looking round, ready to fall in love with all the\r
+speed which a clear head and a quick taste could allow. He had a heart\r
+for either of the Miss Musgroves, if they could catch it; a heart, in\r
+short, for any pleasing young woman who came in his way, excepting Anne\r
+Elliot. This was his only secret exception, when he said to his\r
+sister, in answer to her suppositions:--\r
+\r
+"Yes, here I am, Sophia, quite ready to make a foolish match. Anybody\r
+between fifteen and thirty may have me for asking. A little beauty,\r
+and a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy, and I am a lost\r
+man. Should not this be enough for a sailor, who has had no society\r
+among women to make him nice?"\r
+\r
+He said it, she knew, to be contradicted. His bright proud eye spoke\r
+the conviction that he was nice; and Anne Elliot was not out of his\r
+thoughts, when he more seriously described the woman he should wish to\r
+meet with. "A strong mind, with sweetness of manner," made the first\r
+and the last of the description.\r
+\r
+"That is the woman I want," said he. "Something a little inferior I\r
+shall of course put up with, but it must not be much. If I am a fool,\r
+I shall be a fool indeed, for I have thought on the subject more than\r
+most men."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 8\r
+\r
+\r
+From this time Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly in the\r
+same circle. They were soon dining in company together at Mr\r
+Musgrove's, for the little boy's state could no longer supply his aunt\r
+with a pretence for absenting herself; and this was but the beginning\r
+of other dinings and other meetings.\r
+\r
+Whether former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the\r
+proof; former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of\r
+each; they could not but be reverted to; the year of their engagement\r
+could not but be named by him, in the little narratives or descriptions\r
+which conversation called forth. His profession qualified him, his\r
+disposition lead him, to talk; and "That was in the year six;" "That\r
+happened before I went to sea in the year six," occurred in the course\r
+of the first evening they spent together: and though his voice did not\r
+falter, and though she had no reason to suppose his eye wandering\r
+towards her while he spoke, Anne felt the utter impossibility, from her\r
+knowledge of his mind, that he could be unvisited by remembrance any\r
+more than herself. There must be the same immediate association of\r
+thought, though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain.\r
+\r
+They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the\r
+commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing!\r
+There had been a time, when of all the large party now filling the\r
+drawing-room at Uppercross, they would have found it most difficult to\r
+cease to speak to one another. With the exception, perhaps, of Admiral\r
+and Mrs Croft, who seemed particularly attached and happy, (Anne could\r
+allow no other exceptions even among the married couples), there could\r
+have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so\r
+in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers;\r
+nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It\r
+was a perpetual estrangement.\r
+\r
+When he talked, she heard the same voice, and discerned the same mind.\r
+There was a very general ignorance of all naval matters throughout the\r
+party; and he was very much questioned, and especially by the two Miss\r
+Musgroves, who seemed hardly to have any eyes but for him, as to the\r
+manner of living on board, daily regulations, food, hours, &c., and\r
+their surprise at his accounts, at learning the degree of accommodation\r
+and arrangement which was practicable, drew from him some pleasant\r
+ridicule, which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been\r
+ignorant, and she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be\r
+living on board without anything to eat, or any cook to dress it if\r
+there were, or any servant to wait, or any knife and fork to use.\r
+\r
+From thus listening and thinking, she was roused by a whisper of Mrs\r
+Musgrove's who, overcome by fond regrets, could not help saying--\r
+\r
+"Ah! Miss Anne, if it had pleased Heaven to spare my poor son, I dare\r
+say he would have been just such another by this time."\r
+\r
+Anne suppressed a smile, and listened kindly, while Mrs Musgrove\r
+relieved her heart a little more; and for a few minutes, therefore,\r
+could not keep pace with the conversation of the others.\r
+\r
+When she could let her attention take its natural course again, she\r
+found the Miss Musgroves just fetching the Navy List (their own navy\r
+list, the first that had ever been at Uppercross), and sitting down\r
+together to pore over it, with the professed view of finding out the\r
+ships that Captain Wentworth had commanded.\r
+\r
+"Your first was the Asp, I remember; we will look for the Asp."\r
+\r
+"You will not find her there. Quite worn out and broken up. I was the\r
+last man who commanded her. Hardly fit for service then. Reported fit\r
+for home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off to the West\r
+Indies."\r
+\r
+The girls looked all amazement.\r
+\r
+"The Admiralty," he continued, "entertain themselves now and then, with\r
+sending a few hundred men to sea, in a ship not fit to be employed.\r
+But they have a great many to provide for; and among the thousands that\r
+may just as well go to the bottom as not, it is impossible for them to\r
+distinguish the very set who may be least missed."\r
+\r
+"Phoo! phoo!" cried the Admiral, "what stuff these young fellows talk!\r
+Never was a better sloop than the Asp in her day. For an old built\r
+sloop, you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her! He knows\r
+there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at\r
+the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon, with no more\r
+interest than his."\r
+\r
+"I felt my luck, Admiral, I assure you;" replied Captain Wentworth,\r
+seriously. "I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can\r
+desire. It was a great object with me at that time to be at sea; a\r
+very great object, I wanted to be doing something."\r
+\r
+"To be sure you did. What should a young fellow like you do ashore for\r
+half a year together? If a man had not a wife, he soon wants to be\r
+afloat again."\r
+\r
+"But, Captain Wentworth," cried Louisa, "how vexed you must have been\r
+when you came to the Asp, to see what an old thing they had given you."\r
+\r
+"I knew pretty well what she was before that day;" said he, smiling.\r
+"I had no more discoveries to make than you would have as to the\r
+fashion and strength of any old pelisse, which you had seen lent about\r
+among half your acquaintance ever since you could remember, and which\r
+at last, on some very wet day, is lent to yourself. Ah! she was a dear\r
+old Asp to me. She did all that I wanted. I knew she would. I knew\r
+that we should either go to the bottom together, or that she would be\r
+the making of me; and I never had two days of foul weather all the time\r
+I was at sea in her; and after taking privateers enough to be very\r
+entertaining, I had the good luck in my passage home the next autumn,\r
+to fall in with the very French frigate I wanted. I brought her into\r
+Plymouth; and here another instance of luck. We had not been six hours\r
+in the Sound, when a gale came on, which lasted four days and nights,\r
+and which would have done for poor old Asp in half the time; our touch\r
+with the Great Nation not having much improved our condition.\r
+Four-and-twenty hours later, and I should only have been a gallant\r
+Captain Wentworth, in a small paragraph at one corner of the\r
+newspapers; and being lost in only a sloop, nobody would have thought\r
+about me." Anne's shudderings were to herself alone; but the Miss\r
+Musgroves could be as open as they were sincere, in their exclamations\r
+of pity and horror.\r
+\r
+"And so then, I suppose," said Mrs Musgrove, in a low voice, as if\r
+thinking aloud, "so then he went away to the Laconia, and there he met\r
+with our poor boy. Charles, my dear," (beckoning him to her), "do ask\r
+Captain Wentworth where it was he first met with your poor brother. I\r
+always forgot."\r
+\r
+"It was at Gibraltar, mother, I know. Dick had been left ill at\r
+Gibraltar, with a recommendation from his former captain to Captain\r
+Wentworth."\r
+\r
+"Oh! but, Charles, tell Captain Wentworth, he need not be afraid of\r
+mentioning poor Dick before me, for it would be rather a pleasure to\r
+hear him talked of by such a good friend."\r
+\r
+Charles, being somewhat more mindful of the probabilities of the case,\r
+only nodded in reply, and walked away.\r
+\r
+The girls were now hunting for the Laconia; and Captain Wentworth could\r
+not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume into his\r
+own hands to save them the trouble, and once more read aloud the little\r
+statement of her name and rate, and present non-commissioned class,\r
+observing over it that she too had been one of the best friends man\r
+ever had.\r
+\r
+"Ah! those were pleasant days when I had the Laconia! How fast I made\r
+money in her. A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise together\r
+off the Western Islands. Poor Harville, sister! You know how much he\r
+wanted money: worse than myself. He had a wife. Excellent fellow. I\r
+shall never forget his happiness. He felt it all, so much for her\r
+sake. I wished for him again the next summer, when I had still the\r
+same luck in the Mediterranean."\r
+\r
+"And I am sure, Sir," said Mrs Musgrove, "it was a lucky day for us,\r
+when you were put captain into that ship. We shall never forget what\r
+you did."\r
+\r
+Her feelings made her speak low; and Captain Wentworth, hearing only in\r
+part, and probably not having Dick Musgrove at all near his thoughts,\r
+looked rather in suspense, and as if waiting for more.\r
+\r
+"My brother," whispered one of the girls; "mamma is thinking of poor\r
+Richard."\r
+\r
+"Poor dear fellow!" continued Mrs Musgrove; "he was grown so steady,\r
+and such an excellent correspondent, while he was under your care! Ah!\r
+it would have been a happy thing, if he had never left you. I assure\r
+you, Captain Wentworth, we are very sorry he ever left you."\r
+\r
+There was a momentary expression in Captain Wentworth's face at this\r
+speech, a certain glance of his bright eye, and curl of his handsome\r
+mouth, which convinced Anne, that instead of sharing in Mrs Musgrove's\r
+kind wishes, as to her son, he had probably been at some pains to get\r
+rid of him; but it was too transient an indulgence of self-amusement to\r
+be detected by any who understood him less than herself; in another\r
+moment he was perfectly collected and serious, and almost instantly\r
+afterwards coming up to the sofa, on which she and Mrs Musgrove were\r
+sitting, took a place by the latter, and entered into conversation with\r
+her, in a low voice, about her son, doing it with so much sympathy and\r
+natural grace, as shewed the kindest consideration for all that was\r
+real and unabsurd in the parent's feelings.\r
+\r
+They were actually on the same sofa, for Mrs Musgrove had most readily\r
+made room for him; they were divided only by Mrs Musgrove. It was no\r
+insignificant barrier, indeed. Mrs Musgrove was of a comfortable,\r
+substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature to express good\r
+cheer and good humour, than tenderness and sentiment; and while the\r
+agitations of Anne's slender form, and pensive face, may be considered\r
+as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some\r
+credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large fat\r
+sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for.\r
+\r
+Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary\r
+proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep\r
+affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair\r
+or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will\r
+patronize in vain--which taste cannot tolerate--which ridicule will\r
+seize.\r
+\r
+The Admiral, after taking two or three refreshing turns about the room\r
+with his hands behind him, being called to order by his wife, now came\r
+up to Captain Wentworth, and without any observation of what he might\r
+be interrupting, thinking only of his own thoughts, began with--\r
+\r
+"If you had been a week later at Lisbon, last spring, Frederick, you\r
+would have been asked to give a passage to Lady Mary Grierson and her\r
+daughters."\r
+\r
+"Should I? I am glad I was not a week later then."\r
+\r
+The Admiral abused him for his want of gallantry. He defended himself;\r
+though professing that he would never willingly admit any ladies on\r
+board a ship of his, excepting for a ball, or a visit, which a few\r
+hours might comprehend.\r
+\r
+"But, if I know myself," said he, "this is from no want of gallantry\r
+towards them. It is rather from feeling how impossible it is, with all\r
+one's efforts, and all one's sacrifices, to make the accommodations on\r
+board such as women ought to have. There can be no want of gallantry,\r
+Admiral, in rating the claims of women to every personal comfort high,\r
+and this is what I do. I hate to hear of women on board, or to see\r
+them on board; and no ship under my command shall ever convey a family\r
+of ladies anywhere, if I can help it."\r
+\r
+This brought his sister upon him.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Frederick! But I cannot believe it of you.--All idle\r
+refinement!--Women may be as comfortable on board, as in the best house\r
+in England. I believe I have lived as much on board as most women, and\r
+I know nothing superior to the accommodations of a man-of-war. I\r
+declare I have not a comfort or an indulgence about me, even at\r
+Kellynch Hall," (with a kind bow to Anne), "beyond what I always had in\r
+most of the ships I have lived in; and they have been five altogether."\r
+\r
+"Nothing to the purpose," replied her brother. "You were living with\r
+your husband, and were the only woman on board."\r
+\r
+"But you, yourself, brought Mrs Harville, her sister, her cousin, and\r
+three children, round from Portsmouth to Plymouth. Where was this\r
+superfine, extraordinary sort of gallantry of yours then?"\r
+\r
+"All merged in my friendship, Sophia. I would assist any brother\r
+officer's wife that I could, and I would bring anything of Harville's\r
+from the world's end, if he wanted it. But do not imagine that I did\r
+not feel it an evil in itself."\r
+\r
+"Depend upon it, they were all perfectly comfortable."\r
+\r
+"I might not like them the better for that perhaps. Such a number of\r
+women and children have no right to be comfortable on board."\r
+\r
+"My dear Frederick, you are talking quite idly. Pray, what would\r
+become of us poor sailors' wives, who often want to be conveyed to one\r
+port or another, after our husbands, if everybody had your feelings?"\r
+\r
+"My feelings, you see, did not prevent my taking Mrs Harville and all\r
+her family to Plymouth."\r
+\r
+"But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if\r
+women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of\r
+us expect to be in smooth water all our days."\r
+\r
+"Ah! my dear," said the Admiral, "when he had got a wife, he will sing\r
+a different tune. When he is married, if we have the good luck to live\r
+to another war, we shall see him do as you and I, and a great many\r
+others, have done. We shall have him very thankful to anybody that\r
+will bring him his wife."\r
+\r
+"Ay, that we shall."\r
+\r
+"Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth. "When once married people\r
+begin to attack me with,--'Oh! you will think very differently, when\r
+you are married.' I can only say, 'No, I shall not;' and then they say\r
+again, 'Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it."\r
+\r
+He got up and moved away.\r
+\r
+"What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs Musgrove\r
+to Mrs Croft.\r
+\r
+"Pretty well, ma'am in the fifteen years of my marriage; though many\r
+women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have\r
+been once to the East Indies, and back again, and only once; besides\r
+being in different places about home: Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar.\r
+But I never went beyond the Streights, and never was in the West\r
+Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies."\r
+\r
+Mrs Musgrove had not a word to say in dissent; she could not accuse\r
+herself of having ever called them anything in the whole course of her\r
+life.\r
+\r
+"And I do assure you, ma'am," pursued Mrs Croft, "that nothing can\r
+exceed the accommodations of a man-of-war; I speak, you know, of the\r
+higher rates. When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more\r
+confined; though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of\r
+them; and I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been\r
+spent on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was\r
+nothing to be feared. Thank God! I have always been blessed with\r
+excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little\r
+disordered always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but\r
+never knew what sickness was afterwards. The only time I ever really\r
+suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself\r
+unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by\r
+myself at Deal, when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North\r
+Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of\r
+imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I\r
+should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing\r
+ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience."\r
+\r
+"Aye, to be sure. Yes, indeed, oh yes! I am quite of your opinion,\r
+Mrs Croft," was Mrs Musgrove's hearty answer. "There is nothing so bad\r
+as a separation. I am quite of your opinion. I know what it is, for\r
+Mr Musgrove always attends the assizes, and I am so glad when they are\r
+over, and he is safe back again."\r
+\r
+The evening ended with dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered\r
+her services, as usual; and though her eyes would sometimes fill with\r
+tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad to be\r
+employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved.\r
+\r
+It was a merry, joyous party, and no one seemed in higher spirits than\r
+Captain Wentworth. She felt that he had every thing to elevate him\r
+which general attention and deference, and especially the attention of\r
+all the young women, could do. The Miss Hayters, the females of the\r
+family of cousins already mentioned, were apparently admitted to the\r
+honour of being in love with him; and as for Henrietta and Louisa, they\r
+both seemed so entirely occupied by him, that nothing but the continued\r
+appearance of the most perfect good-will between themselves could have\r
+made it credible that they were not decided rivals. If he were a\r
+little spoilt by such universal, such eager admiration, who could\r
+wonder?\r
+\r
+These were some of the thoughts which occupied Anne, while her fingers\r
+were mechanically at work, proceeding for half an hour together,\r
+equally without error, and without consciousness. Once she felt that\r
+he was looking at herself, observing her altered features, perhaps,\r
+trying to trace in them the ruins of the face which had once charmed\r
+him; and once she knew that he must have spoken of her; she was hardly\r
+aware of it, till she heard the answer; but then she was sure of his\r
+having asked his partner whether Miss Elliot never danced? The answer\r
+was, "Oh, no; never; she has quite given up dancing. She had rather\r
+play. She is never tired of playing." Once, too, he spoke to her.\r
+She had left the instrument on the dancing being over, and he had sat\r
+down to try to make out an air which he wished to give the Miss\r
+Musgroves an idea of. Unintentionally she returned to that part of the\r
+room; he saw her, and, instantly rising, said, with studied politeness--\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, madam, this is your seat;" and though she\r
+immediately drew back with a decided negative, he was not to be induced\r
+to sit down again.\r
+\r
+Anne did not wish for more of such looks and speeches. His cold\r
+politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 9\r
+\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth was come to Kellynch as to a home, to stay as long as\r
+he liked, being as thoroughly the object of the Admiral's fraternal\r
+kindness as of his wife's. He had intended, on first arriving, to\r
+proceed very soon into Shropshire, and visit the brother settled in\r
+that country, but the attractions of Uppercross induced him to put this\r
+off. There was so much of friendliness, and of flattery, and of\r
+everything most bewitching in his reception there; the old were so\r
+hospitable, the young so agreeable, that he could not but resolve to\r
+remain where he was, and take all the charms and perfections of\r
+Edward's wife upon credit a little longer.\r
+\r
+It was soon Uppercross with him almost every day. The Musgroves could\r
+hardly be more ready to invite than he to come, particularly in the\r
+morning, when he had no companion at home, for the Admiral and Mrs\r
+Croft were generally out of doors together, interesting themselves in\r
+their new possessions, their grass, and their sheep, and dawdling about\r
+in a way not endurable to a third person, or driving out in a gig,\r
+lately added to their establishment.\r
+\r
+Hitherto there had been but one opinion of Captain Wentworth among the\r
+Musgroves and their dependencies. It was unvarying, warm admiration\r
+everywhere; but this intimate footing was not more than established,\r
+when a certain Charles Hayter returned among them, to be a good deal\r
+disturbed by it, and to think Captain Wentworth very much in the way.\r
+\r
+Charles Hayter was the eldest of all the cousins, and a very amiable,\r
+pleasing young man, between whom and Henrietta there had been a\r
+considerable appearance of attachment previous to Captain Wentworth's\r
+introduction. He was in orders; and having a curacy in the\r
+neighbourhood, where residence was not required, lived at his father's\r
+house, only two miles from Uppercross. A short absence from home had\r
+left his fair one unguarded by his attentions at this critical period,\r
+and when he came back he had the pain of finding very altered manners,\r
+and of seeing Captain Wentworth.\r
+\r
+Mrs Musgrove and Mrs Hayter were sisters. They had each had money, but\r
+their marriages had made a material difference in their degree of\r
+consequence. Mr Hayter had some property of his own, but it was\r
+insignificant compared with Mr Musgrove's; and while the Musgroves were\r
+in the first class of society in the country, the young Hayters would,\r
+from their parents' inferior, retired, and unpolished way of living,\r
+and their own defective education, have been hardly in any class at\r
+all, but for their connexion with Uppercross, this eldest son of course\r
+excepted, who had chosen to be a scholar and a gentleman, and who was\r
+very superior in cultivation and manners to all the rest.\r
+\r
+The two families had always been on excellent terms, there being no\r
+pride on one side, and no envy on the other, and only such a\r
+consciousness of superiority in the Miss Musgroves, as made them\r
+pleased to improve their cousins. Charles's attentions to Henrietta\r
+had been observed by her father and mother without any disapprobation.\r
+"It would not be a great match for her; but if Henrietta liked him,"--\r
+and Henrietta did seem to like him.\r
+\r
+Henrietta fully thought so herself, before Captain Wentworth came; but\r
+from that time Cousin Charles had been very much forgotten.\r
+\r
+Which of the two sisters was preferred by Captain Wentworth was as yet\r
+quite doubtful, as far as Anne's observation reached. Henrietta was\r
+perhaps the prettiest, Louisa had the higher spirits; and she knew not\r
+now, whether the more gentle or the more lively character were most\r
+likely to attract him.\r
+\r
+Mr and Mrs Musgrove, either from seeing little, or from an entire\r
+confidence in the discretion of both their daughters, and of all the\r
+young men who came near them, seemed to leave everything to take its\r
+chance. There was not the smallest appearance of solicitude or remark\r
+about them in the Mansion-house; but it was different at the Cottage:\r
+the young couple there were more disposed to speculate and wonder; and\r
+Captain Wentworth had not been above four or five times in the Miss\r
+Musgroves' company, and Charles Hayter had but just reappeared, when\r
+Anne had to listen to the opinions of her brother and sister, as to\r
+which was the one liked best. Charles gave it for Louisa, Mary for\r
+Henrietta, but quite agreeing that to have him marry either could be\r
+extremely delightful.\r
+\r
+Charles "had never seen a pleasanter man in his life; and from what he\r
+had once heard Captain Wentworth himself say, was very sure that he had\r
+not made less than twenty thousand pounds by the war. Here was a\r
+fortune at once; besides which, there would be the chance of what might\r
+be done in any future war; and he was sure Captain Wentworth was as\r
+likely a man to distinguish himself as any officer in the navy. Oh! it\r
+would be a capital match for either of his sisters."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word it would," replied Mary. "Dear me! If he should rise to\r
+any very great honours! If he should ever be made a baronet! 'Lady\r
+Wentworth' sounds very well. That would be a noble thing, indeed, for\r
+Henrietta! She would take place of me then, and Henrietta would not\r
+dislike that. Sir Frederick and Lady Wentworth! It would be but a new\r
+creation, however, and I never think much of your new creations."\r
+\r
+It suited Mary best to think Henrietta the one preferred on the very\r
+account of Charles Hayter, whose pretensions she wished to see put an\r
+end to. She looked down very decidedly upon the Hayters, and thought\r
+it would be quite a misfortune to have the existing connection between\r
+the families renewed--very sad for herself and her children.\r
+\r
+"You know," said she, "I cannot think him at all a fit match for\r
+Henrietta; and considering the alliances which the Musgroves have made,\r
+she has no right to throw herself away. I do not think any young woman\r
+has a right to make a choice that may be disagreeable and inconvenient\r
+to the principal part of her family, and be giving bad connections to\r
+those who have not been used to them. And, pray, who is Charles\r
+Hayter? Nothing but a country curate. A most improper match for Miss\r
+Musgrove of Uppercross."\r
+\r
+Her husband, however, would not agree with her here; for besides having\r
+a regard for his cousin, Charles Hayter was an eldest son, and he saw\r
+things as an eldest son himself.\r
+\r
+"Now you are talking nonsense, Mary," was therefore his answer. "It\r
+would not be a great match for Henrietta, but Charles has a very fair\r
+chance, through the Spicers, of getting something from the Bishop in\r
+the course of a year or two; and you will please to remember, that he\r
+is the eldest son; whenever my uncle dies, he steps into very pretty\r
+property. The estate at Winthrop is not less than two hundred and\r
+fifty acres, besides the farm near Taunton, which is some of the best\r
+land in the country. I grant you, that any of them but Charles would\r
+be a very shocking match for Henrietta, and indeed it could not be; he\r
+is the only one that could be possible; but he is a very good-natured,\r
+good sort of a fellow; and whenever Winthrop comes into his hands, he\r
+will make a different sort of place of it, and live in a very different\r
+sort of way; and with that property, he will never be a contemptible\r
+man--good, freehold property. No, no; Henrietta might do worse than\r
+marry Charles Hayter; and if she has him, and Louisa can get Captain\r
+Wentworth, I shall be very well satisfied."\r
+\r
+"Charles may say what he pleases," cried Mary to Anne, as soon as he\r
+was out of the room, "but it would be shocking to have Henrietta marry\r
+Charles Hayter; a very bad thing for her, and still worse for me; and\r
+therefore it is very much to be wished that Captain Wentworth may soon\r
+put him quite out of her head, and I have very little doubt that he\r
+has. She took hardly any notice of Charles Hayter yesterday. I wish\r
+you had been there to see her behaviour. And as to Captain Wentworth's\r
+liking Louisa as well as Henrietta, it is nonsense to say so; for he\r
+certainly does like Henrietta a great deal the best. But Charles is so\r
+positive! I wish you had been with us yesterday, for then you might\r
+have decided between us; and I am sure you would have thought as I did,\r
+unless you had been determined to give it against me."\r
+\r
+A dinner at Mr Musgrove's had been the occasion when all these things\r
+should have been seen by Anne; but she had staid at home, under the\r
+mixed plea of a headache of her own, and some return of indisposition\r
+in little Charles. She had thought only of avoiding Captain Wentworth;\r
+but an escape from being appealed to as umpire was now added to the\r
+advantages of a quiet evening.\r
+\r
+As to Captain Wentworth's views, she deemed it of more consequence that\r
+he should know his own mind early enough not to be endangering the\r
+happiness of either sister, or impeaching his own honour, than that he\r
+should prefer Henrietta to Louisa, or Louisa to Henrietta. Either of\r
+them would, in all probability, make him an affectionate, good-humoured\r
+wife. With regard to Charles Hayter, she had delicacy which must be\r
+pained by any lightness of conduct in a well-meaning young woman, and a\r
+heart to sympathize in any of the sufferings it occasioned; but if\r
+Henrietta found herself mistaken in the nature of her feelings, the\r
+alteration could not be understood too soon.\r
+\r
+Charles Hayter had met with much to disquiet and mortify him in his\r
+cousin's behaviour. She had too old a regard for him to be so wholly\r
+estranged as might in two meetings extinguish every past hope, and\r
+leave him nothing to do but to keep away from Uppercross: but there\r
+was such a change as became very alarming, when such a man as Captain\r
+Wentworth was to be regarded as the probable cause. He had been absent\r
+only two Sundays, and when they parted, had left her interested, even\r
+to the height of his wishes, in his prospect of soon quitting his\r
+present curacy, and obtaining that of Uppercross instead. It had then\r
+seemed the object nearest her heart, that Dr Shirley, the rector, who\r
+for more than forty years had been zealously discharging all the duties\r
+of his office, but was now growing too infirm for many of them, should\r
+be quite fixed on engaging a curate; should make his curacy quite as\r
+good as he could afford, and should give Charles Hayter the promise of\r
+it. The advantage of his having to come only to Uppercross, instead of\r
+going six miles another way; of his having, in every respect, a better\r
+curacy; of his belonging to their dear Dr Shirley, and of dear, good Dr\r
+Shirley's being relieved from the duty which he could no longer get\r
+through without most injurious fatigue, had been a great deal, even to\r
+Louisa, but had been almost everything to Henrietta. When he came\r
+back, alas! the zeal of the business was gone by. Louisa could not\r
+listen at all to his account of a conversation which he had just held\r
+with Dr Shirley: she was at a window, looking out for Captain\r
+Wentworth; and even Henrietta had at best only a divided attention to\r
+give, and seemed to have forgotten all the former doubt and solicitude\r
+of the negotiation.\r
+\r
+"Well, I am very glad indeed: but I always thought you would have it;\r
+I always thought you sure. It did not appear to me that--in short, you\r
+know, Dr Shirley must have a curate, and you had secured his promise.\r
+Is he coming, Louisa?"\r
+\r
+One morning, very soon after the dinner at the Musgroves, at which Anne\r
+had not been present, Captain Wentworth walked into the drawing-room at\r
+the Cottage, where were only herself and the little invalid Charles,\r
+who was lying on the sofa.\r
+\r
+The surprise of finding himself almost alone with Anne Elliot, deprived\r
+his manners of their usual composure: he started, and could only say,\r
+"I thought the Miss Musgroves had been here: Mrs Musgrove told me I\r
+should find them here," before he walked to the window to recollect\r
+himself, and feel how he ought to behave.\r
+\r
+"They are up stairs with my sister: they will be down in a few\r
+moments, I dare say," had been Anne's reply, in all the confusion that\r
+was natural; and if the child had not called her to come and do\r
+something for him, she would have been out of the room the next moment,\r
+and released Captain Wentworth as well as herself.\r
+\r
+He continued at the window; and after calmly and politely saying, "I\r
+hope the little boy is better," was silent.\r
+\r
+She was obliged to kneel down by the sofa, and remain there to satisfy\r
+her patient; and thus they continued a few minutes, when, to her very\r
+great satisfaction, she heard some other person crossing the little\r
+vestibule. She hoped, on turning her head, to see the master of the\r
+house; but it proved to be one much less calculated for making matters\r
+easy--Charles Hayter, probably not at all better pleased by the sight\r
+of Captain Wentworth than Captain Wentworth had been by the sight of\r
+Anne.\r
+\r
+She only attempted to say, "How do you do? Will you not sit down? The\r
+others will be here presently."\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth, however, came from his window, apparently not\r
+ill-disposed for conversation; but Charles Hayter soon put an end to\r
+his attempts by seating himself near the table, and taking up the\r
+newspaper; and Captain Wentworth returned to his window.\r
+\r
+Another minute brought another addition. The younger boy, a remarkable\r
+stout, forward child, of two years old, having got the door opened for\r
+him by some one without, made his determined appearance among them, and\r
+went straight to the sofa to see what was going on, and put in his\r
+claim to anything good that might be giving away.\r
+\r
+There being nothing to eat, he could only have some play; and as his\r
+aunt would not let him tease his sick brother, he began to fasten\r
+himself upon her, as she knelt, in such a way that, busy as she was\r
+about Charles, she could not shake him off. She spoke to him, ordered,\r
+entreated, and insisted in vain. Once she did contrive to push him\r
+away, but the boy had the greater pleasure in getting upon her back\r
+again directly.\r
+\r
+"Walter," said she, "get down this moment. You are extremely\r
+troublesome. I am very angry with you."\r
+\r
+"Walter," cried Charles Hayter, "why do you not do as you are bid? Do\r
+not you hear your aunt speak? Come to me, Walter, come to cousin\r
+Charles."\r
+\r
+But not a bit did Walter stir.\r
+\r
+In another moment, however, she found herself in the state of being\r
+released from him; some one was taking him from her, though he had bent\r
+down her head so much, that his little sturdy hands were unfastened\r
+from around her neck, and he was resolutely borne away, before she knew\r
+that Captain Wentworth had done it.\r
+\r
+Her sensations on the discovery made her perfectly speechless. She\r
+could not even thank him. She could only hang over little Charles,\r
+with most disordered feelings. His kindness in stepping forward to her\r
+relief, the manner, the silence in which it had passed, the little\r
+particulars of the circumstance, with the conviction soon forced on her\r
+by the noise he was studiously making with the child, that he meant to\r
+avoid hearing her thanks, and rather sought to testify that her\r
+conversation was the last of his wants, produced such a confusion of\r
+varying, but very painful agitation, as she could not recover from,\r
+till enabled by the entrance of Mary and the Miss Musgroves to make\r
+over her little patient to their cares, and leave the room. She could\r
+not stay. It might have been an opportunity of watching the loves and\r
+jealousies of the four--they were now altogether; but she could stay\r
+for none of it. It was evident that Charles Hayter was not well\r
+inclined towards Captain Wentworth. She had a strong impression of his\r
+having said, in a vext tone of voice, after Captain Wentworth's\r
+interference, "You ought to have minded me, Walter; I told you not to\r
+teaze your aunt;" and could comprehend his regretting that Captain\r
+Wentworth should do what he ought to have done himself. But neither\r
+Charles Hayter's feelings, nor anybody's feelings, could interest her,\r
+till she had a little better arranged her own. She was ashamed of\r
+herself, quite ashamed of being so nervous, so overcome by such a\r
+trifle; but so it was, and it required a long application of solitude\r
+and reflection to recover her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 10\r
+\r
+\r
+Other opportunities of making her observations could not fail to occur.\r
+Anne had soon been in company with all the four together often enough\r
+to have an opinion, though too wise to acknowledge as much at home,\r
+where she knew it would have satisfied neither husband nor wife; for\r
+while she considered Louisa to be rather the favourite, she could not\r
+but think, as far as she might dare to judge from memory and\r
+experience, that Captain Wentworth was not in love with either. They\r
+were more in love with him; yet there it was not love. It was a little\r
+fever of admiration; but it might, probably must, end in love with\r
+some. Charles Hayter seemed aware of being slighted, and yet Henrietta\r
+had sometimes the air of being divided between them. Anne longed for\r
+the power of representing to them all what they were about, and of\r
+pointing out some of the evils they were exposing themselves to. She\r
+did not attribute guile to any. It was the highest satisfaction to her\r
+to believe Captain Wentworth not in the least aware of the pain he was\r
+occasioning. There was no triumph, no pitiful triumph in his manner.\r
+He had, probably, never heard, and never thought of any claims of\r
+Charles Hayter. He was only wrong in accepting the attentions (for\r
+accepting must be the word) of two young women at once.\r
+\r
+After a short struggle, however, Charles Hayter seemed to quit the\r
+field. Three days had passed without his coming once to Uppercross; a\r
+most decided change. He had even refused one regular invitation to\r
+dinner; and having been found on the occasion by Mr Musgrove with some\r
+large books before him, Mr and Mrs Musgrove were sure all could not be\r
+right, and talked, with grave faces, of his studying himself to death.\r
+It was Mary's hope and belief that he had received a positive dismissal\r
+from Henrietta, and her husband lived under the constant dependence of\r
+seeing him to-morrow. Anne could only feel that Charles Hayter was\r
+wise.\r
+\r
+One morning, about this time Charles Musgrove and Captain Wentworth\r
+being gone a-shooting together, as the sisters in the Cottage were\r
+sitting quietly at work, they were visited at the window by the sisters\r
+from the Mansion-house.\r
+\r
+It was a very fine November day, and the Miss Musgroves came through\r
+the little grounds, and stopped for no other purpose than to say, that\r
+they were going to take a long walk, and therefore concluded Mary could\r
+not like to go with them; and when Mary immediately replied, with some\r
+jealousy at not being supposed a good walker, "Oh, yes, I should like\r
+to join you very much, I am very fond of a long walk;" Anne felt\r
+persuaded, by the looks of the two girls, that it was precisely what\r
+they did not wish, and admired again the sort of necessity which the\r
+family habits seemed to produce, of everything being to be\r
+communicated, and everything being to be done together, however\r
+undesired and inconvenient. She tried to dissuade Mary from going, but\r
+in vain; and that being the case, thought it best to accept the Miss\r
+Musgroves' much more cordial invitation to herself to go likewise, as\r
+she might be useful in turning back with her sister, and lessening the\r
+interference in any plan of their own.\r
+\r
+"I cannot imagine why they should suppose I should not like a long\r
+walk," said Mary, as she went up stairs. "Everybody is always\r
+supposing that I am not a good walker; and yet they would not have been\r
+pleased, if we had refused to join them. When people come in this\r
+manner on purpose to ask us, how can one say no?"\r
+\r
+Just as they were setting off, the gentlemen returned. They had taken\r
+out a young dog, who had spoilt their sport, and sent them back early.\r
+Their time and strength, and spirits, were, therefore, exactly ready\r
+for this walk, and they entered into it with pleasure. Could Anne have\r
+foreseen such a junction, she would have staid at home; but, from some\r
+feelings of interest and curiosity, she fancied now that it was too\r
+late to retract, and the whole six set forward together in the\r
+direction chosen by the Miss Musgroves, who evidently considered the\r
+walk as under their guidance.\r
+\r
+Anne's object was, not to be in the way of anybody; and where the\r
+narrow paths across the fields made many separations necessary, to keep\r
+with her brother and sister. Her pleasure in the walk must arise from\r
+the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year\r
+upon the tawny leaves, and withered hedges, and from repeating to\r
+herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of\r
+autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind\r
+of taste and tenderness, that season which had drawn from every poet,\r
+worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of\r
+feeling. She occupied her mind as much as possible in such like\r
+musings and quotations; but it was not possible, that when within reach\r
+of Captain Wentworth's conversation with either of the Miss Musgroves,\r
+she should not try to hear it; yet she caught little very remarkable.\r
+It was mere lively chat, such as any young persons, on an intimate\r
+footing, might fall into. He was more engaged with Louisa than with\r
+Henrietta. Louisa certainly put more forward for his notice than her\r
+sister. This distinction appeared to increase, and there was one\r
+speech of Louisa's which struck her. After one of the many praises of\r
+the day, which were continually bursting forth, Captain Wentworth\r
+added:--\r
+\r
+"What glorious weather for the Admiral and my sister! They meant to\r
+take a long drive this morning; perhaps we may hail them from some of\r
+these hills. They talked of coming into this side of the country. I\r
+wonder whereabouts they will upset to-day. Oh! it does happen very\r
+often, I assure you; but my sister makes nothing of it; she would as\r
+lieve be tossed out as not."\r
+\r
+"Ah! You make the most of it, I know," cried Louisa, "but if it were\r
+really so, I should do just the same in her place. If I loved a man,\r
+as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should\r
+ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven\r
+safely by anybody else."\r
+\r
+It was spoken with enthusiasm.\r
+\r
+"Had you?" cried he, catching the same tone; "I honour you!" And there\r
+was silence between them for a little while.\r
+\r
+Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again. The sweet\r
+scenes of autumn were for a while put by, unless some tender sonnet,\r
+fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining\r
+happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone\r
+together, blessed her memory. She roused herself to say, as they\r
+struck by order into another path, "Is not this one of the ways to\r
+Winthrop?" But nobody heard, or, at least, nobody answered her.\r
+\r
+Winthrop, however, or its environs--for young men are, sometimes to be\r
+met with, strolling about near home--was their destination; and after\r
+another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the\r
+ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting\r
+the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again,\r
+they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted\r
+Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter,\r
+at the foot of the hill on the other side.\r
+\r
+Winthrop, without beauty and without dignity, was stretched before them;\r
+an indifferent house, standing low, and hemmed in by the barns and\r
+buildings of a farm-yard.\r
+\r
+Mary exclaimed, "Bless me! here is Winthrop. I declare I had no idea!\r
+Well now, I think we had better turn back; I am excessively tired."\r
+\r
+Henrietta, conscious and ashamed, and seeing no cousin Charles walking\r
+along any path, or leaning against any gate, was ready to do as Mary\r
+wished; but "No!" said Charles Musgrove, and "No, no!" cried Louisa\r
+more eagerly, and taking her sister aside, seemed to be arguing the\r
+matter warmly.\r
+\r
+Charles, in the meanwhile, was very decidedly declaring his resolution\r
+of calling on his aunt, now that he was so near; and very evidently,\r
+though more fearfully, trying to induce his wife to go too. But this\r
+was one of the points on which the lady shewed her strength; and when\r
+he recommended the advantage of resting herself a quarter of an hour at\r
+Winthrop, as she felt so tired, she resolutely answered, "Oh! no,\r
+indeed! walking up that hill again would do her more harm than any\r
+sitting down could do her good;" and, in short, her look and manner\r
+declared, that go she would not.\r
+\r
+After a little succession of these sort of debates and consultations,\r
+it was settled between Charles and his two sisters, that he and\r
+Henrietta should just run down for a few minutes, to see their aunt and\r
+cousins, while the rest of the party waited for them at the top of the\r
+hill. Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan; and, as she\r
+went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking to Henrietta,\r
+Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her, and saying\r
+to Captain Wentworth--\r
+\r
+"It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But, I assure you, I\r
+have never been in the house above twice in my life."\r
+\r
+She received no other answer, than an artificial, assenting smile,\r
+followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne\r
+perfectly knew the meaning of.\r
+\r
+The brow of the hill, where they remained, was a cheerful spot: Louisa\r
+returned; and Mary, finding a comfortable seat for herself on the step\r
+of a stile, was very well satisfied so long as the others all stood\r
+about her; but when Louisa drew Captain Wentworth away, to try for a\r
+gleaning of nuts in an adjoining hedge-row, and they were gone by\r
+degrees quite out of sight and sound, Mary was happy no longer; she\r
+quarrelled with her own seat, was sure Louisa had got a much better\r
+somewhere, and nothing could prevent her from going to look for a\r
+better also. She turned through the same gate, but could not see them.\r
+Anne found a nice seat for her, on a dry sunny bank, under the\r
+hedge-row, in which she had no doubt of their still being, in some spot\r
+or other. Mary sat down for a moment, but it would not do; she was\r
+sure Louisa had found a better seat somewhere else, and she would go on\r
+till she overtook her.\r
+\r
+Anne, really tired herself, was glad to sit down; and she very soon\r
+heard Captain Wentworth and Louisa in the hedge-row, behind her, as if\r
+making their way back along the rough, wild sort of channel, down the\r
+centre. They were speaking as they drew near. Louisa's voice was the\r
+first distinguished. She seemed to be in the middle of some eager\r
+speech. What Anne first heard was--\r
+\r
+"And so, I made her go. I could not bear that she should be frightened\r
+from the visit by such nonsense. What! would I be turned back from\r
+doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right,\r
+by the airs and interference of such a person, or of any person I may\r
+say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have\r
+made up my mind, I have made it; and Henrietta seemed entirely to have\r
+made up hers to call at Winthrop to-day; and yet, she was as near\r
+giving it up, out of nonsensical complaisance!"\r
+\r
+"She would have turned back then, but for you?"\r
+\r
+"She would indeed. I am almost ashamed to say it."\r
+\r
+"Happy for her, to have such a mind as yours at hand! After the hints\r
+you gave just now, which did but confirm my own observations, the last\r
+time I was in company with him, I need not affect to have no\r
+comprehension of what is going on. I see that more than a mere dutiful\r
+morning visit to your aunt was in question; and woe betide him, and her\r
+too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in\r
+circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not\r
+resolution enough to resist idle interference in such a trifle as this.\r
+Your sister is an amiable creature; but yours is the character of\r
+decision and firmness, I see. If you value her conduct or happiness,\r
+infuse as much of your own spirit into her as you can. But this, no\r
+doubt, you have been always doing. It is the worst evil of too\r
+yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be\r
+depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable;\r
+everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. Here is\r
+a nut," said he, catching one down from an upper bough, "to exemplify:\r
+a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has\r
+outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot\r
+anywhere. This nut," he continued, with playful solemnity, "while so\r
+many of his brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still\r
+in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed\r
+capable of." Then returning to his former earnest tone--"My first\r
+wish for all whom I am interested in, is that they should be firm. If\r
+Louisa Musgrove would be beautiful and happy in her November of life,\r
+she will cherish all her present powers of mind."\r
+\r
+He had done, and was unanswered. It would have surprised Anne if\r
+Louisa could have readily answered such a speech: words of such\r
+interest, spoken with such serious warmth! She could imagine what\r
+Louisa was feeling. For herself, she feared to move, lest she should\r
+be seen. While she remained, a bush of low rambling holly protected\r
+her, and they were moving on. Before they were beyond her hearing,\r
+however, Louisa spoke again.\r
+\r
+"Mary is good-natured enough in many respects," said she; "but she does\r
+sometimes provoke me excessively, by her nonsense and pride--the Elliot\r
+pride. She has a great deal too much of the Elliot pride. We do so\r
+wish that Charles had married Anne instead. I suppose you know he\r
+wanted to marry Anne?"\r
+\r
+After a moment's pause, Captain Wentworth said--\r
+\r
+"Do you mean that she refused him?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes; certainly."\r
+\r
+"When did that happen?"\r
+\r
+"I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at the time;\r
+but I believe about a year before he married Mary. I wish she had\r
+accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better; and\r
+papa and mamma always think it was her great friend Lady Russell's\r
+doing, that she did not. They think Charles might not be learned and\r
+bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that therefore, she\r
+persuaded Anne to refuse him."\r
+\r
+The sounds were retreating, and Anne distinguished no more. Her own\r
+emotions still kept her fixed. She had much to recover from, before\r
+she could move. The listener's proverbial fate was not absolutely\r
+hers; she had heard no evil of herself, but she had heard a great deal\r
+of very painful import. She saw how her own character was considered\r
+by Captain Wentworth, and there had been just that degree of feeling\r
+and curiosity about her in his manner which must give her extreme\r
+agitation.\r
+\r
+As soon as she could, she went after Mary, and having found, and walked\r
+back with her to their former station, by the stile, felt some comfort\r
+in their whole party being immediately afterwards collected, and once\r
+more in motion together. Her spirits wanted the solitude and silence\r
+which only numbers could give.\r
+\r
+Charles and Henrietta returned, bringing, as may be conjectured,\r
+Charles Hayter with them. The minutiae of the business Anne could not\r
+attempt to understand; even Captain Wentworth did not seem admitted to\r
+perfect confidence here; but that there had been a withdrawing on the\r
+gentleman's side, and a relenting on the lady's, and that they were now\r
+very glad to be together again, did not admit a doubt. Henrietta\r
+looked a little ashamed, but very well pleased;--Charles Hayter\r
+exceedingly happy: and they were devoted to each other almost from the\r
+first instant of their all setting forward for Uppercross.\r
+\r
+Everything now marked out Louisa for Captain Wentworth; nothing could\r
+be plainer; and where many divisions were necessary, or even where they\r
+were not, they walked side by side nearly as much as the other two. In\r
+a long strip of meadow land, where there was ample space for all, they\r
+were thus divided, forming three distinct parties; and to that party of\r
+the three which boasted least animation, and least complaisance, Anne\r
+necessarily belonged. She joined Charles and Mary, and was tired\r
+enough to be very glad of Charles's other arm; but Charles, though in\r
+very good humour with her, was out of temper with his wife. Mary had\r
+shewn herself disobliging to him, and was now to reap the consequence,\r
+which consequence was his dropping her arm almost every moment to cut\r
+off the heads of some nettles in the hedge with his switch; and when\r
+Mary began to complain of it, and lament her being ill-used, according\r
+to custom, in being on the hedge side, while Anne was never incommoded\r
+on the other, he dropped the arms of both to hunt after a weasel which\r
+he had a momentary glance of, and they could hardly get him along at\r
+all.\r
+\r
+This long meadow bordered a lane, which their footpath, at the end of\r
+it was to cross, and when the party had all reached the gate of exit,\r
+the carriage advancing in the same direction, which had been some time\r
+heard, was just coming up, and proved to be Admiral Croft's gig. He\r
+and his wife had taken their intended drive, and were returning home.\r
+Upon hearing how long a walk the young people had engaged in, they\r
+kindly offered a seat to any lady who might be particularly tired; it\r
+would save her a full mile, and they were going through Uppercross.\r
+The invitation was general, and generally declined. The Miss Musgroves\r
+were not at all tired, and Mary was either offended, by not being asked\r
+before any of the others, or what Louisa called the Elliot pride could\r
+not endure to make a third in a one horse chaise.\r
+\r
+The walking party had crossed the lane, and were surmounting an\r
+opposite stile, and the Admiral was putting his horse in motion again,\r
+when Captain Wentworth cleared the hedge in a moment to say something\r
+to his sister. The something might be guessed by its effects.\r
+\r
+"Miss Elliot, I am sure you are tired," cried Mrs Croft. "Do let us\r
+have the pleasure of taking you home. Here is excellent room for\r
+three, I assure you. If we were all like you, I believe we might sit\r
+four. You must, indeed, you must."\r
+\r
+Anne was still in the lane; and though instinctively beginning to\r
+decline, she was not allowed to proceed. The Admiral's kind urgency\r
+came in support of his wife's; they would not be refused; they\r
+compressed themselves into the smallest possible space to leave her a\r
+corner, and Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her,\r
+and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage.\r
+\r
+Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had\r
+placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she\r
+owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give\r
+her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition\r
+towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little\r
+circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She\r
+understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be\r
+unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with\r
+high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and\r
+though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer,\r
+without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former\r
+sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship;\r
+it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not\r
+contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that\r
+she knew not which prevailed.\r
+\r
+Her answers to the kindness and the remarks of her companions were at\r
+first unconsciously given. They had travelled half their way along the\r
+rough lane, before she was quite awake to what they said. She then\r
+found them talking of "Frederick."\r
+\r
+"He certainly means to have one or other of those two girls, Sophy,"\r
+said the Admiral; "but there is no saying which. He has been running\r
+after them, too, long enough, one would think, to make up his mind.\r
+Ay, this comes of the peace. If it were war now, he would have settled\r
+it long ago. We sailors, Miss Elliot, cannot afford to make long\r
+courtships in time of war. How many days was it, my dear, between the\r
+first time of my seeing you and our sitting down together in our\r
+lodgings at North Yarmouth?"\r
+\r
+"We had better not talk about it, my dear," replied Mrs Croft,\r
+pleasantly; "for if Miss Elliot were to hear how soon we came to an\r
+understanding, she would never be persuaded that we could be happy\r
+together. I had known you by character, however, long before."\r
+\r
+"Well, and I had heard of you as a very pretty girl, and what were we\r
+to wait for besides? I do not like having such things so long in hand.\r
+I wish Frederick would spread a little more canvass, and bring us home\r
+one of these young ladies to Kellynch. Then there would always be\r
+company for them. And very nice young ladies they both are; I hardly\r
+know one from the other."\r
+\r
+"Very good humoured, unaffected girls, indeed," said Mrs Croft, in a\r
+tone of calmer praise, such as made Anne suspect that her keener powers\r
+might not consider either of them as quite worthy of her brother; "and\r
+a very respectable family. One could not be connected with better\r
+people. My dear Admiral, that post! we shall certainly take that\r
+post."\r
+\r
+But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily\r
+passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out her\r
+hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and\r
+Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving, which she imagined\r
+no bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs, found\r
+herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 11\r
+\r
+\r
+The time now approached for Lady Russell's return: the day was even\r
+fixed; and Anne, being engaged to join her as soon as she was\r
+resettled, was looking forward to an early removal to Kellynch, and\r
+beginning to think how her own comfort was likely to be affected by it.\r
+\r
+It would place her in the same village with Captain Wentworth, within\r
+half a mile of him; they would have to frequent the same church, and\r
+there must be intercourse between the two families. This was against\r
+her; but on the other hand, he spent so much of his time at Uppercross,\r
+that in removing thence she might be considered rather as leaving him\r
+behind, than as going towards him; and, upon the whole, she believed\r
+she must, on this interesting question, be the gainer, almost as\r
+certainly as in her change of domestic society, in leaving poor Mary\r
+for Lady Russell.\r
+\r
+She wished it might be possible for her to avoid ever seeing Captain\r
+Wentworth at the Hall: those rooms had witnessed former meetings which\r
+would be brought too painfully before her; but she was yet more anxious\r
+for the possibility of Lady Russell and Captain Wentworth never meeting\r
+anywhere. They did not like each other, and no renewal of acquaintance\r
+now could do any good; and were Lady Russell to see them together, she\r
+might think that he had too much self-possession, and she too little.\r
+\r
+These points formed her chief solicitude in anticipating her removal\r
+from Uppercross, where she felt she had been stationed quite long\r
+enough. Her usefulness to little Charles would always give some\r
+sweetness to the memory of her two months' visit there, but he was\r
+gaining strength apace, and she had nothing else to stay for.\r
+\r
+The conclusion of her visit, however, was diversified in a way which\r
+she had not at all imagined. Captain Wentworth, after being unseen and\r
+unheard of at Uppercross for two whole days, appeared again among them\r
+to justify himself by a relation of what had kept him away.\r
+\r
+A letter from his friend, Captain Harville, having found him out at\r
+last, had brought intelligence of Captain Harville's being settled with\r
+his family at Lyme for the winter; of their being therefore, quite\r
+unknowingly, within twenty miles of each other. Captain Harville had\r
+never been in good health since a severe wound which he received two\r
+years before, and Captain Wentworth's anxiety to see him had determined\r
+him to go immediately to Lyme. He had been there for four-and-twenty\r
+hours. His acquittal was complete, his friendship warmly honoured, a\r
+lively interest excited for his friend, and his description of the fine\r
+country about Lyme so feelingly attended to by the party, that an\r
+earnest desire to see Lyme themselves, and a project for going thither\r
+was the consequence.\r
+\r
+The young people were all wild to see Lyme. Captain Wentworth talked\r
+of going there again himself, it was only seventeen miles from\r
+Uppercross; though November, the weather was by no means bad; and, in\r
+short, Louisa, who was the most eager of the eager, having formed the\r
+resolution to go, and besides the pleasure of doing as she liked, being\r
+now armed with the idea of merit in maintaining her own way, bore down\r
+all the wishes of her father and mother for putting it off till summer;\r
+and to Lyme they were to go--Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta, Louisa,\r
+and Captain Wentworth.\r
+\r
+The first heedless scheme had been to go in the morning and return at\r
+night; but to this Mr Musgrove, for the sake of his horses, would not\r
+consent; and when it came to be rationally considered, a day in the\r
+middle of November would not leave much time for seeing a new place,\r
+after deducting seven hours, as the nature of the country required, for\r
+going and returning. They were, consequently, to stay the night there,\r
+and not to be expected back till the next day's dinner. This was felt\r
+to be a considerable amendment; and though they all met at the Great\r
+House at rather an early breakfast hour, and set off very punctually,\r
+it was so much past noon before the two carriages, Mr Musgrove's coach\r
+containing the four ladies, and Charles's curricle, in which he drove\r
+Captain Wentworth, were descending the long hill into Lyme, and\r
+entering upon the still steeper street of the town itself, that it was\r
+very evident they would not have more than time for looking about them,\r
+before the light and warmth of the day were gone.\r
+\r
+After securing accommodations, and ordering a dinner at one of the\r
+inns, the next thing to be done was unquestionably to walk directly\r
+down to the sea. They were come too late in the year for any amusement\r
+or variety which Lyme, as a public place, might offer. The rooms were\r
+shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the\r
+residents left; and, as there is nothing to admire in the buildings\r
+themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street\r
+almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round\r
+the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing\r
+machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new\r
+improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to\r
+the east of the town, are what the stranger's eye will seek; and a very\r
+strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate\r
+environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better. The scenes in\r
+its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive\r
+sweeps of country, and still more, its sweet, retired bay, backed by\r
+dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands, make it the\r
+happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in\r
+unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of the cheerful village of\r
+Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic\r
+rocks, where the scattered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant\r
+growth, declare that many a generation must have passed away since the\r
+first partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a\r
+state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may\r
+more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of\r
+Wight: these places must be visited, and visited again, to make the\r
+worth of Lyme understood.\r
+\r
+The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted and\r
+melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon found themselves\r
+on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a\r
+first return to the sea, who ever deserved to look on it at all,\r
+proceeded towards the Cobb, equally their object in itself and on\r
+Captain Wentworth's account: for in a small house, near the foot of an\r
+old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled. Captain\r
+Wentworth turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on, and he\r
+was to join them on the Cobb.\r
+\r
+They were by no means tired of wondering and admiring; and not even\r
+Louisa seemed to feel that they had parted with Captain Wentworth long,\r
+when they saw him coming after them, with three companions, all well\r
+known already, by description, to be Captain and Mrs Harville, and a\r
+Captain Benwick, who was staying with them.\r
+\r
+Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia;\r
+and the account which Captain Wentworth had given of him, on his return\r
+from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as an excellent young man and\r
+an officer, whom he had always valued highly, which must have stamped\r
+him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little\r
+history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting\r
+in the eyes of all the ladies. He had been engaged to Captain\r
+Harville's sister, and was now mourning her loss. They had been a year\r
+or two waiting for fortune and promotion. Fortune came, his\r
+prize-money as lieutenant being great; promotion, too, came at last;\r
+but Fanny Harville did not live to know it. She had died the preceding\r
+summer while he was at sea. Captain Wentworth believed it impossible\r
+for man to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to\r
+Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the dreadful\r
+change. He considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer\r
+heavily, uniting very strong feelings with quiet, serious, and retiring\r
+manners, and a decided taste for reading, and sedentary pursuits. To\r
+finish the interest of the story, the friendship between him and the\r
+Harvilles seemed, if possible, augmented by the event which closed all\r
+their views of alliance, and Captain Benwick was now living with them\r
+entirely. Captain Harville had taken his present house for half a\r
+year; his taste, and his health, and his fortune, all directing him to\r
+a residence inexpensive, and by the sea; and the grandeur of the\r
+country, and the retirement of Lyme in the winter, appeared exactly\r
+adapted to Captain Benwick's state of mind. The sympathy and good-will\r
+excited towards Captain Benwick was very great.\r
+\r
+"And yet," said Anne to herself, as they now moved forward to meet the\r
+party, "he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing heart than I have. I\r
+cannot believe his prospects so blighted for ever. He is younger than\r
+I am; younger in feeling, if not in fact; younger as a man. He will\r
+rally again, and be happy with another."\r
+\r
+They all met, and were introduced. Captain Harville was a tall, dark\r
+man, with a sensible, benevolent countenance; a little lame; and from\r
+strong features and want of health, looking much older than Captain\r
+Wentworth. Captain Benwick looked, and was, the youngest of the three,\r
+and, compared with either of them, a little man. He had a pleasing\r
+face and a melancholy air, just as he ought to have, and drew back from\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+Captain Harville, though not equalling Captain Wentworth in manners,\r
+was a perfect gentleman, unaffected, warm, and obliging. Mrs Harville,\r
+a degree less polished than her husband, seemed, however, to have the\r
+same good feelings; and nothing could be more pleasant than their\r
+desire of considering the whole party as friends of their own, because\r
+the friends of Captain Wentworth, or more kindly hospitable than their\r
+entreaties for their all promising to dine with them. The dinner,\r
+already ordered at the inn, was at last, though unwillingly, accepted\r
+as a excuse; but they seemed almost hurt that Captain Wentworth should\r
+have brought any such party to Lyme, without considering it as a thing\r
+of course that they should dine with them.\r
+\r
+There was so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this, and such\r
+a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon, so unlike\r
+the usual style of give-and-take invitations, and dinners of formality\r
+and display, that Anne felt her spirits not likely to be benefited by\r
+an increasing acquaintance among his brother-officers. "These would\r
+have been all my friends," was her thought; and she had to struggle\r
+against a great tendency to lowness.\r
+\r
+On quitting the Cobb, they all went in-doors with their new friends,\r
+and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart\r
+could think capable of accommodating so many. Anne had a moment's\r
+astonishment on the subject herself; but it was soon lost in the\r
+pleasanter feelings which sprang from the sight of all the ingenious\r
+contrivances and nice arrangements of Captain Harville, to turn the\r
+actual space to the best account, to supply the deficiencies of\r
+lodging-house furniture, and defend the windows and doors against the\r
+winter storms to be expected. The varieties in the fitting-up of the\r
+rooms, where the common necessaries provided by the owner, in the\r
+common indifferent plight, were contrasted with some few articles of a\r
+rare species of wood, excellently worked up, and with something curious\r
+and valuable from all the distant countries Captain Harville had\r
+visited, were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all was with\r
+his profession, the fruit of its labours, the effect of its influence\r
+on his habits, the picture of repose and domestic happiness it\r
+presented, made it to her a something more, or less, than gratification.\r
+\r
+Captain Harville was no reader; but he had contrived excellent\r
+accommodations, and fashioned very pretty shelves, for a tolerable\r
+collection of well-bound volumes, the property of Captain Benwick. His\r
+lameness prevented him from taking much exercise; but a mind of\r
+usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment\r
+within. He drew, he varnished, he carpentered, he glued; he made toys\r
+for the children; he fashioned new netting-needles and pins with\r
+improvements; and if everything else was done, sat down to his large\r
+fishing-net at one corner of the room.\r
+\r
+Anne thought she left great happiness behind her when they quitted the\r
+house; and Louisa, by whom she found herself walking, burst forth into\r
+raptures of admiration and delight on the character of the navy; their\r
+friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness;\r
+protesting that she was convinced of sailors having more worth and\r
+warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to\r
+live, and they only deserved to be respected and loved.\r
+\r
+They went back to dress and dine; and so well had the scheme answered\r
+already, that nothing was found amiss; though its being "so entirely\r
+out of season," and the "no thoroughfare of Lyme," and the "no\r
+expectation of company," had brought many apologies from the heads of\r
+the inn.\r
+\r
+Anne found herself by this time growing so much more hardened to being\r
+in Captain Wentworth's company than she had at first imagined could\r
+ever be, that the sitting down to the same table with him now, and the\r
+interchange of the common civilities attending on it (they never got\r
+beyond), was become a mere nothing.\r
+\r
+The nights were too dark for the ladies to meet again till the morrow,\r
+but Captain Harville had promised them a visit in the evening; and he\r
+came, bringing his friend also, which was more than had been expected,\r
+it having been agreed that Captain Benwick had all the appearance of\r
+being oppressed by the presence of so many strangers. He ventured\r
+among them again, however, though his spirits certainly did not seem\r
+fit for the mirth of the party in general.\r
+\r
+While Captains Wentworth and Harville led the talk on one side of the\r
+room, and by recurring to former days, supplied anecdotes in abundance\r
+to occupy and entertain the others, it fell to Anne's lot to be placed\r
+rather apart with Captain Benwick; and a very good impulse of her\r
+nature obliged her to begin an acquaintance with him. He was shy, and\r
+disposed to abstraction; but the engaging mildness of her countenance,\r
+and gentleness of her manners, soon had their effect; and Anne was well\r
+repaid the first trouble of exertion. He was evidently a young man of\r
+considerable taste in reading, though principally in poetry; and\r
+besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening's\r
+indulgence in the discussion of subjects, which his usual companions\r
+had probably no concern in, she had the hope of being of real use to\r
+him in some suggestions as to the duty and benefit of struggling\r
+against affliction, which had naturally grown out of their\r
+conversation. For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather\r
+the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and\r
+having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone\r
+through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first-rate poets,\r
+trying to ascertain whether Marmion or The Lady of the Lake were to be\r
+preferred, and how ranked the Giaour and The Bride of Abydos; and\r
+moreover, how the Giaour was to be pronounced, he showed himself so\r
+intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and\r
+all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he\r
+repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a\r
+broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so\r
+entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he\r
+did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was\r
+the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who\r
+enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could\r
+estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but\r
+sparingly.\r
+\r
+His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his\r
+situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the\r
+right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger\r
+allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to\r
+particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such\r
+collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth\r
+and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse\r
+and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest\r
+examples of moral and religious endurances.\r
+\r
+Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for the\r
+interest implied; and though with a shake of the head, and sighs which\r
+declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like\r
+his, noted down the names of those she recommended, and promised to\r
+procure and read them.\r
+\r
+When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of\r
+her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man\r
+whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more\r
+serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and\r
+preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct\r
+would ill bear examination.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 12\r
+\r
+\r
+Anne and Henrietta, finding themselves the earliest of the party the\r
+next morning, agreed to stroll down to the sea before breakfast. They\r
+went to the sands, to watch the flowing of the tide, which a fine\r
+south-easterly breeze was bringing in with all the grandeur which so\r
+flat a shore admitted. They praised the morning; gloried in the sea;\r
+sympathized in the delight of the fresh-feeling breeze--and were\r
+silent; till Henrietta suddenly began again with--\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes,--I am quite convinced that, with very few exceptions, the\r
+sea-air always does good. There can be no doubt of its having been of\r
+the greatest service to Dr Shirley, after his illness, last spring\r
+twelve-month. He declares himself, that coming to Lyme for a month,\r
+did him more good than all the medicine he took; and, that being by the\r
+sea, always makes him feel young again. Now, I cannot help thinking it\r
+a pity that he does not live entirely by the sea. I do think he had\r
+better leave Uppercross entirely, and fix at Lyme. Do not you, Anne?\r
+Do not you agree with me, that it is the best thing he could do, both\r
+for himself and Mrs Shirley? She has cousins here, you know, and many\r
+acquaintance, which would make it cheerful for her, and I am sure she\r
+would be glad to get to a place where she could have medical attendance\r
+at hand, in case of his having another seizure. Indeed I think it\r
+quite melancholy to have such excellent people as Dr and Mrs Shirley,\r
+who have been doing good all their lives, wearing out their last days\r
+in a place like Uppercross, where, excepting our family, they seem shut\r
+out from all the world. I wish his friends would propose it to him. I\r
+really think they ought. And, as to procuring a dispensation, there\r
+could be no difficulty at his time of life, and with his character. My\r
+only doubt is, whether anything could persuade him to leave his parish.\r
+He is so very strict and scrupulous in his notions; over-scrupulous I\r
+must say. Do not you think, Anne, it is being over-scrupulous? Do not\r
+you think it is quite a mistaken point of conscience, when a clergyman\r
+sacrifices his health for the sake of duties, which may be just as well\r
+performed by another person? And at Lyme too, only seventeen miles\r
+off, he would be near enough to hear, if people thought there was\r
+anything to complain of."\r
+\r
+Anne smiled more than once to herself during this speech, and entered\r
+into the subject, as ready to do good by entering into the feelings of\r
+a young lady as of a young man, though here it was good of a lower\r
+standard, for what could be offered but general acquiescence? She said\r
+all that was reasonable and proper on the business; felt the claims of\r
+Dr Shirley to repose as she ought; saw how very desirable it was that\r
+he should have some active, respectable young man, as a resident\r
+curate, and was even courteous enough to hint at the advantage of such\r
+resident curate's being married.\r
+\r
+"I wish," said Henrietta, very well pleased with her companion, "I wish\r
+Lady Russell lived at Uppercross, and were intimate with Dr Shirley. I\r
+have always heard of Lady Russell as a woman of the greatest influence\r
+with everybody! I always look upon her as able to persuade a person to\r
+anything! I am afraid of her, as I have told you before, quite afraid\r
+of her, because she is so very clever; but I respect her amazingly, and\r
+wish we had such a neighbour at Uppercross."\r
+\r
+Anne was amused by Henrietta's manner of being grateful, and amused\r
+also that the course of events and the new interests of Henrietta's\r
+views should have placed her friend at all in favour with any of the\r
+Musgrove family; she had only time, however, for a general answer, and\r
+a wish that such another woman were at Uppercross, before all subjects\r
+suddenly ceased, on seeing Louisa and Captain Wentworth coming towards\r
+them. They came also for a stroll till breakfast was likely to be\r
+ready; but Louisa recollecting, immediately afterwards that she had\r
+something to procure at a shop, invited them all to go back with her\r
+into the town. They were all at her disposal.\r
+\r
+When they came to the steps, leading upwards from the beach, a\r
+gentleman, at the same moment preparing to come down, politely drew\r
+back, and stopped to give them way. They ascended and passed him; and\r
+as they passed, Anne's face caught his eye, and he looked at her with a\r
+degree of earnest admiration, which she could not be insensible of.\r
+She was looking remarkably well; her very regular, very pretty\r
+features, having the bloom and freshness of youth restored by the fine\r
+wind which had been blowing on her complexion, and by the animation of\r
+eye which it had also produced. It was evident that the gentleman,\r
+(completely a gentleman in manner) admired her exceedingly. Captain\r
+Wentworth looked round at her instantly in a way which shewed his\r
+noticing of it. He gave her a momentary glance, a glance of\r
+brightness, which seemed to say, "That man is struck with you, and even\r
+I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again."\r
+\r
+After attending Louisa through her business, and loitering about a\r
+little longer, they returned to the inn; and Anne, in passing\r
+afterwards quickly from her own chamber to their dining-room, had\r
+nearly run against the very same gentleman, as he came out of an\r
+adjoining apartment. She had before conjectured him to be a stranger\r
+like themselves, and determined that a well-looking groom, who was\r
+strolling about near the two inns as they came back, should be his\r
+servant. Both master and man being in mourning assisted the idea. It\r
+was now proved that he belonged to the same inn as themselves; and this\r
+second meeting, short as it was, also proved again by the gentleman's\r
+looks, that he thought hers very lovely, and by the readiness and\r
+propriety of his apologies, that he was a man of exceedingly good\r
+manners. He seemed about thirty, and though not handsome, had an\r
+agreeable person. Anne felt that she should like to know who he was.\r
+\r
+They had nearly done breakfast, when the sound of a carriage, (almost\r
+the first they had heard since entering Lyme) drew half the party to\r
+the window. It was a gentleman's carriage, a curricle, but only coming\r
+round from the stable-yard to the front door; somebody must be going\r
+away. It was driven by a servant in mourning.\r
+\r
+The word curricle made Charles Musgrove jump up that he might compare\r
+it with his own; the servant in mourning roused Anne's curiosity, and\r
+the whole six were collected to look, by the time the owner of the\r
+curricle was to be seen issuing from the door amidst the bows and\r
+civilities of the household, and taking his seat, to drive off.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" cried Captain Wentworth, instantly, and with half a glance at\r
+Anne, "it is the very man we passed."\r
+\r
+The Miss Musgroves agreed to it; and having all kindly watched him as\r
+far up the hill as they could, they returned to the breakfast table.\r
+The waiter came into the room soon afterwards.\r
+\r
+"Pray," said Captain Wentworth, immediately, "can you tell us the name\r
+of the gentleman who is just gone away?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Sir, a Mr Elliot, a gentleman of large fortune, came in last\r
+night from Sidmouth. Dare say you heard the carriage, sir, while you\r
+were at dinner; and going on now for Crewkherne, in his way to Bath and\r
+London."\r
+\r
+"Elliot!" Many had looked on each other, and many had repeated the\r
+name, before all this had been got through, even by the smart rapidity\r
+of a waiter.\r
+\r
+"Bless me!" cried Mary; "it must be our cousin; it must be our Mr\r
+Elliot, it must, indeed! Charles, Anne, must not it? In mourning, you\r
+see, just as our Mr Elliot must be. How very extraordinary! In the\r
+very same inn with us! Anne, must not it be our Mr Elliot? my\r
+father's next heir? Pray sir," turning to the waiter, "did not you\r
+hear, did not his servant say whether he belonged to the Kellynch\r
+family?"\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am, he did not mention no particular family; but he said his\r
+master was a very rich gentleman, and would be a baronight some day."\r
+\r
+"There! you see!" cried Mary in an ecstasy, "just as I said! Heir to\r
+Sir Walter Elliot! I was sure that would come out, if it was so.\r
+Depend upon it, that is a circumstance which his servants take care to\r
+publish, wherever he goes. But, Anne, only conceive how extraordinary!\r
+I wish I had looked at him more. I wish we had been aware in time, who\r
+it was, that he might have been introduced to us. What a pity that we\r
+should not have been introduced to each other! Do you think he had the\r
+Elliot countenance? I hardly looked at him, I was looking at the\r
+horses; but I think he had something of the Elliot countenance, I\r
+wonder the arms did not strike me! Oh! the great-coat was hanging over\r
+the panel, and hid the arms, so it did; otherwise, I am sure, I should\r
+have observed them, and the livery too; if the servant had not been in\r
+mourning, one should have known him by the livery."\r
+\r
+"Putting all these very extraordinary circumstances together," said\r
+Captain Wentworth, "we must consider it to be the arrangement of\r
+Providence, that you should not be introduced to your cousin."\r
+\r
+When she could command Mary's attention, Anne quietly tried to convince\r
+her that their father and Mr Elliot had not, for many years, been on\r
+such terms as to make the power of attempting an introduction at all\r
+desirable.\r
+\r
+At the same time, however, it was a secret gratification to herself to\r
+have seen her cousin, and to know that the future owner of Kellynch was\r
+undoubtedly a gentleman, and had an air of good sense. She would not,\r
+upon any account, mention her having met with him the second time;\r
+luckily Mary did not much attend to their having passed close by him in\r
+their earlier walk, but she would have felt quite ill-used by Anne's\r
+having actually run against him in the passage, and received his very\r
+polite excuses, while she had never been near him at all; no, that\r
+cousinly little interview must remain a perfect secret.\r
+\r
+"Of course," said Mary, "you will mention our seeing Mr Elliot, the\r
+next time you write to Bath. I think my father certainly ought to hear\r
+of it; do mention all about him."\r
+\r
+Anne avoided a direct reply, but it was just the circumstance which she\r
+considered as not merely unnecessary to be communicated, but as what\r
+ought to be suppressed. The offence which had been given her father,\r
+many years back, she knew; Elizabeth's particular share in it she\r
+suspected; and that Mr Elliot's idea always produced irritation in both\r
+was beyond a doubt. Mary never wrote to Bath herself; all the toil of\r
+keeping up a slow and unsatisfactory correspondence with Elizabeth fell\r
+on Anne.\r
+\r
+Breakfast had not been long over, when they were joined by Captain and\r
+Mrs Harville and Captain Benwick; with whom they had appointed to take\r
+their last walk about Lyme. They ought to be setting off for\r
+Uppercross by one, and in the meanwhile were to be all together, and\r
+out of doors as long as they could.\r
+\r
+Anne found Captain Benwick getting near her, as soon as they were all\r
+fairly in the street. Their conversation the preceding evening did not\r
+disincline him to seek her again; and they walked together some time,\r
+talking as before of Mr Scott and Lord Byron, and still as unable as\r
+before, and as unable as any other two readers, to think exactly alike\r
+of the merits of either, till something occasioned an almost general\r
+change amongst their party, and instead of Captain Benwick, she had\r
+Captain Harville by her side.\r
+\r
+"Miss Elliot," said he, speaking rather low, "you have done a good deed\r
+in making that poor fellow talk so much. I wish he could have such\r
+company oftener. It is bad for him, I know, to be shut up as he is;\r
+but what can we do? We cannot part."\r
+\r
+"No," said Anne, "that I can easily believe to be impossible; but in\r
+time, perhaps--we know what time does in every case of affliction, and\r
+you must remember, Captain Harville, that your friend may yet be called\r
+a young mourner--only last summer, I understand."\r
+\r
+"Ay, true enough," (with a deep sigh) "only June."\r
+\r
+"And not known to him, perhaps, so soon."\r
+\r
+"Not till the first week of August, when he came home from the Cape,\r
+just made into the Grappler. I was at Plymouth dreading to hear of\r
+him; he sent in letters, but the Grappler was under orders for\r
+Portsmouth. There the news must follow him, but who was to tell it?\r
+not I. I would as soon have been run up to the yard-arm. Nobody could\r
+do it, but that good fellow" (pointing to Captain Wentworth.) "The\r
+Laconia had come into Plymouth the week before; no danger of her being\r
+sent to sea again. He stood his chance for the rest; wrote up for\r
+leave of absence, but without waiting the return, travelled night and\r
+day till he got to Portsmouth, rowed off to the Grappler that instant,\r
+and never left the poor fellow for a week. That's what he did, and\r
+nobody else could have saved poor James. You may think, Miss Elliot,\r
+whether he is dear to us!"\r
+\r
+Anne did think on the question with perfect decision, and said as much\r
+in reply as her own feeling could accomplish, or as his seemed able to\r
+bear, for he was too much affected to renew the subject, and when he\r
+spoke again, it was of something totally different.\r
+\r
+Mrs Harville's giving it as her opinion that her husband would have\r
+quite walking enough by the time he reached home, determined the\r
+direction of all the party in what was to be their last walk; they\r
+would accompany them to their door, and then return and set off\r
+themselves. By all their calculations there was just time for this;\r
+but as they drew near the Cobb, there was such a general wish to walk\r
+along it once more, all were so inclined, and Louisa soon grew so\r
+determined, that the difference of a quarter of an hour, it was found,\r
+would be no difference at all; so with all the kind leave-taking, and\r
+all the kind interchange of invitations and promises which may be\r
+imagined, they parted from Captain and Mrs Harville at their own door,\r
+and still accompanied by Captain Benwick, who seemed to cling to them\r
+to the last, proceeded to make the proper adieus to the Cobb.\r
+\r
+Anne found Captain Benwick again drawing near her. Lord Byron's "dark\r
+blue seas" could not fail of being brought forward by their present\r
+view, and she gladly gave him all her attention as long as attention\r
+was possible. It was soon drawn, perforce another way.\r
+\r
+There was too much wind to make the high part of the new Cobb pleasant\r
+for the ladies, and they agreed to get down the steps to the lower, and\r
+all were contented to pass quietly and carefully down the steep flight,\r
+excepting Louisa; she must be jumped down them by Captain Wentworth.\r
+In all their walks, he had had to jump her from the stiles; the\r
+sensation was delightful to her. The hardness of the pavement for her\r
+feet, made him less willing upon the present occasion; he did it,\r
+however. She was safely down, and instantly, to show her enjoyment,\r
+ran up the steps to be jumped down again. He advised her against it,\r
+thought the jar too great; but no, he reasoned and talked in vain, she\r
+smiled and said, "I am determined I will:" he put out his hands; she\r
+was too precipitate by half a second, she fell on the pavement on the\r
+Lower Cobb, and was taken up lifeless! There was no wound, no blood,\r
+no visible bruise; but her eyes were closed, she breathed not, her face\r
+was like death. The horror of the moment to all who stood around!\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth, who had caught her up, knelt with her in his arms,\r
+looking on her with a face as pallid as her own, in an agony of\r
+silence. "She is dead! she is dead!" screamed Mary, catching hold of\r
+her husband, and contributing with his own horror to make him\r
+immoveable; and in another moment, Henrietta, sinking under the\r
+conviction, lost her senses too, and would have fallen on the steps,\r
+but for Captain Benwick and Anne, who caught and supported her between\r
+them.\r
+\r
+"Is there no one to help me?" were the first words which burst from\r
+Captain Wentworth, in a tone of despair, and as if all his own strength\r
+were gone.\r
+\r
+"Go to him, go to him," cried Anne, "for heaven's sake go to him. I\r
+can support her myself. Leave me, and go to him. Rub her hands, rub\r
+her temples; here are salts; take them, take them."\r
+\r
+Captain Benwick obeyed, and Charles at the same moment, disengaging\r
+himself from his wife, they were both with him; and Louisa was raised\r
+up and supported more firmly between them, and everything was done that\r
+Anne had prompted, but in vain; while Captain Wentworth, staggering\r
+against the wall for his support, exclaimed in the bitterest agony--\r
+\r
+"Oh God! her father and mother!"\r
+\r
+"A surgeon!" said Anne.\r
+\r
+He caught the word; it seemed to rouse him at once, and saying only--\r
+"True, true, a surgeon this instant," was darting away, when Anne\r
+eagerly suggested--\r
+\r
+"Captain Benwick, would not it be better for Captain Benwick? He knows\r
+where a surgeon is to be found."\r
+\r
+Every one capable of thinking felt the advantage of the idea, and in a\r
+moment (it was all done in rapid moments) Captain Benwick had resigned\r
+the poor corpse-like figure entirely to the brother's care, and was\r
+off for the town with the utmost rapidity.\r
+\r
+As to the wretched party left behind, it could scarcely be said which\r
+of the three, who were completely rational, was suffering most: Captain\r
+Wentworth, Anne, or Charles, who, really a very affectionate brother,\r
+hung over Louisa with sobs of grief, and could only turn his eyes from\r
+one sister, to see the other in a state as insensible, or to witness\r
+the hysterical agitations of his wife, calling on him for help which he\r
+could not give.\r
+\r
+Anne, attending with all the strength and zeal, and thought, which\r
+instinct supplied, to Henrietta, still tried, at intervals, to suggest\r
+comfort to the others, tried to quiet Mary, to animate Charles, to\r
+assuage the feelings of Captain Wentworth. Both seemed to look to her\r
+for directions.\r
+\r
+"Anne, Anne," cried Charles, "What is to be done next? What, in\r
+heaven's name, is to be done next?"\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth's eyes were also turned towards her.\r
+\r
+"Had not she better be carried to the inn? Yes, I am sure: carry her\r
+gently to the inn."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, to the inn," repeated Captain Wentworth, comparatively\r
+collected, and eager to be doing something. "I will carry her myself.\r
+Musgrove, take care of the others."\r
+\r
+By this time the report of the accident had spread among the workmen\r
+and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be\r
+useful if wanted, at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady,\r
+nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first\r
+report. To some of the best-looking of these good people Henrietta was\r
+consigned, for, though partially revived, she was quite helpless; and\r
+in this manner, Anne walking by her side, and Charles attending to his\r
+wife, they set forward, treading back with feelings unutterable, the\r
+ground, which so lately, so very lately, and so light of heart, they\r
+had passed along.\r
+\r
+They were not off the Cobb, before the Harvilles met them. Captain\r
+Benwick had been seen flying by their house, with a countenance which\r
+showed something to be wrong; and they had set off immediately,\r
+informed and directed as they passed, towards the spot. Shocked as\r
+Captain Harville was, he brought senses and nerves that could be\r
+instantly useful; and a look between him and his wife decided what was\r
+to be done. She must be taken to their house; all must go to their\r
+house; and await the surgeon's arrival there. They would not listen to\r
+scruples: he was obeyed; they were all beneath his roof; and while\r
+Louisa, under Mrs Harville's direction, was conveyed up stairs, and\r
+given possession of her own bed, assistance, cordials, restoratives\r
+were supplied by her husband to all who needed them.\r
+\r
+Louisa had once opened her eyes, but soon closed them again, without\r
+apparent consciousness. This had been a proof of life, however, of\r
+service to her sister; and Henrietta, though perfectly incapable of\r
+being in the same room with Louisa, was kept, by the agitation of hope\r
+and fear, from a return of her own insensibility. Mary, too, was\r
+growing calmer.\r
+\r
+The surgeon was with them almost before it had seemed possible. They\r
+were sick with horror, while he examined; but he was not hopeless. The\r
+head had received a severe contusion, but he had seen greater injuries\r
+recovered from: he was by no means hopeless; he spoke cheerfully.\r
+\r
+That he did not regard it as a desperate case, that he did not say a\r
+few hours must end it, was at first felt, beyond the hope of most; and\r
+the ecstasy of such a reprieve, the rejoicing, deep and silent, after a\r
+few fervent ejaculations of gratitude to Heaven had been offered, may\r
+be conceived.\r
+\r
+The tone, the look, with which "Thank God!" was uttered by Captain\r
+Wentworth, Anne was sure could never be forgotten by her; nor the sight\r
+of him afterwards, as he sat near a table, leaning over it with folded\r
+arms and face concealed, as if overpowered by the various feelings of\r
+his soul, and trying by prayer and reflection to calm them.\r
+\r
+Louisa's limbs had escaped. There was no injury but to the head.\r
+\r
+It now became necessary for the party to consider what was best to be\r
+done, as to their general situation. They were now able to speak to\r
+each other and consult. That Louisa must remain where she was, however\r
+distressing to her friends to be involving the Harvilles in such\r
+trouble, did not admit a doubt. Her removal was impossible. The\r
+Harvilles silenced all scruples; and, as much as they could, all\r
+gratitude. They had looked forward and arranged everything before the\r
+others began to reflect. Captain Benwick must give up his room to\r
+them, and get another bed elsewhere; and the whole was settled. They\r
+were only concerned that the house could accommodate no more; and yet\r
+perhaps, by "putting the children away in the maid's room, or swinging\r
+a cot somewhere," they could hardly bear to think of not finding room\r
+for two or three besides, supposing they might wish to stay; though,\r
+with regard to any attendance on Miss Musgrove, there need not be the\r
+least uneasiness in leaving her to Mrs Harville's care entirely. Mrs\r
+Harville was a very experienced nurse, and her nursery-maid, who had\r
+lived with her long, and gone about with her everywhere, was just such\r
+another. Between these two, she could want no possible attendance by\r
+day or night. And all this was said with a truth and sincerity of\r
+feeling irresistible.\r
+\r
+Charles, Henrietta, and Captain Wentworth were the three in\r
+consultation, and for a little while it was only an interchange of\r
+perplexity and terror. "Uppercross, the necessity of some one's going\r
+to Uppercross; the news to be conveyed; how it could be broken to Mr\r
+and Mrs Musgrove; the lateness of the morning; an hour already gone\r
+since they ought to have been off; the impossibility of being in\r
+tolerable time." At first, they were capable of nothing more to the\r
+purpose than such exclamations; but, after a while, Captain Wentworth,\r
+exerting himself, said--\r
+\r
+"We must be decided, and without the loss of another minute. Every\r
+minute is valuable. Some one must resolve on being off for Uppercross\r
+instantly. Musgrove, either you or I must go."\r
+\r
+Charles agreed, but declared his resolution of not going away. He\r
+would be as little incumbrance as possible to Captain and Mrs Harville;\r
+but as to leaving his sister in such a state, he neither ought, nor\r
+would. So far it was decided; and Henrietta at first declared the\r
+same. She, however, was soon persuaded to think differently. The\r
+usefulness of her staying! She who had not been able to remain in\r
+Louisa's room, or to look at her, without sufferings which made her\r
+worse than helpless! She was forced to acknowledge that she could do\r
+no good, yet was still unwilling to be away, till, touched by the\r
+thought of her father and mother, she gave it up; she consented, she\r
+was anxious to be at home.\r
+\r
+The plan had reached this point, when Anne, coming quietly down from\r
+Louisa's room, could not but hear what followed, for the parlour door\r
+was open.\r
+\r
+"Then it is settled, Musgrove," cried Captain Wentworth, "that you\r
+stay, and that I take care of your sister home. But as to the rest, as\r
+to the others, if one stays to assist Mrs Harville, I think it need be\r
+only one. Mrs Charles Musgrove will, of course, wish to get back to\r
+her children; but if Anne will stay, no one so proper, so capable as\r
+Anne."\r
+\r
+She paused a moment to recover from the emotion of hearing herself so\r
+spoken of. The other two warmly agreed with what he said, and she then\r
+appeared.\r
+\r
+"You will stay, I am sure; you will stay and nurse her;" cried he,\r
+turning to her and speaking with a glow, and yet a gentleness, which\r
+seemed almost restoring the past. She coloured deeply, and he\r
+recollected himself and moved away. She expressed herself most\r
+willing, ready, happy to remain. "It was what she had been thinking\r
+of, and wishing to be allowed to do. A bed on the floor in Louisa's\r
+room would be sufficient for her, if Mrs Harville would but think so."\r
+\r
+One thing more, and all seemed arranged. Though it was rather\r
+desirable that Mr and Mrs Musgrove should be previously alarmed by some\r
+share of delay; yet the time required by the Uppercross horses to take\r
+them back, would be a dreadful extension of suspense; and Captain\r
+Wentworth proposed, and Charles Musgrove agreed, that it would be much\r
+better for him to take a chaise from the inn, and leave Mr Musgrove's\r
+carriage and horses to be sent home the next morning early, when there\r
+would be the farther advantage of sending an account of Louisa's night.\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth now hurried off to get everything ready on his part,\r
+and to be soon followed by the two ladies. When the plan was made\r
+known to Mary, however, there was an end of all peace in it. She was\r
+so wretched and so vehement, complained so much of injustice in being\r
+expected to go away instead of Anne; Anne, who was nothing to Louisa,\r
+while she was her sister, and had the best right to stay in Henrietta's\r
+stead! Why was not she to be as useful as Anne? And to go home\r
+without Charles, too, without her husband! No, it was too unkind. And\r
+in short, she said more than her husband could long withstand, and as\r
+none of the others could oppose when he gave way, there was no help for\r
+it; the change of Mary for Anne was inevitable.\r
+\r
+Anne had never submitted more reluctantly to the jealous and\r
+ill-judging claims of Mary; but so it must be, and they set off for the\r
+town, Charles taking care of his sister, and Captain Benwick attending\r
+to her. She gave a moment's recollection, as they hurried along, to\r
+the little circumstances which the same spots had witnessed earlier in\r
+the morning. There she had listened to Henrietta's schemes for Dr\r
+Shirley's leaving Uppercross; farther on, she had first seen Mr Elliot;\r
+a moment seemed all that could now be given to any one but Louisa, or\r
+those who were wrapt up in her welfare.\r
+\r
+Captain Benwick was most considerately attentive to her; and, united as\r
+they all seemed by the distress of the day, she felt an increasing\r
+degree of good-will towards him, and a pleasure even in thinking that\r
+it might, perhaps, be the occasion of continuing their acquaintance.\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth was on the watch for them, and a chaise and four in\r
+waiting, stationed for their convenience in the lowest part of the\r
+street; but his evident surprise and vexation at the substitution of\r
+one sister for the other, the change in his countenance, the\r
+astonishment, the expressions begun and suppressed, with which Charles\r
+was listened to, made but a mortifying reception of Anne; or must at\r
+least convince her that she was valued only as she could be useful to\r
+Louisa.\r
+\r
+She endeavoured to be composed, and to be just. Without emulating the\r
+feelings of an Emma towards her Henry, she would have attended on\r
+Louisa with a zeal above the common claims of regard, for his sake; and\r
+she hoped he would not long be so unjust as to suppose she would shrink\r
+unnecessarily from the office of a friend.\r
+\r
+In the meanwhile she was in the carriage. He had handed them both in,\r
+and placed himself between them; and in this manner, under these\r
+circumstances, full of astonishment and emotion to Anne, she quitted\r
+Lyme. How the long stage would pass; how it was to affect their\r
+manners; what was to be their sort of intercourse, she could not\r
+foresee. It was all quite natural, however. He was devoted to\r
+Henrietta; always turning towards her; and when he spoke at all, always\r
+with the view of supporting her hopes and raising her spirits. In\r
+general, his voice and manner were studiously calm. To spare Henrietta\r
+from agitation seemed the governing principle. Once only, when she had\r
+been grieving over the last ill-judged, ill-fated walk to the Cobb,\r
+bitterly lamenting that it ever had been thought of, he burst forth, as\r
+if wholly overcome--\r
+\r
+"Don't talk of it, don't talk of it," he cried. "Oh God! that I had\r
+not given way to her at the fatal moment! Had I done as I ought! But\r
+so eager and so resolute! Dear, sweet Louisa!"\r
+\r
+Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the\r
+justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and\r
+advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him\r
+that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its\r
+proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to\r
+feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of\r
+happiness as a very resolute character.\r
+\r
+They got on fast. Anne was astonished to recognise the same hills and\r
+the same objects so soon. Their actual speed, heightened by some dread\r
+of the conclusion, made the road appear but half as long as on the day\r
+before. It was growing quite dusk, however, before they were in the\r
+neighbourhood of Uppercross, and there had been total silence among\r
+them for some time, Henrietta leaning back in the corner, with a shawl\r
+over her face, giving the hope of her having cried herself to sleep;\r
+when, as they were going up their last hill, Anne found herself all at\r
+once addressed by Captain Wentworth. In a low, cautious voice, he\r
+said:--\r
+\r
+"I have been considering what we had best do. She must not appear at\r
+first. She could not stand it. I have been thinking whether you had\r
+not better remain in the carriage with her, while I go in and break it\r
+to Mr and Mrs Musgrove. Do you think this is a good plan?"\r
+\r
+She did: he was satisfied, and said no more. But the remembrance of\r
+the appeal remained a pleasure to her, as a proof of friendship, and of\r
+deference for her judgement, a great pleasure; and when it became a\r
+sort of parting proof, its value did not lessen.\r
+\r
+When the distressing communication at Uppercross was over, and he had\r
+seen the father and mother quite as composed as could be hoped, and the\r
+daughter all the better for being with them, he announced his intention\r
+of returning in the same carriage to Lyme; and when the horses were\r
+baited, he was off.\r
+\r
+(End of volume one.)\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 13\r
+\r
+\r
+The remainder of Anne's time at Uppercross, comprehending only two\r
+days, was spent entirely at the Mansion House; and she had the\r
+satisfaction of knowing herself extremely useful there, both as an\r
+immediate companion, and as assisting in all those arrangements for the\r
+future, which, in Mr and Mrs Musgrove's distressed state of spirits,\r
+would have been difficulties.\r
+\r
+They had an early account from Lyme the next morning. Louisa was much\r
+the same. No symptoms worse than before had appeared. Charles came a\r
+few hours afterwards, to bring a later and more particular account. He\r
+was tolerably cheerful. A speedy cure must not be hoped, but\r
+everything was going on as well as the nature of the case admitted. In\r
+speaking of the Harvilles, he seemed unable to satisfy his own sense of\r
+their kindness, especially of Mrs Harville's exertions as a nurse.\r
+"She really left nothing for Mary to do. He and Mary had been\r
+persuaded to go early to their inn last night. Mary had been\r
+hysterical again this morning. When he came away, she was going to\r
+walk out with Captain Benwick, which, he hoped, would do her good. He\r
+almost wished she had been prevailed on to come home the day before;\r
+but the truth was, that Mrs Harville left nothing for anybody to do."\r
+\r
+Charles was to return to Lyme the same afternoon, and his father had at\r
+first half a mind to go with him, but the ladies could not consent. It\r
+would be going only to multiply trouble to the others, and increase his\r
+own distress; and a much better scheme followed and was acted upon. A\r
+chaise was sent for from Crewkherne, and Charles conveyed back a far\r
+more useful person in the old nursery-maid of the family, one who\r
+having brought up all the children, and seen the very last, the\r
+lingering and long-petted Master Harry, sent to school after his\r
+brothers, was now living in her deserted nursery to mend stockings and\r
+dress all the blains and bruises she could get near her, and who,\r
+consequently, was only too happy in being allowed to go and help nurse\r
+dear Miss Louisa. Vague wishes of getting Sarah thither, had occurred\r
+before to Mrs Musgrove and Henrietta; but without Anne, it would hardly\r
+have been resolved on, and found practicable so soon.\r
+\r
+They were indebted, the next day, to Charles Hayter, for all the minute\r
+knowledge of Louisa, which it was so essential to obtain every\r
+twenty-four hours. He made it his business to go to Lyme, and his\r
+account was still encouraging. The intervals of sense and\r
+consciousness were believed to be stronger. Every report agreed in\r
+Captain Wentworth's appearing fixed in Lyme.\r
+\r
+Anne was to leave them on the morrow, an event which they all dreaded.\r
+"What should they do without her? They were wretched comforters for\r
+one another." And so much was said in this way, that Anne thought she\r
+could not do better than impart among them the general inclination to\r
+which she was privy, and persuaded them all to go to Lyme at once. She\r
+had little difficulty; it was soon determined that they would go; go\r
+to-morrow, fix themselves at the inn, or get into lodgings, as it\r
+suited, and there remain till dear Louisa could be moved. They must be\r
+taking off some trouble from the good people she was with; they might\r
+at least relieve Mrs Harville from the care of her own children; and in\r
+short, they were so happy in the decision, that Anne was delighted with\r
+what she had done, and felt that she could not spend her last morning\r
+at Uppercross better than in assisting their preparations, and sending\r
+them off at an early hour, though her being left to the solitary range\r
+of the house was the consequence.\r
+\r
+She was the last, excepting the little boys at the cottage, she was the\r
+very last, the only remaining one of all that had filled and animated\r
+both houses, of all that had given Uppercross its cheerful character.\r
+A few days had made a change indeed!\r
+\r
+If Louisa recovered, it would all be well again. More than former\r
+happiness would be restored. There could not be a doubt, to her mind\r
+there was none, of what would follow her recovery. A few months hence,\r
+and the room now so deserted, occupied but by her silent, pensive self,\r
+might be filled again with all that was happy and gay, all that was\r
+glowing and bright in prosperous love, all that was most unlike Anne\r
+Elliot!\r
+\r
+An hour's complete leisure for such reflections as these, on a dark\r
+November day, a small thick rain almost blotting out the very few\r
+objects ever to be discerned from the windows, was enough to make the\r
+sound of Lady Russell's carriage exceedingly welcome; and yet, though\r
+desirous to be gone, she could not quit the Mansion House, or look an\r
+adieu to the Cottage, with its black, dripping and comfortless veranda,\r
+or even notice through the misty glasses the last humble tenements of\r
+the village, without a saddened heart. Scenes had passed in Uppercross\r
+which made it precious. It stood the record of many sensations of\r
+pain, once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting\r
+feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could\r
+never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear. She\r
+left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had\r
+been.\r
+\r
+Anne had never entered Kellynch since her quitting Lady Russell's house\r
+in September. It had not been necessary, and the few occasions of its\r
+being possible for her to go to the Hall she had contrived to evade and\r
+escape from. Her first return was to resume her place in the modern\r
+and elegant apartments of the Lodge, and to gladden the eyes of its\r
+mistress.\r
+\r
+There was some anxiety mixed with Lady Russell's joy in meeting her.\r
+She knew who had been frequenting Uppercross. But happily, either Anne\r
+was improved in plumpness and looks, or Lady Russell fancied her so;\r
+and Anne, in receiving her compliments on the occasion, had the\r
+amusement of connecting them with the silent admiration of her cousin,\r
+and of hoping that she was to be blessed with a second spring of youth\r
+and beauty.\r
+\r
+When they came to converse, she was soon sensible of some mental\r
+change. The subjects of which her heart had been full on leaving\r
+Kellynch, and which she had felt slighted, and been compelled to\r
+smother among the Musgroves, were now become but of secondary interest.\r
+She had lately lost sight even of her father and sister and Bath.\r
+Their concerns had been sunk under those of Uppercross; and when Lady\r
+Russell reverted to their former hopes and fears, and spoke her\r
+satisfaction in the house in Camden Place, which had been taken, and\r
+her regret that Mrs Clay should still be with them, Anne would have\r
+been ashamed to have it known how much more she was thinking of Lyme\r
+and Louisa Musgrove, and all her acquaintance there; how much more\r
+interesting to her was the home and the friendship of the Harvilles and\r
+Captain Benwick, than her own father's house in Camden Place, or her\r
+own sister's intimacy with Mrs Clay. She was actually forced to exert\r
+herself to meet Lady Russell with anything like the appearance of equal\r
+solicitude, on topics which had by nature the first claim on her.\r
+\r
+There was a little awkwardness at first in their discourse on another\r
+subject. They must speak of the accident at Lyme. Lady Russell had\r
+not been arrived five minutes the day before, when a full account of\r
+the whole had burst on her; but still it must be talked of, she must\r
+make enquiries, she must regret the imprudence, lament the result, and\r
+Captain Wentworth's name must be mentioned by both. Anne was conscious\r
+of not doing it so well as Lady Russell. She could not speak the name,\r
+and look straight forward to Lady Russell's eye, till she had adopted\r
+the expedient of telling her briefly what she thought of the attachment\r
+between him and Louisa. When this was told, his name distressed her no\r
+longer.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell had only to listen composedly, and wish them happy, but\r
+internally her heart revelled in angry pleasure, in pleased contempt,\r
+that the man who at twenty-three had seemed to understand somewhat of\r
+the value of an Anne Elliot, should, eight years afterwards, be charmed\r
+by a Louisa Musgrove.\r
+\r
+The first three or four days passed most quietly, with no circumstance\r
+to mark them excepting the receipt of a note or two from Lyme, which\r
+found their way to Anne, she could not tell how, and brought a rather\r
+improving account of Louisa. At the end of that period, Lady Russell's\r
+politeness could repose no longer, and the fainter self-threatenings of\r
+the past became in a decided tone, "I must call on Mrs Croft; I really\r
+must call upon her soon. Anne, have you courage to go with me, and pay\r
+a visit in that house? It will be some trial to us both."\r
+\r
+Anne did not shrink from it; on the contrary, she truly felt as she\r
+said, in observing--\r
+\r
+"I think you are very likely to suffer the most of the two; your\r
+feelings are less reconciled to the change than mine. By remaining in\r
+the neighbourhood, I am become inured to it."\r
+\r
+She could have said more on the subject; for she had in fact so high an\r
+opinion of the Crofts, and considered her father so very fortunate in\r
+his tenants, felt the parish to be so sure of a good example, and the\r
+poor of the best attention and relief, that however sorry and ashamed\r
+for the necessity of the removal, she could not but in conscience feel\r
+that they were gone who deserved not to stay, and that Kellynch Hall\r
+had passed into better hands than its owners'. These convictions must\r
+unquestionably have their own pain, and severe was its kind; but they\r
+precluded that pain which Lady Russell would suffer in entering the\r
+house again, and returning through the well-known apartments.\r
+\r
+In such moments Anne had no power of saying to herself, "These rooms\r
+ought to belong only to us. Oh, how fallen in their destination! How\r
+unworthily occupied! An ancient family to be so driven away!\r
+Strangers filling their place!" No, except when she thought of her\r
+mother, and remembered where she had been used to sit and preside, she\r
+had no sigh of that description to heave.\r
+\r
+Mrs Croft always met her with a kindness which gave her the pleasure of\r
+fancying herself a favourite, and on the present occasion, receiving\r
+her in that house, there was particular attention.\r
+\r
+The sad accident at Lyme was soon the prevailing topic, and on\r
+comparing their latest accounts of the invalid, it appeared that each\r
+lady dated her intelligence from the same hour of yestermorn; that\r
+Captain Wentworth had been in Kellynch yesterday (the first time since\r
+the accident), had brought Anne the last note, which she had not been\r
+able to trace the exact steps of; had staid a few hours and then\r
+returned again to Lyme, and without any present intention of quitting\r
+it any more. He had enquired after her, she found, particularly; had\r
+expressed his hope of Miss Elliot's not being the worse for her\r
+exertions, and had spoken of those exertions as great. This was\r
+handsome, and gave her more pleasure than almost anything else could\r
+have done.\r
+\r
+As to the sad catastrophe itself, it could be canvassed only in one\r
+style by a couple of steady, sensible women, whose judgements had to\r
+work on ascertained events; and it was perfectly decided that it had\r
+been the consequence of much thoughtlessness and much imprudence; that\r
+its effects were most alarming, and that it was frightful to think, how\r
+long Miss Musgrove's recovery might yet be doubtful, and how liable she\r
+would still remain to suffer from the concussion hereafter! The\r
+Admiral wound it up summarily by exclaiming--\r
+\r
+"Ay, a very bad business indeed. A new sort of way this, for a young\r
+fellow to be making love, by breaking his mistress's head, is not it,\r
+Miss Elliot? This is breaking a head and giving a plaster, truly!"\r
+\r
+Admiral Croft's manners were not quite of the tone to suit Lady\r
+Russell, but they delighted Anne. His goodness of heart and simplicity\r
+of character were irresistible.\r
+\r
+"Now, this must be very bad for you," said he, suddenly rousing from a\r
+little reverie, "to be coming and finding us here. I had not\r
+recollected it before, I declare, but it must be very bad. But now, do\r
+not stand upon ceremony. Get up and go over all the rooms in the house\r
+if you like it."\r
+\r
+"Another time, Sir, I thank you, not now."\r
+\r
+"Well, whenever it suits you. You can slip in from the shrubbery at\r
+any time; and there you will find we keep our umbrellas hanging up by\r
+that door. A good place is not it? But," (checking himself), "you\r
+will not think it a good place, for yours were always kept in the\r
+butler's room. Ay, so it always is, I believe. One man's ways may be\r
+as good as another's, but we all like our own best. And so you must\r
+judge for yourself, whether it would be better for you to go about the\r
+house or not."\r
+\r
+Anne, finding she might decline it, did so, very gratefully.\r
+\r
+"We have made very few changes either," continued the Admiral, after\r
+thinking a moment. "Very few. We told you about the laundry-door, at\r
+Uppercross. That has been a very great improvement. The wonder was,\r
+how any family upon earth could bear with the inconvenience of its\r
+opening as it did, so long! You will tell Sir Walter what we have\r
+done, and that Mr Shepherd thinks it the greatest improvement the house\r
+ever had. Indeed, I must do ourselves the justice to say, that the few\r
+alterations we have made have been all very much for the better. My\r
+wife should have the credit of them, however. I have done very little\r
+besides sending away some of the large looking-glasses from my\r
+dressing-room, which was your father's. A very good man, and very much\r
+the gentleman I am sure: but I should think, Miss Elliot," (looking\r
+with serious reflection), "I should think he must be rather a dressy\r
+man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord!\r
+there was no getting away from one's self. So I got Sophy to lend me a\r
+hand, and we soon shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with\r
+my little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing that I\r
+never go near."\r
+\r
+Anne, amused in spite of herself, was rather distressed for an answer,\r
+and the Admiral, fearing he might not have been civil enough, took up\r
+the subject again, to say--\r
+\r
+"The next time you write to your good father, Miss Elliot, pray give\r
+him my compliments and Mrs Croft's, and say that we are settled here\r
+quite to our liking, and have no fault at all to find with the place.\r
+The breakfast-room chimney smokes a little, I grant you, but it is only\r
+when the wind is due north and blows hard, which may not happen three\r
+times a winter. And take it altogether, now that we have been into\r
+most of the houses hereabouts and can judge, there is not one that we\r
+like better than this. Pray say so, with my compliments. He will be\r
+glad to hear it."\r
+\r
+Lady Russell and Mrs Croft were very well pleased with each other: but\r
+the acquaintance which this visit began was fated not to proceed far at\r
+present; for when it was returned, the Crofts announced themselves to\r
+be going away for a few weeks, to visit their connexions in the north\r
+of the county, and probably might not be at home again before Lady\r
+Russell would be removing to Bath.\r
+\r
+So ended all danger to Anne of meeting Captain Wentworth at Kellynch\r
+Hall, or of seeing him in company with her friend. Everything was safe\r
+enough, and she smiled over the many anxious feelings she had wasted on\r
+the subject.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 14\r
+\r
+\r
+Though Charles and Mary had remained at Lyme much longer after Mr and\r
+Mrs Musgrove's going than Anne conceived they could have been at all\r
+wanted, they were yet the first of the family to be at home again; and\r
+as soon as possible after their return to Uppercross they drove over to\r
+the Lodge. They had left Louisa beginning to sit up; but her head,\r
+though clear, was exceedingly weak, and her nerves susceptible to the\r
+highest extreme of tenderness; and though she might be pronounced to be\r
+altogether doing very well, it was still impossible to say when she\r
+might be able to bear the removal home; and her father and mother, who\r
+must return in time to receive their younger children for the Christmas\r
+holidays, had hardly a hope of being allowed to bring her with them.\r
+\r
+They had been all in lodgings together. Mrs Musgrove had got Mrs\r
+Harville's children away as much as she could, every possible supply\r
+from Uppercross had been furnished, to lighten the inconvenience to the\r
+Harvilles, while the Harvilles had been wanting them to come to dinner\r
+every day; and in short, it seemed to have been only a struggle on each\r
+side as to which should be most disinterested and hospitable.\r
+\r
+Mary had had her evils; but upon the whole, as was evident by her\r
+staying so long, she had found more to enjoy than to suffer. Charles\r
+Hayter had been at Lyme oftener than suited her; and when they dined\r
+with the Harvilles there had been only a maid-servant to wait, and at\r
+first Mrs Harville had always given Mrs Musgrove precedence; but then,\r
+she had received so very handsome an apology from her on finding out\r
+whose daughter she was, and there had been so much going on every day,\r
+there had been so many walks between their lodgings and the Harvilles,\r
+and she had got books from the library, and changed them so often, that\r
+the balance had certainly been much in favour of Lyme. She had been\r
+taken to Charmouth too, and she had bathed, and she had gone to church,\r
+and there were a great many more people to look at in the church at\r
+Lyme than at Uppercross; and all this, joined to the sense of being so\r
+very useful, had made really an agreeable fortnight.\r
+\r
+Anne enquired after Captain Benwick. Mary's face was clouded directly.\r
+Charles laughed.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Captain Benwick is very well, I believe, but he is a very odd\r
+young man. I do not know what he would be at. We asked him to come\r
+home with us for a day or two: Charles undertook to give him some\r
+shooting, and he seemed quite delighted, and, for my part, I thought it\r
+was all settled; when behold! on Tuesday night, he made a very awkward\r
+sort of excuse; 'he never shot' and he had 'been quite misunderstood,'\r
+and he had promised this and he had promised that, and the end of it\r
+was, I found, that he did not mean to come. I suppose he was afraid of\r
+finding it dull; but upon my word I should have thought we were lively\r
+enough at the Cottage for such a heart-broken man as Captain Benwick."\r
+\r
+Charles laughed again and said, "Now Mary, you know very well how it\r
+really was. It was all your doing," (turning to Anne.) "He fancied\r
+that if he went with us, he should find you close by: he fancied\r
+everybody to be living in Uppercross; and when he discovered that Lady\r
+Russell lived three miles off, his heart failed him, and he had not\r
+courage to come. That is the fact, upon my honour. Mary knows it is."\r
+\r
+But Mary did not give into it very graciously, whether from not\r
+considering Captain Benwick entitled by birth and situation to be in\r
+love with an Elliot, or from not wanting to believe Anne a greater\r
+attraction to Uppercross than herself, must be left to be guessed.\r
+Anne's good-will, however, was not to be lessened by what she heard.\r
+She boldly acknowledged herself flattered, and continued her enquiries.\r
+\r
+"Oh! he talks of you," cried Charles, "in such terms--" Mary\r
+interrupted him. "I declare, Charles, I never heard him mention Anne\r
+twice all the time I was there. I declare, Anne, he never talks of you\r
+at all."\r
+\r
+"No," admitted Charles, "I do not know that he ever does, in a general\r
+way; but however, it is a very clear thing that he admires you\r
+exceedingly. His head is full of some books that he is reading upon\r
+your recommendation, and he wants to talk to you about them; he has\r
+found out something or other in one of them which he thinks--oh! I\r
+cannot pretend to remember it, but it was something very fine--I\r
+overheard him telling Henrietta all about it; and then 'Miss Elliot'\r
+was spoken of in the highest terms! Now Mary, I declare it was so, I\r
+heard it myself, and you were in the other room. 'Elegance, sweetness,\r
+beauty.' Oh! there was no end of Miss Elliot's charms."\r
+\r
+"And I am sure," cried Mary, warmly, "it was a very little to his\r
+credit, if he did. Miss Harville only died last June. Such a heart is\r
+very little worth having; is it, Lady Russell? I am sure you will\r
+agree with me."\r
+\r
+"I must see Captain Benwick before I decide," said Lady Russell,\r
+smiling.\r
+\r
+"And that you are very likely to do very soon, I can tell you, ma'am,"\r
+said Charles. "Though he had not nerves for coming away with us, and\r
+setting off again afterwards to pay a formal visit here, he will make\r
+his way over to Kellynch one day by himself, you may depend on it. I\r
+told him the distance and the road, and I told him of the church's\r
+being so very well worth seeing; for as he has a taste for those sort\r
+of things, I thought that would be a good excuse, and he listened with\r
+all his understanding and soul; and I am sure from his manner that you\r
+will have him calling here soon. So, I give you notice, Lady Russell."\r
+\r
+"Any acquaintance of Anne's will always be welcome to me," was Lady\r
+Russell's kind answer.\r
+\r
+"Oh! as to being Anne's acquaintance," said Mary, "I think he is rather\r
+my acquaintance, for I have been seeing him every day this last\r
+fortnight."\r
+\r
+"Well, as your joint acquaintance, then, I shall be very happy to see\r
+Captain Benwick."\r
+\r
+"You will not find anything very agreeable in him, I assure you, ma'am.\r
+He is one of the dullest young men that ever lived. He has walked with\r
+me, sometimes, from one end of the sands to the other, without saying a\r
+word. He is not at all a well-bred young man. I am sure you will not\r
+like him."\r
+\r
+"There we differ, Mary," said Anne. "I think Lady Russell would like\r
+him. I think she would be so much pleased with his mind, that she\r
+would very soon see no deficiency in his manner."\r
+\r
+"So do I, Anne," said Charles. "I am sure Lady Russell would like him.\r
+He is just Lady Russell's sort. Give him a book, and he will read all\r
+day long."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that he will!" exclaimed Mary, tauntingly. "He will sit poring\r
+over his book, and not know when a person speaks to him, or when one\r
+drops one's scissors, or anything that happens. Do you think Lady\r
+Russell would like that?"\r
+\r
+Lady Russell could not help laughing. "Upon my word," said she, "I\r
+should not have supposed that my opinion of any one could have admitted\r
+of such difference of conjecture, steady and matter of fact as I may\r
+call myself. I have really a curiosity to see the person who can give\r
+occasion to such directly opposite notions. I wish he may be induced\r
+to call here. And when he does, Mary, you may depend upon hearing my\r
+opinion; but I am determined not to judge him beforehand."\r
+\r
+"You will not like him, I will answer for it."\r
+\r
+Lady Russell began talking of something else. Mary spoke with\r
+animation of their meeting with, or rather missing, Mr Elliot so\r
+extraordinarily.\r
+\r
+"He is a man," said Lady Russell, "whom I have no wish to see. His\r
+declining to be on cordial terms with the head of his family, has left\r
+a very strong impression in his disfavour with me."\r
+\r
+This decision checked Mary's eagerness, and stopped her short in the\r
+midst of the Elliot countenance.\r
+\r
+With regard to Captain Wentworth, though Anne hazarded no enquiries,\r
+there was voluntary communication sufficient. His spirits had been\r
+greatly recovering lately as might be expected. As Louisa improved, he\r
+had improved, and he was now quite a different creature from what he\r
+had been the first week. He had not seen Louisa; and was so extremely\r
+fearful of any ill consequence to her from an interview, that he did\r
+not press for it at all; and, on the contrary, seemed to have a plan of\r
+going away for a week or ten days, till her head was stronger. He had\r
+talked of going down to Plymouth for a week, and wanted to persuade\r
+Captain Benwick to go with him; but, as Charles maintained to the last,\r
+Captain Benwick seemed much more disposed to ride over to Kellynch.\r
+\r
+There can be no doubt that Lady Russell and Anne were both occasionally\r
+thinking of Captain Benwick, from this time. Lady Russell could not\r
+hear the door-bell without feeling that it might be his herald; nor\r
+could Anne return from any stroll of solitary indulgence in her\r
+father's grounds, or any visit of charity in the village, without\r
+wondering whether she might see him or hear of him. Captain Benwick\r
+came not, however. He was either less disposed for it than Charles had\r
+imagined, or he was too shy; and after giving him a week's indulgence,\r
+Lady Russell determined him to be unworthy of the interest which he had\r
+been beginning to excite.\r
+\r
+The Musgroves came back to receive their happy boys and girls from\r
+school, bringing with them Mrs Harville's little children, to improve\r
+the noise of Uppercross, and lessen that of Lyme. Henrietta remained\r
+with Louisa; but all the rest of the family were again in their usual\r
+quarters.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell and Anne paid their compliments to them once, when Anne\r
+could not but feel that Uppercross was already quite alive again.\r
+Though neither Henrietta, nor Louisa, nor Charles Hayter, nor Captain\r
+Wentworth were there, the room presented as strong a contrast as could\r
+be wished to the last state she had seen it in.\r
+\r
+Immediately surrounding Mrs Musgrove were the little Harvilles, whom\r
+she was sedulously guarding from the tyranny of the two children from\r
+the Cottage, expressly arrived to amuse them. On one side was a table\r
+occupied by some chattering girls, cutting up silk and gold paper; and\r
+on the other were tressels and trays, bending under the weight of brawn\r
+and cold pies, where riotous boys were holding high revel; the whole\r
+completed by a roaring Christmas fire, which seemed determined to be\r
+heard, in spite of all the noise of the others. Charles and Mary also\r
+came in, of course, during their visit, and Mr Musgrove made a point of\r
+paying his respects to Lady Russell, and sat down close to her for ten\r
+minutes, talking with a very raised voice, but from the clamour of the\r
+children on his knees, generally in vain. It was a fine family-piece.\r
+\r
+Anne, judging from her own temperament, would have deemed such a\r
+domestic hurricane a bad restorative of the nerves, which Louisa's\r
+illness must have so greatly shaken. But Mrs Musgrove, who got Anne\r
+near her on purpose to thank her most cordially, again and again, for\r
+all her attentions to them, concluded a short recapitulation of what\r
+she had suffered herself by observing, with a happy glance round the\r
+room, that after all she had gone through, nothing was so likely to do\r
+her good as a little quiet cheerfulness at home.\r
+\r
+Louisa was now recovering apace. Her mother could even think of her\r
+being able to join their party at home, before her brothers and sisters\r
+went to school again. The Harvilles had promised to come with her and\r
+stay at Uppercross, whenever she returned. Captain Wentworth was gone,\r
+for the present, to see his brother in Shropshire.\r
+\r
+"I hope I shall remember, in future," said Lady Russell, as soon as\r
+they were reseated in the carriage, "not to call at Uppercross in the\r
+Christmas holidays."\r
+\r
+Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and\r
+sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather\r
+than their quantity. When Lady Russell not long afterwards, was\r
+entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through the long course\r
+of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place, amidst the dash of\r
+other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of\r
+newspapermen, muffin-men and milkmen, and the ceaseless clink of\r
+pattens, she made no complaint. No, these were noises which belonged\r
+to the winter pleasures; her spirits rose under their influence; and\r
+like Mrs Musgrove, she was feeling, though not saying, that after being\r
+long in the country, nothing could be so good for her as a little quiet\r
+cheerfulness.\r
+\r
+Anne did not share these feelings. She persisted in a very determined,\r
+though very silent disinclination for Bath; caught the first dim view\r
+of the extensive buildings, smoking in rain, without any wish of seeing\r
+them better; felt their progress through the streets to be, however\r
+disagreeable, yet too rapid; for who would be glad to see her when she\r
+arrived? And looked back, with fond regret, to the bustles of\r
+Uppercross and the seclusion of Kellynch.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's last letter had communicated a piece of news of some\r
+interest. Mr Elliot was in Bath. He had called in Camden Place; had\r
+called a second time, a third; had been pointedly attentive. If\r
+Elizabeth and her father did not deceive themselves, had been taking\r
+much pains to seek the acquaintance, and proclaim the value of the\r
+connection, as he had formerly taken pains to shew neglect. This was\r
+very wonderful if it were true; and Lady Russell was in a state of very\r
+agreeable curiosity and perplexity about Mr Elliot, already recanting\r
+the sentiment she had so lately expressed to Mary, of his being "a man\r
+whom she had no wish to see." She had a great wish to see him. If he\r
+really sought to reconcile himself like a dutiful branch, he must be\r
+forgiven for having dismembered himself from the paternal tree.\r
+\r
+Anne was not animated to an equal pitch by the circumstance, but she\r
+felt that she would rather see Mr Elliot again than not, which was more\r
+than she could say for many other persons in Bath.\r
+\r
+She was put down in Camden Place; and Lady Russell then drove to her\r
+own lodgings, in Rivers Street.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 15\r
+\r
+\r
+Sir Walter had taken a very good house in Camden Place, a lofty\r
+dignified situation, such as becomes a man of consequence; and both he\r
+and Elizabeth were settled there, much to their satisfaction.\r
+\r
+Anne entered it with a sinking heart, anticipating an imprisonment of\r
+many months, and anxiously saying to herself, "Oh! when shall I leave\r
+you again?" A degree of unexpected cordiality, however, in the welcome\r
+she received, did her good. Her father and sister were glad to see\r
+her, for the sake of shewing her the house and furniture, and met her\r
+with kindness. Her making a fourth, when they sat down to dinner, was\r
+noticed as an advantage.\r
+\r
+Mrs Clay was very pleasant, and very smiling, but her courtesies and\r
+smiles were more a matter of course. Anne had always felt that she\r
+would pretend what was proper on her arrival, but the complaisance of\r
+the others was unlooked for. They were evidently in excellent spirits,\r
+and she was soon to listen to the causes. They had no inclination to\r
+listen to her. After laying out for some compliments of being deeply\r
+regretted in their old neighbourhood, which Anne could not pay, they\r
+had only a few faint enquiries to make, before the talk must be all\r
+their own. Uppercross excited no interest, Kellynch very little: it\r
+was all Bath.\r
+\r
+They had the pleasure of assuring her that Bath more than answered\r
+their expectations in every respect. Their house was undoubtedly the\r
+best in Camden Place; their drawing-rooms had many decided advantages\r
+over all the others which they had either seen or heard of, and the\r
+superiority was not less in the style of the fitting-up, or the taste\r
+of the furniture. Their acquaintance was exceedingly sought after.\r
+Everybody was wanting to visit them. They had drawn back from many\r
+introductions, and still were perpetually having cards left by people\r
+of whom they knew nothing.\r
+\r
+Here were funds of enjoyment. Could Anne wonder that her father and\r
+sister were happy? She might not wonder, but she must sigh that her\r
+father should feel no degradation in his change, should see nothing to\r
+regret in the duties and dignity of the resident landholder, should\r
+find so much to be vain of in the littlenesses of a town; and she must\r
+sigh, and smile, and wonder too, as Elizabeth threw open the\r
+folding-doors and walked with exultation from one drawing-room to the\r
+other, boasting of their space; at the possibility of that woman, who\r
+had been mistress of Kellynch Hall, finding extent to be proud of\r
+between two walls, perhaps thirty feet asunder.\r
+\r
+But this was not all which they had to make them happy. They had Mr\r
+Elliot too. Anne had a great deal to hear of Mr Elliot. He was not\r
+only pardoned, they were delighted with him. He had been in Bath about\r
+a fortnight; (he had passed through Bath in November, in his way to\r
+London, when the intelligence of Sir Walter's being settled there had\r
+of course reached him, though only twenty-four hours in the place, but\r
+he had not been able to avail himself of it;) but he had now been a\r
+fortnight in Bath, and his first object on arriving, had been to leave\r
+his card in Camden Place, following it up by such assiduous endeavours\r
+to meet, and when they did meet, by such great openness of conduct,\r
+such readiness to apologize for the past, such solicitude to be\r
+received as a relation again, that their former good understanding was\r
+completely re-established.\r
+\r
+They had not a fault to find in him. He had explained away all the\r
+appearance of neglect on his own side. It had originated in\r
+misapprehension entirely. He had never had an idea of throwing himself\r
+off; he had feared that he was thrown off, but knew not why, and\r
+delicacy had kept him silent. Upon the hint of having spoken\r
+disrespectfully or carelessly of the family and the family honours, he\r
+was quite indignant. He, who had ever boasted of being an Elliot, and\r
+whose feelings, as to connection, were only too strict to suit the\r
+unfeudal tone of the present day. He was astonished, indeed, but his\r
+character and general conduct must refute it. He could refer Sir\r
+Walter to all who knew him; and certainly, the pains he had been taking\r
+on this, the first opportunity of reconciliation, to be restored to the\r
+footing of a relation and heir-presumptive, was a strong proof of his\r
+opinions on the subject.\r
+\r
+The circumstances of his marriage, too, were found to admit of much\r
+extenuation. This was an article not to be entered on by himself; but\r
+a very intimate friend of his, a Colonel Wallis, a highly respectable\r
+man, perfectly the gentleman, (and not an ill-looking man, Sir Walter\r
+added), who was living in very good style in Marlborough Buildings, and\r
+had, at his own particular request, been admitted to their acquaintance\r
+through Mr Elliot, had mentioned one or two things relative to the\r
+marriage, which made a material difference in the discredit of it.\r
+\r
+Colonel Wallis had known Mr Elliot long, had been well acquainted also\r
+with his wife, had perfectly understood the whole story. She was\r
+certainly not a woman of family, but well educated, accomplished, rich,\r
+and excessively in love with his friend. There had been the charm.\r
+She had sought him. Without that attraction, not all her money would\r
+have tempted Elliot, and Sir Walter was, moreover, assured of her\r
+having been a very fine woman. Here was a great deal to soften the\r
+business. A very fine woman with a large fortune, in love with him!\r
+Sir Walter seemed to admit it as complete apology; and though Elizabeth\r
+could not see the circumstance in quite so favourable a light, she\r
+allowed it be a great extenuation.\r
+\r
+Mr Elliot had called repeatedly, had dined with them once, evidently\r
+delighted by the distinction of being asked, for they gave no dinners\r
+in general; delighted, in short, by every proof of cousinly notice, and\r
+placing his whole happiness in being on intimate terms in Camden Place.\r
+\r
+Anne listened, but without quite understanding it. Allowances, large\r
+allowances, she knew, must be made for the ideas of those who spoke.\r
+She heard it all under embellishment. All that sounded extravagant or\r
+irrational in the progress of the reconciliation might have no origin\r
+but in the language of the relators. Still, however, she had the\r
+sensation of there being something more than immediately appeared, in\r
+Mr Elliot's wishing, after an interval of so many years, to be well\r
+received by them. In a worldly view, he had nothing to gain by being\r
+on terms with Sir Walter; nothing to risk by a state of variance. In\r
+all probability he was already the richer of the two, and the Kellynch\r
+estate would as surely be his hereafter as the title. A sensible man,\r
+and he had looked like a very sensible man, why should it be an object\r
+to him? She could only offer one solution; it was, perhaps, for\r
+Elizabeth's sake. There might really have been a liking formerly,\r
+though convenience and accident had drawn him a different way; and now\r
+that he could afford to please himself, he might mean to pay his\r
+addresses to her. Elizabeth was certainly very handsome, with\r
+well-bred, elegant manners, and her character might never have been\r
+penetrated by Mr Elliot, knowing her but in public, and when very young\r
+himself. How her temper and understanding might bear the investigation\r
+of his present keener time of life was another concern and rather a\r
+fearful one. Most earnestly did she wish that he might not be too\r
+nice, or too observant if Elizabeth were his object; and that Elizabeth\r
+was disposed to believe herself so, and that her friend Mrs Clay was\r
+encouraging the idea, seemed apparent by a glance or two between them,\r
+while Mr Elliot's frequent visits were talked of.\r
+\r
+Anne mentioned the glimpses she had had of him at Lyme, but without\r
+being much attended to. "Oh! yes, perhaps, it had been Mr Elliot.\r
+They did not know. It might be him, perhaps." They could not listen\r
+to her description of him. They were describing him themselves; Sir\r
+Walter especially. He did justice to his very gentlemanlike\r
+appearance, his air of elegance and fashion, his good shaped face, his\r
+sensible eye; but, at the same time, "must lament his being very much\r
+under-hung, a defect which time seemed to have increased; nor could he\r
+pretend to say that ten years had not altered almost every feature for\r
+the worse. Mr Elliot appeared to think that he (Sir Walter) was\r
+looking exactly as he had done when they last parted;" but Sir Walter\r
+had "not been able to return the compliment entirely, which had\r
+embarrassed him. He did not mean to complain, however. Mr Elliot was\r
+better to look at than most men, and he had no objection to being seen\r
+with him anywhere."\r
+\r
+Mr Elliot, and his friends in Marlborough Buildings, were talked of the\r
+whole evening. "Colonel Wallis had been so impatient to be introduced\r
+to them! and Mr Elliot so anxious that he should!" and there was a Mrs\r
+Wallis, at present known only to them by description, as she was in\r
+daily expectation of her confinement; but Mr Elliot spoke of her as "a\r
+most charming woman, quite worthy of being known in Camden Place," and\r
+as soon as she recovered they were to be acquainted. Sir Walter\r
+thought much of Mrs Wallis; she was said to be an excessively pretty\r
+woman, beautiful. "He longed to see her. He hoped she might make some\r
+amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the\r
+streets. The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women. He did\r
+not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the\r
+plain was out of all proportion. He had frequently observed, as he\r
+walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or\r
+five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond\r
+Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another,\r
+without there being a tolerable face among them. It had been a frosty\r
+morning, to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a\r
+thousand could stand the test of. But still, there certainly were a\r
+dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they\r
+were infinitely worse. Such scarecrows as the streets were full of!\r
+It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything\r
+tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced. He\r
+had never walked anywhere arm-in-arm with Colonel Wallis (who was a\r
+fine military figure, though sandy-haired) without observing that every\r
+woman's eye was upon him; every woman's eye was sure to be upon Colonel\r
+Wallis." Modest Sir Walter! He was not allowed to escape, however.\r
+His daughter and Mrs Clay united in hinting that Colonel Wallis's\r
+companion might have as good a figure as Colonel Wallis, and certainly\r
+was not sandy-haired.\r
+\r
+"How is Mary looking?" said Sir Walter, in the height of his good\r
+humour. "The last time I saw her she had a red nose, but I hope that\r
+may not happen every day."\r
+\r
+"Oh! no, that must have been quite accidental. In general she has been\r
+in very good health and very good looks since Michaelmas."\r
+\r
+"If I thought it would not tempt her to go out in sharp winds, and grow\r
+coarse, I would send her a new hat and pelisse."\r
+\r
+Anne was considering whether she should venture to suggest that a gown,\r
+or a cap, would not be liable to any such misuse, when a knock at the\r
+door suspended everything. "A knock at the door! and so late! It was\r
+ten o'clock. Could it be Mr Elliot? They knew he was to dine in\r
+Lansdown Crescent. It was possible that he might stop in his way home\r
+to ask them how they did. They could think of no one else. Mrs Clay\r
+decidedly thought it Mr Elliot's knock." Mrs Clay was right. With all\r
+the state which a butler and foot-boy could give, Mr Elliot was ushered\r
+into the room.\r
+\r
+It was the same, the very same man, with no difference but of dress.\r
+Anne drew a little back, while the others received his compliments, and\r
+her sister his apologies for calling at so unusual an hour, but "he\r
+could not be so near without wishing to know that neither she nor her\r
+friend had taken cold the day before," &c. &c; which was all as\r
+politely done, and as politely taken, as possible, but her part must\r
+follow then. Sir Walter talked of his youngest daughter; "Mr Elliot\r
+must give him leave to present him to his youngest daughter" (there was\r
+no occasion for remembering Mary); and Anne, smiling and blushing, very\r
+becomingly shewed to Mr Elliot the pretty features which he had by no\r
+means forgotten, and instantly saw, with amusement at his little start\r
+of surprise, that he had not been at all aware of who she was. He\r
+looked completely astonished, but not more astonished than pleased; his\r
+eyes brightened! and with the most perfect alacrity he welcomed the\r
+relationship, alluded to the past, and entreated to be received as an\r
+acquaintance already. He was quite as good-looking as he had appeared\r
+at Lyme, his countenance improved by speaking, and his manners were so\r
+exactly what they ought to be, so polished, so easy, so particularly\r
+agreeable, that she could compare them in excellence to only one\r
+person's manners. They were not the same, but they were, perhaps,\r
+equally good.\r
+\r
+He sat down with them, and improved their conversation very much.\r
+There could be no doubt of his being a sensible man. Ten minutes were\r
+enough to certify that. His tone, his expressions, his choice of\r
+subject, his knowing where to stop; it was all the operation of a\r
+sensible, discerning mind. As soon as he could, he began to talk to\r
+her of Lyme, wanting to compare opinions respecting the place, but\r
+especially wanting to speak of the circumstance of their happening to\r
+be guests in the same inn at the same time; to give his own route,\r
+understand something of hers, and regret that he should have lost such\r
+an opportunity of paying his respects to her. She gave him a short\r
+account of her party and business at Lyme. His regret increased as he\r
+listened. He had spent his whole solitary evening in the room\r
+adjoining theirs; had heard voices, mirth continually; thought they\r
+must be a most delightful set of people, longed to be with them, but\r
+certainly without the smallest suspicion of his possessing the shadow\r
+of a right to introduce himself. If he had but asked who the party\r
+were! The name of Musgrove would have told him enough. "Well, it\r
+would serve to cure him of an absurd practice of never asking a\r
+question at an inn, which he had adopted, when quite a young man, on\r
+the principal of its being very ungenteel to be curious.\r
+\r
+"The notions of a young man of one or two and twenty," said he, "as to\r
+what is necessary in manners to make him quite the thing, are more\r
+absurd, I believe, than those of any other set of beings in the world.\r
+The folly of the means they often employ is only to be equalled by the\r
+folly of what they have in view."\r
+\r
+But he must not be addressing his reflections to Anne alone: he knew\r
+it; he was soon diffused again among the others, and it was only at\r
+intervals that he could return to Lyme.\r
+\r
+His enquiries, however, produced at length an account of the scene she\r
+had been engaged in there, soon after his leaving the place. Having\r
+alluded to "an accident," he must hear the whole. When he questioned,\r
+Sir Walter and Elizabeth began to question also, but the difference in\r
+their manner of doing it could not be unfelt. She could only compare\r
+Mr Elliot to Lady Russell, in the wish of really comprehending what had\r
+passed, and in the degree of concern for what she must have suffered in\r
+witnessing it.\r
+\r
+He staid an hour with them. The elegant little clock on the mantel-piece\r
+had struck "eleven with its silver sounds," and the watchman was\r
+beginning to be heard at a distance telling the same tale, before Mr\r
+Elliot or any of them seemed to feel that he had been there long.\r
+\r
+Anne could not have supposed it possible that her first evening in\r
+Camden Place could have passed so well!\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 16\r
+\r
+\r
+There was one point which Anne, on returning to her family, would have\r
+been more thankful to ascertain even than Mr Elliot's being in love\r
+with Elizabeth, which was, her father's not being in love with Mrs\r
+Clay; and she was very far from easy about it, when she had been at\r
+home a few hours. On going down to breakfast the next morning, she\r
+found there had just been a decent pretence on the lady's side of\r
+meaning to leave them. She could imagine Mrs Clay to have said, that\r
+"now Miss Anne was come, she could not suppose herself at all wanted;"\r
+for Elizabeth was replying in a sort of whisper, "That must not be any\r
+reason, indeed. I assure you I feel it none. She is nothing to me,\r
+compared with you;" and she was in full time to hear her father say,\r
+"My dear madam, this must not be. As yet, you have seen nothing of\r
+Bath. You have been here only to be useful. You must not run away\r
+from us now. You must stay to be acquainted with Mrs Wallis, the\r
+beautiful Mrs Wallis. To your fine mind, I well know the sight of\r
+beauty is a real gratification."\r
+\r
+He spoke and looked so much in earnest, that Anne was not surprised to\r
+see Mrs Clay stealing a glance at Elizabeth and herself. Her\r
+countenance, perhaps, might express some watchfulness; but the praise\r
+of the fine mind did not appear to excite a thought in her sister. The\r
+lady could not but yield to such joint entreaties, and promise to stay.\r
+\r
+In the course of the same morning, Anne and her father chancing to be\r
+alone together, he began to compliment her on her improved looks; he\r
+thought her "less thin in her person, in her cheeks; her skin, her\r
+complexion, greatly improved; clearer, fresher. Had she been using any\r
+thing in particular?" "No, nothing." "Merely Gowland," he supposed.\r
+"No, nothing at all." "Ha! he was surprised at that;" and added,\r
+"certainly you cannot do better than to continue as you are; you cannot\r
+be better than well; or I should recommend Gowland, the constant use of\r
+Gowland, during the spring months. Mrs Clay has been using it at my\r
+recommendation, and you see what it has done for her. You see how it\r
+has carried away her freckles."\r
+\r
+If Elizabeth could but have heard this! Such personal praise might\r
+have struck her, especially as it did not appear to Anne that the\r
+freckles were at all lessened. But everything must take its chance.\r
+The evil of a marriage would be much diminished, if Elizabeth were also\r
+to marry. As for herself, she might always command a home with Lady\r
+Russell.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell's composed mind and polite manners were put to some trial\r
+on this point, in her intercourse in Camden Place. The sight of Mrs\r
+Clay in such favour, and of Anne so overlooked, was a perpetual\r
+provocation to her there; and vexed her as much when she was away, as a\r
+person in Bath who drinks the water, gets all the new publications, and\r
+has a very large acquaintance, has time to be vexed.\r
+\r
+As Mr Elliot became known to her, she grew more charitable, or more\r
+indifferent, towards the others. His manners were an immediate\r
+recommendation; and on conversing with him she found the solid so fully\r
+supporting the superficial, that she was at first, as she told Anne,\r
+almost ready to exclaim, "Can this be Mr Elliot?" and could not\r
+seriously picture to herself a more agreeable or estimable man.\r
+Everything united in him; good understanding, correct opinions,\r
+knowledge of the world, and a warm heart. He had strong feelings of\r
+family attachment and family honour, without pride or weakness; he\r
+lived with the liberality of a man of fortune, without display; he\r
+judged for himself in everything essential, without defying public\r
+opinion in any point of worldly decorum. He was steady, observant,\r
+moderate, candid; never run away with by spirits or by selfishness,\r
+which fancied itself strong feeling; and yet, with a sensibility to\r
+what was amiable and lovely, and a value for all the felicities of\r
+domestic life, which characters of fancied enthusiasm and violent\r
+agitation seldom really possess. She was sure that he had not been\r
+happy in marriage. Colonel Wallis said it, and Lady Russell saw it;\r
+but it had been no unhappiness to sour his mind, nor (she began pretty\r
+soon to suspect) to prevent his thinking of a second choice. Her\r
+satisfaction in Mr Elliot outweighed all the plague of Mrs Clay.\r
+\r
+It was now some years since Anne had begun to learn that she and her\r
+excellent friend could sometimes think differently; and it did not\r
+surprise her, therefore, that Lady Russell should see nothing\r
+suspicious or inconsistent, nothing to require more motives than\r
+appeared, in Mr Elliot's great desire of a reconciliation. In Lady\r
+Russell's view, it was perfectly natural that Mr Elliot, at a mature\r
+time of life, should feel it a most desirable object, and what would\r
+very generally recommend him among all sensible people, to be on good\r
+terms with the head of his family; the simplest process in the world of\r
+time upon a head naturally clear, and only erring in the heyday of\r
+youth. Anne presumed, however, still to smile about it, and at last to\r
+mention "Elizabeth." Lady Russell listened, and looked, and made only\r
+this cautious reply:--"Elizabeth! very well; time will explain."\r
+\r
+It was a reference to the future, which Anne, after a little\r
+observation, felt she must submit to. She could determine nothing at\r
+present. In that house Elizabeth must be first; and she was in the\r
+habit of such general observance as "Miss Elliot," that any\r
+particularity of attention seemed almost impossible. Mr Elliot, too,\r
+it must be remembered, had not been a widower seven months. A little\r
+delay on his side might be very excusable. In fact, Anne could never\r
+see the crape round his hat, without fearing that she was the\r
+inexcusable one, in attributing to him such imaginations; for though\r
+his marriage had not been very happy, still it had existed so many\r
+years that she could not comprehend a very rapid recovery from the\r
+awful impression of its being dissolved.\r
+\r
+However it might end, he was without any question their pleasantest\r
+acquaintance in Bath: she saw nobody equal to him; and it was a great\r
+indulgence now and then to talk to him about Lyme, which he seemed to\r
+have as lively a wish to see again, and to see more of, as herself.\r
+They went through the particulars of their first meeting a great many\r
+times. He gave her to understand that he had looked at her with some\r
+earnestness. She knew it well; and she remembered another person's\r
+look also.\r
+\r
+They did not always think alike. His value for rank and connexion she\r
+perceived was greater than hers. It was not merely complaisance, it\r
+must be a liking to the cause, which made him enter warmly into her\r
+father and sister's solicitudes on a subject which she thought unworthy\r
+to excite them. The Bath paper one morning announced the arrival of\r
+the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and her daughter, the Honourable\r
+Miss Carteret; and all the comfort of No. --, Camden Place, was swept\r
+away for many days; for the Dalrymples (in Anne's opinion, most\r
+unfortunately) were cousins of the Elliots; and the agony was how to\r
+introduce themselves properly.\r
+\r
+Anne had never seen her father and sister before in contact with\r
+nobility, and she must acknowledge herself disappointed. She had hoped\r
+better things from their high ideas of their own situation in life, and\r
+was reduced to form a wish which she had never foreseen; a wish that\r
+they had more pride; for "our cousins Lady Dalrymple and Miss\r
+Carteret;" "our cousins, the Dalrymples," sounded in her ears all day\r
+long.\r
+\r
+Sir Walter had once been in company with the late viscount, but had\r
+never seen any of the rest of the family; and the difficulties of the\r
+case arose from there having been a suspension of all intercourse by\r
+letters of ceremony, ever since the death of that said late viscount,\r
+when, in consequence of a dangerous illness of Sir Walter's at the same\r
+time, there had been an unlucky omission at Kellynch. No letter of\r
+condolence had been sent to Ireland. The neglect had been visited on\r
+the head of the sinner; for when poor Lady Elliot died herself, no\r
+letter of condolence was received at Kellynch, and, consequently, there\r
+was but too much reason to apprehend that the Dalrymples considered the\r
+relationship as closed. How to have this anxious business set to\r
+rights, and be admitted as cousins again, was the question: and it was\r
+a question which, in a more rational manner, neither Lady Russell nor\r
+Mr Elliot thought unimportant. "Family connexions were always worth\r
+preserving, good company always worth seeking; Lady Dalrymple had taken\r
+a house, for three months, in Laura Place, and would be living in\r
+style. She had been at Bath the year before, and Lady Russell had\r
+heard her spoken of as a charming woman. It was very desirable that\r
+the connexion should be renewed, if it could be done, without any\r
+compromise of propriety on the side of the Elliots."\r
+\r
+Sir Walter, however, would choose his own means, and at last wrote a\r
+very fine letter of ample explanation, regret, and entreaty, to his\r
+right honourable cousin. Neither Lady Russell nor Mr Elliot could\r
+admire the letter; but it did all that was wanted, in bringing three\r
+lines of scrawl from the Dowager Viscountess. "She was very much\r
+honoured, and should be happy in their acquaintance." The toils of the\r
+business were over, the sweets began. They visited in Laura Place,\r
+they had the cards of Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and the Honourable\r
+Miss Carteret, to be arranged wherever they might be most visible: and\r
+"Our cousins in Laura Place,"--"Our cousin, Lady Dalrymple and Miss\r
+Carteret," were talked of to everybody.\r
+\r
+Anne was ashamed. Had Lady Dalrymple and her daughter even been very\r
+agreeable, she would still have been ashamed of the agitation they\r
+created, but they were nothing. There was no superiority of manner,\r
+accomplishment, or understanding. Lady Dalrymple had acquired the name\r
+of "a charming woman," because she had a smile and a civil answer for\r
+everybody. Miss Carteret, with still less to say, was so plain and so\r
+awkward, that she would never have been tolerated in Camden Place but\r
+for her birth.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell confessed she had expected something better; but yet "it\r
+was an acquaintance worth having;" and when Anne ventured to speak her\r
+opinion of them to Mr Elliot, he agreed to their being nothing in\r
+themselves, but still maintained that, as a family connexion, as good\r
+company, as those who would collect good company around them, they had\r
+their value. Anne smiled and said,\r
+\r
+"My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever,\r
+well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is\r
+what I call good company."\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company; that is\r
+the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners,\r
+and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners\r
+are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing\r
+in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well. My cousin Anne\r
+shakes her head. She is not satisfied. She is fastidious. My dear\r
+cousin" (sitting down by her), "you have a better right to be\r
+fastidious than almost any other woman I know; but will it answer?\r
+Will it make you happy? Will it not be wiser to accept the society of\r
+those good ladies in Laura Place, and enjoy all the advantages of the\r
+connexion as far as possible? You may depend upon it, that they will\r
+move in the first set in Bath this winter, and as rank is rank, your\r
+being known to be related to them will have its use in fixing your\r
+family (our family let me say) in that degree of consideration which we\r
+must all wish for."\r
+\r
+"Yes," sighed Anne, "we shall, indeed, be known to be related to them!"\r
+then recollecting herself, and not wishing to be answered, she added,\r
+"I certainly do think there has been by far too much trouble taken to\r
+procure the acquaintance. I suppose" (smiling) "I have more pride than\r
+any of you; but I confess it does vex me, that we should be so\r
+solicitous to have the relationship acknowledged, which we may be very\r
+sure is a matter of perfect indifference to them."\r
+\r
+"Pardon me, dear cousin, you are unjust in your own claims. In London,\r
+perhaps, in your present quiet style of living, it might be as you say:\r
+but in Bath; Sir Walter Elliot and his family will always be worth\r
+knowing: always acceptable as acquaintance."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Anne, "I certainly am proud, too proud to enjoy a welcome\r
+which depends so entirely upon place."\r
+\r
+"I love your indignation," said he; "it is very natural. But here you\r
+are in Bath, and the object is to be established here with all the\r
+credit and dignity which ought to belong to Sir Walter Elliot. You\r
+talk of being proud; I am called proud, I know, and I shall not wish to\r
+believe myself otherwise; for our pride, if investigated, would have\r
+the same object, I have no doubt, though the kind may seem a little\r
+different. In one point, I am sure, my dear cousin," (he continued,\r
+speaking lower, though there was no one else in the room) "in one\r
+point, I am sure, we must feel alike. We must feel that every addition\r
+to your father's society, among his equals or superiors, may be of use\r
+in diverting his thoughts from those who are beneath him."\r
+\r
+He looked, as he spoke, to the seat which Mrs Clay had been lately\r
+occupying: a sufficient explanation of what he particularly meant; and\r
+though Anne could not believe in their having the same sort of pride,\r
+she was pleased with him for not liking Mrs Clay; and her conscience\r
+admitted that his wishing to promote her father's getting great\r
+acquaintance was more than excusable in the view of defeating her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 17\r
+\r
+\r
+While Sir Walter and Elizabeth were assiduously pushing their good\r
+fortune in Laura Place, Anne was renewing an acquaintance of a very\r
+different description.\r
+\r
+She had called on her former governess, and had heard from her of there\r
+being an old school-fellow in Bath, who had the two strong claims on\r
+her attention of past kindness and present suffering. Miss Hamilton,\r
+now Mrs Smith, had shewn her kindness in one of those periods of her\r
+life when it had been most valuable. Anne had gone unhappy to school,\r
+grieving for the loss of a mother whom she had dearly loved, feeling\r
+her separation from home, and suffering as a girl of fourteen, of\r
+strong sensibility and not high spirits, must suffer at such a time;\r
+and Miss Hamilton, three years older than herself, but still from the\r
+want of near relations and a settled home, remaining another year at\r
+school, had been useful and good to her in a way which had considerably\r
+lessened her misery, and could never be remembered with indifference.\r
+\r
+Miss Hamilton had left school, had married not long afterwards, was\r
+said to have married a man of fortune, and this was all that Anne had\r
+known of her, till now that their governess's account brought her\r
+situation forward in a more decided but very different form.\r
+\r
+She was a widow and poor. Her husband had been extravagant; and at his\r
+death, about two years before, had left his affairs dreadfully\r
+involved. She had had difficulties of every sort to contend with, and\r
+in addition to these distresses had been afflicted with a severe\r
+rheumatic fever, which, finally settling in her legs, had made her for\r
+the present a cripple. She had come to Bath on that account, and was\r
+now in lodgings near the hot baths, living in a very humble way, unable\r
+even to afford herself the comfort of a servant, and of course almost\r
+excluded from society.\r
+\r
+Their mutual friend answered for the satisfaction which a visit from\r
+Miss Elliot would give Mrs Smith, and Anne therefore lost no time in\r
+going. She mentioned nothing of what she had heard, or what she\r
+intended, at home. It would excite no proper interest there. She only\r
+consulted Lady Russell, who entered thoroughly into her sentiments, and\r
+was most happy to convey her as near to Mrs Smith's lodgings in\r
+Westgate Buildings, as Anne chose to be taken.\r
+\r
+The visit was paid, their acquaintance re-established, their interest\r
+in each other more than re-kindled. The first ten minutes had its\r
+awkwardness and its emotion. Twelve years were gone since they had\r
+parted, and each presented a somewhat different person from what the\r
+other had imagined. Twelve years had changed Anne from the blooming,\r
+silent, unformed girl of fifteen, to the elegant little woman of\r
+seven-and-twenty, with every beauty except bloom, and with manners as\r
+consciously right as they were invariably gentle; and twelve years had\r
+transformed the fine-looking, well-grown Miss Hamilton, in all the glow\r
+of health and confidence of superiority, into a poor, infirm, helpless\r
+widow, receiving the visit of her former protegee as a favour; but all\r
+that was uncomfortable in the meeting had soon passed away, and left\r
+only the interesting charm of remembering former partialities and\r
+talking over old times.\r
+\r
+Anne found in Mrs Smith the good sense and agreeable manners which she\r
+had almost ventured to depend on, and a disposition to converse and be\r
+cheerful beyond her expectation. Neither the dissipations of the\r
+past--and she had lived very much in the world--nor the restrictions of\r
+the present, neither sickness nor sorrow seemed to have closed her\r
+heart or ruined her spirits.\r
+\r
+In the course of a second visit she talked with great openness, and\r
+Anne's astonishment increased. She could scarcely imagine a more\r
+cheerless situation in itself than Mrs Smith's. She had been very fond\r
+of her husband: she had buried him. She had been used to affluence:\r
+it was gone. She had no child to connect her with life and happiness\r
+again, no relations to assist in the arrangement of perplexed affairs,\r
+no health to make all the rest supportable. Her accommodations were\r
+limited to a noisy parlour, and a dark bedroom behind, with no\r
+possibility of moving from one to the other without assistance, which\r
+there was only one servant in the house to afford, and she never\r
+quitted the house but to be conveyed into the warm bath. Yet, in spite\r
+of all this, Anne had reason to believe that she had moments only of\r
+languor and depression, to hours of occupation and enjoyment. How\r
+could it be? She watched, observed, reflected, and finally determined\r
+that this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only. A\r
+submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply\r
+resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of\r
+mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily\r
+from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of\r
+herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of\r
+Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which,\r
+by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost\r
+every other want.\r
+\r
+There had been a time, Mrs Smith told her, when her spirits had nearly\r
+failed. She could not call herself an invalid now, compared with her\r
+state on first reaching Bath. Then she had, indeed, been a pitiable\r
+object; for she had caught cold on the journey, and had hardly taken\r
+possession of her lodgings before she was again confined to her bed and\r
+suffering under severe and constant pain; and all this among strangers,\r
+with the absolute necessity of having a regular nurse, and finances at\r
+that moment particularly unfit to meet any extraordinary expense. She\r
+had weathered it, however, and could truly say that it had done her\r
+good. It had increased her comforts by making her feel herself to be\r
+in good hands. She had seen too much of the world, to expect sudden or\r
+disinterested attachment anywhere, but her illness had proved to her\r
+that her landlady had a character to preserve, and would not use her\r
+ill; and she had been particularly fortunate in her nurse, as a sister\r
+of her landlady, a nurse by profession, and who had always a home in\r
+that house when unemployed, chanced to be at liberty just in time to\r
+attend her. "And she," said Mrs Smith, "besides nursing me most\r
+admirably, has really proved an invaluable acquaintance. As soon as I\r
+could use my hands she taught me to knit, which has been a great\r
+amusement; and she put me in the way of making these little\r
+thread-cases, pin-cushions and card-racks, which you always find me so\r
+busy about, and which supply me with the means of doing a little good\r
+to one or two very poor families in this neighbourhood. She had a\r
+large acquaintance, of course professionally, among those who can\r
+afford to buy, and she disposes of my merchandise. She always takes\r
+the right time for applying. Everybody's heart is open, you know, when\r
+they have recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the\r
+blessing of health, and Nurse Rooke thoroughly understands when to\r
+speak. She is a shrewd, intelligent, sensible woman. Hers is a line\r
+for seeing human nature; and she has a fund of good sense and\r
+observation, which, as a companion, make her infinitely superior to\r
+thousands of those who having only received 'the best education in the\r
+world,' know nothing worth attending to. Call it gossip, if you will,\r
+but when Nurse Rooke has half an hour's leisure to bestow on me, she is\r
+sure to have something to relate that is entertaining and profitable:\r
+something that makes one know one's species better. One likes to hear\r
+what is going on, to be au fait as to the newest modes of being\r
+trifling and silly. To me, who live so much alone, her conversation, I\r
+assure you, is a treat."\r
+\r
+Anne, far from wishing to cavil at the pleasure, replied, "I can easily\r
+believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they\r
+are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieties of\r
+human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not\r
+merely in its follies, that they are well read; for they see it\r
+occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or\r
+affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent,\r
+disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude,\r
+patience, resignation: of all the conflicts and all the sacrifices\r
+that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of\r
+volumes."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mrs Smith more doubtingly, "sometimes it may, though I fear\r
+its lessons are not often in the elevated style you describe. Here and\r
+there, human nature may be great in times of trial; but generally\r
+speaking, it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a\r
+sick chamber: it is selfishness and impatience rather than generosity\r
+and fortitude, that one hears of. There is so little real friendship\r
+in the world! and unfortunately" (speaking low and tremulously) "there\r
+are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late."\r
+\r
+Anne saw the misery of such feelings. The husband had not been what he\r
+ought, and the wife had been led among that part of mankind which made\r
+her think worse of the world than she hoped it deserved. It was but a\r
+passing emotion however with Mrs Smith; she shook it off, and soon\r
+added in a different tone--\r
+\r
+"I do not suppose the situation my friend Mrs Rooke is in at present,\r
+will furnish much either to interest or edify me. She is only nursing\r
+Mrs Wallis of Marlborough Buildings; a mere pretty, silly, expensive,\r
+fashionable woman, I believe; and of course will have nothing to report\r
+but of lace and finery. I mean to make my profit of Mrs Wallis,\r
+however. She has plenty of money, and I intend she shall buy all the\r
+high-priced things I have in hand now."\r
+\r
+Anne had called several times on her friend, before the existence of\r
+such a person was known in Camden Place. At last, it became necessary\r
+to speak of her. Sir Walter, Elizabeth and Mrs Clay, returned one\r
+morning from Laura Place, with a sudden invitation from Lady Dalrymple\r
+for the same evening, and Anne was already engaged, to spend that\r
+evening in Westgate Buildings. She was not sorry for the excuse. They\r
+were only asked, she was sure, because Lady Dalrymple being kept at\r
+home by a bad cold, was glad to make use of the relationship which had\r
+been so pressed on her; and she declined on her own account with great\r
+alacrity--"She was engaged to spend the evening with an old\r
+schoolfellow." They were not much interested in anything relative to\r
+Anne; but still there were questions enough asked, to make it\r
+understood what this old schoolfellow was; and Elizabeth was\r
+disdainful, and Sir Walter severe.\r
+\r
+"Westgate Buildings!" said he, "and who is Miss Anne Elliot to be\r
+visiting in Westgate Buildings? A Mrs Smith. A widow Mrs Smith; and\r
+who was her husband? One of five thousand Mr Smiths whose names are to\r
+be met with everywhere. And what is her attraction? That she is old\r
+and sickly. Upon my word, Miss Anne Elliot, you have the most\r
+extraordinary taste! Everything that revolts other people, low\r
+company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations are inviting\r
+to you. But surely you may put off this old lady till to-morrow: she\r
+is not so near her end, I presume, but that she may hope to see another\r
+day. What is her age? Forty?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir, she is not one-and-thirty; but I do not think I can put off\r
+my engagement, because it is the only evening for some time which will\r
+at once suit her and myself. She goes into the warm bath to-morrow,\r
+and for the rest of the week, you know, we are engaged."\r
+\r
+"But what does Lady Russell think of this acquaintance?" asked\r
+Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"She sees nothing to blame in it," replied Anne; "on the contrary, she\r
+approves it, and has generally taken me when I have called on Mrs\r
+Smith."\r
+\r
+"Westgate Buildings must have been rather surprised by the appearance\r
+of a carriage drawn up near its pavement," observed Sir Walter. "Sir\r
+Henry Russell's widow, indeed, has no honours to distinguish her arms,\r
+but still it is a handsome equipage, and no doubt is well known to\r
+convey a Miss Elliot. A widow Mrs Smith lodging in Westgate Buildings!\r
+A poor widow barely able to live, between thirty and forty; a mere Mrs\r
+Smith, an every-day Mrs Smith, of all people and all names in the\r
+world, to be the chosen friend of Miss Anne Elliot, and to be preferred\r
+by her to her own family connections among the nobility of England and\r
+Ireland! Mrs Smith! Such a name!"\r
+\r
+Mrs Clay, who had been present while all this passed, now thought it\r
+advisable to leave the room, and Anne could have said much, and did\r
+long to say a little in defence of her friend's not very dissimilar\r
+claims to theirs, but her sense of personal respect to her father\r
+prevented her. She made no reply. She left it to himself to\r
+recollect, that Mrs Smith was not the only widow in Bath between thirty\r
+and forty, with little to live on, and no surname of dignity.\r
+\r
+Anne kept her appointment; the others kept theirs, and of course she\r
+heard the next morning that they had had a delightful evening. She had\r
+been the only one of the set absent, for Sir Walter and Elizabeth had\r
+not only been quite at her ladyship's service themselves, but had\r
+actually been happy to be employed by her in collecting others, and had\r
+been at the trouble of inviting both Lady Russell and Mr Elliot; and Mr\r
+Elliot had made a point of leaving Colonel Wallis early, and Lady\r
+Russell had fresh arranged all her evening engagements in order to wait\r
+on her. Anne had the whole history of all that such an evening could\r
+supply from Lady Russell. To her, its greatest interest must be, in\r
+having been very much talked of between her friend and Mr Elliot; in\r
+having been wished for, regretted, and at the same time honoured for\r
+staying away in such a cause. Her kind, compassionate visits to this\r
+old schoolfellow, sick and reduced, seemed to have quite delighted Mr\r
+Elliot. He thought her a most extraordinary young woman; in her\r
+temper, manners, mind, a model of female excellence. He could meet\r
+even Lady Russell in a discussion of her merits; and Anne could not be\r
+given to understand so much by her friend, could not know herself to be\r
+so highly rated by a sensible man, without many of those agreeable\r
+sensations which her friend meant to create.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell was now perfectly decided in her opinion of Mr Elliot.\r
+She was as much convinced of his meaning to gain Anne in time as of his\r
+deserving her, and was beginning to calculate the number of weeks which\r
+would free him from all the remaining restraints of widowhood, and\r
+leave him at liberty to exert his most open powers of pleasing. She\r
+would not speak to Anne with half the certainty she felt on the\r
+subject, she would venture on little more than hints of what might be\r
+hereafter, of a possible attachment on his side, of the desirableness\r
+of the alliance, supposing such attachment to be real and returned.\r
+Anne heard her, and made no violent exclamations; she only smiled,\r
+blushed, and gently shook her head.\r
+\r
+"I am no match-maker, as you well know," said Lady Russell, "being much\r
+too well aware of the uncertainty of all human events and calculations.\r
+I only mean that if Mr Elliot should some time hence pay his addresses\r
+to you, and if you should be disposed to accept him, I think there\r
+would be every possibility of your being happy together. A most\r
+suitable connection everybody must consider it, but I think it might be\r
+a very happy one."\r
+\r
+"Mr Elliot is an exceedingly agreeable man, and in many respects I\r
+think highly of him," said Anne; "but we should not suit."\r
+\r
+Lady Russell let this pass, and only said in rejoinder, "I own that to\r
+be able to regard you as the future mistress of Kellynch, the future\r
+Lady Elliot, to look forward and see you occupying your dear mother's\r
+place, succeeding to all her rights, and all her popularity, as well as\r
+to all her virtues, would be the highest possible gratification to me.\r
+You are your mother's self in countenance and disposition; and if I\r
+might be allowed to fancy you such as she was, in situation and name,\r
+and home, presiding and blessing in the same spot, and only superior to\r
+her in being more highly valued! My dearest Anne, it would give me\r
+more delight than is often felt at my time of life!"\r
+\r
+Anne was obliged to turn away, to rise, to walk to a distant table,\r
+and, leaning there in pretended employment, try to subdue the feelings\r
+this picture excited. For a few moments her imagination and her heart\r
+were bewitched. The idea of becoming what her mother had been; of\r
+having the precious name of "Lady Elliot" first revived in herself; of\r
+being restored to Kellynch, calling it her home again, her home for\r
+ever, was a charm which she could not immediately resist. Lady Russell\r
+said not another word, willing to leave the matter to its own\r
+operation; and believing that, could Mr Elliot at that moment with\r
+propriety have spoken for himself!--she believed, in short, what Anne\r
+did not believe. The same image of Mr Elliot speaking for himself\r
+brought Anne to composure again. The charm of Kellynch and of "Lady\r
+Elliot" all faded away. She never could accept him. And it was not\r
+only that her feelings were still adverse to any man save one; her\r
+judgement, on a serious consideration of the possibilities of such a\r
+case was against Mr Elliot.\r
+\r
+Though they had now been acquainted a month, she could not be satisfied\r
+that she really knew his character. That he was a sensible man, an\r
+agreeable man, that he talked well, professed good opinions, seemed to\r
+judge properly and as a man of principle, this was all clear enough.\r
+He certainly knew what was right, nor could she fix on any one article\r
+of moral duty evidently transgressed; but yet she would have been\r
+afraid to answer for his conduct. She distrusted the past, if not the\r
+present. The names which occasionally dropt of former associates, the\r
+allusions to former practices and pursuits, suggested suspicions not\r
+favourable of what he had been. She saw that there had been bad\r
+habits; that Sunday travelling had been a common thing; that there had\r
+been a period of his life (and probably not a short one) when he had\r
+been, at least, careless in all serious matters; and, though he might\r
+now think very differently, who could answer for the true sentiments of\r
+a clever, cautious man, grown old enough to appreciate a fair\r
+character? How could it ever be ascertained that his mind was truly\r
+cleansed?\r
+\r
+Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There\r
+was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight,\r
+at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided\r
+imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the\r
+frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth\r
+and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so\r
+much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or\r
+said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind\r
+never varied, whose tongue never slipped.\r
+\r
+Mr Elliot was too generally agreeable. Various as were the tempers in\r
+her father's house, he pleased them all. He endured too well, stood\r
+too well with every body. He had spoken to her with some degree of\r
+openness of Mrs Clay; had appeared completely to see what Mrs Clay was\r
+about, and to hold her in contempt; and yet Mrs Clay found him as\r
+agreeable as any body.\r
+\r
+Lady Russell saw either less or more than her young friend, for she saw\r
+nothing to excite distrust. She could not imagine a man more exactly\r
+what he ought to be than Mr Elliot; nor did she ever enjoy a sweeter\r
+feeling than the hope of seeing him receive the hand of her beloved\r
+Anne in Kellynch church, in the course of the following autumn.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 18\r
+\r
+\r
+It was the beginning of February; and Anne, having been a month in\r
+Bath, was growing very eager for news from Uppercross and Lyme. She\r
+wanted to hear much more than Mary had communicated. It was three\r
+weeks since she had heard at all. She only knew that Henrietta was at\r
+home again; and that Louisa, though considered to be recovering fast,\r
+was still in Lyme; and she was thinking of them all very intently one\r
+evening, when a thicker letter than usual from Mary was delivered to\r
+her; and, to quicken the pleasure and surprise, with Admiral and Mrs\r
+Croft's compliments.\r
+\r
+The Crofts must be in Bath! A circumstance to interest her. They were\r
+people whom her heart turned to very naturally.\r
+\r
+"What is this?" cried Sir Walter. "The Crofts have arrived in Bath?\r
+The Crofts who rent Kellynch? What have they brought you?"\r
+\r
+"A letter from Uppercross Cottage, Sir."\r
+\r
+"Oh! those letters are convenient passports. They secure an\r
+introduction. I should have visited Admiral Croft, however, at any\r
+rate. I know what is due to my tenant."\r
+\r
+Anne could listen no longer; she could not even have told how the poor\r
+Admiral's complexion escaped; her letter engrossed her. It had been\r
+begun several days back.\r
+\r
+\r
+"February 1st.\r
+\r
+"My dear Anne,--I make no apology for my silence, because I know how\r
+little people think of letters in such a place as Bath. You must be a\r
+great deal too happy to care for Uppercross, which, as you well know,\r
+affords little to write about. We have had a very dull Christmas; Mr\r
+and Mrs Musgrove have not had one dinner party all the holidays. I do\r
+not reckon the Hayters as anybody. The holidays, however, are over at\r
+last: I believe no children ever had such long ones. I am sure I had\r
+not. The house was cleared yesterday, except of the little Harvilles;\r
+but you will be surprised to hear they have never gone home. Mrs\r
+Harville must be an odd mother to part with them so long. I do not\r
+understand it. They are not at all nice children, in my opinion; but\r
+Mrs Musgrove seems to like them quite as well, if not better, than her\r
+grandchildren. What dreadful weather we have had! It may not be felt\r
+in Bath, with your nice pavements; but in the country it is of some\r
+consequence. I have not had a creature call on me since the second\r
+week in January, except Charles Hayter, who had been calling much\r
+oftener than was welcome. Between ourselves, I think it a great pity\r
+Henrietta did not remain at Lyme as long as Louisa; it would have kept\r
+her a little out of his way. The carriage is gone to-day, to bring\r
+Louisa and the Harvilles to-morrow. We are not asked to dine with\r
+them, however, till the day after, Mrs Musgrove is so afraid of her\r
+being fatigued by the journey, which is not very likely, considering\r
+the care that will be taken of her; and it would be much more\r
+convenient to me to dine there to-morrow. I am glad you find Mr Elliot\r
+so agreeable, and wish I could be acquainted with him too; but I have\r
+my usual luck: I am always out of the way when any thing desirable is\r
+going on; always the last of my family to be noticed. What an immense\r
+time Mrs Clay has been staying with Elizabeth! Does she never mean to\r
+go away? But perhaps if she were to leave the room vacant, we might\r
+not be invited. Let me know what you think of this. I do not expect\r
+my children to be asked, you know. I can leave them at the Great House\r
+very well, for a month or six weeks. I have this moment heard that the\r
+Crofts are going to Bath almost immediately; they think the Admiral\r
+gouty. Charles heard it quite by chance; they have not had the\r
+civility to give me any notice, or of offering to take anything. I do\r
+not think they improve at all as neighbours. We see nothing of them,\r
+and this is really an instance of gross inattention. Charles joins me\r
+in love, and everything proper. Yours affectionately,\r
+\r
+"Mary M---.\r
+\r
+"I am sorry to say that I am very far from well; and Jemima has just\r
+told me that the butcher says there is a bad sore-throat very much\r
+about. I dare say I shall catch it; and my sore-throats, you know, are\r
+always worse than anybody's."\r
+\r
+\r
+So ended the first part, which had been afterwards put into an\r
+envelope, containing nearly as much more.\r
+\r
+\r
+"I kept my letter open, that I might send you word how Louisa bore her\r
+journey, and now I am extremely glad I did, having a great deal to add.\r
+In the first place, I had a note from Mrs Croft yesterday, offering to\r
+convey anything to you; a very kind, friendly note indeed, addressed to\r
+me, just as it ought; I shall therefore be able to make my letter as\r
+long as I like. The Admiral does not seem very ill, and I sincerely\r
+hope Bath will do him all the good he wants. I shall be truly glad to\r
+have them back again. Our neighbourhood cannot spare such a pleasant\r
+family. But now for Louisa. I have something to communicate that will\r
+astonish you not a little. She and the Harvilles came on Tuesday very\r
+safely, and in the evening we went to ask her how she did, when we were\r
+rather surprised not to find Captain Benwick of the party, for he had\r
+been invited as well as the Harvilles; and what do you think was the\r
+reason? Neither more nor less than his being in love with Louisa, and\r
+not choosing to venture to Uppercross till he had had an answer from Mr\r
+Musgrove; for it was all settled between him and her before she came\r
+away, and he had written to her father by Captain Harville. True, upon\r
+my honour! Are not you astonished? I shall be surprised at least if\r
+you ever received a hint of it, for I never did. Mrs Musgrove protests\r
+solemnly that she knew nothing of the matter. We are all very well\r
+pleased, however, for though it is not equal to her marrying Captain\r
+Wentworth, it is infinitely better than Charles Hayter; and Mr Musgrove\r
+has written his consent, and Captain Benwick is expected to-day. Mrs\r
+Harville says her husband feels a good deal on his poor sister's\r
+account; but, however, Louisa is a great favourite with both. Indeed,\r
+Mrs Harville and I quite agree that we love her the better for having\r
+nursed her. Charles wonders what Captain Wentworth will say; but if\r
+you remember, I never thought him attached to Louisa; I never could see\r
+anything of it. And this is the end, you see, of Captain Benwick's\r
+being supposed to be an admirer of yours. How Charles could take such\r
+a thing into his head was always incomprehensible to me. I hope he\r
+will be more agreeable now. Certainly not a great match for Louisa\r
+Musgrove, but a million times better than marrying among the Hayters."\r
+\r
+\r
+Mary need not have feared her sister's being in any degree prepared for\r
+the news. She had never in her life been more astonished. Captain\r
+Benwick and Louisa Musgrove! It was almost too wonderful for belief,\r
+and it was with the greatest effort that she could remain in the room,\r
+preserve an air of calmness, and answer the common questions of the\r
+moment. Happily for her, they were not many. Sir Walter wanted to\r
+know whether the Crofts travelled with four horses, and whether they\r
+were likely to be situated in such a part of Bath as it might suit Miss\r
+Elliot and himself to visit in; but had little curiosity beyond.\r
+\r
+"How is Mary?" said Elizabeth; and without waiting for an answer, "And\r
+pray what brings the Crofts to Bath?"\r
+\r
+"They come on the Admiral's account. He is thought to be gouty."\r
+\r
+"Gout and decrepitude!" said Sir Walter. "Poor old gentleman."\r
+\r
+"Have they any acquaintance here?" asked Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"I do not know; but I can hardly suppose that, at Admiral Croft's time\r
+of life, and in his profession, he should not have many acquaintance in\r
+such a place as this."\r
+\r
+"I suspect," said Sir Walter coolly, "that Admiral Croft will be best\r
+known in Bath as the renter of Kellynch Hall. Elizabeth, may we\r
+venture to present him and his wife in Laura Place?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, no! I think not. Situated as we are with Lady Dalrymple, cousins,\r
+we ought to be very careful not to embarrass her with acquaintance she\r
+might not approve. If we were not related, it would not signify; but\r
+as cousins, she would feel scrupulous as to any proposal of ours. We\r
+had better leave the Crofts to find their own level. There are several\r
+odd-looking men walking about here, who, I am told, are sailors. The\r
+Crofts will associate with them."\r
+\r
+This was Sir Walter and Elizabeth's share of interest in the letter;\r
+when Mrs Clay had paid her tribute of more decent attention, in an\r
+enquiry after Mrs Charles Musgrove, and her fine little boys, Anne was\r
+at liberty.\r
+\r
+In her own room, she tried to comprehend it. Well might Charles wonder\r
+how Captain Wentworth would feel! Perhaps he had quitted the field,\r
+had given Louisa up, had ceased to love, had found he did not love her.\r
+She could not endure the idea of treachery or levity, or anything akin\r
+to ill usage between him and his friend. She could not endure that\r
+such a friendship as theirs should be severed unfairly.\r
+\r
+Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove! The high-spirited, joyous-talking\r
+Louisa Musgrove, and the dejected, thinking, feeling, reading, Captain\r
+Benwick, seemed each of them everything that would not suit the other.\r
+Their minds most dissimilar! Where could have been the attraction?\r
+The answer soon presented itself. It had been in situation. They had\r
+been thrown together several weeks; they had been living in the same\r
+small family party: since Henrietta's coming away, they must have been\r
+depending almost entirely on each other, and Louisa, just recovering\r
+from illness, had been in an interesting state, and Captain Benwick was\r
+not inconsolable. That was a point which Anne had not been able to\r
+avoid suspecting before; and instead of drawing the same conclusion as\r
+Mary, from the present course of events, they served only to confirm\r
+the idea of his having felt some dawning of tenderness toward herself.\r
+She did not mean, however, to derive much more from it to gratify her\r
+vanity, than Mary might have allowed. She was persuaded that any\r
+tolerably pleasing young woman who had listened and seemed to feel for\r
+him would have received the same compliment. He had an affectionate\r
+heart. He must love somebody.\r
+\r
+She saw no reason against their being happy. Louisa had fine naval\r
+fervour to begin with, and they would soon grow more alike. He would\r
+gain cheerfulness, and she would learn to be an enthusiast for Scott\r
+and Lord Byron; nay, that was probably learnt already; of course they\r
+had fallen in love over poetry. The idea of Louisa Musgrove turned\r
+into a person of literary taste, and sentimental reflection was\r
+amusing, but she had no doubt of its being so. The day at Lyme, the\r
+fall from the Cobb, might influence her health, her nerves, her\r
+courage, her character to the end of her life, as thoroughly as it\r
+appeared to have influenced her fate.\r
+\r
+The conclusion of the whole was, that if the woman who had been\r
+sensible of Captain Wentworth's merits could be allowed to prefer\r
+another man, there was nothing in the engagement to excite lasting\r
+wonder; and if Captain Wentworth lost no friend by it, certainly\r
+nothing to be regretted. No, it was not regret which made Anne's heart\r
+beat in spite of herself, and brought the colour into her cheeks when\r
+she thought of Captain Wentworth unshackled and free. She had some\r
+feelings which she was ashamed to investigate. They were too much like\r
+joy, senseless joy!\r
+\r
+She longed to see the Crofts; but when the meeting took place, it was\r
+evident that no rumour of the news had yet reached them. The visit of\r
+ceremony was paid and returned; and Louisa Musgrove was mentioned, and\r
+Captain Benwick, too, without even half a smile.\r
+\r
+The Crofts had placed themselves in lodgings in Gay Street, perfectly\r
+to Sir Walter's satisfaction. He was not at all ashamed of the\r
+acquaintance, and did, in fact, think and talk a great deal more about\r
+the Admiral, than the Admiral ever thought or talked about him.\r
+\r
+The Crofts knew quite as many people in Bath as they wished for, and\r
+considered their intercourse with the Elliots as a mere matter of form,\r
+and not in the least likely to afford them any pleasure. They brought\r
+with them their country habit of being almost always together. He was\r
+ordered to walk to keep off the gout, and Mrs Croft seemed to go shares\r
+with him in everything, and to walk for her life to do him good. Anne\r
+saw them wherever she went. Lady Russell took her out in her carriage\r
+almost every morning, and she never failed to think of them, and never\r
+failed to see them. Knowing their feelings as she did, it was a most\r
+attractive picture of happiness to her. She always watched them as\r
+long as she could, delighted to fancy she understood what they might be\r
+talking of, as they walked along in happy independence, or equally\r
+delighted to see the Admiral's hearty shake of the hand when he\r
+encountered an old friend, and observe their eagerness of conversation\r
+when occasionally forming into a little knot of the navy, Mrs Croft\r
+looking as intelligent and keen as any of the officers around her.\r
+\r
+Anne was too much engaged with Lady Russell to be often walking\r
+herself; but it so happened that one morning, about a week or ten days\r
+after the Croft's arrival, it suited her best to leave her friend, or\r
+her friend's carriage, in the lower part of the town, and return alone\r
+to Camden Place, and in walking up Milsom Street she had the good\r
+fortune to meet with the Admiral. He was standing by himself at a\r
+printshop window, with his hands behind him, in earnest contemplation\r
+of some print, and she not only might have passed him unseen, but was\r
+obliged to touch as well as address him before she could catch his\r
+notice. When he did perceive and acknowledge her, however, it was done\r
+with all his usual frankness and good humour. "Ha! is it you? Thank\r
+you, thank you. This is treating me like a friend. Here I am, you\r
+see, staring at a picture. I can never get by this shop without\r
+stopping. But what a thing here is, by way of a boat! Do look at it.\r
+Did you ever see the like? What queer fellows your fine painters must\r
+be, to think that anybody would venture their lives in such a shapeless\r
+old cockleshell as that? And yet here are two gentlemen stuck up in it\r
+mightily at their ease, and looking about them at the rocks and\r
+mountains, as if they were not to be upset the next moment, which they\r
+certainly must be. I wonder where that boat was built!" (laughing\r
+heartily); "I would not venture over a horsepond in it. Well,"\r
+(turning away), "now, where are you bound? Can I go anywhere for you,\r
+or with you? Can I be of any use?"\r
+\r
+"None, I thank you, unless you will give me the pleasure of your\r
+company the little way our road lies together. I am going home."\r
+\r
+\r
+"That I will, with all my heart, and farther, too. Yes, yes we will\r
+have a snug walk together, and I have something to tell you as we go\r
+along. There, take my arm; that's right; I do not feel comfortable if\r
+I have not a woman there. Lord! what a boat it is!" taking a last look\r
+at the picture, as they began to be in motion.\r
+\r
+"Did you say that you had something to tell me, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I have, presently. But here comes a friend, Captain Brigden; I\r
+shall only say, 'How d'ye do?' as we pass, however. I shall not stop.\r
+'How d'ye do?' Brigden stares to see anybody with me but my wife.\r
+She, poor soul, is tied by the leg. She has a blister on one of her\r
+heels, as large as a three-shilling piece. If you look across the\r
+street, you will see Admiral Brand coming down and his brother. Shabby\r
+fellows, both of them! I am glad they are not on this side of the way.\r
+Sophy cannot bear them. They played me a pitiful trick once: got away\r
+with some of my best men. I will tell you the whole story another\r
+time. There comes old Sir Archibald Drew and his grandson. Look, he\r
+sees us; he kisses his hand to you; he takes you for my wife. Ah! the\r
+peace has come too soon for that younker. Poor old Sir Archibald! How\r
+do you like Bath, Miss Elliot? It suits us very well. We are always\r
+meeting with some old friend or other; the streets full of them every\r
+morning; sure to have plenty of chat; and then we get away from them\r
+all, and shut ourselves in our lodgings, and draw in our chairs, and\r
+are as snug as if we were at Kellynch, ay, or as we used to be even at\r
+North Yarmouth and Deal. We do not like our lodgings here the worse, I\r
+can tell you, for putting us in mind of those we first had at North\r
+Yarmouth. The wind blows through one of the cupboards just in the same\r
+way."\r
+\r
+When they were got a little farther, Anne ventured to press again for\r
+what he had to communicate. She hoped when clear of Milsom Street to\r
+have her curiosity gratified; but she was still obliged to wait, for\r
+the Admiral had made up his mind not to begin till they had gained the\r
+greater space and quiet of Belmont; and as she was not really Mrs\r
+Croft, she must let him have his own way. As soon as they were fairly\r
+ascending Belmont, he began--\r
+\r
+"Well, now you shall hear something that will surprise you. But first\r
+of all, you must tell me the name of the young lady I am going to talk\r
+about. That young lady, you know, that we have all been so concerned\r
+for. The Miss Musgrove, that all this has been happening to. Her\r
+Christian name: I always forget her Christian name."\r
+\r
+Anne had been ashamed to appear to comprehend so soon as she really\r
+did; but now she could safely suggest the name of "Louisa."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Miss Louisa Musgrove, that is the name. I wish young ladies\r
+had not such a number of fine Christian names. I should never be out\r
+if they were all Sophys, or something of that sort. Well, this Miss\r
+Louisa, we all thought, you know, was to marry Frederick. He was\r
+courting her week after week. The only wonder was, what they could be\r
+waiting for, till the business at Lyme came; then, indeed, it was clear\r
+enough that they must wait till her brain was set to right. But even\r
+then there was something odd in their way of going on. Instead of\r
+staying at Lyme, he went off to Plymouth, and then he went off to see\r
+Edward. When we came back from Minehead he was gone down to Edward's,\r
+and there he has been ever since. We have seen nothing of him since\r
+November. Even Sophy could not understand it. But now, the matter has\r
+taken the strangest turn of all; for this young lady, the same Miss\r
+Musgrove, instead of being to marry Frederick, is to marry James\r
+Benwick. You know James Benwick."\r
+\r
+"A little. I am a little acquainted with Captain Benwick."\r
+\r
+"Well, she is to marry him. Nay, most likely they are married already,\r
+for I do not know what they should wait for."\r
+\r
+"I thought Captain Benwick a very pleasing young man," said Anne, "and\r
+I understand that he bears an excellent character."\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes, yes, there is not a word to be said against James Benwick.\r
+He is only a commander, it is true, made last summer, and these are bad\r
+times for getting on, but he has not another fault that I know of. An\r
+excellent, good-hearted fellow, I assure you; a very active, zealous\r
+officer too, which is more than you would think for, perhaps, for that\r
+soft sort of manner does not do him justice."\r
+\r
+"Indeed you are mistaken there, sir; I should never augur want of\r
+spirit from Captain Benwick's manners. I thought them particularly\r
+pleasing, and I will answer for it, they would generally please."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, ladies are the best judges; but James Benwick is rather\r
+too piano for me; and though very likely it is all our partiality,\r
+Sophy and I cannot help thinking Frederick's manners better than his.\r
+There is something about Frederick more to our taste."\r
+\r
+Anne was caught. She had only meant to oppose the too common idea of\r
+spirit and gentleness being incompatible with each other, not at all to\r
+represent Captain Benwick's manners as the very best that could\r
+possibly be; and, after a little hesitation, she was beginning to say,\r
+"I was not entering into any comparison of the two friends," but the\r
+Admiral interrupted her with--\r
+\r
+"And the thing is certainly true. It is not a mere bit of gossip. We\r
+have it from Frederick himself. His sister had a letter from him\r
+yesterday, in which he tells us of it, and he had just had it in a\r
+letter from Harville, written upon the spot, from Uppercross. I fancy\r
+they are all at Uppercross."\r
+\r
+This was an opportunity which Anne could not resist; she said,\r
+therefore, "I hope, Admiral, I hope there is nothing in the style of\r
+Captain Wentworth's letter to make you and Mrs Croft particularly\r
+uneasy. It did seem, last autumn, as if there were an attachment\r
+between him and Louisa Musgrove; but I hope it may be understood to\r
+have worn out on each side equally, and without violence. I hope his\r
+letter does not breathe the spirit of an ill-used man."\r
+\r
+"Not at all, not at all; there is not an oath or a murmur from\r
+beginning to end."\r
+\r
+Anne looked down to hide her smile.\r
+\r
+"No, no; Frederick is not a man to whine and complain; he has too much\r
+spirit for that. If the girl likes another man better, it is very fit\r
+she should have him."\r
+\r
+"Certainly. But what I mean is, that I hope there is nothing in\r
+Captain Wentworth's manner of writing to make you suppose he thinks\r
+himself ill-used by his friend, which might appear, you know, without\r
+its being absolutely said. I should be very sorry that such a\r
+friendship as has subsisted between him and Captain Benwick should be\r
+destroyed, or even wounded, by a circumstance of this sort."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I understand you. But there is nothing at all of that\r
+nature in the letter. He does not give the least fling at Benwick;\r
+does not so much as say, 'I wonder at it, I have a reason of my own for\r
+wondering at it.' No, you would not guess, from his way of writing,\r
+that he had ever thought of this Miss (what's her name?) for himself.\r
+He very handsomely hopes they will be happy together; and there is\r
+nothing very unforgiving in that, I think."\r
+\r
+Anne did not receive the perfect conviction which the Admiral meant to\r
+convey, but it would have been useless to press the enquiry farther.\r
+She therefore satisfied herself with common-place remarks or quiet\r
+attention, and the Admiral had it all his own way.\r
+\r
+"Poor Frederick!" said he at last. "Now he must begin all over again\r
+with somebody else. I think we must get him to Bath. Sophy must\r
+write, and beg him to come to Bath. Here are pretty girls enough, I am\r
+sure. It would be of no use to go to Uppercross again, for that other\r
+Miss Musgrove, I find, is bespoke by her cousin, the young parson. Do\r
+not you think, Miss Elliot, we had better try to get him to Bath?"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 19\r
+\r
+\r
+While Admiral Croft was taking this walk with Anne, and expressing his\r
+wish of getting Captain Wentworth to Bath, Captain Wentworth was\r
+already on his way thither. Before Mrs Croft had written, he was\r
+arrived, and the very next time Anne walked out, she saw him.\r
+\r
+Mr Elliot was attending his two cousins and Mrs Clay. They were in\r
+Milsom Street. It began to rain, not much, but enough to make shelter\r
+desirable for women, and quite enough to make it very desirable for\r
+Miss Elliot to have the advantage of being conveyed home in Lady\r
+Dalrymple's carriage, which was seen waiting at a little distance; she,\r
+Anne, and Mrs Clay, therefore, turned into Molland's, while Mr Elliot\r
+stepped to Lady Dalrymple, to request her assistance. He soon joined\r
+them again, successful, of course; Lady Dalrymple would be most happy\r
+to take them home, and would call for them in a few minutes.\r
+\r
+Her ladyship's carriage was a barouche, and did not hold more than four\r
+with any comfort. Miss Carteret was with her mother; consequently it\r
+was not reasonable to expect accommodation for all the three Camden\r
+Place ladies. There could be no doubt as to Miss Elliot. Whoever\r
+suffered inconvenience, she must suffer none, but it occupied a little\r
+time to settle the point of civility between the other two. The rain\r
+was a mere trifle, and Anne was most sincere in preferring a walk with\r
+Mr Elliot. But the rain was also a mere trifle to Mrs Clay; she would\r
+hardly allow it even to drop at all, and her boots were so thick! much\r
+thicker than Miss Anne's; and, in short, her civility rendered her\r
+quite as anxious to be left to walk with Mr Elliot as Anne could be,\r
+and it was discussed between them with a generosity so polite and so\r
+determined, that the others were obliged to settle it for them; Miss\r
+Elliot maintaining that Mrs Clay had a little cold already, and Mr\r
+Elliot deciding on appeal, that his cousin Anne's boots were rather the\r
+thickest.\r
+\r
+It was fixed accordingly, that Mrs Clay should be of the party in the\r
+carriage; and they had just reached this point, when Anne, as she sat\r
+near the window, descried, most decidedly and distinctly, Captain\r
+Wentworth walking down the street.\r
+\r
+Her start was perceptible only to herself; but she instantly felt that\r
+she was the greatest simpleton in the world, the most unaccountable and\r
+absurd! For a few minutes she saw nothing before her; it was all\r
+confusion. She was lost, and when she had scolded back her senses, she\r
+found the others still waiting for the carriage, and Mr Elliot (always\r
+obliging) just setting off for Union Street on a commission of Mrs\r
+Clay's.\r
+\r
+She now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door; she wanted to\r
+see if it rained. Why was she to suspect herself of another motive?\r
+Captain Wentworth must be out of sight. She left her seat, she would\r
+go; one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other\r
+half, or always suspecting the other of being worse than it was. She\r
+would see if it rained. She was sent back, however, in a moment by the\r
+entrance of Captain Wentworth himself, among a party of gentlemen and\r
+ladies, evidently his acquaintance, and whom he must have joined a\r
+little below Milsom Street. He was more obviously struck and confused\r
+by the sight of her than she had ever observed before; he looked quite\r
+red. For the first time, since their renewed acquaintance, she felt\r
+that she was betraying the least sensibility of the two. She had the\r
+advantage of him in the preparation of the last few moments. All the\r
+overpowering, blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise\r
+were over with her. Still, however, she had enough to feel! It was\r
+agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery.\r
+\r
+He spoke to her, and then turned away. The character of his manner was\r
+embarrassment. She could not have called it either cold or friendly,\r
+or anything so certainly as embarrassed.\r
+\r
+After a short interval, however, he came towards her, and spoke again.\r
+Mutual enquiries on common subjects passed: neither of them, probably,\r
+much the wiser for what they heard, and Anne continuing fully sensible\r
+of his being less at ease than formerly. They had by dint of being so\r
+very much together, got to speak to each other with a considerable\r
+portion of apparent indifference and calmness; but he could not do it\r
+now. Time had changed him, or Louisa had changed him. There was\r
+consciousness of some sort or other. He looked very well, not as if he\r
+had been suffering in health or spirits, and he talked of Uppercross,\r
+of the Musgroves, nay, even of Louisa, and had even a momentary look of\r
+his own arch significance as he named her; but yet it was Captain\r
+Wentworth not comfortable, not easy, not able to feign that he was.\r
+\r
+It did not surprise, but it grieved Anne to observe that Elizabeth\r
+would not know him. She saw that he saw Elizabeth, that Elizabeth saw\r
+him, that there was complete internal recognition on each side; she was\r
+convinced that he was ready to be acknowledged as an acquaintance,\r
+expecting it, and she had the pain of seeing her sister turn away with\r
+unalterable coldness.\r
+\r
+Lady Dalrymple's carriage, for which Miss Elliot was growing very\r
+impatient, now drew up; the servant came in to announce it. It was\r
+beginning to rain again, and altogether there was a delay, and a\r
+bustle, and a talking, which must make all the little crowd in the shop\r
+understand that Lady Dalrymple was calling to convey Miss Elliot. At\r
+last Miss Elliot and her friend, unattended but by the servant, (for\r
+there was no cousin returned), were walking off; and Captain Wentworth,\r
+watching them, turned again to Anne, and by manner, rather than words,\r
+was offering his services to her.\r
+\r
+"I am much obliged to you," was her answer, "but I am not going with\r
+them. The carriage would not accommodate so many. I walk: I prefer\r
+walking."\r
+\r
+"But it rains."\r
+\r
+"Oh! very little, Nothing that I regard."\r
+\r
+After a moment's pause he said: "Though I came only yesterday, I have\r
+equipped myself properly for Bath already, you see," (pointing to a new\r
+umbrella); "I wish you would make use of it, if you are determined to\r
+walk; though I think it would be more prudent to let me get you a\r
+chair."\r
+\r
+She was very much obliged to him, but declined it all, repeating her\r
+conviction, that the rain would come to nothing at present, and adding,\r
+"I am only waiting for Mr Elliot. He will be here in a moment, I am\r
+sure."\r
+\r
+She had hardly spoken the words when Mr Elliot walked in. Captain\r
+Wentworth recollected him perfectly. There was no difference between\r
+him and the man who had stood on the steps at Lyme, admiring Anne as\r
+she passed, except in the air and look and manner of the privileged\r
+relation and friend. He came in with eagerness, appeared to see and\r
+think only of her, apologised for his stay, was grieved to have kept\r
+her waiting, and anxious to get her away without further loss of time\r
+and before the rain increased; and in another moment they walked off\r
+together, her arm under his, a gentle and embarrassed glance, and a\r
+"Good morning to you!" being all that she had time for, as she passed\r
+away.\r
+\r
+As soon as they were out of sight, the ladies of Captain Wentworth's\r
+party began talking of them.\r
+\r
+"Mr Elliot does not dislike his cousin, I fancy?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! no, that is clear enough. One can guess what will happen there.\r
+He is always with them; half lives in the family, I believe. What a\r
+very good-looking man!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and Miss Atkinson, who dined with him once at the Wallises, says\r
+he is the most agreeable man she ever was in company with."\r
+\r
+"She is pretty, I think; Anne Elliot; very pretty, when one comes to\r
+look at her. It is not the fashion to say so, but I confess I admire\r
+her more than her sister."\r
+\r
+"Oh! so do I."\r
+\r
+"And so do I. No comparison. But the men are all wild after Miss\r
+Elliot. Anne is too delicate for them."\r
+\r
+Anne would have been particularly obliged to her cousin, if he would\r
+have walked by her side all the way to Camden Place, without saying a\r
+word. She had never found it so difficult to listen to him, though\r
+nothing could exceed his solicitude and care, and though his subjects\r
+were principally such as were wont to be always interesting: praise,\r
+warm, just, and discriminating, of Lady Russell, and insinuations\r
+highly rational against Mrs Clay. But just now she could think only of\r
+Captain Wentworth. She could not understand his present feelings,\r
+whether he were really suffering much from disappointment or not; and\r
+till that point were settled, she could not be quite herself.\r
+\r
+She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! alas! she must\r
+confess to herself that she was not wise yet.\r
+\r
+Another circumstance very essential for her to know, was how long he\r
+meant to be in Bath; he had not mentioned it, or she could not\r
+recollect it. He might be only passing through. But it was more\r
+probable that he should be come to stay. In that case, so liable as\r
+every body was to meet every body in Bath, Lady Russell would in all\r
+likelihood see him somewhere. Would she recollect him? How would it\r
+all be?\r
+\r
+She had already been obliged to tell Lady Russell that Louisa Musgrove\r
+was to marry Captain Benwick. It had cost her something to encounter\r
+Lady Russell's surprise; and now, if she were by any chance to be\r
+thrown into company with Captain Wentworth, her imperfect knowledge of\r
+the matter might add another shade of prejudice against him.\r
+\r
+The following morning Anne was out with her friend, and for the first\r
+hour, in an incessant and fearful sort of watch for him in vain; but at\r
+last, in returning down Pulteney Street, she distinguished him on the\r
+right hand pavement at such a distance as to have him in view the\r
+greater part of the street. There were many other men about him, many\r
+groups walking the same way, but there was no mistaking him. She\r
+looked instinctively at Lady Russell; but not from any mad idea of her\r
+recognising him so soon as she did herself. No, it was not to be\r
+supposed that Lady Russell would perceive him till they were nearly\r
+opposite. She looked at her however, from time to time, anxiously; and\r
+when the moment approached which must point him out, though not daring\r
+to look again (for her own countenance she knew was unfit to be seen),\r
+she was yet perfectly conscious of Lady Russell's eyes being turned\r
+exactly in the direction for him--of her being, in short, intently\r
+observing him. She could thoroughly comprehend the sort of fascination\r
+he must possess over Lady Russell's mind, the difficulty it must be for\r
+her to withdraw her eyes, the astonishment she must be feeling that\r
+eight or nine years should have passed over him, and in foreign climes\r
+and in active service too, without robbing him of one personal grace!\r
+\r
+At last, Lady Russell drew back her head. "Now, how would she speak of\r
+him?"\r
+\r
+"You will wonder," said she, "what has been fixing my eye so long; but\r
+I was looking after some window-curtains, which Lady Alicia and Mrs\r
+Frankland were telling me of last night. They described the\r
+drawing-room window-curtains of one of the houses on this side of the\r
+way, and this part of the street, as being the handsomest and best hung\r
+of any in Bath, but could not recollect the exact number, and I have\r
+been trying to find out which it could be; but I confess I can see no\r
+curtains hereabouts that answer their description."\r
+\r
+Anne sighed and blushed and smiled, in pity and disdain, either at her\r
+friend or herself. The part which provoked her most, was that in all\r
+this waste of foresight and caution, she should have lost the right\r
+moment for seeing whether he saw them.\r
+\r
+A day or two passed without producing anything. The theatre or the\r
+rooms, where he was most likely to be, were not fashionable enough for\r
+the Elliots, whose evening amusements were solely in the elegant\r
+stupidity of private parties, in which they were getting more and more\r
+engaged; and Anne, wearied of such a state of stagnation, sick of\r
+knowing nothing, and fancying herself stronger because her strength was\r
+not tried, was quite impatient for the concert evening. It was a\r
+concert for the benefit of a person patronised by Lady Dalrymple. Of\r
+course they must attend. It was really expected to be a good one, and\r
+Captain Wentworth was very fond of music. If she could only have a few\r
+minutes conversation with him again, she fancied she should be\r
+satisfied; and as to the power of addressing him, she felt all over\r
+courage if the opportunity occurred. Elizabeth had turned from him,\r
+Lady Russell overlooked him; her nerves were strengthened by these\r
+circumstances; she felt that she owed him attention.\r
+\r
+She had once partly promised Mrs Smith to spend the evening with her;\r
+but in a short hurried call she excused herself and put it off, with\r
+the more decided promise of a longer visit on the morrow. Mrs Smith\r
+gave a most good-humoured acquiescence.\r
+\r
+"By all means," said she; "only tell me all about it, when you do come.\r
+Who is your party?"\r
+\r
+Anne named them all. Mrs Smith made no reply; but when she was leaving\r
+her said, and with an expression half serious, half arch, "Well, I\r
+heartily wish your concert may answer; and do not fail me to-morrow if\r
+you can come; for I begin to have a foreboding that I may not have many\r
+more visits from you."\r
+\r
+Anne was startled and confused; but after standing in a moment's\r
+suspense, was obliged, and not sorry to be obliged, to hurry away.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 20\r
+\r
+\r
+Sir Walter, his two daughters, and Mrs Clay, were the earliest of all\r
+their party at the rooms in the evening; and as Lady Dalrymple must be\r
+waited for, they took their station by one of the fires in the Octagon\r
+Room. But hardly were they so settled, when the door opened again, and\r
+Captain Wentworth walked in alone. Anne was the nearest to him, and\r
+making yet a little advance, she instantly spoke. He was preparing\r
+only to bow and pass on, but her gentle "How do you do?" brought him\r
+out of the straight line to stand near her, and make enquiries in\r
+return, in spite of the formidable father and sister in the back\r
+ground. Their being in the back ground was a support to Anne; she knew\r
+nothing of their looks, and felt equal to everything which she believed\r
+right to be done.\r
+\r
+While they were speaking, a whispering between her father and Elizabeth\r
+caught her ear. She could not distinguish, but she must guess the\r
+subject; and on Captain Wentworth's making a distant bow, she\r
+comprehended that her father had judged so well as to give him that\r
+simple acknowledgement of acquaintance, and she was just in time by a\r
+side glance to see a slight curtsey from Elizabeth herself. This,\r
+though late, and reluctant, and ungracious, was yet better than\r
+nothing, and her spirits improved.\r
+\r
+After talking, however, of the weather, and Bath, and the concert,\r
+their conversation began to flag, and so little was said at last, that\r
+she was expecting him to go every moment, but he did not; he seemed in\r
+no hurry to leave her; and presently with renewed spirit, with a little\r
+smile, a little glow, he said--\r
+\r
+"I have hardly seen you since our day at Lyme. I am afraid you must\r
+have suffered from the shock, and the more from its not overpowering\r
+you at the time."\r
+\r
+She assured him that she had not.\r
+\r
+"It was a frightful hour," said he, "a frightful day!" and he passed\r
+his hand across his eyes, as if the remembrance were still too painful,\r
+but in a moment, half smiling again, added, "The day has produced some\r
+effects however; has had some consequences which must be considered as\r
+the very reverse of frightful. When you had the presence of mind to\r
+suggest that Benwick would be the properest person to fetch a surgeon,\r
+you could have little idea of his being eventually one of those most\r
+concerned in her recovery."\r
+\r
+"Certainly I could have none. But it appears--I should hope it would\r
+be a very happy match. There are on both sides good principles and\r
+good temper."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said he, looking not exactly forward; "but there, I think, ends\r
+the resemblance. With all my soul I wish them happy, and rejoice over\r
+every circumstance in favour of it. They have no difficulties to\r
+contend with at home, no opposition, no caprice, no delays. The\r
+Musgroves are behaving like themselves, most honourably and kindly,\r
+only anxious with true parental hearts to promote their daughter's\r
+comfort. All this is much, very much in favour of their happiness;\r
+more than perhaps--"\r
+\r
+He stopped. A sudden recollection seemed to occur, and to give him\r
+some taste of that emotion which was reddening Anne's cheeks and fixing\r
+her eyes on the ground. After clearing his throat, however, he\r
+proceeded thus--\r
+\r
+"I confess that I do think there is a disparity, too great a disparity,\r
+and in a point no less essential than mind. I regard Louisa Musgrove\r
+as a very amiable, sweet-tempered girl, and not deficient in\r
+understanding, but Benwick is something more. He is a clever man, a\r
+reading man; and I confess, that I do consider his attaching himself to\r
+her with some surprise. Had it been the effect of gratitude, had he\r
+learnt to love her, because he believed her to be preferring him, it\r
+would have been another thing. But I have no reason to suppose it so.\r
+It seems, on the contrary, to have been a perfectly spontaneous,\r
+untaught feeling on his side, and this surprises me. A man like him,\r
+in his situation! with a heart pierced, wounded, almost broken! Fanny\r
+Harville was a very superior creature, and his attachment to her was\r
+indeed attachment. A man does not recover from such a devotion of the\r
+heart to such a woman. He ought not; he does not."\r
+\r
+Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered,\r
+or from other consciousness, he went no farther; and Anne who, in spite\r
+of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in\r
+spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam\r
+of the door, and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had\r
+distinguished every word, was struck, gratified, confused, and\r
+beginning to breathe very quick, and feel an hundred things in a\r
+moment. It was impossible for her to enter on such a subject; and yet,\r
+after a pause, feeling the necessity of speaking, and having not the\r
+smallest wish for a total change, she only deviated so far as to say--\r
+\r
+"You were a good while at Lyme, I think?"\r
+\r
+"About a fortnight. I could not leave it till Louisa's doing well was\r
+quite ascertained. I had been too deeply concerned in the mischief to\r
+be soon at peace. It had been my doing, solely mine. She would not\r
+have been obstinate if I had not been weak. The country round Lyme is\r
+very fine. I walked and rode a great deal; and the more I saw, the\r
+more I found to admire."\r
+\r
+"I should very much like to see Lyme again," said Anne.\r
+\r
+"Indeed! I should not have supposed that you could have found anything\r
+in Lyme to inspire such a feeling. The horror and distress you were\r
+involved in, the stretch of mind, the wear of spirits! I should have\r
+thought your last impressions of Lyme must have been strong disgust."\r
+\r
+"The last hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne; "but when\r
+pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does\r
+not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been\r
+all suffering, nothing but suffering, which was by no means the case at\r
+Lyme. We were only in anxiety and distress during the last two hours,\r
+and previously there had been a great deal of enjoyment. So much\r
+novelty and beauty! I have travelled so little, that every fresh place\r
+would be interesting to me; but there is real beauty at Lyme; and in\r
+short" (with a faint blush at some recollections), "altogether my\r
+impressions of the place are very agreeable."\r
+\r
+As she ceased, the entrance door opened again, and the very party\r
+appeared for whom they were waiting. "Lady Dalrymple, Lady Dalrymple,"\r
+was the rejoicing sound; and with all the eagerness compatible with\r
+anxious elegance, Sir Walter and his two ladies stepped forward to meet\r
+her. Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, escorted by Mr Elliot and\r
+Colonel Wallis, who had happened to arrive nearly at the same instant,\r
+advanced into the room. The others joined them, and it was a group in\r
+which Anne found herself also necessarily included. She was divided\r
+from Captain Wentworth. Their interesting, almost too interesting\r
+conversation must be broken up for a time, but slight was the penance\r
+compared with the happiness which brought it on! She had learnt, in\r
+the last ten minutes, more of his feelings towards Louisa, more of all\r
+his feelings than she dared to think of; and she gave herself up to the\r
+demands of the party, to the needful civilities of the moment, with\r
+exquisite, though agitated sensations. She was in good humour with\r
+all. She had received ideas which disposed her to be courteous and\r
+kind to all, and to pity every one, as being less happy than herself.\r
+\r
+The delightful emotions were a little subdued, when on stepping back\r
+from the group, to be joined again by Captain Wentworth, she saw that\r
+he was gone. She was just in time to see him turn into the Concert\r
+Room. He was gone; he had disappeared, she felt a moment's regret.\r
+But "they should meet again. He would look for her, he would find her\r
+out before the evening were over, and at present, perhaps, it was as\r
+well to be asunder. She was in need of a little interval for\r
+recollection."\r
+\r
+Upon Lady Russell's appearance soon afterwards, the whole party was\r
+collected, and all that remained was to marshal themselves, and proceed\r
+into the Concert Room; and be of all the consequence in their power,\r
+draw as many eyes, excite as many whispers, and disturb as many people\r
+as they could.\r
+\r
+Very, very happy were both Elizabeth and Anne Elliot as they walked in.\r
+Elizabeth arm in arm with Miss Carteret, and looking on the broad back\r
+of the dowager Viscountess Dalrymple before her, had nothing to wish\r
+for which did not seem within her reach; and Anne--but it would be an\r
+insult to the nature of Anne's felicity, to draw any comparison between\r
+it and her sister's; the origin of one all selfish vanity, of the other\r
+all generous attachment.\r
+\r
+Anne saw nothing, thought nothing of the brilliancy of the room. Her\r
+happiness was from within. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks glowed;\r
+but she knew nothing about it. She was thinking only of the last half\r
+hour, and as they passed to their seats, her mind took a hasty range\r
+over it. His choice of subjects, his expressions, and still more his\r
+manner and look, had been such as she could see in only one light. His\r
+opinion of Louisa Musgrove's inferiority, an opinion which he had\r
+seemed solicitous to give, his wonder at Captain Benwick, his feelings\r
+as to a first, strong attachment; sentences begun which he could not\r
+finish, his half averted eyes and more than half expressive glance,\r
+all, all declared that he had a heart returning to her at least; that\r
+anger, resentment, avoidance, were no more; and that they were\r
+succeeded, not merely by friendship and regard, but by the tenderness\r
+of the past. Yes, some share of the tenderness of the past. She could\r
+not contemplate the change as implying less. He must love her.\r
+\r
+These were thoughts, with their attendant visions, which occupied and\r
+flurried her too much to leave her any power of observation; and she\r
+passed along the room without having a glimpse of him, without even\r
+trying to discern him. When their places were determined on, and they\r
+were all properly arranged, she looked round to see if he should happen\r
+to be in the same part of the room, but he was not; her eye could not\r
+reach him; and the concert being just opening, she must consent for a\r
+time to be happy in a humbler way.\r
+\r
+The party was divided and disposed of on two contiguous benches: Anne\r
+was among those on the foremost, and Mr Elliot had manoeuvred so well,\r
+with the assistance of his friend Colonel Wallis, as to have a seat by\r
+her. Miss Elliot, surrounded by her cousins, and the principal object\r
+of Colonel Wallis's gallantry, was quite contented.\r
+\r
+Anne's mind was in a most favourable state for the entertainment of the\r
+evening; it was just occupation enough: she had feelings for the\r
+tender, spirits for the gay, attention for the scientific, and patience\r
+for the wearisome; and had never liked a concert better, at least\r
+during the first act. Towards the close of it, in the interval\r
+succeeding an Italian song, she explained the words of the song to Mr\r
+Elliot. They had a concert bill between them.\r
+\r
+"This," said she, "is nearly the sense, or rather the meaning of the\r
+words, for certainly the sense of an Italian love-song must not be\r
+talked of, but it is as nearly the meaning as I can give; for I do not\r
+pretend to understand the language. I am a very poor Italian scholar."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I see you are. I see you know nothing of the matter. You\r
+have only knowledge enough of the language to translate at sight these\r
+inverted, transposed, curtailed Italian lines, into clear,\r
+comprehensible, elegant English. You need not say anything more of\r
+your ignorance. Here is complete proof."\r
+\r
+"I will not oppose such kind politeness; but I should be sorry to be\r
+examined by a real proficient."\r
+\r
+"I have not had the pleasure of visiting in Camden Place so long,"\r
+replied he, "without knowing something of Miss Anne Elliot; and I do\r
+regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be\r
+aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for\r
+modesty to be natural in any other woman."\r
+\r
+"For shame! for shame! this is too much flattery. I forget what we are\r
+to have next," turning to the bill.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Mr Elliot, speaking low, "I have had a longer\r
+acquaintance with your character than you are aware of."\r
+\r
+"Indeed! How so? You can have been acquainted with it only since I\r
+came to Bath, excepting as you might hear me previously spoken of in my\r
+own family."\r
+\r
+"I knew you by report long before you came to Bath. I had heard you\r
+described by those who knew you intimately. I have been acquainted\r
+with you by character many years. Your person, your disposition,\r
+accomplishments, manner; they were all present to me."\r
+\r
+Mr Elliot was not disappointed in the interest he hoped to raise. No\r
+one can withstand the charm of such a mystery. To have been described\r
+long ago to a recent acquaintance, by nameless people, is irresistible;\r
+and Anne was all curiosity. She wondered, and questioned him eagerly;\r
+but in vain. He delighted in being asked, but he would not tell.\r
+\r
+"No, no, some time or other, perhaps, but not now. He would mention no\r
+names now; but such, he could assure her, had been the fact. He had\r
+many years ago received such a description of Miss Anne Elliot as had\r
+inspired him with the highest idea of her merit, and excited the\r
+warmest curiosity to know her."\r
+\r
+Anne could think of no one so likely to have spoken with partiality of\r
+her many years ago as the Mr Wentworth of Monkford, Captain Wentworth's\r
+brother. He might have been in Mr Elliot's company, but she had not\r
+courage to ask the question.\r
+\r
+"The name of Anne Elliot," said he, "has long had an interesting sound\r
+to me. Very long has it possessed a charm over my fancy; and, if I\r
+dared, I would breathe my wishes that the name might never change."\r
+\r
+Such, she believed, were his words; but scarcely had she received their\r
+sound, than her attention was caught by other sounds immediately behind\r
+her, which rendered every thing else trivial. Her father and Lady\r
+Dalrymple were speaking.\r
+\r
+"A well-looking man," said Sir Walter, "a very well-looking man."\r
+\r
+"A very fine young man indeed!" said Lady Dalrymple. "More air than\r
+one often sees in Bath. Irish, I dare say."\r
+\r
+"No, I just know his name. A bowing acquaintance. Wentworth; Captain\r
+Wentworth of the navy. His sister married my tenant in Somersetshire,\r
+the Croft, who rents Kellynch."\r
+\r
+Before Sir Walter had reached this point, Anne's eyes had caught the\r
+right direction, and distinguished Captain Wentworth standing among a\r
+cluster of men at a little distance. As her eyes fell on him, his\r
+seemed to be withdrawn from her. It had that appearance. It seemed as\r
+if she had been one moment too late; and as long as she dared observe,\r
+he did not look again: but the performance was recommencing, and she\r
+was forced to seem to restore her attention to the orchestra and look\r
+straight forward.\r
+\r
+When she could give another glance, he had moved away. He could not\r
+have come nearer to her if he would; she was so surrounded and shut in:\r
+but she would rather have caught his eye.\r
+\r
+Mr Elliot's speech, too, distressed her. She had no longer any\r
+inclination to talk to him. She wished him not so near her.\r
+\r
+The first act was over. Now she hoped for some beneficial change; and,\r
+after a period of nothing-saying amongst the party, some of them did\r
+decide on going in quest of tea. Anne was one of the few who did not\r
+choose to move. She remained in her seat, and so did Lady Russell; but\r
+she had the pleasure of getting rid of Mr Elliot; and she did not mean,\r
+whatever she might feel on Lady Russell's account, to shrink from\r
+conversation with Captain Wentworth, if he gave her the opportunity.\r
+She was persuaded by Lady Russell's countenance that she had seen him.\r
+\r
+He did not come however. Anne sometimes fancied she discerned him at a\r
+distance, but he never came. The anxious interval wore away\r
+unproductively. The others returned, the room filled again, benches\r
+were reclaimed and repossessed, and another hour of pleasure or of\r
+penance was to be sat out, another hour of music was to give delight or\r
+the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed. To Anne, it\r
+chiefly wore the prospect of an hour of agitation. She could not quit\r
+that room in peace without seeing Captain Wentworth once more, without\r
+the interchange of one friendly look.\r
+\r
+In re-settling themselves there were now many changes, the result of\r
+which was favourable for her. Colonel Wallis declined sitting down\r
+again, and Mr Elliot was invited by Elizabeth and Miss Carteret, in a\r
+manner not to be refused, to sit between them; and by some other\r
+removals, and a little scheming of her own, Anne was enabled to place\r
+herself much nearer the end of the bench than she had been before, much\r
+more within reach of a passer-by. She could not do so, without\r
+comparing herself with Miss Larolles, the inimitable Miss Larolles; but\r
+still she did it, and not with much happier effect; though by what\r
+seemed prosperity in the shape of an early abdication in her next\r
+neighbours, she found herself at the very end of the bench before the\r
+concert closed.\r
+\r
+Such was her situation, with a vacant space at hand, when Captain\r
+Wentworth was again in sight. She saw him not far off. He saw her\r
+too; yet he looked grave, and seemed irresolute, and only by very slow\r
+degrees came at last near enough to speak to her. She felt that\r
+something must be the matter. The change was indubitable. The\r
+difference between his present air and what it had been in the Octagon\r
+Room was strikingly great. Why was it? She thought of her father, of\r
+Lady Russell. Could there have been any unpleasant glances? He began\r
+by speaking of the concert gravely, more like the Captain Wentworth of\r
+Uppercross; owned himself disappointed, had expected singing; and in\r
+short, must confess that he should not be sorry when it was over. Anne\r
+replied, and spoke in defence of the performance so well, and yet in\r
+allowance for his feelings so pleasantly, that his countenance\r
+improved, and he replied again with almost a smile. They talked for a\r
+few minutes more; the improvement held; he even looked down towards the\r
+bench, as if he saw a place on it well worth occupying; when at that\r
+moment a touch on her shoulder obliged Anne to turn round. It came\r
+from Mr Elliot. He begged her pardon, but she must be applied to, to\r
+explain Italian again. Miss Carteret was very anxious to have a\r
+general idea of what was next to be sung. Anne could not refuse; but\r
+never had she sacrificed to politeness with a more suffering spirit.\r
+\r
+A few minutes, though as few as possible, were inevitably consumed; and\r
+when her own mistress again, when able to turn and look as she had done\r
+before, she found herself accosted by Captain Wentworth, in a reserved\r
+yet hurried sort of farewell. "He must wish her good night; he was\r
+going; he should get home as fast as he could."\r
+\r
+"Is not this song worth staying for?" said Anne, suddenly struck by an\r
+idea which made her yet more anxious to be encouraging.\r
+\r
+"No!" he replied impressively, "there is nothing worth my staying for;"\r
+and he was gone directly.\r
+\r
+Jealousy of Mr Elliot! It was the only intelligible motive. Captain\r
+Wentworth jealous of her affection! Could she have believed it a week\r
+ago; three hours ago! For a moment the gratification was exquisite.\r
+But, alas! there were very different thoughts to succeed. How was such\r
+jealousy to be quieted? How was the truth to reach him? How, in all\r
+the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he\r
+ever learn of her real sentiments? It was misery to think of Mr\r
+Elliot's attentions. Their evil was incalculable.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 21\r
+\r
+\r
+Anne recollected with pleasure the next morning her promise of going to\r
+Mrs Smith, meaning that it should engage her from home at the time when\r
+Mr Elliot would be most likely to call; for to avoid Mr Elliot was\r
+almost a first object.\r
+\r
+She felt a great deal of good-will towards him. In spite of the\r
+mischief of his attentions, she owed him gratitude and regard, perhaps\r
+compassion. She could not help thinking much of the extraordinary\r
+circumstances attending their acquaintance, of the right which he\r
+seemed to have to interest her, by everything in situation, by his own\r
+sentiments, by his early prepossession. It was altogether very\r
+extraordinary; flattering, but painful. There was much to regret. How\r
+she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case,\r
+was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth; and be the\r
+conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be\r
+his for ever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more\r
+from other men, than their final separation.\r
+\r
+Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy, could\r
+never have passed along the streets of Bath, than Anne was sporting\r
+with from Camden Place to Westgate Buildings. It was almost enough to\r
+spread purification and perfume all the way.\r
+\r
+She was sure of a pleasant reception; and her friend seemed this\r
+morning particularly obliged to her for coming, seemed hardly to have\r
+expected her, though it had been an appointment.\r
+\r
+An account of the concert was immediately claimed; and Anne's\r
+recollections of the concert were quite happy enough to animate her\r
+features and make her rejoice to talk of it. All that she could tell\r
+she told most gladly, but the all was little for one who had been\r
+there, and unsatisfactory for such an enquirer as Mrs Smith, who had\r
+already heard, through the short cut of a laundress and a waiter,\r
+rather more of the general success and produce of the evening than Anne\r
+could relate, and who now asked in vain for several particulars of the\r
+company. Everybody of any consequence or notoriety in Bath was well\r
+know by name to Mrs Smith.\r
+\r
+"The little Durands were there, I conclude," said she, "with their\r
+mouths open to catch the music, like unfledged sparrows ready to be\r
+fed. They never miss a concert."\r
+\r
+"Yes; I did not see them myself, but I heard Mr Elliot say they were in\r
+the room."\r
+\r
+"The Ibbotsons, were they there? and the two new beauties, with the\r
+tall Irish officer, who is talked of for one of them."\r
+\r
+"I do not know. I do not think they were."\r
+\r
+"Old Lady Mary Maclean? I need not ask after her. She never misses, I\r
+know; and you must have seen her. She must have been in your own\r
+circle; for as you went with Lady Dalrymple, you were in the seats of\r
+grandeur, round the orchestra, of course."\r
+\r
+"No, that was what I dreaded. It would have been very unpleasant to me\r
+in every respect. But happily Lady Dalrymple always chooses to be\r
+farther off; and we were exceedingly well placed, that is, for hearing;\r
+I must not say for seeing, because I appear to have seen very little."\r
+\r
+"Oh! you saw enough for your own amusement. I can understand. There\r
+is a sort of domestic enjoyment to be known even in a crowd, and this\r
+you had. You were a large party in yourselves, and you wanted nothing\r
+beyond."\r
+\r
+"But I ought to have looked about me more," said Anne, conscious while\r
+she spoke that there had in fact been no want of looking about, that\r
+the object only had been deficient.\r
+\r
+"No, no; you were better employed. You need not tell me that you had a\r
+pleasant evening. I see it in your eye. I perfectly see how the hours\r
+passed: that you had always something agreeable to listen to. In the\r
+intervals of the concert it was conversation."\r
+\r
+Anne half smiled and said, "Do you see that in my eye?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do. Your countenance perfectly informs me that you were in\r
+company last night with the person whom you think the most agreeable in\r
+the world, the person who interests you at this present time more than\r
+all the rest of the world put together."\r
+\r
+A blush overspread Anne's cheeks. She could say nothing.\r
+\r
+"And such being the case," continued Mrs Smith, after a short pause, "I\r
+hope you believe that I do know how to value your kindness in coming to\r
+me this morning. It is really very good of you to come and sit with\r
+me, when you must have so many pleasanter demands upon your time."\r
+\r
+Anne heard nothing of this. She was still in the astonishment and\r
+confusion excited by her friend's penetration, unable to imagine how\r
+any report of Captain Wentworth could have reached her. After another\r
+short silence--\r
+\r
+"Pray," said Mrs Smith, "is Mr Elliot aware of your acquaintance with\r
+me? Does he know that I am in Bath?"\r
+\r
+"Mr Elliot!" repeated Anne, looking up surprised. A moment's\r
+reflection shewed her the mistake she had been under. She caught it\r
+instantaneously; and recovering her courage with the feeling of safety,\r
+soon added, more composedly, "Are you acquainted with Mr Elliot?"\r
+\r
+"I have been a good deal acquainted with him," replied Mrs Smith,\r
+gravely, "but it seems worn out now. It is a great while since we met."\r
+\r
+"I was not at all aware of this. You never mentioned it before. Had I\r
+known it, I would have had the pleasure of talking to him about you."\r
+\r
+"To confess the truth," said Mrs Smith, assuming her usual air of\r
+cheerfulness, "that is exactly the pleasure I want you to have. I want\r
+you to talk about me to Mr Elliot. I want your interest with him. He\r
+can be of essential service to me; and if you would have the goodness,\r
+my dear Miss Elliot, to make it an object to yourself, of course it is\r
+done."\r
+\r
+"I should be extremely happy; I hope you cannot doubt my willingness to\r
+be of even the slightest use to you," replied Anne; "but I suspect that\r
+you are considering me as having a higher claim on Mr Elliot, a greater\r
+right to influence him, than is really the case. I am sure you have,\r
+somehow or other, imbibed such a notion. You must consider me only as\r
+Mr Elliot's relation. If in that light there is anything which you\r
+suppose his cousin might fairly ask of him, I beg you would not\r
+hesitate to employ me."\r
+\r
+Mrs Smith gave her a penetrating glance, and then, smiling, said--\r
+\r
+"I have been a little premature, I perceive; I beg your pardon. I\r
+ought to have waited for official information. But now, my dear Miss\r
+Elliot, as an old friend, do give me a hint as to when I may speak.\r
+Next week? To be sure by next week I may be allowed to think it all\r
+settled, and build my own selfish schemes on Mr Elliot's good fortune."\r
+\r
+"No," replied Anne, "nor next week, nor next, nor next. I assure you\r
+that nothing of the sort you are thinking of will be settled any week.\r
+I am not going to marry Mr Elliot. I should like to know why you\r
+imagine I am?"\r
+\r
+Mrs Smith looked at her again, looked earnestly, smiled, shook her\r
+head, and exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"Now, how I do wish I understood you! How I do wish I knew what you\r
+were at! I have a great idea that you do not design to be cruel, when\r
+the right moment occurs. Till it does come, you know, we women never\r
+mean to have anybody. It is a thing of course among us, that every man\r
+is refused, till he offers. But why should you be cruel? Let me plead\r
+for my--present friend I cannot call him, but for my former friend.\r
+Where can you look for a more suitable match? Where could you expect a\r
+more gentlemanlike, agreeable man? Let me recommend Mr Elliot. I am\r
+sure you hear nothing but good of him from Colonel Wallis; and who can\r
+know him better than Colonel Wallis?"\r
+\r
+"My dear Mrs Smith, Mr Elliot's wife has not been dead much above half\r
+a year. He ought not to be supposed to be paying his addresses to any\r
+one."\r
+\r
+"Oh! if these are your only objections," cried Mrs Smith, archly, "Mr\r
+Elliot is safe, and I shall give myself no more trouble about him. Do\r
+not forget me when you are married, that's all. Let him know me to be\r
+a friend of yours, and then he will think little of the trouble\r
+required, which it is very natural for him now, with so many affairs\r
+and engagements of his own, to avoid and get rid of as he can; very\r
+natural, perhaps. Ninety-nine out of a hundred would do the same. Of\r
+course, he cannot be aware of the importance to me. Well, my dear Miss\r
+Elliot, I hope and trust you will be very happy. Mr Elliot has sense\r
+to understand the value of such a woman. Your peace will not be\r
+shipwrecked as mine has been. You are safe in all worldly matters, and\r
+safe in his character. He will not be led astray; he will not be\r
+misled by others to his ruin."\r
+\r
+"No," said Anne, "I can readily believe all that of my cousin. He\r
+seems to have a calm decided temper, not at all open to dangerous\r
+impressions. I consider him with great respect. I have no reason,\r
+from any thing that has fallen within my observation, to do otherwise.\r
+But I have not known him long; and he is not a man, I think, to be\r
+known intimately soon. Will not this manner of speaking of him, Mrs\r
+Smith, convince you that he is nothing to me? Surely this must be calm\r
+enough. And, upon my word, he is nothing to me. Should he ever\r
+propose to me (which I have very little reason to imagine he has any\r
+thought of doing), I shall not accept him. I assure you I shall not.\r
+I assure you, Mr Elliot had not the share which you have been\r
+supposing, in whatever pleasure the concert of last night might afford:\r
+not Mr Elliot; it is not Mr Elliot that--"\r
+\r
+She stopped, regretting with a deep blush that she had implied so much;\r
+but less would hardly have been sufficient. Mrs Smith would hardly\r
+have believed so soon in Mr Elliot's failure, but from the perception\r
+of there being a somebody else. As it was, she instantly submitted,\r
+and with all the semblance of seeing nothing beyond; and Anne, eager to\r
+escape farther notice, was impatient to know why Mrs Smith should have\r
+fancied she was to marry Mr Elliot; where she could have received the\r
+idea, or from whom she could have heard it.\r
+\r
+"Do tell me how it first came into your head."\r
+\r
+"It first came into my head," replied Mrs Smith, "upon finding how much\r
+you were together, and feeling it to be the most probable thing in the\r
+world to be wished for by everybody belonging to either of you; and you\r
+may depend upon it that all your acquaintance have disposed of you in\r
+the same way. But I never heard it spoken of till two days ago."\r
+\r
+"And has it indeed been spoken of?"\r
+\r
+"Did you observe the woman who opened the door to you when you called\r
+yesterday?"\r
+\r
+"No. Was not it Mrs Speed, as usual, or the maid? I observed no one\r
+in particular."\r
+\r
+"It was my friend Mrs Rooke; Nurse Rooke; who, by-the-bye, had a great\r
+curiosity to see you, and was delighted to be in the way to let you in.\r
+She came away from Marlborough Buildings only on Sunday; and she it was\r
+who told me you were to marry Mr Elliot. She had had it from Mrs\r
+Wallis herself, which did not seem bad authority. She sat an hour with\r
+me on Monday evening, and gave me the whole history." "The whole\r
+history," repeated Anne, laughing. "She could not make a very long\r
+history, I think, of one such little article of unfounded news."\r
+\r
+Mrs Smith said nothing.\r
+\r
+"But," continued Anne, presently, "though there is no truth in my\r
+having this claim on Mr Elliot, I should be extremely happy to be of\r
+use to you in any way that I could. Shall I mention to him your being\r
+in Bath? Shall I take any message?"\r
+\r
+"No, I thank you: no, certainly not. In the warmth of the moment, and\r
+under a mistaken impression, I might, perhaps, have endeavoured to\r
+interest you in some circumstances; but not now. No, I thank you, I\r
+have nothing to trouble you with."\r
+\r
+"I think you spoke of having known Mr Elliot many years?"\r
+\r
+"I did."\r
+\r
+"Not before he was married, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; he was not married when I knew him first."\r
+\r
+"And--were you much acquainted?"\r
+\r
+"Intimately."\r
+\r
+"Indeed! Then do tell me what he was at that time of life. I have a\r
+great curiosity to know what Mr Elliot was as a very young man. Was he\r
+at all such as he appears now?"\r
+\r
+"I have not seen Mr Elliot these three years," was Mrs Smith's answer,\r
+given so gravely that it was impossible to pursue the subject farther;\r
+and Anne felt that she had gained nothing but an increase of curiosity.\r
+They were both silent: Mrs Smith very thoughtful. At last--\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, my dear Miss Elliot," she cried, in her natural\r
+tone of cordiality, "I beg your pardon for the short answers I have\r
+been giving you, but I have been uncertain what I ought to do. I have\r
+been doubting and considering as to what I ought to tell you. There\r
+were many things to be taken into the account. One hates to be\r
+officious, to be giving bad impressions, making mischief. Even the\r
+smooth surface of family-union seems worth preserving, though there may\r
+be nothing durable beneath. However, I have determined; I think I am\r
+right; I think you ought to be made acquainted with Mr Elliot's real\r
+character. Though I fully believe that, at present, you have not the\r
+smallest intention of accepting him, there is no saying what may\r
+happen. You might, some time or other, be differently affected towards\r
+him. Hear the truth, therefore, now, while you are unprejudiced. Mr\r
+Elliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary,\r
+cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself; whom for his own\r
+interest or ease, would be guilty of any cruelty, or any treachery,\r
+that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character. He\r
+has no feeling for others. Those whom he has been the chief cause of\r
+leading into ruin, he can neglect and desert without the smallest\r
+compunction. He is totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of\r
+justice or compassion. Oh! he is black at heart, hollow and black!"\r
+\r
+Anne's astonished air, and exclamation of wonder, made her pause, and\r
+in a calmer manner, she added,\r
+\r
+"My expressions startle you. You must allow for an injured, angry\r
+woman. But I will try to command myself. I will not abuse him. I\r
+will only tell you what I have found him. Facts shall speak. He was\r
+the intimate friend of my dear husband, who trusted and loved him, and\r
+thought him as good as himself. The intimacy had been formed before\r
+our marriage. I found them most intimate friends; and I, too, became\r
+excessively pleased with Mr Elliot, and entertained the highest opinion\r
+of him. At nineteen, you know, one does not think very seriously; but\r
+Mr Elliot appeared to me quite as good as others, and much more\r
+agreeable than most others, and we were almost always together. We\r
+were principally in town, living in very good style. He was then the\r
+inferior in circumstances; he was then the poor one; he had chambers in\r
+the Temple, and it was as much as he could do to support the appearance\r
+of a gentleman. He had always a home with us whenever he chose it; he\r
+was always welcome; he was like a brother. My poor Charles, who had\r
+the finest, most generous spirit in the world, would have divided his\r
+last farthing with him; and I know that his purse was open to him; I\r
+know that he often assisted him."\r
+\r
+"This must have been about that very period of Mr Elliot's life," said\r
+Anne, "which has always excited my particular curiosity. It must have\r
+been about the same time that he became known to my father and sister.\r
+I never knew him myself; I only heard of him; but there was a something\r
+in his conduct then, with regard to my father and sister, and\r
+afterwards in the circumstances of his marriage, which I never could\r
+quite reconcile with present times. It seemed to announce a different\r
+sort of man."\r
+\r
+"I know it all, I know it all," cried Mrs Smith. "He had been\r
+introduced to Sir Walter and your sister before I was acquainted with\r
+him, but I heard him speak of them for ever. I know he was invited and\r
+encouraged, and I know he did not choose to go. I can satisfy you,\r
+perhaps, on points which you would little expect; and as to his\r
+marriage, I knew all about it at the time. I was privy to all the fors\r
+and againsts; I was the friend to whom he confided his hopes and plans;\r
+and though I did not know his wife previously, her inferior situation\r
+in society, indeed, rendered that impossible, yet I knew her all her\r
+life afterwards, or at least till within the last two years of her\r
+life, and can answer any question you may wish to put."\r
+\r
+"Nay," said Anne, "I have no particular enquiry to make about her. I\r
+have always understood they were not a happy couple. But I should like\r
+to know why, at that time of his life, he should slight my father's\r
+acquaintance as he did. My father was certainly disposed to take very\r
+kind and proper notice of him. Why did Mr Elliot draw back?"\r
+\r
+"Mr Elliot," replied Mrs Smith, "at that period of his life, had one\r
+object in view: to make his fortune, and by a rather quicker process\r
+than the law. He was determined to make it by marriage. He was\r
+determined, at least, not to mar it by an imprudent marriage; and I\r
+know it was his belief (whether justly or not, of course I cannot\r
+decide), that your father and sister, in their civilities and\r
+invitations, were designing a match between the heir and the young\r
+lady, and it was impossible that such a match should have answered his\r
+ideas of wealth and independence. That was his motive for drawing\r
+back, I can assure you. He told me the whole story. He had no\r
+concealments with me. It was curious, that having just left you behind\r
+me in Bath, my first and principal acquaintance on marrying should be\r
+your cousin; and that, through him, I should be continually hearing of\r
+your father and sister. He described one Miss Elliot, and I thought\r
+very affectionately of the other."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," cried Anne, struck by a sudden idea, "you sometimes spoke of\r
+me to Mr Elliot?"\r
+\r
+"To be sure I did; very often. I used to boast of my own Anne Elliot,\r
+and vouch for your being a very different creature from--"\r
+\r
+She checked herself just in time.\r
+\r
+"This accounts for something which Mr Elliot said last night," cried\r
+Anne. "This explains it. I found he had been used to hear of me. I\r
+could not comprehend how. What wild imaginations one forms where dear\r
+self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken! But I beg your pardon; I\r
+have interrupted you. Mr Elliot married then completely for money?\r
+The circumstances, probably, which first opened your eyes to his\r
+character."\r
+\r
+Mrs Smith hesitated a little here. "Oh! those things are too common.\r
+When one lives in the world, a man or woman's marrying for money is too\r
+common to strike one as it ought. I was very young, and associated\r
+only with the young, and we were a thoughtless, gay set, without any\r
+strict rules of conduct. We lived for enjoyment. I think differently\r
+now; time and sickness and sorrow have given me other notions; but at\r
+that period I must own I saw nothing reprehensible in what Mr Elliot\r
+was doing. 'To do the best for himself,' passed as a duty."\r
+\r
+"But was not she a very low woman?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; which I objected to, but he would not regard. Money, money, was\r
+all that he wanted. Her father was a grazier, her grandfather had been\r
+a butcher, but that was all nothing. She was a fine woman, had had a\r
+decent education, was brought forward by some cousins, thrown by chance\r
+into Mr Elliot's company, and fell in love with him; and not a\r
+difficulty or a scruple was there on his side, with respect to her\r
+birth. All his caution was spent in being secured of the real amount\r
+of her fortune, before he committed himself. Depend upon it, whatever\r
+esteem Mr Elliot may have for his own situation in life now, as a young\r
+man he had not the smallest value for it. His chance for the Kellynch\r
+estate was something, but all the honour of the family he held as cheap\r
+as dirt. I have often heard him declare, that if baronetcies were\r
+saleable, anybody should have his for fifty pounds, arms and motto,\r
+name and livery included; but I will not pretend to repeat half that I\r
+used to hear him say on that subject. It would not be fair; and yet\r
+you ought to have proof, for what is all this but assertion, and you\r
+shall have proof."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, my dear Mrs Smith, I want none," cried Anne. "You have\r
+asserted nothing contradictory to what Mr Elliot appeared to be some\r
+years ago. This is all in confirmation, rather, of what we used to\r
+hear and believe. I am more curious to know why he should be so\r
+different now."\r
+\r
+"But for my satisfaction, if you will have the goodness to ring for\r
+Mary; stay: I am sure you will have the still greater goodness of\r
+going yourself into my bedroom, and bringing me the small inlaid box\r
+which you will find on the upper shelf of the closet."\r
+\r
+Anne, seeing her friend to be earnestly bent on it, did as she was\r
+desired. The box was brought and placed before her, and Mrs Smith,\r
+sighing over it as she unlocked it, said--\r
+\r
+"This is full of papers belonging to him, to my husband; a small\r
+portion only of what I had to look over when I lost him. The letter I\r
+am looking for was one written by Mr Elliot to him before our marriage,\r
+and happened to be saved; why, one can hardly imagine. But he was\r
+careless and immethodical, like other men, about those things; and when\r
+I came to examine his papers, I found it with others still more\r
+trivial, from different people scattered here and there, while many\r
+letters and memorandums of real importance had been destroyed. Here it\r
+is; I would not burn it, because being even then very little satisfied\r
+with Mr Elliot, I was determined to preserve every document of former\r
+intimacy. I have now another motive for being glad that I can produce\r
+it."\r
+\r
+This was the letter, directed to "Charles Smith, Esq. Tunbridge Wells,"\r
+and dated from London, as far back as July, 1803:--\r
+\r
+"Dear Smith,--I have received yours. Your kindness almost overpowers\r
+me. I wish nature had made such hearts as yours more common, but I\r
+have lived three-and-twenty years in the world, and have seen none like\r
+it. At present, believe me, I have no need of your services, being in\r
+cash again. Give me joy: I have got rid of Sir Walter and Miss. They\r
+are gone back to Kellynch, and almost made me swear to visit them this\r
+summer; but my first visit to Kellynch will be with a surveyor, to tell\r
+me how to bring it with best advantage to the hammer. The baronet,\r
+nevertheless, is not unlikely to marry again; he is quite fool enough.\r
+If he does, however, they will leave me in peace, which may be a decent\r
+equivalent for the reversion. He is worse than last year.\r
+\r
+"I wish I had any name but Elliot. I am sick of it. The name of\r
+Walter I can drop, thank God! and I desire you will never insult me\r
+with my second W. again, meaning, for the rest of my life, to be only\r
+yours truly,--Wm. Elliot."\r
+\r
+Such a letter could not be read without putting Anne in a glow; and Mrs\r
+Smith, observing the high colour in her face, said--\r
+\r
+"The language, I know, is highly disrespectful. Though I have forgot\r
+the exact terms, I have a perfect impression of the general meaning.\r
+But it shows you the man. Mark his professions to my poor husband.\r
+Can any thing be stronger?"\r
+\r
+Anne could not immediately get over the shock and mortification of\r
+finding such words applied to her father. She was obliged to recollect\r
+that her seeing the letter was a violation of the laws of honour, that\r
+no one ought to be judged or to be known by such testimonies, that no\r
+private correspondence could bear the eye of others, before she could\r
+recover calmness enough to return the letter which she had been\r
+meditating over, and say--\r
+\r
+"Thank you. This is full proof undoubtedly; proof of every thing you\r
+were saying. But why be acquainted with us now?"\r
+\r
+"I can explain this too," cried Mrs Smith, smiling.\r
+\r
+"Can you really?"\r
+\r
+"Yes. I have shewn you Mr Elliot as he was a dozen years ago, and I\r
+will shew him as he is now. I cannot produce written proof again, but\r
+I can give as authentic oral testimony as you can desire, of what he is\r
+now wanting, and what he is now doing. He is no hypocrite now. He\r
+truly wants to marry you. His present attentions to your family are\r
+very sincere: quite from the heart. I will give you my authority: his\r
+friend Colonel Wallis."\r
+\r
+"Colonel Wallis! you are acquainted with him?"\r
+\r
+"No. It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it\r
+takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream is as good\r
+as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily\r
+moved away. Mr Elliot talks unreservedly to Colonel Wallis of his\r
+views on you, which said Colonel Wallis, I imagine to be, in himself, a\r
+sensible, careful, discerning sort of character; but Colonel Wallis has\r
+a very pretty silly wife, to whom he tells things which he had better\r
+not, and he repeats it all to her. She in the overflowing spirits of\r
+her recovery, repeats it all to her nurse; and the nurse knowing my\r
+acquaintance with you, very naturally brings it all to me. On Monday\r
+evening, my good friend Mrs Rooke let me thus much into the secrets of\r
+Marlborough Buildings. When I talked of a whole history, therefore,\r
+you see I was not romancing so much as you supposed."\r
+\r
+"My dear Mrs Smith, your authority is deficient. This will not do. Mr\r
+Elliot's having any views on me will not in the least account for the\r
+efforts he made towards a reconciliation with my father. That was all\r
+prior to my coming to Bath. I found them on the most friendly terms\r
+when I arrived."\r
+\r
+"I know you did; I know it all perfectly, but--"\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Mrs Smith, we must not expect to get real information in such\r
+a line. Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so\r
+many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can\r
+hardly have much truth left."\r
+\r
+"Only give me a hearing. You will soon be able to judge of the general\r
+credit due, by listening to some particulars which you can yourself\r
+immediately contradict or confirm. Nobody supposes that you were his\r
+first inducement. He had seen you indeed, before he came to Bath, and\r
+admired you, but without knowing it to be you. So says my historian,\r
+at least. Is this true? Did he see you last summer or autumn,\r
+'somewhere down in the west,' to use her own words, without knowing it\r
+to be you?"\r
+\r
+"He certainly did. So far it is very true. At Lyme. I happened to be\r
+at Lyme."\r
+\r
+"Well," continued Mrs Smith, triumphantly, "grant my friend the credit\r
+due to the establishment of the first point asserted. He saw you then\r
+at Lyme, and liked you so well as to be exceedingly pleased to meet\r
+with you again in Camden Place, as Miss Anne Elliot, and from that\r
+moment, I have no doubt, had a double motive in his visits there. But\r
+there was another, and an earlier, which I will now explain. If there\r
+is anything in my story which you know to be either false or\r
+improbable, stop me. My account states, that your sister's friend, the\r
+lady now staying with you, whom I have heard you mention, came to Bath\r
+with Miss Elliot and Sir Walter as long ago as September (in short when\r
+they first came themselves), and has been staying there ever since;\r
+that she is a clever, insinuating, handsome woman, poor and plausible,\r
+and altogether such in situation and manner, as to give a general idea,\r
+among Sir Walter's acquaintance, of her meaning to be Lady Elliot, and\r
+as general a surprise that Miss Elliot should be apparently, blind to\r
+the danger."\r
+\r
+Here Mrs Smith paused a moment; but Anne had not a word to say, and she\r
+continued--\r
+\r
+"This was the light in which it appeared to those who knew the family,\r
+long before you returned to it; and Colonel Wallis had his eye upon\r
+your father enough to be sensible of it, though he did not then visit\r
+in Camden Place; but his regard for Mr Elliot gave him an interest in\r
+watching all that was going on there, and when Mr Elliot came to Bath\r
+for a day or two, as he happened to do a little before Christmas,\r
+Colonel Wallis made him acquainted with the appearance of things, and\r
+the reports beginning to prevail. Now you are to understand, that time\r
+had worked a very material change in Mr Elliot's opinions as to the\r
+value of a baronetcy. Upon all points of blood and connexion he is a\r
+completely altered man. Having long had as much money as he could\r
+spend, nothing to wish for on the side of avarice or indulgence, he has\r
+been gradually learning to pin his happiness upon the consequence he is\r
+heir to. I thought it coming on before our acquaintance ceased, but it\r
+is now a confirmed feeling. He cannot bear the idea of not being Sir\r
+William. You may guess, therefore, that the news he heard from his\r
+friend could not be very agreeable, and you may guess what it produced;\r
+the resolution of coming back to Bath as soon as possible, and of\r
+fixing himself here for a time, with the view of renewing his former\r
+acquaintance, and recovering such a footing in the family as might give\r
+him the means of ascertaining the degree of his danger, and of\r
+circumventing the lady if he found it material. This was agreed upon\r
+between the two friends as the only thing to be done; and Colonel\r
+Wallis was to assist in every way that he could. He was to be\r
+introduced, and Mrs Wallis was to be introduced, and everybody was to\r
+be introduced. Mr Elliot came back accordingly; and on application was\r
+forgiven, as you know, and re-admitted into the family; and there it\r
+was his constant object, and his only object (till your arrival added\r
+another motive), to watch Sir Walter and Mrs Clay. He omitted no\r
+opportunity of being with them, threw himself in their way, called at\r
+all hours; but I need not be particular on this subject. You can\r
+imagine what an artful man would do; and with this guide, perhaps, may\r
+recollect what you have seen him do."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Anne, "you tell me nothing which does not accord with what\r
+I have known, or could imagine. There is always something offensive in\r
+the details of cunning. The manoeuvres of selfishness and duplicity\r
+must ever be revolting, but I have heard nothing which really surprises\r
+me. I know those who would be shocked by such a representation of Mr\r
+Elliot, who would have difficulty in believing it; but I have never\r
+been satisfied. I have always wanted some other motive for his conduct\r
+than appeared. I should like to know his present opinion, as to the\r
+probability of the event he has been in dread of; whether he considers\r
+the danger to be lessening or not."\r
+\r
+"Lessening, I understand," replied Mrs Smith. "He thinks Mrs Clay\r
+afraid of him, aware that he sees through her, and not daring to\r
+proceed as she might do in his absence. But since he must be absent\r
+some time or other, I do not perceive how he can ever be secure while\r
+she holds her present influence. Mrs Wallis has an amusing idea, as\r
+nurse tells me, that it is to be put into the marriage articles when\r
+you and Mr Elliot marry, that your father is not to marry Mrs Clay. A\r
+scheme, worthy of Mrs Wallis's understanding, by all accounts; but my\r
+sensible nurse Rooke sees the absurdity of it. 'Why, to be sure,\r
+ma'am,' said she, 'it would not prevent his marrying anybody else.'\r
+And, indeed, to own the truth, I do not think nurse, in her heart, is a\r
+very strenuous opposer of Sir Walter's making a second match. She must\r
+be allowed to be a favourer of matrimony, you know; and (since self\r
+will intrude) who can say that she may not have some flying visions of\r
+attending the next Lady Elliot, through Mrs Wallis's recommendation?"\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to know all this," said Anne, after a little\r
+thoughtfulness. "It will be more painful to me in some respects to be\r
+in company with him, but I shall know better what to do. My line of\r
+conduct will be more direct. Mr Elliot is evidently a disingenuous,\r
+artificial, worldly man, who has never had any better principle to\r
+guide him than selfishness."\r
+\r
+But Mr Elliot was not done with. Mrs Smith had been carried away from\r
+her first direction, and Anne had forgotten, in the interest of her own\r
+family concerns, how much had been originally implied against him; but\r
+her attention was now called to the explanation of those first hints,\r
+and she listened to a recital which, if it did not perfectly justify\r
+the unqualified bitterness of Mrs Smith, proved him to have been very\r
+unfeeling in his conduct towards her; very deficient both in justice\r
+and compassion.\r
+\r
+She learned that (the intimacy between them continuing unimpaired by Mr\r
+Elliot's marriage) they had been as before always together, and Mr\r
+Elliot had led his friend into expenses much beyond his fortune. Mrs\r
+Smith did not want to take blame to herself, and was most tender of\r
+throwing any on her husband; but Anne could collect that their income\r
+had never been equal to their style of living, and that from the first\r
+there had been a great deal of general and joint extravagance. From\r
+his wife's account of him she could discern Mr Smith to have been a man\r
+of warm feelings, easy temper, careless habits, and not strong\r
+understanding, much more amiable than his friend, and very unlike him,\r
+led by him, and probably despised by him. Mr Elliot, raised by his\r
+marriage to great affluence, and disposed to every gratification of\r
+pleasure and vanity which could be commanded without involving himself,\r
+(for with all his self-indulgence he had become a prudent man), and\r
+beginning to be rich, just as his friend ought to have found himself to\r
+be poor, seemed to have had no concern at all for that friend's\r
+probable finances, but, on the contrary, had been prompting and\r
+encouraging expenses which could end only in ruin; and the Smiths\r
+accordingly had been ruined.\r
+\r
+The husband had died just in time to be spared the full knowledge of\r
+it. They had previously known embarrassments enough to try the\r
+friendship of their friends, and to prove that Mr Elliot's had better\r
+not be tried; but it was not till his death that the wretched state of\r
+his affairs was fully known. With a confidence in Mr Elliot's regard,\r
+more creditable to his feelings than his judgement, Mr Smith had\r
+appointed him the executor of his will; but Mr Elliot would not act,\r
+and the difficulties and distress which this refusal had heaped on her,\r
+in addition to the inevitable sufferings of her situation, had been\r
+such as could not be related without anguish of spirit, or listened to\r
+without corresponding indignation.\r
+\r
+Anne was shewn some letters of his on the occasion, answers to urgent\r
+applications from Mrs Smith, which all breathed the same stern\r
+resolution of not engaging in a fruitless trouble, and, under a cold\r
+civility, the same hard-hearted indifference to any of the evils it\r
+might bring on her. It was a dreadful picture of ingratitude and\r
+inhumanity; and Anne felt, at some moments, that no flagrant open crime\r
+could have been worse. She had a great deal to listen to; all the\r
+particulars of past sad scenes, all the minutiae of distress upon\r
+distress, which in former conversations had been merely hinted at, were\r
+dwelt on now with a natural indulgence. Anne could perfectly\r
+comprehend the exquisite relief, and was only the more inclined to\r
+wonder at the composure of her friend's usual state of mind.\r
+\r
+There was one circumstance in the history of her grievances of\r
+particular irritation. She had good reason to believe that some\r
+property of her husband in the West Indies, which had been for many\r
+years under a sort of sequestration for the payment of its own\r
+incumbrances, might be recoverable by proper measures; and this\r
+property, though not large, would be enough to make her comparatively\r
+rich. But there was nobody to stir in it. Mr Elliot would do nothing,\r
+and she could do nothing herself, equally disabled from personal\r
+exertion by her state of bodily weakness, and from employing others by\r
+her want of money. She had no natural connexions to assist her even\r
+with their counsel, and she could not afford to purchase the assistance\r
+of the law. This was a cruel aggravation of actually straitened means.\r
+To feel that she ought to be in better circumstances, that a little\r
+trouble in the right place might do it, and to fear that delay might be\r
+even weakening her claims, was hard to bear.\r
+\r
+It was on this point that she had hoped to engage Anne's good offices\r
+with Mr Elliot. She had previously, in the anticipation of their\r
+marriage, been very apprehensive of losing her friend by it; but on\r
+being assured that he could have made no attempt of that nature, since\r
+he did not even know her to be in Bath, it immediately occurred, that\r
+something might be done in her favour by the influence of the woman he\r
+loved, and she had been hastily preparing to interest Anne's feelings,\r
+as far as the observances due to Mr Elliot's character would allow,\r
+when Anne's refutation of the supposed engagement changed the face of\r
+everything; and while it took from her the new-formed hope of\r
+succeeding in the object of her first anxiety, left her at least the\r
+comfort of telling the whole story her own way.\r
+\r
+After listening to this full description of Mr Elliot, Anne could not\r
+but express some surprise at Mrs Smith's having spoken of him so\r
+favourably in the beginning of their conversation. "She had seemed to\r
+recommend and praise him!"\r
+\r
+"My dear," was Mrs Smith's reply, "there was nothing else to be done.\r
+I considered your marrying him as certain, though he might not yet have\r
+made the offer, and I could no more speak the truth of him, than if he\r
+had been your husband. My heart bled for you, as I talked of\r
+happiness; and yet he is sensible, he is agreeable, and with such a\r
+woman as you, it was not absolutely hopeless. He was very unkind to\r
+his first wife. They were wretched together. But she was too ignorant\r
+and giddy for respect, and he had never loved her. I was willing to\r
+hope that you must fare better."\r
+\r
+Anne could just acknowledge within herself such a possibility of having\r
+been induced to marry him, as made her shudder at the idea of the\r
+misery which must have followed. It was just possible that she might\r
+have been persuaded by Lady Russell! And under such a supposition,\r
+which would have been most miserable, when time had disclosed all, too\r
+late?\r
+\r
+It was very desirable that Lady Russell should be no longer deceived;\r
+and one of the concluding arrangements of this important conference,\r
+which carried them through the greater part of the morning, was, that\r
+Anne had full liberty to communicate to her friend everything relative\r
+to Mrs Smith, in which his conduct was involved.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 22\r
+\r
+\r
+Anne went home to think over all that she had heard. In one point, her\r
+feelings were relieved by this knowledge of Mr Elliot. There was no\r
+longer anything of tenderness due to him. He stood as opposed to\r
+Captain Wentworth, in all his own unwelcome obtrusiveness; and the evil\r
+of his attentions last night, the irremediable mischief he might have\r
+done, was considered with sensations unqualified, unperplexed. Pity\r
+for him was all over. But this was the only point of relief. In every\r
+other respect, in looking around her, or penetrating forward, she saw\r
+more to distrust and to apprehend. She was concerned for the\r
+disappointment and pain Lady Russell would be feeling; for the\r
+mortifications which must be hanging over her father and sister, and\r
+had all the distress of foreseeing many evils, without knowing how to\r
+avert any one of them. She was most thankful for her own knowledge of\r
+him. She had never considered herself as entitled to reward for not\r
+slighting an old friend like Mrs Smith, but here was a reward indeed\r
+springing from it! Mrs Smith had been able to tell her what no one\r
+else could have done. Could the knowledge have been extended through\r
+her family? But this was a vain idea. She must talk to Lady Russell,\r
+tell her, consult with her, and having done her best, wait the event\r
+with as much composure as possible; and after all, her greatest want of\r
+composure would be in that quarter of the mind which could not be\r
+opened to Lady Russell; in that flow of anxieties and fears which must\r
+be all to herself.\r
+\r
+\r
+She found, on reaching home, that she had, as she intended, escaped\r
+seeing Mr Elliot; that he had called and paid them a long morning\r
+visit; but hardly had she congratulated herself, and felt safe, when\r
+she heard that he was coming again in the evening.\r
+\r
+"I had not the smallest intention of asking him," said Elizabeth, with\r
+affected carelessness, "but he gave so many hints; so Mrs Clay says, at\r
+least."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I do say it. I never saw anybody in my life spell harder for\r
+an invitation. Poor man! I was really in pain for him; for your\r
+hard-hearted sister, Miss Anne, seems bent on cruelty."\r
+\r
+"Oh!" cried Elizabeth, "I have been rather too much used to the game to\r
+be soon overcome by a gentleman's hints. However, when I found how\r
+excessively he was regretting that he should miss my father this\r
+morning, I gave way immediately, for I would never really omit an\r
+opportunity of bringing him and Sir Walter together. They appear to so\r
+much advantage in company with each other. Each behaving so\r
+pleasantly. Mr Elliot looking up with so much respect."\r
+\r
+"Quite delightful!" cried Mrs Clay, not daring, however, to turn her\r
+eyes towards Anne. "Exactly like father and son! Dear Miss Elliot,\r
+may I not say father and son?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! I lay no embargo on any body's words. If you will have such\r
+ideas! But, upon my word, I am scarcely sensible of his attentions\r
+being beyond those of other men."\r
+\r
+"My dear Miss Elliot!" exclaimed Mrs Clay, lifting her hands and eyes,\r
+and sinking all the rest of her astonishment in a convenient silence.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear Penelope, you need not be so alarmed about him. I did\r
+invite him, you know. I sent him away with smiles. When I found he\r
+was really going to his friends at Thornberry Park for the whole day\r
+to-morrow, I had compassion on him."\r
+\r
+Anne admired the good acting of the friend, in being able to shew such\r
+pleasure as she did, in the expectation and in the actual arrival of\r
+the very person whose presence must really be interfering with her\r
+prime object. It was impossible but that Mrs Clay must hate the sight\r
+of Mr Elliot; and yet she could assume a most obliging, placid look,\r
+and appear quite satisfied with the curtailed license of devoting\r
+herself only half as much to Sir Walter as she would have done\r
+otherwise.\r
+\r
+To Anne herself it was most distressing to see Mr Elliot enter the\r
+room; and quite painful to have him approach and speak to her. She had\r
+been used before to feel that he could not be always quite sincere, but\r
+now she saw insincerity in everything. His attentive deference to her\r
+father, contrasted with his former language, was odious; and when she\r
+thought of his cruel conduct towards Mrs Smith, she could hardly bear\r
+the sight of his present smiles and mildness, or the sound of his\r
+artificial good sentiments.\r
+\r
+She meant to avoid any such alteration of manners as might provoke a\r
+remonstrance on his side. It was a great object to her to escape all\r
+enquiry or eclat; but it was her intention to be as decidedly cool to\r
+him as might be compatible with their relationship; and to retrace, as\r
+quietly as she could, the few steps of unnecessary intimacy she had\r
+been gradually led along. She was accordingly more guarded, and more\r
+cool, than she had been the night before.\r
+\r
+He wanted to animate her curiosity again as to how and where he could\r
+have heard her formerly praised; wanted very much to be gratified by\r
+more solicitation; but the charm was broken: he found that the heat and\r
+animation of a public room was necessary to kindle his modest cousin's\r
+vanity; he found, at least, that it was not to be done now, by any of\r
+those attempts which he could hazard among the too-commanding claims of\r
+the others. He little surmised that it was a subject acting now\r
+exactly against his interest, bringing immediately to her thoughts all\r
+those parts of his conduct which were least excusable.\r
+\r
+She had some satisfaction in finding that he was really going out of\r
+Bath the next morning, going early, and that he would be gone the\r
+greater part of two days. He was invited again to Camden Place the\r
+very evening of his return; but from Thursday to Saturday evening his\r
+absence was certain. It was bad enough that a Mrs Clay should be\r
+always before her; but that a deeper hypocrite should be added to their\r
+party, seemed the destruction of everything like peace and comfort. It\r
+was so humiliating to reflect on the constant deception practised on\r
+her father and Elizabeth; to consider the various sources of\r
+mortification preparing for them! Mrs Clay's selfishness was not so\r
+complicate nor so revolting as his; and Anne would have compounded for\r
+the marriage at once, with all its evils, to be clear of Mr Elliot's\r
+subtleties in endeavouring to prevent it.\r
+\r
+On Friday morning she meant to go very early to Lady Russell, and\r
+accomplish the necessary communication; and she would have gone\r
+directly after breakfast, but that Mrs Clay was also going out on some\r
+obliging purpose of saving her sister trouble, which determined her to\r
+wait till she might be safe from such a companion. She saw Mrs Clay\r
+fairly off, therefore, before she began to talk of spending the morning\r
+in Rivers Street.\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Elizabeth, "I have nothing to send but my love. Oh!\r
+you may as well take back that tiresome book she would lend me, and\r
+pretend I have read it through. I really cannot be plaguing myself for\r
+ever with all the new poems and states of the nation that come out.\r
+Lady Russell quite bores one with her new publications. You need not\r
+tell her so, but I thought her dress hideous the other night. I used\r
+to think she had some taste in dress, but I was ashamed of her at the\r
+concert. Something so formal and arrange in her air! and she sits so\r
+upright! My best love, of course."\r
+\r
+"And mine," added Sir Walter. "Kindest regards. And you may say, that\r
+I mean to call upon her soon. Make a civil message; but I shall only\r
+leave my card. Morning visits are never fair by women at her time of\r
+life, who make themselves up so little. If she would only wear rouge\r
+she would not be afraid of being seen; but last time I called, I\r
+observed the blinds were let down immediately."\r
+\r
+While her father spoke, there was a knock at the door. Who could it\r
+be? Anne, remembering the preconcerted visits, at all hours, of Mr\r
+Elliot, would have expected him, but for his known engagement seven\r
+miles off. After the usual period of suspense, the usual sounds of\r
+approach were heard, and "Mr and Mrs Charles Musgrove" were ushered\r
+into the room.\r
+\r
+Surprise was the strongest emotion raised by their appearance; but Anne\r
+was really glad to see them; and the others were not so sorry but that\r
+they could put on a decent air of welcome; and as soon as it became\r
+clear that these, their nearest relations, were not arrived with any\r
+views of accommodation in that house, Sir Walter and Elizabeth were\r
+able to rise in cordiality, and do the honours of it very well. They\r
+were come to Bath for a few days with Mrs Musgrove, and were at the\r
+White Hart. So much was pretty soon understood; but till Sir Walter\r
+and Elizabeth were walking Mary into the other drawing-room, and\r
+regaling themselves with her admiration, Anne could not draw upon\r
+Charles's brain for a regular history of their coming, or an\r
+explanation of some smiling hints of particular business, which had\r
+been ostentatiously dropped by Mary, as well as of some apparent\r
+confusion as to whom their party consisted of.\r
+\r
+She then found that it consisted of Mrs Musgrove, Henrietta, and\r
+Captain Harville, beside their two selves. He gave her a very plain,\r
+intelligible account of the whole; a narration in which she saw a great\r
+deal of most characteristic proceeding. The scheme had received its\r
+first impulse by Captain Harville's wanting to come to Bath on\r
+business. He had begun to talk of it a week ago; and by way of doing\r
+something, as shooting was over, Charles had proposed coming with him,\r
+and Mrs Harville had seemed to like the idea of it very much, as an\r
+advantage to her husband; but Mary could not bear to be left, and had\r
+made herself so unhappy about it, that for a day or two everything\r
+seemed to be in suspense, or at an end. But then, it had been taken up\r
+by his father and mother. His mother had some old friends in Bath whom\r
+she wanted to see; it was thought a good opportunity for Henrietta to\r
+come and buy wedding-clothes for herself and her sister; and, in short,\r
+it ended in being his mother's party, that everything might be\r
+comfortable and easy to Captain Harville; and he and Mary were included\r
+in it by way of general convenience. They had arrived late the night\r
+before. Mrs Harville, her children, and Captain Benwick, remained with\r
+Mr Musgrove and Louisa at Uppercross.\r
+\r
+Anne's only surprise was, that affairs should be in forwardness enough\r
+for Henrietta's wedding-clothes to be talked of. She had imagined such\r
+difficulties of fortune to exist there as must prevent the marriage\r
+from being near at hand; but she learned from Charles that, very\r
+recently, (since Mary's last letter to herself), Charles Hayter had\r
+been applied to by a friend to hold a living for a youth who could not\r
+possibly claim it under many years; and that on the strength of his\r
+present income, with almost a certainty of something more permanent\r
+long before the term in question, the two families had consented to the\r
+young people's wishes, and that their marriage was likely to take place\r
+in a few months, quite as soon as Louisa's. "And a very good living it\r
+was," Charles added: "only five-and-twenty miles from Uppercross, and\r
+in a very fine country: fine part of Dorsetshire. In the centre of\r
+some of the best preserves in the kingdom, surrounded by three great\r
+proprietors, each more careful and jealous than the other; and to two\r
+of the three at least, Charles Hayter might get a special\r
+recommendation. Not that he will value it as he ought," he observed,\r
+"Charles is too cool about sporting. That's the worst of him."\r
+\r
+"I am extremely glad, indeed," cried Anne, "particularly glad that this\r
+should happen; and that of two sisters, who both deserve equally well,\r
+and who have always been such good friends, the pleasant prospect of\r
+one should not be dimming those of the other--that they should be so\r
+equal in their prosperity and comfort. I hope your father and mother\r
+are quite happy with regard to both."\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes. My father would be well pleased if the gentlemen were\r
+richer, but he has no other fault to find. Money, you know, coming\r
+down with money--two daughters at once--it cannot be a very agreeable\r
+operation, and it streightens him as to many things. However, I do not\r
+mean to say they have not a right to it. It is very fit they should\r
+have daughters' shares; and I am sure he has always been a very kind,\r
+liberal father to me. Mary does not above half like Henrietta's match.\r
+She never did, you know. But she does not do him justice, nor think\r
+enough about Winthrop. I cannot make her attend to the value of the\r
+property. It is a very fair match, as times go; and I have liked\r
+Charles Hayter all my life, and I shall not leave off now."\r
+\r
+"Such excellent parents as Mr and Mrs Musgrove," exclaimed Anne,\r
+"should be happy in their children's marriages. They do everything to\r
+confer happiness, I am sure. What a blessing to young people to be in\r
+such hands! Your father and mother seem so totally free from all those\r
+ambitious feelings which have led to so much misconduct and misery,\r
+both in young and old. I hope you think Louisa perfectly recovered\r
+now?"\r
+\r
+He answered rather hesitatingly, "Yes, I believe I do; very much\r
+recovered; but she is altered; there is no running or jumping about, no\r
+laughing or dancing; it is quite different. If one happens only to\r
+shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young\r
+dab-chick in the water; and Benwick sits at her elbow, reading verses,\r
+or whispering to her, all day long."\r
+\r
+Anne could not help laughing. "That cannot be much to your taste, I\r
+know," said she; "but I do believe him to be an excellent young man."\r
+\r
+"To be sure he is. Nobody doubts it; and I hope you do not think I am\r
+so illiberal as to want every man to have the same objects and\r
+pleasures as myself. I have a great value for Benwick; and when one\r
+can but get him to talk, he has plenty to say. His reading has done\r
+him no harm, for he has fought as well as read. He is a brave fellow.\r
+I got more acquainted with him last Monday than ever I did before. We\r
+had a famous set-to at rat-hunting all the morning in my father's great\r
+barns; and he played his part so well that I have liked him the better\r
+ever since."\r
+\r
+Here they were interrupted by the absolute necessity of Charles's\r
+following the others to admire mirrors and china; but Anne had heard\r
+enough to understand the present state of Uppercross, and rejoice in\r
+its happiness; and though she sighed as she rejoiced, her sigh had none\r
+of the ill-will of envy in it. She would certainly have risen to their\r
+blessings if she could, but she did not want to lessen theirs.\r
+\r
+The visit passed off altogether in high good humour. Mary was in\r
+excellent spirits, enjoying the gaiety and the change, and so well\r
+satisfied with the journey in her mother-in-law's carriage with four\r
+horses, and with her own complete independence of Camden Place, that\r
+she was exactly in a temper to admire everything as she ought, and\r
+enter most readily into all the superiorities of the house, as they\r
+were detailed to her. She had no demands on her father or sister, and\r
+her consequence was just enough increased by their handsome\r
+drawing-rooms.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was, for a short time, suffering a good deal. She felt that\r
+Mrs Musgrove and all her party ought to be asked to dine with them; but\r
+she could not bear to have the difference of style, the reduction of\r
+servants, which a dinner must betray, witnessed by those who had been\r
+always so inferior to the Elliots of Kellynch. It was a struggle\r
+between propriety and vanity; but vanity got the better, and then\r
+Elizabeth was happy again. These were her internal persuasions: "Old\r
+fashioned notions; country hospitality; we do not profess to give\r
+dinners; few people in Bath do; Lady Alicia never does; did not even\r
+ask her own sister's family, though they were here a month: and I dare\r
+say it would be very inconvenient to Mrs Musgrove; put her quite out of\r
+her way. I am sure she would rather not come; she cannot feel easy\r
+with us. I will ask them all for an evening; that will be much better;\r
+that will be a novelty and a treat. They have not seen two such\r
+drawing rooms before. They will be delighted to come to-morrow\r
+evening. It shall be a regular party, small, but most elegant." And\r
+this satisfied Elizabeth: and when the invitation was given to the two\r
+present, and promised for the absent, Mary was as completely satisfied.\r
+She was particularly asked to meet Mr Elliot, and be introduced to Lady\r
+Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, who were fortunately already engaged to\r
+come; and she could not have received a more gratifying attention.\r
+Miss Elliot was to have the honour of calling on Mrs Musgrove in the\r
+course of the morning; and Anne walked off with Charles and Mary, to go\r
+and see her and Henrietta directly.\r
+\r
+Her plan of sitting with Lady Russell must give way for the present.\r
+They all three called in Rivers Street for a couple of minutes; but\r
+Anne convinced herself that a day's delay of the intended communication\r
+could be of no consequence, and hastened forward to the White Hart, to\r
+see again the friends and companions of the last autumn, with an\r
+eagerness of good-will which many associations contributed to form.\r
+\r
+They found Mrs Musgrove and her daughter within, and by themselves, and\r
+Anne had the kindest welcome from each. Henrietta was exactly in that\r
+state of recently-improved views, of fresh-formed happiness, which made\r
+her full of regard and interest for everybody she had ever liked before\r
+at all; and Mrs Musgrove's real affection had been won by her\r
+usefulness when they were in distress. It was a heartiness, and a\r
+warmth, and a sincerity which Anne delighted in the more, from the sad\r
+want of such blessings at home. She was entreated to give them as much\r
+of her time as possible, invited for every day and all day long, or\r
+rather claimed as part of the family; and, in return, she naturally\r
+fell into all her wonted ways of attention and assistance, and on\r
+Charles's leaving them together, was listening to Mrs Musgrove's\r
+history of Louisa, and to Henrietta's of herself, giving opinions on\r
+business, and recommendations to shops; with intervals of every help\r
+which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts;\r
+from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying to\r
+convince her that she was not ill-used by anybody; which Mary, well\r
+amused as she generally was, in her station at a window overlooking the\r
+entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have her moments of imagining.\r
+\r
+A morning of thorough confusion was to be expected. A large party in\r
+an hotel ensured a quick-changing, unsettled scene. One five minutes\r
+brought a note, the next a parcel; and Anne had not been there half an\r
+hour, when their dining-room, spacious as it was, seemed more than half\r
+filled: a party of steady old friends were seated around Mrs Musgrove,\r
+and Charles came back with Captains Harville and Wentworth. The\r
+appearance of the latter could not be more than the surprise of the\r
+moment. It was impossible for her to have forgotten to feel that this\r
+arrival of their common friends must be soon bringing them together\r
+again. Their last meeting had been most important in opening his\r
+feelings; she had derived from it a delightful conviction; but she\r
+feared from his looks, that the same unfortunate persuasion, which had\r
+hastened him away from the Concert Room, still governed. He did not\r
+seem to want to be near enough for conversation.\r
+\r
+She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course, and tried\r
+to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence:--"Surely, if\r
+there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand\r
+each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously\r
+irritable, misled by every moment's inadvertence, and wantonly playing\r
+with our own happiness." And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt\r
+as if their being in company with each other, under their present\r
+circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and\r
+misconstructions of the most mischievous kind.\r
+\r
+"Anne," cried Mary, still at her window, "there is Mrs Clay, I am sure,\r
+standing under the colonnade, and a gentleman with her. I saw them\r
+turn the corner from Bath Street just now. They seemed deep in talk.\r
+Who is it? Come, and tell me. Good heavens! I recollect. It is Mr\r
+Elliot himself."\r
+\r
+"No," cried Anne, quickly, "it cannot be Mr Elliot, I assure you. He\r
+was to leave Bath at nine this morning, and does not come back till\r
+to-morrow."\r
+\r
+As she spoke, she felt that Captain Wentworth was looking at her, the\r
+consciousness of which vexed and embarrassed her, and made her regret\r
+that she had said so much, simple as it was.\r
+\r
+Mary, resenting that she should be supposed not to know her own cousin,\r
+began talking very warmly about the family features, and protesting\r
+still more positively that it was Mr Elliot, calling again upon Anne to\r
+come and look for herself, but Anne did not mean to stir, and tried to\r
+be cool and unconcerned. Her distress returned, however, on perceiving\r
+smiles and intelligent glances pass between two or three of the lady\r
+visitors, as if they believed themselves quite in the secret. It was\r
+evident that the report concerning her had spread, and a short pause\r
+succeeded, which seemed to ensure that it would now spread farther.\r
+\r
+"Do come, Anne," cried Mary, "come and look yourself. You will be too\r
+late if you do not make haste. They are parting; they are shaking\r
+hands. He is turning away. Not know Mr Elliot, indeed! You seem to\r
+have forgot all about Lyme."\r
+\r
+To pacify Mary, and perhaps screen her own embarrassment, Anne did move\r
+quietly to the window. She was just in time to ascertain that it\r
+really was Mr Elliot, which she had never believed, before he\r
+disappeared on one side, as Mrs Clay walked quickly off on the other;\r
+and checking the surprise which she could not but feel at such an\r
+appearance of friendly conference between two persons of totally\r
+opposite interest, she calmly said, "Yes, it is Mr Elliot, certainly.\r
+He has changed his hour of going, I suppose, that is all, or I may be\r
+mistaken, I might not attend;" and walked back to her chair,\r
+recomposed, and with the comfortable hope of having acquitted herself\r
+well.\r
+\r
+The visitors took their leave; and Charles, having civilly seen them\r
+off, and then made a face at them, and abused them for coming, began\r
+with--\r
+\r
+"Well, mother, I have done something for you that you will like. I\r
+have been to the theatre, and secured a box for to-morrow night. A'n't\r
+I a good boy? I know you love a play; and there is room for us all.\r
+It holds nine. I have engaged Captain Wentworth. Anne will not be\r
+sorry to join us, I am sure. We all like a play. Have not I done\r
+well, mother?"\r
+\r
+Mrs Musgrove was good humouredly beginning to express her perfect\r
+readiness for the play, if Henrietta and all the others liked it, when\r
+Mary eagerly interrupted her by exclaiming--\r
+\r
+"Good heavens, Charles! how can you think of such a thing? Take a box\r
+for to-morrow night! Have you forgot that we are engaged to Camden\r
+Place to-morrow night? and that we were most particularly asked to meet\r
+Lady Dalrymple and her daughter, and Mr Elliot, and all the principal\r
+family connexions, on purpose to be introduced to them? How can you be\r
+so forgetful?"\r
+\r
+"Phoo! phoo!" replied Charles, "what's an evening party? Never worth\r
+remembering. Your father might have asked us to dinner, I think, if he\r
+had wanted to see us. You may do as you like, but I shall go to the\r
+play."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Charles, I declare it will be too abominable if you do, when you\r
+promised to go."\r
+\r
+"No, I did not promise. I only smirked and bowed, and said the word\r
+'happy.' There was no promise."\r
+\r
+"But you must go, Charles. It would be unpardonable to fail. We were\r
+asked on purpose to be introduced. There was always such a great\r
+connexion between the Dalrymples and ourselves. Nothing ever happened\r
+on either side that was not announced immediately. We are quite near\r
+relations, you know; and Mr Elliot too, whom you ought so particularly\r
+to be acquainted with! Every attention is due to Mr Elliot. Consider,\r
+my father's heir: the future representative of the family."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk to me about heirs and representatives," cried Charles. "I\r
+am not one of those who neglect the reigning power to bow to the rising\r
+sun. If I would not go for the sake of your father, I should think it\r
+scandalous to go for the sake of his heir. What is Mr Elliot to me?"\r
+The careless expression was life to Anne, who saw that Captain\r
+Wentworth was all attention, looking and listening with his whole soul;\r
+and that the last words brought his enquiring eyes from Charles to\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+Charles and Mary still talked on in the same style; he, half serious\r
+and half jesting, maintaining the scheme for the play, and she,\r
+invariably serious, most warmly opposing it, and not omitting to make\r
+it known that, however determined to go to Camden Place herself, she\r
+should not think herself very well used, if they went to the play\r
+without her. Mrs Musgrove interposed.\r
+\r
+"We had better put it off. Charles, you had much better go back and\r
+change the box for Tuesday. It would be a pity to be divided, and we\r
+should be losing Miss Anne, too, if there is a party at her father's;\r
+and I am sure neither Henrietta nor I should care at all for the play,\r
+if Miss Anne could not be with us."\r
+\r
+Anne felt truly obliged to her for such kindness; and quite as much so\r
+for the opportunity it gave her of decidedly saying--\r
+\r
+"If it depended only on my inclination, ma'am, the party at home\r
+(excepting on Mary's account) would not be the smallest impediment. I\r
+have no pleasure in the sort of meeting, and should be too happy to\r
+change it for a play, and with you. But, it had better not be\r
+attempted, perhaps." She had spoken it; but she trembled when it was\r
+done, conscious that her words were listened to, and daring not even to\r
+try to observe their effect.\r
+\r
+It was soon generally agreed that Tuesday should be the day; Charles\r
+only reserving the advantage of still teasing his wife, by persisting\r
+that he would go to the play to-morrow if nobody else would.\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth left his seat, and walked to the fire-place; probably\r
+for the sake of walking away from it soon afterwards, and taking a\r
+station, with less bare-faced design, by Anne.\r
+\r
+"You have not been long enough in Bath," said he, "to enjoy the evening\r
+parties of the place."\r
+\r
+"Oh! no. The usual character of them has nothing for me. I am no\r
+card-player."\r
+\r
+"You were not formerly, I know. You did not use to like cards; but\r
+time makes many changes."\r
+\r
+"I am not yet so much changed," cried Anne, and stopped, fearing she\r
+hardly knew what misconstruction. After waiting a few moments he said,\r
+and as if it were the result of immediate feeling, "It is a period,\r
+indeed! Eight years and a half is a period."\r
+\r
+Whether he would have proceeded farther was left to Anne's imagination\r
+to ponder over in a calmer hour; for while still hearing the sounds he\r
+had uttered, she was startled to other subjects by Henrietta, eager to\r
+make use of the present leisure for getting out, and calling on her\r
+companions to lose no time, lest somebody else should come in.\r
+\r
+They were obliged to move. Anne talked of being perfectly ready, and\r
+tried to look it; but she felt that could Henrietta have known the\r
+regret and reluctance of her heart in quitting that chair, in preparing\r
+to quit the room, she would have found, in all her own sensations for\r
+her cousin, in the very security of his affection, wherewith to pity\r
+her.\r
+\r
+Their preparations, however, were stopped short. Alarming sounds were\r
+heard; other visitors approached, and the door was thrown open for Sir\r
+Walter and Miss Elliot, whose entrance seemed to give a general chill.\r
+Anne felt an instant oppression, and wherever she looked saw symptoms\r
+of the same. The comfort, the freedom, the gaiety of the room was\r
+over, hushed into cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk,\r
+to meet the heartless elegance of her father and sister. How\r
+mortifying to feel that it was so!\r
+\r
+Her jealous eye was satisfied in one particular. Captain Wentworth was\r
+acknowledged again by each, by Elizabeth more graciously than before.\r
+She even addressed him once, and looked at him more than once.\r
+Elizabeth was, in fact, revolving a great measure. The sequel\r
+explained it. After the waste of a few minutes in saying the proper\r
+nothings, she began to give the invitation which was to comprise all\r
+the remaining dues of the Musgroves. "To-morrow evening, to meet a few\r
+friends: no formal party." It was all said very gracefully, and the\r
+cards with which she had provided herself, the "Miss Elliot at home,"\r
+were laid on the table, with a courteous, comprehensive smile to all,\r
+and one smile and one card more decidedly for Captain Wentworth. The\r
+truth was, that Elizabeth had been long enough in Bath to understand\r
+the importance of a man of such an air and appearance as his. The past\r
+was nothing. The present was that Captain Wentworth would move about\r
+well in her drawing-room. The card was pointedly given, and Sir Walter\r
+and Elizabeth arose and disappeared.\r
+\r
+The interruption had been short, though severe, and ease and animation\r
+returned to most of those they left as the door shut them out, but not\r
+to Anne. She could think only of the invitation she had with such\r
+astonishment witnessed, and of the manner in which it had been\r
+received; a manner of doubtful meaning, of surprise rather than\r
+gratification, of polite acknowledgement rather than acceptance. She\r
+knew him; she saw disdain in his eye, and could not venture to believe\r
+that he had determined to accept such an offering, as an atonement for\r
+all the insolence of the past. Her spirits sank. He held the card in\r
+his hand after they were gone, as if deeply considering it.\r
+\r
+"Only think of Elizabeth's including everybody!" whispered Mary very\r
+audibly. "I do not wonder Captain Wentworth is delighted! You see he\r
+cannot put the card out of his hand."\r
+\r
+Anne caught his eye, saw his cheeks glow, and his mouth form itself\r
+into a momentary expression of contempt, and turned away, that she\r
+might neither see nor hear more to vex her.\r
+\r
+The party separated. The gentlemen had their own pursuits, the ladies\r
+proceeded on their own business, and they met no more while Anne\r
+belonged to them. She was earnestly begged to return and dine, and\r
+give them all the rest of the day, but her spirits had been so long\r
+exerted that at present she felt unequal to more, and fit only for\r
+home, where she might be sure of being as silent as she chose.\r
+\r
+Promising to be with them the whole of the following morning,\r
+therefore, she closed the fatigues of the present by a toilsome walk to\r
+Camden Place, there to spend the evening chiefly in listening to the\r
+busy arrangements of Elizabeth and Mrs Clay for the morrow's party, the\r
+frequent enumeration of the persons invited, and the continually\r
+improving detail of all the embellishments which were to make it the\r
+most completely elegant of its kind in Bath, while harassing herself\r
+with the never-ending question, of whether Captain Wentworth would come\r
+or not? They were reckoning him as certain, but with her it was a\r
+gnawing solicitude never appeased for five minutes together. She\r
+generally thought he would come, because she generally thought he\r
+ought; but it was a case which she could not so shape into any positive\r
+act of duty or discretion, as inevitably to defy the suggestions of\r
+very opposite feelings.\r
+\r
+She only roused herself from the broodings of this restless agitation,\r
+to let Mrs Clay know that she had been seen with Mr Elliot three hours\r
+after his being supposed to be out of Bath, for having watched in vain\r
+for some intimation of the interview from the lady herself, she\r
+determined to mention it, and it seemed to her there was guilt in Mrs\r
+Clay's face as she listened. It was transient: cleared away in an\r
+instant; but Anne could imagine she read there the consciousness of\r
+having, by some complication of mutual trick, or some overbearing\r
+authority of his, been obliged to attend (perhaps for half an hour) to\r
+his lectures and restrictions on her designs on Sir Walter. She\r
+exclaimed, however, with a very tolerable imitation of nature:--\r
+\r
+"Oh! dear! very true. Only think, Miss Elliot, to my great surprise I\r
+met with Mr Elliot in Bath Street. I was never more astonished. He\r
+turned back and walked with me to the Pump Yard. He had been prevented\r
+setting off for Thornberry, but I really forget by what; for I was in a\r
+hurry, and could not much attend, and I can only answer for his being\r
+determined not to be delayed in his return. He wanted to know how\r
+early he might be admitted to-morrow. He was full of 'to-morrow,' and\r
+it is very evident that I have been full of it too, ever since I\r
+entered the house, and learnt the extension of your plan and all that\r
+had happened, or my seeing him could never have gone so entirely out of\r
+my head."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 23\r
+\r
+\r
+One day only had passed since Anne's conversation with Mrs Smith; but a\r
+keener interest had succeeded, and she was now so little touched by Mr\r
+Elliot's conduct, except by its effects in one quarter, that it became\r
+a matter of course the next morning, still to defer her explanatory\r
+visit in Rivers Street. She had promised to be with the Musgroves from\r
+breakfast to dinner. Her faith was plighted, and Mr Elliot's\r
+character, like the Sultaness Scheherazade's head, must live another\r
+day.\r
+\r
+She could not keep her appointment punctually, however; the weather was\r
+unfavourable, and she had grieved over the rain on her friends'\r
+account, and felt it very much on her own, before she was able to\r
+attempt the walk. When she reached the White Hart, and made her way to\r
+the proper apartment, she found herself neither arriving quite in time,\r
+nor the first to arrive. The party before her were, Mrs Musgrove,\r
+talking to Mrs Croft, and Captain Harville to Captain Wentworth; and\r
+she immediately heard that Mary and Henrietta, too impatient to wait,\r
+had gone out the moment it had cleared, but would be back again soon,\r
+and that the strictest injunctions had been left with Mrs Musgrove to\r
+keep her there till they returned. She had only to submit, sit down,\r
+be outwardly composed, and feel herself plunged at once in all the\r
+agitations which she had merely laid her account of tasting a little\r
+before the morning closed. There was no delay, no waste of time. She\r
+was deep in the happiness of such misery, or the misery of such\r
+happiness, instantly. Two minutes after her entering the room, Captain\r
+Wentworth said--\r
+\r
+"We will write the letter we were talking of, Harville, now, if you\r
+will give me materials."\r
+\r
+Materials were at hand, on a separate table; he went to it, and nearly\r
+turning his back to them all, was engrossed by writing.\r
+\r
+Mrs Musgrove was giving Mrs Croft the history of her eldest daughter's\r
+engagement, and just in that inconvenient tone of voice which was\r
+perfectly audible while it pretended to be a whisper. Anne felt that\r
+she did not belong to the conversation, and yet, as Captain Harville\r
+seemed thoughtful and not disposed to talk, she could not avoid hearing\r
+many undesirable particulars; such as, "how Mr Musgrove and my brother\r
+Hayter had met again and again to talk it over; what my brother Hayter\r
+had said one day, and what Mr Musgrove had proposed the next, and what\r
+had occurred to my sister Hayter, and what the young people had wished,\r
+and what I said at first I never could consent to, but was afterwards\r
+persuaded to think might do very well," and a great deal in the same\r
+style of open-hearted communication: minutiae which, even with every\r
+advantage of taste and delicacy, which good Mrs Musgrove could not\r
+give, could be properly interesting only to the principals. Mrs Croft\r
+was attending with great good-humour, and whenever she spoke at all, it\r
+was very sensibly. Anne hoped the gentlemen might each be too much\r
+self-occupied to hear.\r
+\r
+"And so, ma'am, all these thing considered," said Mrs Musgrove, in her\r
+powerful whisper, "though we could have wished it different, yet,\r
+altogether, we did not think it fair to stand out any longer, for\r
+Charles Hayter was quite wild about it, and Henrietta was pretty near\r
+as bad; and so we thought they had better marry at once, and make the\r
+best of it, as many others have done before them. At any rate, said I,\r
+it will be better than a long engagement."\r
+\r
+"That is precisely what I was going to observe," cried Mrs Croft. "I\r
+would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and\r
+have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be involved in\r
+a long engagement. I always think that no mutual--"\r
+\r
+"Oh! dear Mrs Croft," cried Mrs Musgrove, unable to let her finish her\r
+speech, "there is nothing I so abominate for young people as a long\r
+engagement. It is what I always protested against for my children. It\r
+is all very well, I used to say, for young people to be engaged, if\r
+there is a certainty of their being able to marry in six months, or\r
+even in twelve; but a long engagement--"\r
+\r
+"Yes, dear ma'am," said Mrs Croft, "or an uncertain engagement, an\r
+engagement which may be long. To begin without knowing that at such a\r
+time there will be the means of marrying, I hold to be very unsafe and\r
+unwise, and what I think all parents should prevent as far as they can."\r
+\r
+Anne found an unexpected interest here. She felt its application to\r
+herself, felt it in a nervous thrill all over her; and at the same\r
+moment that her eyes instinctively glanced towards the distant table,\r
+Captain Wentworth's pen ceased to move, his head was raised, pausing,\r
+listening, and he turned round the next instant to give a look, one\r
+quick, conscious look at her.\r
+\r
+The two ladies continued to talk, to re-urge the same admitted truths,\r
+and enforce them with such examples of the ill effect of a contrary\r
+practice as had fallen within their observation, but Anne heard nothing\r
+distinctly; it was only a buzz of words in her ear, her mind was in\r
+confusion.\r
+\r
+Captain Harville, who had in truth been hearing none of it, now left\r
+his seat, and moved to a window, and Anne seeming to watch him, though\r
+it was from thorough absence of mind, became gradually sensible that he\r
+was inviting her to join him where he stood. He looked at her with a\r
+smile, and a little motion of the head, which expressed, "Come to me, I\r
+have something to say;" and the unaffected, easy kindness of manner\r
+which denoted the feelings of an older acquaintance than he really was,\r
+strongly enforced the invitation. She roused herself and went to him.\r
+The window at which he stood was at the other end of the room from\r
+where the two ladies were sitting, and though nearer to Captain\r
+Wentworth's table, not very near. As she joined him, Captain\r
+Harville's countenance re-assumed the serious, thoughtful expression\r
+which seemed its natural character.\r
+\r
+"Look here," said he, unfolding a parcel in his hand, and displaying a\r
+small miniature painting, "do you know who that is?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly: Captain Benwick."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and you may guess who it is for. But," (in a deep tone,) "it was\r
+not done for her. Miss Elliot, do you remember our walking together at\r
+Lyme, and grieving for him? I little thought then--but no matter.\r
+This was drawn at the Cape. He met with a clever young German artist\r
+at the Cape, and in compliance with a promise to my poor sister, sat to\r
+him, and was bringing it home for her; and I have now the charge of\r
+getting it properly set for another! It was a commission to me! But\r
+who else was there to employ? I hope I can allow for him. I am not\r
+sorry, indeed, to make it over to another. He undertakes it;" (looking\r
+towards Captain Wentworth,) "he is writing about it now." And with a\r
+quivering lip he wound up the whole by adding, "Poor Fanny! she would\r
+not have forgotten him so soon!"\r
+\r
+"No," replied Anne, in a low, feeling voice. "That I can easily\r
+believe."\r
+\r
+"It was not in her nature. She doted on him."\r
+\r
+"It would not be the nature of any woman who truly loved."\r
+\r
+Captain Harville smiled, as much as to say, "Do you claim that for your\r
+sex?" and she answered the question, smiling also, "Yes. We certainly\r
+do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate\r
+rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home,\r
+quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on\r
+exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some\r
+sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and\r
+continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions."\r
+\r
+"Granting your assertion that the world does all this so soon for men\r
+(which, however, I do not think I shall grant), it does not apply to\r
+Benwick. He has not been forced upon any exertion. The peace turned\r
+him on shore at the very moment, and he has been living with us, in our\r
+little family circle, ever since."\r
+\r
+"True," said Anne, "very true; I did not recollect; but what shall we\r
+say now, Captain Harville? If the change be not from outward\r
+circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man's nature,\r
+which has done the business for Captain Benwick."\r
+\r
+"No, no, it is not man's nature. I will not allow it to be more man's\r
+nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or\r
+have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe in a true analogy\r
+between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are\r
+the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough\r
+usage, and riding out the heaviest weather."\r
+\r
+"Your feelings may be the strongest," replied Anne, "but the same\r
+spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most\r
+tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived;\r
+which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments.\r
+Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have\r
+difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You\r
+are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship.\r
+Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health,\r
+nor life, to be called your own. It would be hard, indeed" (with a\r
+faltering voice), "if woman's feelings were to be added to all this."\r
+\r
+"We shall never agree upon this question," Captain Harville was\r
+beginning to say, when a slight noise called their attention to Captain\r
+Wentworth's hitherto perfectly quiet division of the room. It was\r
+nothing more than that his pen had fallen down; but Anne was startled\r
+at finding him nearer than she had supposed, and half inclined to\r
+suspect that the pen had only fallen because he had been occupied by\r
+them, striving to catch sounds, which yet she did not think he could\r
+have caught.\r
+\r
+"Have you finished your letter?" said Captain Harville.\r
+\r
+"Not quite, a few lines more. I shall have done in five minutes."\r
+\r
+"There is no hurry on my side. I am only ready whenever you are. I am\r
+in very good anchorage here," (smiling at Anne,) "well supplied, and\r
+want for nothing. No hurry for a signal at all. Well, Miss Elliot,"\r
+(lowering his voice,) "as I was saying we shall never agree, I suppose,\r
+upon this point. No man and woman, would, probably. But let me\r
+observe that all histories are against you--all stories, prose and\r
+verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty\r
+quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I\r
+ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon\r
+woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's\r
+fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in\r
+books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story.\r
+Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been\r
+in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything."\r
+\r
+"But how shall we prove anything?"\r
+\r
+"We never shall. We never can expect to prove any thing upon such a\r
+point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof.\r
+We each begin, probably, with a little bias towards our own sex; and\r
+upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has\r
+occurred within our own circle; many of which circumstances (perhaps\r
+those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as\r
+cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or in some\r
+respect saying what should not be said."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling, "if I could\r
+but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at\r
+his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off\r
+in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, 'God knows\r
+whether we ever meet again!' And then, if I could convey to you the\r
+glow of his soul when he does see them again; when, coming back after a\r
+twelvemonth's absence, perhaps, and obliged to put into another port,\r
+he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to\r
+deceive himself, and saying, 'They cannot be here till such a day,' but\r
+all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them\r
+arrive at last, as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner\r
+still! If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear\r
+and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his\r
+existence! I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!"\r
+pressing his own with emotion.\r
+\r
+"Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by\r
+you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should\r
+undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my\r
+fellow-creatures! I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to\r
+suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman.\r
+No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married\r
+lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every\r
+domestic forbearance, so long as--if I may be allowed the\r
+expression--so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you\r
+love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own\r
+sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of\r
+loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."\r
+\r
+She could not immediately have uttered another sentence; her heart was\r
+too full, her breath too much oppressed.\r
+\r
+"You are a good soul," cried Captain Harville, putting his hand on her\r
+arm, quite affectionately. "There is no quarrelling with you. And\r
+when I think of Benwick, my tongue is tied."\r
+\r
+Their attention was called towards the others. Mrs Croft was taking\r
+leave.\r
+\r
+"Here, Frederick, you and I part company, I believe," said she. "I am\r
+going home, and you have an engagement with your friend. To-night we\r
+may have the pleasure of all meeting again at your party," (turning to\r
+Anne.) "We had your sister's card yesterday, and I understood\r
+Frederick had a card too, though I did not see it; and you are\r
+disengaged, Frederick, are you not, as well as ourselves?"\r
+\r
+Captain Wentworth was folding up a letter in great haste, and either\r
+could not or would not answer fully.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said he, "very true; here we separate, but Harville and I shall\r
+soon be after you; that is, Harville, if you are ready, I am in half a\r
+minute. I know you will not be sorry to be off. I shall be at your\r
+service in half a minute."\r
+\r
+Mrs Croft left them, and Captain Wentworth, having sealed his letter\r
+with great rapidity, was indeed ready, and had even a hurried, agitated\r
+air, which shewed impatience to be gone. Anne knew not how to\r
+understand it. She had the kindest "Good morning, God bless you!" from\r
+Captain Harville, but from him not a word, nor a look! He had passed\r
+out of the room without a look!\r
+\r
+She had only time, however, to move closer to the table where he had\r
+been writing, when footsteps were heard returning; the door opened, it\r
+was himself. He begged their pardon, but he had forgotten his gloves,\r
+and instantly crossing the room to the writing table, he drew out a\r
+letter from under the scattered paper, placed it before Anne with eyes\r
+of glowing entreaty fixed on her for a time, and hastily collecting his\r
+gloves, was again out of the room, almost before Mrs Musgrove was aware\r
+of his being in it: the work of an instant!\r
+\r
+The revolution which one instant had made in Anne, was almost beyond\r
+expression. The letter, with a direction hardly legible, to "Miss A.\r
+E.--," was evidently the one which he had been folding so hastily.\r
+While supposed to be writing only to Captain Benwick, he had been also\r
+addressing her! On the contents of that letter depended all which this\r
+world could do for her. Anything was possible, anything might be\r
+defied rather than suspense. Mrs Musgrove had little arrangements of\r
+her own at her own table; to their protection she must trust, and\r
+sinking into the chair which he had occupied, succeeding to the very\r
+spot where he had leaned and written, her eyes devoured the following\r
+words:\r
+\r
+\r
+"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means\r
+as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half\r
+hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are\r
+gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your\r
+own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare\r
+not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an\r
+earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been,\r
+weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have\r
+brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not\r
+seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not\r
+waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think\r
+you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant\r
+hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can\r
+distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others.\r
+Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do\r
+believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe\r
+it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.\r
+\r
+"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow\r
+your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to\r
+decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."\r
+\r
+\r
+Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from. Half an hour's\r
+solitude and reflection might have tranquillized her; but the ten\r
+minutes only which now passed before she was interrupted, with all the\r
+restraints of her situation, could do nothing towards tranquillity.\r
+Every moment rather brought fresh agitation. It was overpowering\r
+happiness. And before she was beyond the first stage of full\r
+sensation, Charles, Mary, and Henrietta all came in.\r
+\r
+The absolute necessity of seeming like herself produced then an\r
+immediate struggle; but after a while she could do no more. She began\r
+not to understand a word they said, and was obliged to plead\r
+indisposition and excuse herself. They could then see that she looked\r
+very ill, were shocked and concerned, and would not stir without her\r
+for the world. This was dreadful. Would they only have gone away, and\r
+left her in the quiet possession of that room it would have been her\r
+cure; but to have them all standing or waiting around her was\r
+distracting, and in desperation, she said she would go home.\r
+\r
+"By all means, my dear," cried Mrs Musgrove, "go home directly, and\r
+take care of yourself, that you may be fit for the evening. I wish\r
+Sarah was here to doctor you, but I am no doctor myself. Charles, ring\r
+and order a chair. She must not walk."\r
+\r
+But the chair would never do. Worse than all! To lose the possibility\r
+of speaking two words to Captain Wentworth in the course of her quiet,\r
+solitary progress up the town (and she felt almost certain of meeting\r
+him) could not be borne. The chair was earnestly protested against,\r
+and Mrs Musgrove, who thought only of one sort of illness, having\r
+assured herself with some anxiety, that there had been no fall in the\r
+case; that Anne had not at any time lately slipped down, and got a blow\r
+on her head; that she was perfectly convinced of having had no fall;\r
+could part with her cheerfully, and depend on finding her better at\r
+night.\r
+\r
+Anxious to omit no possible precaution, Anne struggled, and said--\r
+\r
+"I am afraid, ma'am, that it is not perfectly understood. Pray be so\r
+good as to mention to the other gentlemen that we hope to see your\r
+whole party this evening. I am afraid there had been some mistake; and\r
+I wish you particularly to assure Captain Harville and Captain\r
+Wentworth, that we hope to see them both."\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear, it is quite understood, I give you my word. Captain\r
+Harville has no thought but of going."\r
+\r
+"Do you think so? But I am afraid; and I should be so very sorry.\r
+Will you promise me to mention it, when you see them again? You will\r
+see them both this morning, I dare say. Do promise me."\r
+\r
+"To be sure I will, if you wish it. Charles, if you see Captain\r
+Harville anywhere, remember to give Miss Anne's message. But indeed,\r
+my dear, you need not be uneasy. Captain Harville holds himself quite\r
+engaged, I'll answer for it; and Captain Wentworth the same, I dare\r
+say."\r
+\r
+Anne could do no more; but her heart prophesied some mischance to damp\r
+the perfection of her felicity. It could not be very lasting, however.\r
+Even if he did not come to Camden Place himself, it would be in her\r
+power to send an intelligible sentence by Captain Harville. Another\r
+momentary vexation occurred. Charles, in his real concern and good\r
+nature, would go home with her; there was no preventing him. This was\r
+almost cruel. But she could not be long ungrateful; he was sacrificing\r
+an engagement at a gunsmith's, to be of use to her; and she set off\r
+with him, with no feeling but gratitude apparent.\r
+\r
+They were on Union Street, when a quicker step behind, a something of\r
+familiar sound, gave her two moments' preparation for the sight of\r
+Captain Wentworth. He joined them; but, as if irresolute whether to\r
+join or to pass on, said nothing, only looked. Anne could command\r
+herself enough to receive that look, and not repulsively. The cheeks\r
+which had been pale now glowed, and the movements which had hesitated\r
+were decided. He walked by her side. Presently, struck by a sudden\r
+thought, Charles said--\r
+\r
+"Captain Wentworth, which way are you going? Only to Gay Street, or\r
+farther up the town?"\r
+\r
+"I hardly know," replied Captain Wentworth, surprised.\r
+\r
+"Are you going as high as Belmont? Are you going near Camden Place?\r
+Because, if you are, I shall have no scruple in asking you to take my\r
+place, and give Anne your arm to her father's door. She is rather done\r
+for this morning, and must not go so far without help, and I ought to\r
+be at that fellow's in the Market Place. He promised me the sight of a\r
+capital gun he is just going to send off; said he would keep it\r
+unpacked to the last possible moment, that I might see it; and if I do\r
+not turn back now, I have no chance. By his description, a good deal\r
+like the second size double-barrel of mine, which you shot with one day\r
+round Winthrop."\r
+\r
+There could not be an objection. There could be only the most proper\r
+alacrity, a most obliging compliance for public view; and smiles reined\r
+in and spirits dancing in private rapture. In half a minute Charles\r
+was at the bottom of Union Street again, and the other two proceeding\r
+together: and soon words enough had passed between them to decide\r
+their direction towards the comparatively quiet and retired gravel\r
+walk, where the power of conversation would make the present hour a\r
+blessing indeed, and prepare it for all the immortality which the\r
+happiest recollections of their own future lives could bestow. There\r
+they exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once\r
+before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so\r
+many, many years of division and estrangement. There they returned\r
+again into the past, more exquisitely happy, perhaps, in their\r
+re-union, than when it had been first projected; more tender, more\r
+tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character, truth, and\r
+attachment; more equal to act, more justified in acting. And there, as\r
+they slowly paced the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around\r
+them, seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling housekeepers,\r
+flirting girls, nor nursery-maids and children, they could indulge in\r
+those retrospections and acknowledgements, and especially in those\r
+explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment, which\r
+were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest. All the little\r
+variations of the last week were gone through; and of yesterday and\r
+today there could scarcely be an end.\r
+\r
+She had not mistaken him. Jealousy of Mr Elliot had been the retarding\r
+weight, the doubt, the torment. That had begun to operate in the very\r
+hour of first meeting her in Bath; that had returned, after a short\r
+suspension, to ruin the concert; and that had influenced him in\r
+everything he had said and done, or omitted to say and do, in the last\r
+four-and-twenty hours. It had been gradually yielding to the better\r
+hopes which her looks, or words, or actions occasionally encouraged; it\r
+had been vanquished at last by those sentiments and those tones which\r
+had reached him while she talked with Captain Harville; and under the\r
+irresistible governance of which he had seized a sheet of paper, and\r
+poured out his feelings.\r
+\r
+Of what he had then written, nothing was to be retracted or qualified.\r
+He persisted in having loved none but her. She had never been\r
+supplanted. He never even believed himself to see her equal. Thus\r
+much indeed he was obliged to acknowledge: that he had been constant\r
+unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her,\r
+and believed it to be done. He had imagined himself indifferent, when\r
+he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because\r
+he had been a sufferer from them. Her character was now fixed on his\r
+mind as perfection itself, maintaining the loveliest medium of\r
+fortitude and gentleness; but he was obliged to acknowledge that only\r
+at Uppercross had he learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme had he\r
+begun to understand himself. At Lyme, he had received lessons of more\r
+than one sort. The passing admiration of Mr Elliot had at least roused\r
+him, and the scenes on the Cobb and at Captain Harville's had fixed her\r
+superiority.\r
+\r
+In his preceding attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove (the\r
+attempts of angry pride), he protested that he had for ever felt it to\r
+be impossible; that he had not cared, could not care, for Louisa;\r
+though till that day, till the leisure for reflection which followed\r
+it, he had not understood the perfect excellence of the mind with which\r
+Louisa's could so ill bear a comparison, or the perfect unrivalled hold\r
+it possessed over his own. There, he had learnt to distinguish between\r
+the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the\r
+darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind. There\r
+he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had\r
+lost; and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of\r
+resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in\r
+his way.\r
+\r
+From that period his penance had become severe. He had no sooner been\r
+free from the horror and remorse attending the first few days of\r
+Louisa's accident, no sooner begun to feel himself alive again, than he\r
+had begun to feel himself, though alive, not at liberty.\r
+\r
+"I found," said he, "that I was considered by Harville an engaged man!\r
+That neither Harville nor his wife entertained a doubt of our mutual\r
+attachment. I was startled and shocked. To a degree, I could\r
+contradict this instantly; but, when I began to reflect that others\r
+might have felt the same--her own family, nay, perhaps herself--I was\r
+no longer at my own disposal. I was hers in honour if she wished it.\r
+I had been unguarded. I had not thought seriously on this subject\r
+before. I had not considered that my excessive intimacy must have its\r
+danger of ill consequence in many ways; and that I had no right to be\r
+trying whether I could attach myself to either of the girls, at the\r
+risk of raising even an unpleasant report, were there no other ill\r
+effects. I had been grossly wrong, and must abide the consequences."\r
+\r
+He found too late, in short, that he had entangled himself; and that\r
+precisely as he became fully satisfied of his not caring for Louisa at\r
+all, he must regard himself as bound to her, if her sentiments for him\r
+were what the Harvilles supposed. It determined him to leave Lyme, and\r
+await her complete recovery elsewhere. He would gladly weaken, by any\r
+fair means, whatever feelings or speculations concerning him might\r
+exist; and he went, therefore, to his brother's, meaning after a while\r
+to return to Kellynch, and act as circumstances might require.\r
+\r
+"I was six weeks with Edward," said he, "and saw him happy. I could\r
+have no other pleasure. I deserved none. He enquired after you very\r
+particularly; asked even if you were personally altered, little\r
+suspecting that to my eye you could never alter."\r
+\r
+Anne smiled, and let it pass. It was too pleasing a blunder for a\r
+reproach. It is something for a woman to be assured, in her\r
+eight-and-twentieth year, that she has not lost one charm of earlier\r
+youth; but the value of such homage was inexpressibly increased to\r
+Anne, by comparing it with former words, and feeling it to be the\r
+result, not the cause of a revival of his warm attachment.\r
+\r
+He had remained in Shropshire, lamenting the blindness of his own\r
+pride, and the blunders of his own calculations, till at once released\r
+from Louisa by the astonishing and felicitous intelligence of her\r
+engagement with Benwick.\r
+\r
+"Here," said he, "ended the worst of my state; for now I could at least\r
+put myself in the way of happiness; I could exert myself; I could do\r
+something. But to be waiting so long in inaction, and waiting only for\r
+evil, had been dreadful. Within the first five minutes I said, 'I will\r
+be at Bath on Wednesday,' and I was. Was it unpardonable to think it\r
+worth my while to come? and to arrive with some degree of hope? You\r
+were single. It was possible that you might retain the feelings of the\r
+past, as I did; and one encouragement happened to be mine. I could\r
+never doubt that you would be loved and sought by others, but I knew to\r
+a certainty that you had refused one man, at least, of better\r
+pretensions than myself; and I could not help often saying, 'Was this\r
+for me?'"\r
+\r
+Their first meeting in Milsom Street afforded much to be said, but the\r
+concert still more. That evening seemed to be made up of exquisite\r
+moments. The moment of her stepping forward in the Octagon Room to\r
+speak to him: the moment of Mr Elliot's appearing and tearing her\r
+away, and one or two subsequent moments, marked by returning hope or\r
+increasing despondency, were dwelt on with energy.\r
+\r
+"To see you," cried he, "in the midst of those who could not be my\r
+well-wishers; to see your cousin close by you, conversing and smiling,\r
+and feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match!\r
+To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to\r
+influence you! Even if your own feelings were reluctant or\r
+indifferent, to consider what powerful supports would be his! Was it\r
+not enough to make the fool of me which I appeared? How could I look\r
+on without agony? Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind\r
+you, was not the recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her\r
+influence, the indelible, immoveable impression of what persuasion had\r
+once done--was it not all against me?"\r
+\r
+"You should have distinguished," replied Anne. "You should not have\r
+suspected me now; the case is so different, and my age is so different.\r
+If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to\r
+persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded,\r
+I thought it was to duty, but no duty could be called in aid here. In\r
+marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred,\r
+and all duty violated."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus," he replied, "but I could not.\r
+I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of\r
+your character. I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed,\r
+buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under\r
+year after year. I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who\r
+had given me up, who had been influenced by any one rather than by me.\r
+I saw you with the very person who had guided you in that year of\r
+misery. I had no reason to believe her of less authority now. The\r
+force of habit was to be added."\r
+\r
+"I should have thought," said Anne, "that my manner to yourself might\r
+have spared you much or all of this."\r
+\r
+"No, no! your manner might be only the ease which your engagement to\r
+another man would give. I left you in this belief; and yet, I was\r
+determined to see you again. My spirits rallied with the morning, and\r
+I felt that I had still a motive for remaining here."\r
+\r
+At last Anne was at home again, and happier than any one in that house\r
+could have conceived. All the surprise and suspense, and every other\r
+painful part of the morning dissipated by this conversation, she\r
+re-entered the house so happy as to be obliged to find an alloy in some\r
+momentary apprehensions of its being impossible to last. An interval\r
+of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of\r
+everything dangerous in such high-wrought felicity; and she went to her\r
+room, and grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness of her\r
+enjoyment.\r
+\r
+The evening came, the drawing-rooms were lighted up, the company\r
+assembled. It was but a card party, it was but a mixture of those who\r
+had never met before, and those who met too often; a commonplace\r
+business, too numerous for intimacy, too small for variety; but Anne\r
+had never found an evening shorter. Glowing and lovely in sensibility\r
+and happiness, and more generally admired than she thought about or\r
+cared for, she had cheerful or forbearing feelings for every creature\r
+around her. Mr Elliot was there; she avoided, but she could pity him.\r
+The Wallises, she had amusement in understanding them. Lady Dalrymple\r
+and Miss Carteret--they would soon be innoxious cousins to her. She\r
+cared not for Mrs Clay, and had nothing to blush for in the public\r
+manners of her father and sister. With the Musgroves, there was the\r
+happy chat of perfect ease; with Captain Harville, the kind-hearted\r
+intercourse of brother and sister; with Lady Russell, attempts at\r
+conversation, which a delicious consciousness cut short; with Admiral\r
+and Mrs Croft, everything of peculiar cordiality and fervent interest,\r
+which the same consciousness sought to conceal; and with Captain\r
+Wentworth, some moments of communications continually occurring, and\r
+always the hope of more, and always the knowledge of his being there.\r
+\r
+It was in one of these short meetings, each apparently occupied in\r
+admiring a fine display of greenhouse plants, that she said--\r
+\r
+"I have been thinking over the past, and trying impartially to judge of\r
+the right and wrong, I mean with regard to myself; and I must believe\r
+that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly\r
+right in being guided by the friend whom you will love better than you\r
+do now. To me, she was in the place of a parent. Do not mistake me,\r
+however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was,\r
+perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the\r
+event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any\r
+circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice. But I mean,\r
+that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done\r
+otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement\r
+than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my\r
+conscience. I have now, as far as such a sentiment is allowable in\r
+human nature, nothing to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not, a\r
+strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion."\r
+\r
+He looked at her, looked at Lady Russell, and looking again at her,\r
+replied, as if in cool deliberation--\r
+\r
+"Not yet. But there are hopes of her being forgiven in time. I trust\r
+to being in charity with her soon. But I too have been thinking over\r
+the past, and a question has suggested itself, whether there may not\r
+have been one person more my enemy even than that lady? My own self.\r
+Tell me if, when I returned to England in the year eight, with a few\r
+thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written\r
+to you, would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short, have\r
+renewed the engagement then?"\r
+\r
+"Would I!" was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.\r
+\r
+"Good God!" he cried, "you would! It is not that I did not think of\r
+it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success; but I\r
+was proud, too proud to ask again. I did not understand you. I shut\r
+my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice. This is a\r
+recollection which ought to make me forgive every one sooner than\r
+myself. Six years of separation and suffering might have been spared.\r
+It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me. I have been used to the\r
+gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I\r
+enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards.\r
+Like other great men under reverses," he added, with a smile. "I must\r
+endeavour to subdue my mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being\r
+happier than I deserve."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 24\r
+\r
+\r
+Who can be in doubt of what followed? When any two young people take\r
+it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to\r
+carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever\r
+so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.\r
+This may be bad morality to conclude with, but I believe it to be\r
+truth; and if such parties succeed, how should a Captain Wentworth and\r
+an Anne Elliot, with the advantage of maturity of mind, consciousness\r
+of right, and one independent fortune between them, fail of bearing\r
+down every opposition? They might in fact, have borne down a great\r
+deal more than they met with, for there was little to distress them\r
+beyond the want of graciousness and warmth. Sir Walter made no\r
+objection, and Elizabeth did nothing worse than look cold and\r
+unconcerned. Captain Wentworth, with five-and-twenty thousand pounds,\r
+and as high in his profession as merit and activity could place him,\r
+was no longer nobody. He was now esteemed quite worthy to address the\r
+daughter of a foolish, spendthrift baronet, who had not had principle\r
+or sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in which\r
+Providence had placed him, and who could give his daughter at present\r
+but a small part of the share of ten thousand pounds which must be hers\r
+hereafter.\r
+\r
+Sir Walter, indeed, though he had no affection for Anne, and no vanity\r
+flattered, to make him really happy on the occasion, was very far from\r
+thinking it a bad match for her. On the contrary, when he saw more of\r
+Captain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight, and eyed him well,\r
+he was very much struck by his personal claims, and felt that his\r
+superiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced against her\r
+superiority of rank; and all this, assisted by his well-sounding name,\r
+enabled Sir Walter at last to prepare his pen, with a very good grace,\r
+for the insertion of the marriage in the volume of honour.\r
+\r
+The only one among them, whose opposition of feeling could excite any\r
+serious anxiety was Lady Russell. Anne knew that Lady Russell must be\r
+suffering some pain in understanding and relinquishing Mr Elliot, and\r
+be making some struggles to become truly acquainted with, and do\r
+justice to Captain Wentworth. This however was what Lady Russell had\r
+now to do. She must learn to feel that she had been mistaken with\r
+regard to both; that she had been unfairly influenced by appearances in\r
+each; that because Captain Wentworth's manners had not suited her own\r
+ideas, she had been too quick in suspecting them to indicate a\r
+character of dangerous impetuosity; and that because Mr Elliot's\r
+manners had precisely pleased her in their propriety and correctness,\r
+their general politeness and suavity, she had been too quick in\r
+receiving them as the certain result of the most correct opinions and\r
+well-regulated mind. There was nothing less for Lady Russell to do,\r
+than to admit that she had been pretty completely wrong, and to take up\r
+a new set of opinions and of hopes.\r
+\r
+There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment\r
+of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in\r
+others can equal, and Lady Russell had been less gifted in this part of\r
+understanding than her young friend. But she was a very good woman,\r
+and if her second object was to be sensible and well-judging, her first\r
+was to see Anne happy. She loved Anne better than she loved her own\r
+abilities; and when the awkwardness of the beginning was over, found\r
+little hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who was\r
+securing the happiness of her other child.\r
+\r
+Of all the family, Mary was probably the one most immediately gratified\r
+by the circumstance. It was creditable to have a sister married, and\r
+she might flatter herself with having been greatly instrumental to the\r
+connexion, by keeping Anne with her in the autumn; and as her own\r
+sister must be better than her husband's sisters, it was very agreeable\r
+that Captain Wentworth should be a richer man than either Captain\r
+Benwick or Charles Hayter. She had something to suffer, perhaps, when\r
+they came into contact again, in seeing Anne restored to the rights of\r
+seniority, and the mistress of a very pretty landaulette; but she had a\r
+future to look forward to, of powerful consolation. Anne had no\r
+Uppercross Hall before her, no landed estate, no headship of a family;\r
+and if they could but keep Captain Wentworth from being made a baronet,\r
+she would not change situations with Anne.\r
+\r
+It would be well for the eldest sister if she were equally satisfied\r
+with her situation, for a change is not very probable there. She had\r
+soon the mortification of seeing Mr Elliot withdraw, and no one of\r
+proper condition has since presented himself to raise even the\r
+unfounded hopes which sunk with him.\r
+\r
+The news of his cousin Anne's engagement burst on Mr Elliot most\r
+unexpectedly. It deranged his best plan of domestic happiness, his\r
+best hope of keeping Sir Walter single by the watchfulness which a\r
+son-in-law's rights would have given. But, though discomfited and\r
+disappointed, he could still do something for his own interest and his\r
+own enjoyment. He soon quitted Bath; and on Mrs Clay's quitting it\r
+soon afterwards, and being next heard of as established under his\r
+protection in London, it was evident how double a game he had been\r
+playing, and how determined he was to save himself from being cut out\r
+by one artful woman, at least.\r
+\r
+Mrs Clay's affections had overpowered her interest, and she had\r
+sacrificed, for the young man's sake, the possibility of scheming\r
+longer for Sir Walter. She has abilities, however, as well as\r
+affections; and it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning, or\r
+hers, may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her from\r
+being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at\r
+last into making her the wife of Sir William.\r
+\r
+It cannot be doubted that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were shocked and\r
+mortified by the loss of their companion, and the discovery of their\r
+deception in her. They had their great cousins, to be sure, to resort\r
+to for comfort; but they must long feel that to flatter and follow\r
+others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of\r
+half enjoyment.\r
+\r
+Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell's meaning to\r
+love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the\r
+happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of\r
+having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value.\r
+There she felt her own inferiority very keenly. The disproportion in\r
+their fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment's regret; but\r
+to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of\r
+respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the\r
+worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and\r
+sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be\r
+sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity. She had\r
+but two friends in the world to add to his list, Lady Russell and Mrs\r
+Smith. To those, however, he was very well disposed to attach himself.\r
+Lady Russell, in spite of all her former transgressions, he could now\r
+value from his heart. While he was not obliged to say that he believed\r
+her to have been right in originally dividing them, he was ready to say\r
+almost everything else in her favour, and as for Mrs Smith, she had\r
+claims of various kinds to recommend her quickly and permanently.\r
+\r
+Her recent good offices by Anne had been enough in themselves, and\r
+their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her\r
+two. She was their earliest visitor in their settled life; and Captain\r
+Wentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband's\r
+property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and\r
+seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the\r
+activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully\r
+requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render,\r
+to his wife.\r
+\r
+Mrs Smith's enjoyments were not spoiled by this improvement of income,\r
+with some improvement of health, and the acquisition of such friends to\r
+be often with, for her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not fail\r
+her; and while these prime supplies of good remained, she might have\r
+bid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly prosperity. She\r
+might have been absolutely rich and perfectly healthy, and yet be\r
+happy. Her spring of felicity was in the glow of her spirits, as her\r
+friend Anne's was in the warmth of her heart. Anne was tenderness\r
+itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth's\r
+affection. His profession was all that could ever make her friends\r
+wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim\r
+her sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor's wife, but she must pay\r
+the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if\r
+possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its\r
+national importance.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Finis\r
--- /dev/null
+\r
+NORTHANGER ABBEY\r
+\r
+\r
+by\r
+\r
+Jane Austen (1803)\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+ADVERTISEMENT BY THE AUTHORESS, TO NORTHANGER ABBEY\r
+\r
+THIS little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for\r
+immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller, it was even\r
+advertised, and why the business proceeded no farther, the author\r
+has never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it\r
+worth-while to purchase what he did not think it worth-while to publish\r
+seems extraordinary. But with this, neither the author nor the public\r
+have any other concern than as some observation is necessary upon those\r
+parts of the work which thirteen years have made comparatively obsolete.\r
+The public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed\r
+since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during\r
+that period, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone\r
+considerable changes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 1\r
+\r
+\r
+No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have\r
+supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character\r
+of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were\r
+all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being\r
+neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name\r
+was Richard--and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable\r
+independence besides two good livings--and he was not in the least\r
+addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful\r
+plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a\r
+good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and\r
+instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might\r
+expect, she still lived on--lived to have six children more--to see them\r
+growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family\r
+of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are\r
+heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had\r
+little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and\r
+Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin\r
+awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong\r
+features--so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism\r
+seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred\r
+cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of\r
+infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a\r
+rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered\r
+flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief--at least\r
+so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was\r
+forbidden to take. Such were her propensities--her abilities were quite\r
+as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything\r
+before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often\r
+inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in\r
+teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her\r
+next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine\r
+was always stupid--by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and\r
+Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her\r
+to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was\r
+very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinnet; so, at eight\r
+years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs.\r
+Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in\r
+spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which\r
+dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life.\r
+Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain\r
+the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd\r
+piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses\r
+and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing\r
+and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her\r
+proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in\r
+both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character!--for\r
+with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither\r
+a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever\r
+quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions\r
+of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and\r
+cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the\r
+green slope at the back of the house.\r
+\r
+Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were mending;\r
+she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion improved,\r
+her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more\r
+animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave way to\r
+an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smart; she had\r
+now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark\r
+on her personal improvement. "Catherine grows quite a good-looking\r
+girl--she is almost pretty today," were words which caught her ears now\r
+and then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look almost pretty is an\r
+acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the\r
+first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever\r
+receive.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children\r
+everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in\r
+lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were\r
+inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful\r
+that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should\r
+prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about\r
+the country at the age of fourteen, to books--or at least books of\r
+information--for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be\r
+gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she\r
+had never any objection to books at all. But from fifteen to seventeen\r
+she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines\r
+must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so\r
+serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.\r
+\r
+From Pope, she learnt to censure those who\r
+\r
+ "bear about the mockery of woe."\r
+\r
+\r
+From Gray, that\r
+\r
+ "Many a flower is born to blush unseen,\r
+ "And waste its fragrance on the desert air."\r
+\r
+\r
+From Thompson, that--\r
+\r
+ "It is a delightful task\r
+ "To teach the young idea how to shoot."\r
+\r
+\r
+And from Shakespeare she gained a great store of information--amongst\r
+the rest, that--\r
+\r
+ "Trifles light as air,\r
+ "Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong,\r
+ "As proofs of Holy Writ."\r
+\r
+\r
+That\r
+\r
+ "The poor beetle, which we tread upon,\r
+ "In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great\r
+ "As when a giant dies."\r
+\r
+\r
+And that a young woman in love always looks--\r
+\r
+ "like Patience on a monument\r
+ "Smiling at Grief."\r
+\r
+\r
+So far her improvement was sufficient--and in many other points she came\r
+on exceedingly well; for though she could not write sonnets, she brought\r
+herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing\r
+a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte, of her own\r
+composition, she could listen to other people's performance with very\r
+little fatigue. Her greatest deficiency was in the pencil--she had no\r
+notion of drawing--not enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover's\r
+profile, that she might be detected in the design. There she fell\r
+miserably short of the true heroic height. At present she did not know\r
+her own poverty, for she had no lover to portray. She had reached the\r
+age of seventeen, without having seen one amiable youth who could call\r
+forth her sensibility, without having inspired one real passion, and\r
+without having excited even any admiration but what was very moderate\r
+and very transient. This was strange indeed! But strange things may be\r
+generally accounted for if their cause be fairly searched out. There was\r
+not one lord in the neighbourhood; no--not even a baronet. There was not\r
+one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy\r
+accidentally found at their door--not one young man whose origin\r
+was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no\r
+children.\r
+\r
+But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty\r
+surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen\r
+to throw a hero in her way.\r
+\r
+Mr. Allen, who owned the chief of the property about Fullerton, the\r
+village in Wiltshire where the Morlands lived, was ordered to Bath\r
+for the benefit of a gouty constitution--and his lady, a good-humoured\r
+woman, fond of Miss Morland, and probably aware that if adventures will\r
+not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad,\r
+invited her to go with them. Mr. and Mrs. Morland were all compliance,\r
+and Catherine all happiness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 2\r
+\r
+\r
+In addition to what has been already said of Catherine Morland's\r
+personal and mental endowments, when about to be launched into all the\r
+difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath, it may be\r
+stated, for the reader's more certain information, lest the following\r
+pages should otherwise fail of giving any idea of what her character is\r
+meant to be, that her heart was affectionate; her disposition cheerful\r
+and open, without conceit or affectation of any kind--her manners just\r
+removed from the awkwardness and shyness of a girl; her person pleasing,\r
+and, when in good looks, pretty--and her mind about as ignorant and\r
+uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is.\r
+\r
+When the hour of departure drew near, the maternal anxiety of Mrs.\r
+Morland will be naturally supposed to be most severe. A thousand\r
+alarming presentiments of evil to her beloved Catherine from this\r
+terrific separation must oppress her heart with sadness, and drown her\r
+in tears for the last day or two of their being together; and advice of\r
+the most important and applicable nature must of course flow from her\r
+wise lips in their parting conference in her closet. Cautions against\r
+the violence of such noblemen and baronets as delight in forcing young\r
+ladies away to some remote farm-house, must, at such a moment, relieve\r
+the fulness of her heart. Who would not think so? But Mrs. Morland knew\r
+so little of lords and baronets, that she entertained no notion of their\r
+general mischievousness, and was wholly unsuspicious of danger to her\r
+daughter from their machinations. Her cautions were confined to the\r
+following points. "I beg, Catherine, you will always wrap yourself up\r
+very warm about the throat, when you come from the rooms at night; and\r
+I wish you would try to keep some account of the money you spend; I will\r
+give you this little book on purpose."\r
+\r
+Sally, or rather Sarah (for what young lady of common gentility will\r
+reach the age of sixteen without altering her name as far as she can?),\r
+must from situation be at this time the intimate friend and confidante\r
+of her sister. It is remarkable, however, that she neither insisted\r
+on Catherine's writing by every post, nor exacted her promise of\r
+transmitting the character of every new acquaintance, nor a detail\r
+of every interesting conversation that Bath might produce. Everything\r
+indeed relative to this important journey was done, on the part of the\r
+Morlands, with a degree of moderation and composure, which seemed\r
+rather consistent with the common feelings of common life, than with the\r
+refined susceptibilities, the tender emotions which the first separation\r
+of a heroine from her family ought always to excite. Her father, instead\r
+of giving her an unlimited order on his banker, or even putting an\r
+hundred pounds bank-bill into her hands, gave her only ten guineas, and\r
+promised her more when she wanted it.\r
+\r
+Under these unpromising auspices, the parting took place, and the\r
+journey began. It was performed with suitable quietness and uneventful\r
+safety. Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one lucky\r
+overturn to introduce them to the hero. Nothing more alarming occurred\r
+than a fear, on Mrs. Allen's side, of having once left her clogs behind\r
+her at an inn, and that fortunately proved to be groundless.\r
+\r
+They arrived at Bath. Catherine was all eager delight--her eyes were\r
+here, there, everywhere, as they approached its fine and striking\r
+environs, and afterwards drove through those streets which conducted\r
+them to the hotel. She was come to be happy, and she felt happy already.\r
+\r
+They were soon settled in comfortable lodgings in Pulteney Street.\r
+\r
+It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen, that the\r
+reader may be able to judge in what manner her actions will hereafter\r
+tend to promote the general distress of the work, and how she will,\r
+probably, contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate\r
+wretchedness of which a last volume is capable--whether by her\r
+imprudence, vulgarity, or jealousy--whether by intercepting her letters,\r
+ruining her character, or turning her out of doors.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can\r
+raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world\r
+who could like them well enough to marry them. She had neither beauty,\r
+genius, accomplishment, nor manner. The air of a gentlewoman, a great\r
+deal of quiet, inactive good temper, and a trifling turn of mind\r
+were all that could account for her being the choice of a sensible,\r
+intelligent man like Mr. Allen. In one respect she was admirably fitted\r
+to introduce a young lady into public, being as fond of going everywhere\r
+and seeing everything herself as any young lady could be. Dress was\r
+her passion. She had a most harmless delight in being fine; and our\r
+heroine's entree into life could not take place till after three or four\r
+days had been spent in learning what was mostly worn, and her chaperone\r
+was provided with a dress of the newest fashion. Catherine too made\r
+some purchases herself, and when all these matters were arranged, the\r
+important evening came which was to usher her into the Upper Rooms. Her\r
+hair was cut and dressed by the best hand, her clothes put on with care,\r
+and both Mrs. Allen and her maid declared she looked quite as she should\r
+do. With such encouragement, Catherine hoped at least to pass uncensured\r
+through the crowd. As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it\r
+came, but she did not depend on it.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Allen was so long in dressing that they did not enter the ballroom\r
+till late. The season was full, the room crowded, and the two ladies\r
+squeezed in as well as they could. As for Mr. Allen, he repaired\r
+directly to the card-room, and left them to enjoy a mob by themselves.\r
+With more care for the safety of her new gown than for the comfort of\r
+her protegee, Mrs. Allen made her way through the throng of men by\r
+the door, as swiftly as the necessary caution would allow; Catherine,\r
+however, kept close at her side, and linked her arm too firmly within\r
+her friend's to be torn asunder by any common effort of a struggling\r
+assembly. But to her utter amazement she found that to proceed along the\r
+room was by no means the way to disengage themselves from the crowd; it\r
+seemed rather to increase as they went on, whereas she had imagined that\r
+when once fairly within the door, they should easily find seats and be\r
+able to watch the dances with perfect convenience. But this was far from\r
+being the case, and though by unwearied diligence they gained even the\r
+top of the room, their situation was just the same; they saw nothing\r
+of the dancers but the high feathers of some of the ladies. Still they\r
+moved on--something better was yet in view; and by a continued exertion\r
+of strength and ingenuity they found themselves at last in the passage\r
+behind the highest bench. Here there was something less of crowd than\r
+below; and hence Miss Morland had a comprehensive view of all the\r
+company beneath her, and of all the dangers of her late passage through\r
+them. It was a splendid sight, and she began, for the first time that\r
+evening, to feel herself at a ball: she longed to dance, but she had\r
+not an acquaintance in the room. Mrs. Allen did all that she could do\r
+in such a case by saying very placidly, every now and then, "I wish you\r
+could dance, my dear--I wish you could get a partner." For some time\r
+her young friend felt obliged to her for these wishes; but they were\r
+repeated so often, and proved so totally ineffectual, that Catherine\r
+grew tired at last, and would thank her no more.\r
+\r
+They were not long able, however, to enjoy the repose of the eminence\r
+they had so laboriously gained. Everybody was shortly in motion for\r
+tea, and they must squeeze out like the rest. Catherine began to feel\r
+something of disappointment--she was tired of being continually pressed\r
+against by people, the generality of whose faces possessed nothing to\r
+interest, and with all of whom she was so wholly unacquainted that she\r
+could not relieve the irksomeness of imprisonment by the exchange of a\r
+syllable with any of her fellow captives; and when at last arrived in\r
+the tea-room, she felt yet more the awkwardness of having no party to\r
+join, no acquaintance to claim, no gentleman to assist them. They saw\r
+nothing of Mr. Allen; and after looking about them in vain for a more\r
+eligible situation, were obliged to sit down at the end of a table, at\r
+which a large party were already placed, without having anything to do\r
+there, or anybody to speak to, except each other.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Allen congratulated herself, as soon as they were seated, on having\r
+preserved her gown from injury. "It would have been very shocking to\r
+have it torn," said she, "would not it? It is such a delicate muslin.\r
+For my part I have not seen anything I like so well in the whole room, I\r
+assure you."\r
+\r
+"How uncomfortable it is," whispered Catherine, "not to have a single\r
+acquaintance here!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear," replied Mrs. Allen, with perfect serenity, "it is very\r
+uncomfortable indeed."\r
+\r
+"What shall we do? The gentlemen and ladies at this table look as if\r
+they wondered why we came here--we seem forcing ourselves into their\r
+party."\r
+\r
+"Aye, so we do. That is very disagreeable. I wish we had a large\r
+acquaintance here."\r
+\r
+"I wish we had any--it would be somebody to go to."\r
+\r
+"Very true, my dear; and if we knew anybody we would join them directly.\r
+The Skinners were here last year--I wish they were here now."\r
+\r
+"Had not we better go away as it is? Here are no tea-things for us, you\r
+see."\r
+\r
+"No more there are, indeed. How very provoking! But I think we had\r
+better sit still, for one gets so tumbled in such a crowd! How is my\r
+head, my dear? Somebody gave me a push that has hurt it, I am afraid."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, it looks very nice. But, dear Mrs. Allen, are you sure\r
+there is nobody you know in all this multitude of people? I think you\r
+must know somebody."\r
+\r
+"I don't, upon my word--I wish I did. I wish I had a large acquaintance\r
+here with all my heart, and then I should get you a partner. I should be\r
+so glad to have you dance. There goes a strange-looking woman! What an\r
+odd gown she has got on! How old-fashioned it is! Look at the back."\r
+\r
+After some time they received an offer of tea from one of their\r
+neighbours; it was thankfully accepted, and this introduced a light\r
+conversation with the gentleman who offered it, which was the only time\r
+that anybody spoke to them during the evening, till they were discovered\r
+and joined by Mr. Allen when the dance was over.\r
+\r
+"Well, Miss Morland," said he, directly, "I hope you have had an\r
+agreeable ball."\r
+\r
+"Very agreeable indeed," she replied, vainly endeavouring to hide a\r
+great yawn.\r
+\r
+"I wish she had been able to dance," said his wife; "I wish we could\r
+have got a partner for her. I have been saying how glad I should be if\r
+the Skinners were here this winter instead of last; or if the Parrys had\r
+come, as they talked of once, she might have danced with George Parry. I\r
+am so sorry she has not had a partner!"\r
+\r
+"We shall do better another evening I hope," was Mr. Allen's\r
+consolation.\r
+\r
+The company began to disperse when the dancing was over--enough to leave\r
+space for the remainder to walk about in some comfort; and now was the\r
+time for a heroine, who had not yet played a very distinguished part\r
+in the events of the evening, to be noticed and admired. Every five\r
+minutes, by removing some of the crowd, gave greater openings for her\r
+charms. She was now seen by many young men who had not been near her\r
+before. Not one, however, started with rapturous wonder on beholding\r
+her, no whisper of eager inquiry ran round the room, nor was she once\r
+called a divinity by anybody. Yet Catherine was in very good looks, and\r
+had the company only seen her three years before, they would now have\r
+thought her exceedingly handsome.\r
+\r
+She was looked at, however, and with some admiration; for, in her own\r
+hearing, two gentlemen pronounced her to be a pretty girl. Such words\r
+had their due effect; she immediately thought the evening pleasanter\r
+than she had found it before--her humble vanity was contented--she\r
+felt more obliged to the two young men for this simple praise than a\r
+true-quality heroine would have been for fifteen sonnets in celebration\r
+of her charms, and went to her chair in good humour with everybody, and\r
+perfectly satisfied with her share of public attention.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 3\r
+\r
+\r
+Every morning now brought its regular duties--shops were to be visited;\r
+some new part of the town to be looked at; and the pump-room to be\r
+attended, where they paraded up and down for an hour, looking at\r
+everybody and speaking to no one. The wish of a numerous acquaintance\r
+in Bath was still uppermost with Mrs. Allen, and she repeated it after\r
+every fresh proof, which every morning brought, of her knowing nobody at\r
+all.\r
+\r
+They made their appearance in the Lower Rooms; and here fortune was more\r
+favourable to our heroine. The master of the ceremonies introduced to\r
+her a very gentlemanlike young man as a partner; his name was Tilney.\r
+He seemed to be about four or five and twenty, was rather tall, had a\r
+pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not\r
+quite handsome, was very near it. His address was good, and Catherine\r
+felt herself in high luck. There was little leisure for speaking\r
+while they danced; but when they were seated at tea, she found him as\r
+agreeable as she had already given him credit for being. He talked with\r
+fluency and spirit--and there was an archness and pleasantry in his\r
+manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by her. After\r
+chatting some time on such matters as naturally arose from the objects\r
+around them, he suddenly addressed her with--"I have hitherto been very\r
+remiss, madam, in the proper attentions of a partner here; I have not\r
+yet asked you how long you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here\r
+before; whether you have been at the Upper Rooms, the theatre, and\r
+the concert; and how you like the place altogether. I have been\r
+very negligent--but are you now at leisure to satisfy me in these\r
+particulars? If you are I will begin directly."\r
+\r
+"You need not give yourself that trouble, sir."\r
+\r
+"No trouble, I assure you, madam." Then forming his features into a set\r
+smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he added, with a simpering\r
+air, "Have you been long in Bath, madam?"\r
+\r
+"About a week, sir," replied Catherine, trying not to laugh.\r
+\r
+"Really!" with affected astonishment.\r
+\r
+"Why should you be surprised, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Why, indeed!" said he, in his natural tone. "But some emotion must\r
+appear to be raised by your reply, and surprise is more easily assumed,\r
+and not less reasonable than any other. Now let us go on. Were you never\r
+here before, madam?"\r
+\r
+"Never, sir."\r
+\r
+"Indeed! Have you yet honoured the Upper Rooms?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, I was there last Monday."\r
+\r
+"Have you been to the theatre?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday."\r
+\r
+"To the concert?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, on Wednesday."\r
+\r
+"And are you altogether pleased with Bath?"\r
+\r
+"Yes--I like it very well."\r
+\r
+"Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again."\r
+Catherine turned away her head, not knowing whether she might venture to\r
+laugh. "I see what you think of me," said he gravely--"I shall make but\r
+a poor figure in your journal tomorrow."\r
+\r
+"My journal!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower\r
+Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings--plain black\r
+shoes--appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a\r
+queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed\r
+me by his nonsense."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I shall say no such thing."\r
+\r
+"Shall I tell you what you ought to say?"\r
+\r
+"If you please."\r
+\r
+"I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had\r
+a great deal of conversation with him--seems a most extraordinary\r
+genius--hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to\r
+say."\r
+\r
+"But, perhaps, I keep no journal."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by\r
+you. These are points in which a doubt is equally possible. Not keep a\r
+journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your\r
+life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of\r
+every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every\r
+evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered,\r
+and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be\r
+described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to\r
+a journal? My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies' ways as\r
+you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journaling which\r
+largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies\r
+are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing\r
+agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something,\r
+but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping\r
+a journal."\r
+\r
+"I have sometimes thought," said Catherine, doubtingly, "whether ladies\r
+do write so much better letters than gentlemen! That is--I should not\r
+think the superiority was always on our side."\r
+\r
+"As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to me that the\r
+usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three\r
+particulars."\r
+\r
+"And what are they?"\r
+\r
+"A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a\r
+very frequent ignorance of grammar."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word! I need not have been afraid of disclaiming the\r
+compliment. You do not think too highly of us in that way."\r
+\r
+"I should no more lay it down as a general rule that women write better\r
+letters than men, than that they sing better duets, or draw better\r
+landscapes. In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence\r
+is pretty fairly divided between the sexes."\r
+\r
+They were interrupted by Mrs. Allen: "My dear Catherine," said she, "do\r
+take this pin out of my sleeve; I am afraid it has torn a hole already;\r
+I shall be quite sorry if it has, for this is a favourite gown, though\r
+it cost but nine shillings a yard."\r
+\r
+"That is exactly what I should have guessed it, madam," said Mr. Tilney,\r
+looking at the muslin.\r
+\r
+"Do you understand muslins, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be an\r
+excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a\r
+gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a\r
+prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a\r
+yard for it, and a true Indian muslin."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Allen was quite struck by his genius. "Men commonly take so little\r
+notice of those things," said she; "I can never get Mr. Allen to know\r
+one of my gowns from another. You must be a great comfort to your\r
+sister, sir."\r
+\r
+"I hope I am, madam."\r
+\r
+"And pray, sir, what do you think of Miss Morland's gown?"\r
+\r
+"It is very pretty, madam," said he, gravely examining it; "but I do not\r
+think it will wash well; I am afraid it will fray."\r
+\r
+"How can you," said Catherine, laughing, "be so--" She had almost said\r
+"strange."\r
+\r
+"I am quite of your opinion, sir," replied Mrs. Allen; "and so I told\r
+Miss Morland when she bought it."\r
+\r
+"But then you know, madam, muslin always turns to some account or other;\r
+Miss Morland will get enough out of it for a handkerchief, or a cap, or\r
+a cloak. Muslin can never be said to be wasted. I have heard my sister\r
+say so forty times, when she has been extravagant in buying more than\r
+she wanted, or careless in cutting it to pieces."\r
+\r
+"Bath is a charming place, sir; there are so many good shops here. We\r
+are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in\r
+Salisbury, but it is so far to go--eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen\r
+says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than\r
+eight; and it is such a fag--I come back tired to death. Now, here one\r
+can step out of doors and get a thing in five minutes."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tilney was polite enough to seem interested in what she said; and\r
+she kept him on the subject of muslins till the dancing recommenced.\r
+Catherine feared, as she listened to their discourse, that he indulged\r
+himself a little too much with the foibles of others. "What are you\r
+thinking of so earnestly?" said he, as they walked back to the ballroom;\r
+"not of your partner, I hope, for, by that shake of the head, your\r
+meditations are not satisfactory."\r
+\r
+Catherine coloured, and said, "I was not thinking of anything."\r
+\r
+"That is artful and deep, to be sure; but I had rather be told at once\r
+that you will not tell me."\r
+\r
+"Well then, I will not."\r
+\r
+"Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am authorized to\r
+tease you on this subject whenever we meet, and nothing in the world\r
+advances intimacy so much."\r
+\r
+They danced again; and, when the assembly closed, parted, on the\r
+lady's side at least, with a strong inclination for continuing the\r
+acquaintance. Whether she thought of him so much, while she drank her\r
+warm wine and water, and prepared herself for bed, as to dream of him\r
+when there, cannot be ascertained; but I hope it was no more than in\r
+a slight slumber, or a morning doze at most; for if it be true, as a\r
+celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified\r
+in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared,* it must be\r
+very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the\r
+gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her. How proper Mr. Tilney\r
+might be as a dreamer or a lover had not yet perhaps entered Mr. Allen's\r
+head, but that he was not objectionable as a common acquaintance for\r
+his young charge he was on inquiry satisfied; for he had early in the\r
+evening taken pains to know who her partner was, and had been assured\r
+of Mr. Tilney's being a clergyman, and of a very respectable family in\r
+Gloucestershire.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 4\r
+\r
+\r
+With more than usual eagerness did Catherine hasten to the pump-room the\r
+next day, secure within herself of seeing Mr. Tilney there before the\r
+morning were over, and ready to meet him with a smile; but no smile\r
+was demanded--Mr. Tilney did not appear. Every creature in Bath,\r
+except himself, was to be seen in the room at different periods of the\r
+fashionable hours; crowds of people were every moment passing in and\r
+out, up the steps and down; people whom nobody cared about, and nobody\r
+wanted to see; and he only was absent. "What a delightful place Bath\r
+is," said Mrs. Allen as they sat down near the great clock, after\r
+parading the room till they were tired; "and how pleasant it would be if\r
+we had any acquaintance here."\r
+\r
+This sentiment had been uttered so often in vain that Mrs. Allen had no\r
+particular reason to hope it would be followed with more advantage now;\r
+but we are told to "despair of nothing we would attain," as "unwearied\r
+diligence our point would gain"; and the unwearied diligence with which\r
+she had every day wished for the same thing was at length to have its\r
+just reward, for hardly had she been seated ten minutes before a lady of\r
+about her own age, who was sitting by her, and had been looking at her\r
+attentively for several minutes, addressed her with great complaisance\r
+in these words: "I think, madam, I cannot be mistaken; it is a long time\r
+since I had the pleasure of seeing you, but is not your name Allen?"\r
+This question answered, as it readily was, the stranger pronounced hers\r
+to be Thorpe; and Mrs. Allen immediately recognized the features of\r
+a former schoolfellow and intimate, whom she had seen only once since\r
+their respective marriages, and that many years ago. Their joy on this\r
+meeting was very great, as well it might, since they had been contented\r
+to know nothing of each other for the last fifteen years. Compliments\r
+on good looks now passed; and, after observing how time had slipped away\r
+since they were last together, how little they had thought of meeting in\r
+Bath, and what a pleasure it was to see an old friend, they proceeded to\r
+make inquiries and give intelligence as to their families, sisters, and\r
+cousins, talking both together, far more ready to give than to receive\r
+information, and each hearing very little of what the other said. Mrs.\r
+Thorpe, however, had one great advantage as a talker, over Mrs. Allen,\r
+in a family of children; and when she expatiated on the talents of her\r
+sons, and the beauty of her daughters, when she related their different\r
+situations and views--that John was at Oxford, Edward at Merchant\r
+Taylors', and William at sea--and all of them more beloved and respected\r
+in their different station than any other three beings ever were, Mrs.\r
+Allen had no similar information to give, no similar triumphs to press\r
+on the unwilling and unbelieving ear of her friend, and was forced to\r
+sit and appear to listen to all these maternal effusions, consoling\r
+herself, however, with the discovery, which her keen eye soon made, that\r
+the lace on Mrs. Thorpe's pelisse was not half so handsome as that on\r
+her own.\r
+\r
+"Here come my dear girls," cried Mrs. Thorpe, pointing at three\r
+smart-looking females who, arm in arm, were then moving towards her. "My\r
+dear Mrs. Allen, I long to introduce them; they will be so delighted\r
+to see you: the tallest is Isabella, my eldest; is not she a fine young\r
+woman? The others are very much admired too, but I believe Isabella is\r
+the handsomest."\r
+\r
+The Miss Thorpes were introduced; and Miss Morland, who had been for a\r
+short time forgotten, was introduced likewise. The name seemed to strike\r
+them all; and, after speaking to her with great civility, the eldest\r
+young lady observed aloud to the rest, "How excessively like her brother\r
+Miss Morland is!"\r
+\r
+"The very picture of him indeed!" cried the mother--and "I should have\r
+known her anywhere for his sister!" was repeated by them all, two or\r
+three times over. For a moment Catherine was surprised; but Mrs. Thorpe\r
+and her daughters had scarcely begun the history of their acquaintance\r
+with Mr. James Morland, before she remembered that her eldest brother\r
+had lately formed an intimacy with a young man of his own college, of\r
+the name of Thorpe; and that he had spent the last week of the Christmas\r
+vacation with his family, near London.\r
+\r
+The whole being explained, many obliging things were said by the Miss\r
+Thorpes of their wish of being better acquainted with her; of being\r
+considered as already friends, through the friendship of their brothers,\r
+etc., which Catherine heard with pleasure, and answered with all the\r
+pretty expressions she could command; and, as the first proof of amity,\r
+she was soon invited to accept an arm of the eldest Miss Thorpe, and\r
+take a turn with her about the room. Catherine was delighted with this\r
+extension of her Bath acquaintance, and almost forgot Mr. Tilney while\r
+she talked to Miss Thorpe. Friendship is certainly the finest balm for\r
+the pangs of disappointed love.\r
+\r
+Their conversation turned upon those subjects, of which the free\r
+discussion has generally much to do in perfecting a sudden intimacy\r
+between two young ladies: such as dress, balls, flirtations, and\r
+quizzes. Miss Thorpe, however, being four years older than Miss Morland,\r
+and at least four years better informed, had a very decided advantage in\r
+discussing such points; she could compare the balls of Bath with those\r
+of Tunbridge, its fashions with the fashions of London; could rectify\r
+the opinions of her new friend in many articles of tasteful attire;\r
+could discover a flirtation between any gentleman and lady who only\r
+smiled on each other; and point out a quiz through the thickness of a\r
+crowd. These powers received due admiration from Catherine, to whom they\r
+were entirely new; and the respect which they naturally inspired might\r
+have been too great for familiarity, had not the easy gaiety of Miss\r
+Thorpe's manners, and her frequent expressions of delight on this\r
+acquaintance with her, softened down every feeling of awe, and left\r
+nothing but tender affection. Their increasing attachment was not to be\r
+satisfied with half a dozen turns in the pump-room, but required, when\r
+they all quitted it together, that Miss Thorpe should accompany Miss\r
+Morland to the very door of Mr. Allen's house; and that they should\r
+there part with a most affectionate and lengthened shake of hands, after\r
+learning, to their mutual relief, that they should see each other across\r
+the theatre at night, and say their prayers in the same chapel the next\r
+morning. Catherine then ran directly upstairs, and watched Miss Thorpe's\r
+progress down the street from the drawing-room window; admired the\r
+graceful spirit of her walk, the fashionable air of her figure and\r
+dress; and felt grateful, as well she might, for the chance which had\r
+procured her such a friend.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Thorpe was a widow, and not a very rich one; she was a\r
+good-humoured, well-meaning woman, and a very indulgent mother. Her\r
+eldest daughter had great personal beauty, and the younger ones, by\r
+pretending to be as handsome as their sister, imitating her air, and\r
+dressing in the same style, did very well.\r
+\r
+This brief account of the family is intended to supersede the necessity\r
+of a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe herself, of her past\r
+adventures and sufferings, which might otherwise be expected to occupy\r
+the three or four following chapters; in which the worthlessness of\r
+lords and attorneys might be set forth, and conversations, which had\r
+passed twenty years before, be minutely repeated.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 5\r
+\r
+\r
+Catherine was not so much engaged at the theatre that evening, in\r
+returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe, though they certainly\r
+claimed much of her leisure, as to forget to look with an inquiring eye\r
+for Mr. Tilney in every box which her eye could reach; but she looked in\r
+vain. Mr. Tilney was no fonder of the play than the pump-room. She hoped\r
+to be more fortunate the next day; and when her wishes for fine weather\r
+were answered by seeing a beautiful morning, she hardly felt a doubt of\r
+it; for a fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants,\r
+and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk about and tell\r
+their acquaintance what a charming day it is.\r
+\r
+As soon as divine service was over, the Thorpes and Allens eagerly\r
+joined each other; and after staying long enough in the pump-room to\r
+discover that the crowd was insupportable, and that there was not\r
+a genteel face to be seen, which everybody discovers every Sunday\r
+throughout the season, they hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe\r
+the fresh air of better company. Here Catherine and Isabella, arm\r
+in arm, again tasted the sweets of friendship in an unreserved\r
+conversation; they talked much, and with much enjoyment; but again\r
+was Catherine disappointed in her hope of reseeing her partner. He was\r
+nowhere to be met with; every search for him was equally unsuccessful,\r
+in morning lounges or evening assemblies; neither at the Upper nor Lower\r
+Rooms, at dressed or undressed balls, was he perceivable; nor among the\r
+walkers, the horsemen, or the curricle-drivers of the morning. His name\r
+was not in the pump-room book, and curiosity could do no more. He must\r
+be gone from Bath. Yet he had not mentioned that his stay would be so\r
+short! This sort of mysteriousness, which is always so becoming in a\r
+hero, threw a fresh grace in Catherine's imagination around his person\r
+and manners, and increased her anxiety to know more of him. From the\r
+Thorpes she could learn nothing, for they had been only two days in Bath\r
+before they met with Mrs. Allen. It was a subject, however, in which\r
+she often indulged with her fair friend, from whom she received every\r
+possible encouragement to continue to think of him; and his impression\r
+on her fancy was not suffered therefore to weaken. Isabella was very\r
+sure that he must be a charming young man, and was equally sure that he\r
+must have been delighted with her dear Catherine, and would therefore\r
+shortly return. She liked him the better for being a clergyman, "for she\r
+must confess herself very partial to the profession"; and something like\r
+a sigh escaped her as she said it. Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not\r
+demanding the cause of that gentle emotion--but she was not experienced\r
+enough in the finesse of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when\r
+delicate raillery was properly called for, or when a confidence should\r
+be forced.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Allen was now quite happy--quite satisfied with Bath. She had found\r
+some acquaintance, had been so lucky too as to find in them the family\r
+of a most worthy old friend; and, as the completion of good fortune, had\r
+found these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself. Her\r
+daily expressions were no longer, "I wish we had some acquaintance in\r
+Bath!" They were changed into, "How glad I am we have met with Mrs.\r
+Thorpe!" and she was as eager in promoting the intercourse of the two\r
+families, as her young charge and Isabella themselves could be; never\r
+satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of\r
+Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was\r
+scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of\r
+subject, for Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen\r
+of her gowns.\r
+\r
+The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick\r
+as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so rapidly through every\r
+gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof\r
+of it to be given to their friends or themselves. They called each other\r
+by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned\r
+up each other's train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the\r
+set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they\r
+were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut\r
+themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not\r
+adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers,\r
+of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the\r
+number of which they are themselves adding--joining with their greatest\r
+enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely\r
+ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she\r
+accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages\r
+with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the\r
+heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I\r
+cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such\r
+effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in\r
+threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us\r
+not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions\r
+have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any\r
+other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has\r
+been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes\r
+are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the\r
+nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who\r
+collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and\r
+Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne,\r
+are eulogized by a thousand pens--there seems almost a general wish of\r
+decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and\r
+of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to\r
+recommend them. "I am no novel-reader--I seldom look into novels--Do not\r
+imagine that I often read novels--It is really very well for a novel."\r
+Such is the common cant. "And what are you reading, Miss--?" "Oh! It is\r
+only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book\r
+with affected indifference, or momentary shame. "It is only Cecilia, or\r
+Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest\r
+powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge\r
+of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the\r
+liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the\r
+best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a\r
+volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she\r
+have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be\r
+against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication,\r
+of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of\r
+taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement\r
+of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of\r
+conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language,\r
+too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age\r
+that could endure it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 6\r
+\r
+\r
+The following conversation, which took place between the two friends in\r
+the pump-room one morning, after an acquaintance of eight or nine\r
+days, is given as a specimen of their very warm attachment, and of the\r
+delicacy, discretion, originality of thought, and literary taste which\r
+marked the reasonableness of that attachment.\r
+\r
+They met by appointment; and as Isabella had arrived nearly five\r
+minutes before her friend, her first address naturally was, "My dearest\r
+creature, what can have made you so late? I have been waiting for you at\r
+least this age!"\r
+\r
+"Have you, indeed! I am very sorry for it; but really I thought I was in\r
+very good time. It is but just one. I hope you have not been here long?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! These ten ages at least. I am sure I have been here this half hour.\r
+But now, let us go and sit down at the other end of the room, and enjoy\r
+ourselves. I have an hundred things to say to you. In the first place,\r
+I was so afraid it would rain this morning, just as I wanted to set off;\r
+it looked very showery, and that would have thrown me into agonies! Do\r
+you know, I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine, in a shop window in\r
+Milsom Street just now--very like yours, only with coquelicot ribbons\r
+instead of green; I quite longed for it. But, my dearest Catherine, what\r
+have you been doing with yourself all this morning? Have you gone on\r
+with Udolpho?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am got to the\r
+black veil."\r
+\r
+"Are you, indeed? How delightful! Oh! I would not tell you what is\r
+behind the black veil for the world! Are not you wild to know?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! Yes, quite; what can it be? But do not tell me--I would not be\r
+told upon any account. I know it must be a skeleton, I am sure it is\r
+Laurentina's skeleton. Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like\r
+to spend my whole life in reading it. I assure you, if it had not been\r
+to meet you, I would not have come away from it for all the world."\r
+\r
+"Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished\r
+Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list\r
+of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you."\r
+\r
+"Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?"\r
+\r
+"I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook.\r
+Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the\r
+Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries.\r
+Those will last us some time."\r
+\r
+"Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all\r
+horrid?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss Andrews, a\r
+sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the world, has read every\r
+one of them. I wish you knew Miss Andrews, you would be delighted with\r
+her. She is netting herself the sweetest cloak you can conceive. I think\r
+her as beautiful as an angel, and I am so vexed with the men for not\r
+admiring her! I scold them all amazingly about it."\r
+\r
+"Scold them! Do you scold them for not admiring her?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, that I do. There is nothing I would not do for those who are\r
+really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is\r
+not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong. I told\r
+Captain Hunt at one of our assemblies this winter that if he was to\r
+tease me all night, I would not dance with him, unless he would allow\r
+Miss Andrews to be as beautiful as an angel. The men think us incapable\r
+of real friendship, you know, and I am determined to show them the\r
+difference. Now, if I were to hear anybody speak slightingly of you, I\r
+should fire up in a moment: but that is not at all likely, for you are\r
+just the kind of girl to be a great favourite with the men."\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear!" cried Catherine, colouring. "How can you say so?"\r
+\r
+"I know you very well; you have so much animation, which is exactly\r
+what Miss Andrews wants, for I must confess there is something amazingly\r
+insipid about her. Oh! I must tell you, that just after we parted\r
+yesterday, I saw a young man looking at you so earnestly--I am sure he\r
+is in love with you." Catherine coloured, and disclaimed again. Isabella\r
+laughed. "It is very true, upon my honour, but I see how it is; you are\r
+indifferent to everybody's admiration, except that of one gentleman,\r
+who shall be nameless. Nay, I cannot blame you"--speaking more\r
+seriously--"your feelings are easily understood. Where the heart is\r
+really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the\r
+attention of anybody else. Everything is so insipid, so uninteresting,\r
+that does not relate to the beloved object! I can perfectly comprehend\r
+your feelings."\r
+\r
+"But you should not persuade me that I think so very much about Mr.\r
+Tilney, for perhaps I may never see him again."\r
+\r
+"Not see him again! My dearest creature, do not talk of it. I am sure\r
+you would be miserable if you thought so!"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I should not. I do not pretend to say that I was not very\r
+much pleased with him; but while I have Udolpho to read, I feel as if\r
+nobody could make me miserable. Oh! The dreadful black veil! My dear\r
+Isabella, I am sure there must be Laurentina's skeleton behind it."\r
+\r
+"It is so odd to me, that you should never have read Udolpho before; but\r
+I suppose Mrs. Morland objects to novels."\r
+\r
+"No, she does not. She very often reads Sir Charles Grandison herself;\r
+but new books do not fall in our way."\r
+\r
+"Sir Charles Grandison! That is an amazing horrid book, is it not? I\r
+remember Miss Andrews could not get through the first volume."\r
+\r
+"It is not like Udolpho at all; but yet I think it is very\r
+entertaining."\r
+\r
+"Do you indeed! You surprise me; I thought it had not been readable.\r
+But, my dearest Catherine, have you settled what to wear on your head\r
+tonight? I am determined at all events to be dressed exactly like you.\r
+The men take notice of that sometimes, you know."\r
+\r
+"But it does not signify if they do," said Catherine, very innocently.\r
+\r
+"Signify! Oh, heavens! I make it a rule never to mind what they say.\r
+They are very often amazingly impertinent if you do not treat them with\r
+spirit, and make them keep their distance."\r
+\r
+"Are they? Well, I never observed that. They always behave very well to\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Oh! They give themselves such airs. They are the most conceited\r
+creatures in the world, and think themselves of so much importance!\r
+By the by, though I have thought of it a hundred times, I have always\r
+forgot to ask you what is your favourite complexion in a man. Do you\r
+like them best dark or fair?"\r
+\r
+"I hardly know. I never much thought about it. Something between both, I\r
+think. Brown--not fair, and--and not very dark."\r
+\r
+"Very well, Catherine. That is exactly he. I have not forgot your\r
+description of Mr. Tilney--'a brown skin, with dark eyes, and rather\r
+dark hair.' Well, my taste is different. I prefer light eyes, and as to\r
+complexion--do you know--I like a sallow better than any other. You must\r
+not betray me, if you should ever meet with one of your acquaintance\r
+answering that description."\r
+\r
+"Betray you! What do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, do not distress me. I believe I have said too much. Let us drop\r
+the subject."\r
+\r
+Catherine, in some amazement, complied, and after remaining a few\r
+moments silent, was on the point of reverting to what interested her\r
+at that time rather more than anything else in the world, Laurentina's\r
+skeleton, when her friend prevented her, by saying, "For heaven's sake!\r
+Let us move away from this end of the room. Do you know, there are two\r
+odious young men who have been staring at me this half hour. They really\r
+put me quite out of countenance. Let us go and look at the arrivals.\r
+They will hardly follow us there."\r
+\r
+Away they walked to the book; and while Isabella examined the names, it\r
+was Catherine's employment to watch the proceedings of these alarming\r
+young men.\r
+\r
+"They are not coming this way, are they? I hope they are not so\r
+impertinent as to follow us. Pray let me know if they are coming. I am\r
+determined I will not look up."\r
+\r
+In a few moments Catherine, with unaffected pleasure, assured her\r
+that she need not be longer uneasy, as the gentlemen had just left the\r
+pump-room.\r
+\r
+"And which way are they gone?" said Isabella, turning hastily round.\r
+"One was a very good-looking young man."\r
+\r
+"They went towards the church-yard."\r
+\r
+"Well, I am amazingly glad I have got rid of them! And now, what say you\r
+to going to Edgar's Buildings with me, and looking at my new hat? You\r
+said you should like to see it."\r
+\r
+Catherine readily agreed. "Only," she added, "perhaps we may overtake\r
+the two young men."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Never mind that. If we make haste, we shall pass by them presently,\r
+and I am dying to show you my hat."\r
+\r
+"But if we only wait a few minutes, there will be no danger of our\r
+seeing them at all."\r
+\r
+"I shall not pay them any such compliment, I assure you. I have no\r
+notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil\r
+them."\r
+\r
+Catherine had nothing to oppose against such reasoning; and therefore,\r
+to show the independence of Miss Thorpe, and her resolution of humbling\r
+the sex, they set off immediately as fast as they could walk, in pursuit\r
+of the two young men.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 7\r
+\r
+\r
+Half a minute conducted them through the pump-yard to the archway,\r
+opposite Union Passage; but here they were stopped. Everybody acquainted\r
+with Bath may remember the difficulties of crossing Cheap Street at\r
+this point; it is indeed a street of so impertinent a nature, so\r
+unfortunately connected with the great London and Oxford roads, and the\r
+principal inn of the city, that a day never passes in which parties of\r
+ladies, however important their business, whether in quest of pastry,\r
+millinery, or even (as in the present case) of young men, are not\r
+detained on one side or other by carriages, horsemen, or carts. This\r
+evil had been felt and lamented, at least three times a day, by Isabella\r
+since her residence in Bath; and she was now fated to feel and lament it\r
+once more, for at the very moment of coming opposite to Union Passage,\r
+and within view of the two gentlemen who were proceeding through the\r
+crowds, and threading the gutters of that interesting alley, they\r
+were prevented crossing by the approach of a gig, driven along on bad\r
+pavement by a most knowing-looking coachman with all the vehemence that\r
+could most fitly endanger the lives of himself, his companion, and his\r
+horse.\r
+\r
+"Oh, these odious gigs!" said Isabella, looking up. "How I detest them."\r
+But this detestation, though so just, was of short duration, for she\r
+looked again and exclaimed, "Delightful! Mr. Morland and my brother!"\r
+\r
+"Good heaven! 'Tis James!" was uttered at the same moment by Catherine;\r
+and, on catching the young men's eyes, the horse was immediately checked\r
+with a violence which almost threw him on his haunches, and the servant\r
+having now scampered up, the gentlemen jumped out, and the equipage was\r
+delivered to his care.\r
+\r
+Catherine, by whom this meeting was wholly unexpected, received her\r
+brother with the liveliest pleasure; and he, being of a very amiable\r
+disposition, and sincerely attached to her, gave every proof on his\r
+side of equal satisfaction, which he could have leisure to do, while the\r
+bright eyes of Miss Thorpe were incessantly challenging his notice;\r
+and to her his devoirs were speedily paid, with a mixture of joy and\r
+embarrassment which might have informed Catherine, had she been more\r
+expert in the development of other people's feelings, and less simply\r
+engrossed by her own, that her brother thought her friend quite as\r
+pretty as she could do herself.\r
+\r
+John Thorpe, who in the meantime had been giving orders about the\r
+horses, soon joined them, and from him she directly received the amends\r
+which were her due; for while he slightly and carelessly touched the\r
+hand of Isabella, on her he bestowed a whole scrape and half a short\r
+bow. He was a stout young man of middling height, who, with a plain face\r
+and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore\r
+the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were easy\r
+where he ought to be civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be\r
+easy. He took out his watch: "How long do you think we have been running\r
+it from Tetbury, Miss Morland?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know the distance." Her brother told her that it was\r
+twenty-three miles.\r
+\r
+"Three and twenty!" cried Thorpe. "Five and twenty if it is an inch."\r
+Morland remonstrated, pleaded the authority of road-books, innkeepers,\r
+and milestones; but his friend disregarded them all; he had a surer test\r
+of distance. "I know it must be five and twenty," said he, "by the time\r
+we have been doing it. It is now half after one; we drove out of the\r
+inn-yard at Tetbury as the town clock struck eleven; and I defy any man\r
+in England to make my horse go less than ten miles an hour in harness;\r
+that makes it exactly twenty-five."\r
+\r
+"You have lost an hour," said Morland; "it was only ten o'clock when we\r
+came from Tetbury."\r
+\r
+"Ten o'clock! It was eleven, upon my soul! I counted every stroke. This\r
+brother of yours would persuade me out of my senses, Miss Morland; do\r
+but look at my horse; did you ever see an animal so made for speed in\r
+your life?" (The servant had just mounted the carriage and was driving\r
+off.) "Such true blood! Three hours and and a half indeed coming only\r
+three and twenty miles! Look at that creature, and suppose it possible\r
+if you can."\r
+\r
+"He does look very hot, to be sure."\r
+\r
+"Hot! He had not turned a hair till we came to Walcot Church; but look\r
+at his forehand; look at his loins; only see how he moves; that horse\r
+cannot go less than ten miles an hour: tie his legs and he will get on.\r
+What do you think of my gig, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it?\r
+Well hung; town-built; I have not had it a month. It was built for a\r
+Christchurch man, a friend of mine, a very good sort of fellow; he ran\r
+it a few weeks, till, I believe, it was convenient to have done with it.\r
+I happened just then to be looking out for some light thing of the kind,\r
+though I had pretty well determined on a curricle too; but I chanced to\r
+meet him on Magdalen Bridge, as he was driving into Oxford, last term:\r
+'Ah! Thorpe,' said he, 'do you happen to want such a little thing as\r
+this? It is a capital one of the kind, but I am cursed tired of it.'\r
+'Oh! D--,' said I; 'I am your man; what do you ask?' And how much do you\r
+think he did, Miss Morland?"\r
+\r
+"I am sure I cannot guess at all."\r
+\r
+"Curricle-hung, you see; seat, trunk, sword-case, splashing-board,\r
+lamps, silver moulding, all you see complete; the iron-work as good\r
+as new, or better. He asked fifty guineas; I closed with him directly,\r
+threw down the money, and the carriage was mine."\r
+\r
+"And I am sure," said Catherine, "I know so little of such things that I\r
+cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear."\r
+\r
+"Neither one nor t'other; I might have got it for less, I dare say; but\r
+I hate haggling, and poor Freeman wanted cash."\r
+\r
+"That was very good-natured of you," said Catherine, quite pleased.\r
+\r
+"Oh! D---- it, when one has the means of doing a kind thing by a friend,\r
+I hate to be pitiful."\r
+\r
+An inquiry now took place into the intended movements of the young\r
+ladies; and, on finding whither they were going, it was decided that\r
+the gentlemen should accompany them to Edgar's Buildings, and pay their\r
+respects to Mrs. Thorpe. James and Isabella led the way; and so\r
+well satisfied was the latter with her lot, so contentedly was she\r
+endeavouring to ensure a pleasant walk to him who brought the double\r
+recommendation of being her brother's friend, and her friend's brother,\r
+so pure and uncoquettish were her feelings, that, though they overtook\r
+and passed the two offending young men in Milsom Street, she was so far\r
+from seeking to attract their notice, that she looked back at them only\r
+three times.\r
+\r
+John Thorpe kept of course with Catherine, and, after a few minutes'\r
+silence, renewed the conversation about his gig. "You will find,\r
+however, Miss Morland, it would be reckoned a cheap thing by some\r
+people, for I might have sold it for ten guineas more the next day;\r
+Jackson, of Oriel, bid me sixty at once; Morland was with me at the\r
+time."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Morland, who overheard this; "but you forget that your horse\r
+was included."\r
+\r
+"My horse! Oh, d---- it! I would not sell my horse for a hundred. Are\r
+you fond of an open carriage, Miss Morland?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very; I have hardly ever an opportunity of being in one; but I am\r
+particularly fond of it."\r
+\r
+"I am glad of it; I will drive you out in mine every day."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Catherine, in some distress, from a doubt of the\r
+propriety of accepting such an offer.\r
+\r
+"I will drive you up Lansdown Hill tomorrow."\r
+\r
+"Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?"\r
+\r
+"Rest! He has only come three and twenty miles today; all nonsense;\r
+nothing ruins horses so much as rest; nothing knocks them up so soon.\r
+No, no; I shall exercise mine at the average of four hours every day\r
+while I am here."\r
+\r
+"Shall you indeed!" said Catherine very seriously. "That will be forty\r
+miles a day."\r
+\r
+"Forty! Aye, fifty, for what I care. Well, I will drive you up Lansdown\r
+tomorrow; mind, I am engaged."\r
+\r
+"How delightful that will be!" cried Isabella, turning round. "My\r
+dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid, brother, you will\r
+not have room for a third."\r
+\r
+"A third indeed! No, no; I did not come to Bath to drive my sisters\r
+about; that would be a good joke, faith! Morland must take care of you."\r
+\r
+This brought on a dialogue of civilities between the other two; but\r
+Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the result. Her companion's\r
+discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch to nothing more than\r
+a short decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every\r
+woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long as\r
+she could, with all the civility and deference of the youthful female\r
+mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to that\r
+of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex is\r
+concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject by a question which\r
+had been long uppermost in her thoughts; it was, "Have you ever read\r
+Udolpho, Mr. Thorpe?"\r
+\r
+"Udolpho! Oh, Lord! Not I; I never read novels; I have something else to\r
+do."\r
+\r
+Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize for her question,\r
+but he prevented her by saying, "Novels are all so full of nonsense\r
+and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since\r
+Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the\r
+others, they are the stupidest things in creation."\r
+\r
+"I think you must like Udolpho, if you were to read it; it is so very\r
+interesting."\r
+\r
+"Not I, faith! No, if I read any, it shall be Mrs. Radcliffe's; her\r
+novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading; some fun and nature\r
+in them."\r
+\r
+"Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe," said Catherine, with some\r
+hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him.\r
+\r
+"No sure; was it? Aye, I remember, so it was; I was thinking of that\r
+other stupid book, written by that woman they make such a fuss about,\r
+she who married the French emigrant."\r
+\r
+"I suppose you mean Camilla?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, that's the book; such unnatural stuff! An old man playing at\r
+see-saw, I took up the first volume once and looked it over, but I soon\r
+found it would not do; indeed I guessed what sort of stuff it must be\r
+before I saw it: as soon as I heard she had married an emigrant, I was\r
+sure I should never be able to get through it."\r
+\r
+"I have never read it."\r
+\r
+"You had no loss, I assure you; it is the horridest nonsense you can\r
+imagine; there is nothing in the world in it but an old man's playing at\r
+see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul there is not."\r
+\r
+This critique, the justness of which was unfortunately lost on poor\r
+Catherine, brought them to the door of Mrs. Thorpe's lodgings, and the\r
+feelings of the discerning and unprejudiced reader of Camilla gave way\r
+to the feelings of the dutiful and affectionate son, as they met Mrs.\r
+Thorpe, who had descried them from above, in the passage. "Ah, Mother!\r
+How do you do?" said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand. "Where\r
+did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch.\r
+Here is Morland and I come to stay a few days with you, so you must look\r
+out for a couple of good beds somewhere near." And this address seemed\r
+to satisfy all the fondest wishes of the mother's heart, for she\r
+received him with the most delighted and exulting affection. On his\r
+two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal\r
+tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that\r
+they both looked very ugly.\r
+\r
+These manners did not please Catherine; but he was James's friend\r
+and Isabella's brother; and her judgment was further bought off by\r
+Isabella's assuring her, when they withdrew to see the new hat, that\r
+John thought her the most charming girl in the world, and by John's\r
+engaging her before they parted to dance with him that evening. Had she\r
+been older or vainer, such attacks might have done little; but, where\r
+youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of\r
+reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl\r
+in the world, and of being so very early engaged as a partner; and the\r
+consequence was that, when the two Morlands, after sitting an hour with\r
+the Thorpes, set off to walk together to Mr. Allen's, and James, as\r
+the door was closed on them, said, "Well, Catherine, how do you like my\r
+friend Thorpe?" instead of answering, as she probably would have done,\r
+had there been no friendship and no flattery in the case, "I do not like\r
+him at all," she directly replied, "I like him very much; he seems very\r
+agreeable."\r
+\r
+"He is as good-natured a fellow as ever lived; a little of a rattle; but\r
+that will recommend him to your sex, I believe: and how do you like the\r
+rest of the family?"\r
+\r
+"Very, very much indeed: Isabella particularly."\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to hear you say so; she is just the kind of young woman\r
+I could wish to see you attached to; she has so much good sense, and is\r
+so thoroughly unaffected and amiable; I always wanted you to know her;\r
+and she seems very fond of you. She said the highest things in your\r
+praise that could possibly be; and the praise of such a girl as Miss\r
+Thorpe even you, Catherine," taking her hand with affection, "may be\r
+proud of."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I am," she replied; "I love her exceedingly, and am delighted\r
+to find that you like her too. You hardly mentioned anything of her when\r
+you wrote to me after your visit there."\r
+\r
+"Because I thought I should soon see you myself. I hope you will be a\r
+great deal together while you are in Bath. She is a most amiable girl;\r
+such a superior understanding! How fond all the family are of her; she\r
+is evidently the general favourite; and how much she must be admired in\r
+such a place as this--is not she?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very much indeed, I fancy; Mr. Allen thinks her the prettiest girl\r
+in Bath."\r
+\r
+"I dare say he does; and I do not know any man who is a better judge of\r
+beauty than Mr. Allen. I need not ask you whether you are happy here, my\r
+dear Catherine; with such a companion and friend as Isabella Thorpe, it\r
+would be impossible for you to be otherwise; and the Allens, I am sure,\r
+are very kind to you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very kind; I never was so happy before; and now you are come it\r
+will be more delightful than ever; how good it is of you to come so far\r
+on purpose to see me."\r
+\r
+James accepted this tribute of gratitude, and qualified his conscience\r
+for accepting it too, by saying with perfect sincerity, "Indeed,\r
+Catherine, I love you dearly."\r
+\r
+Inquiries and communications concerning brothers and sisters, the\r
+situation of some, the growth of the rest, and other family matters now\r
+passed between them, and continued, with only one small digression\r
+on James's part, in praise of Miss Thorpe, till they reached Pulteney\r
+Street, where he was welcomed with great kindness by Mr. and Mrs. Allen,\r
+invited by the former to dine with them, and summoned by the latter\r
+to guess the price and weigh the merits of a new muff and tippet.\r
+A pre-engagement in Edgar's Buildings prevented his accepting the\r
+invitation of one friend, and obliged him to hurry away as soon as he\r
+had satisfied the demands of the other. The time of the two parties\r
+uniting in the Octagon Room being correctly adjusted, Catherine was then\r
+left to the luxury of a raised, restless, and frightened imagination\r
+over the pages of Udolpho, lost from all worldly concerns of dressing\r
+and dinner, incapable of soothing Mrs. Allen's fears on the delay of an\r
+expected dressmaker, and having only one minute in sixty to bestow even\r
+on the reflection of her own felicity, in being already engaged for the\r
+evening.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 8\r
+\r
+\r
+In spite of Udolpho and the dressmaker, however, the party from Pulteney\r
+Street reached the Upper Rooms in very good time. The Thorpes and James\r
+Morland were there only two minutes before them; and Isabella having\r
+gone through the usual ceremonial of meeting her friend with the most\r
+smiling and affectionate haste, of admiring the set of her gown, and\r
+envying the curl of her hair, they followed their chaperones, arm in\r
+arm, into the ballroom, whispering to each other whenever a thought\r
+occurred, and supplying the place of many ideas by a squeeze of the hand\r
+or a smile of affection.\r
+\r
+The dancing began within a few minutes after they were seated; and\r
+James, who had been engaged quite as long as his sister, was very\r
+importunate with Isabella to stand up; but John was gone into the\r
+card-room to speak to a friend, and nothing, she declared, should induce\r
+her to join the set before her dear Catherine could join it too. "I\r
+assure you," said she, "I would not stand up without your dear sister\r
+for all the world; for if I did we should certainly be separated the\r
+whole evening." Catherine accepted this kindness with gratitude, and\r
+they continued as they were for three minutes longer, when Isabella, who\r
+had been talking to James on the other side of her, turned again to his\r
+sister and whispered, "My dear creature, I am afraid I must leave you,\r
+your brother is so amazingly impatient to begin; I know you will not\r
+mind my going away, and I dare say John will be back in a moment,\r
+and then you may easily find me out." Catherine, though a little\r
+disappointed, had too much good nature to make any opposition, and the\r
+others rising up, Isabella had only time to press her friend's hand and\r
+say, "Good-bye, my dear love," before they hurried off. The younger\r
+Miss Thorpes being also dancing, Catherine was left to the mercy of Mrs.\r
+Thorpe and Mrs. Allen, between whom she now remained. She could not help\r
+being vexed at the non-appearance of Mr. Thorpe, for she not only longed\r
+to be dancing, but was likewise aware that, as the real dignity of her\r
+situation could not be known, she was sharing with the scores of other\r
+young ladies still sitting down all the discredit of wanting a partner.\r
+To be disgraced in the eye of the world, to wear the appearance of\r
+infamy while her heart is all purity, her actions all innocence, and the\r
+misconduct of another the true source of her debasement, is one of those\r
+circumstances which peculiarly belong to the heroine's life, and her\r
+fortitude under it what particularly dignifies her character. Catherine\r
+had fortitude too; she suffered, but no murmur passed her lips.\r
+\r
+From this state of humiliation, she was roused, at the end of ten\r
+minutes, to a pleasanter feeling, by seeing, not Mr. Thorpe, but Mr.\r
+Tilney, within three yards of the place where they sat; he seemed to be\r
+moving that way, but he did not see her, and therefore the smile and the\r
+blush, which his sudden reappearance raised in Catherine, passed away\r
+without sullying her heroic importance. He looked as handsome and as\r
+lively as ever, and was talking with interest to a fashionable and\r
+pleasing-looking young woman, who leant on his arm, and whom Catherine\r
+immediately guessed to be his sister; thus unthinkingly throwing away\r
+a fair opportunity of considering him lost to her forever, by being\r
+married already. But guided only by what was simple and probable, it\r
+had never entered her head that Mr. Tilney could be married; he had not\r
+behaved, he had not talked, like the married men to whom she had been\r
+used; he had never mentioned a wife, and he had acknowledged a sister.\r
+From these circumstances sprang the instant conclusion of his sister's\r
+now being by his side; and therefore, instead of turning of a deathlike\r
+paleness and falling in a fit on Mrs. Allen's bosom, Catherine sat\r
+erect, in the perfect use of her senses, and with cheeks only a little\r
+redder than usual.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tilney and his companion, who continued, though slowly, to approach,\r
+were immediately preceded by a lady, an acquaintance of Mrs. Thorpe; and\r
+this lady stopping to speak to her, they, as belonging to her, stopped\r
+likewise, and Catherine, catching Mr. Tilney's eye, instantly received\r
+from him the smiling tribute of recognition. She returned it with\r
+pleasure, and then advancing still nearer, he spoke both to her and Mrs.\r
+Allen, by whom he was very civilly acknowledged. "I am very happy to see\r
+you again, sir, indeed; I was afraid you had left Bath." He thanked her\r
+for her fears, and said that he had quitted it for a week, on the very\r
+morning after his having had the pleasure of seeing her.\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, and I dare say you are not sorry to be back again, for it\r
+is just the place for young people--and indeed for everybody else too.\r
+I tell Mr. Allen, when he talks of being sick of it, that I am sure he\r
+should not complain, for it is so very agreeable a place, that it is\r
+much better to be here than at home at this dull time of year. I tell\r
+him he is quite in luck to be sent here for his health."\r
+\r
+"And I hope, madam, that Mr. Allen will be obliged to like the place,\r
+from finding it of service to him."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, sir. I have no doubt that he will. A neighbour of ours,\r
+Dr. Skinner, was here for his health last winter, and came away quite\r
+stout."\r
+\r
+"That circumstance must give great encouragement."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir--and Dr. Skinner and his family were here three months; so I\r
+tell Mr. Allen he must not be in a hurry to get away."\r
+\r
+Here they were interrupted by a request from Mrs. Thorpe to Mrs. Allen,\r
+that she would move a little to accommodate Mrs. Hughes and Miss Tilney\r
+with seats, as they had agreed to join their party. This was accordingly\r
+done, Mr. Tilney still continuing standing before them; and after a\r
+few minutes' consideration, he asked Catherine to dance with him. This\r
+compliment, delightful as it was, produced severe mortification to the\r
+lady; and in giving her denial, she expressed her sorrow on the occasion\r
+so very much as if she really felt it that had Thorpe, who joined her\r
+just afterwards, been half a minute earlier, he might have thought her\r
+sufferings rather too acute. The very easy manner in which he then told\r
+her that he had kept her waiting did not by any means reconcile her more\r
+to her lot; nor did the particulars which he entered into while they\r
+were standing up, of the horses and dogs of the friend whom he had just\r
+left, and of a proposed exchange of terriers between them, interest her\r
+so much as to prevent her looking very often towards that part of the\r
+room where she had left Mr. Tilney. Of her dear Isabella, to whom she\r
+particularly longed to point out that gentleman, she could see nothing.\r
+They were in different sets. She was separated from all her party, and\r
+away from all her acquaintance; one mortification succeeded another,\r
+and from the whole she deduced this useful lesson, that to go previously\r
+engaged to a ball does not necessarily increase either the dignity or\r
+enjoyment of a young lady. From such a moralizing strain as this, she\r
+was suddenly roused by a touch on the shoulder, and turning round,\r
+perceived Mrs. Hughes directly behind her, attended by Miss Tilney and\r
+a gentleman. "I beg your pardon, Miss Morland," said she, "for this\r
+liberty--but I cannot anyhow get to Miss Thorpe, and Mrs. Thorpe said\r
+she was sure you would not have the least objection to letting in this\r
+young lady by you." Mrs. Hughes could not have applied to any creature\r
+in the room more happy to oblige her than Catherine. The young ladies\r
+were introduced to each other, Miss Tilney expressing a proper sense of\r
+such goodness, Miss Morland with the real delicacy of a generous mind\r
+making light of the obligation; and Mrs. Hughes, satisfied with having\r
+so respectably settled her young charge, returned to her party.\r
+\r
+Miss Tilney had a good figure, a pretty face, and a very agreeable\r
+countenance; and her air, though it had not all the decided pretension,\r
+the resolute stylishness of Miss Thorpe's, had more real elegance. Her\r
+manners showed good sense and good breeding; they were neither shy nor\r
+affectedly open; and she seemed capable of being young, attractive, and\r
+at a ball without wanting to fix the attention of every man near her,\r
+and without exaggerated feelings of ecstatic delight or inconceivable\r
+vexation on every little trifling occurrence. Catherine, interested at\r
+once by her appearance and her relationship to Mr. Tilney, was desirous\r
+of being acquainted with her, and readily talked therefore whenever she\r
+could think of anything to say, and had courage and leisure for saying\r
+it. But the hindrance thrown in the way of a very speedy intimacy, by\r
+the frequent want of one or more of these requisites, prevented their\r
+doing more than going through the first rudiments of an acquaintance, by\r
+informing themselves how well the other liked Bath, how much she admired\r
+its buildings and surrounding country, whether she drew, or played, or\r
+sang, and whether she was fond of riding on horseback.\r
+\r
+The two dances were scarcely concluded before Catherine found her arm\r
+gently seized by her faithful Isabella, who in great spirits exclaimed,\r
+"At last I have got you. My dearest creature, I have been looking for\r
+you this hour. What could induce you to come into this set, when you\r
+knew I was in the other? I have been quite wretched without you."\r
+\r
+"My dear Isabella, how was it possible for me to get at you? I could not\r
+even see where you were."\r
+\r
+"So I told your brother all the time--but he would not believe me. Do go\r
+and see for her, Mr. Morland, said I--but all in vain--he would not stir\r
+an inch. Was not it so, Mr. Morland? But you men are all so immoderately\r
+lazy! I have been scolding him to such a degree, my dear Catherine, you\r
+would be quite amazed. You know I never stand upon ceremony with such\r
+people."\r
+\r
+"Look at that young lady with the white beads round her head," whispered\r
+Catherine, detaching her friend from James. "It is Mr. Tilney's sister."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Heavens! You don't say so! Let me look at her this moment. What a\r
+delightful girl! I never saw anything half so beautiful! But where is\r
+her all-conquering brother? Is he in the room? Point him out to me this\r
+instant, if he is. I die to see him. Mr. Morland, you are not to listen.\r
+We are not talking about you."\r
+\r
+"But what is all this whispering about? What is going on?"\r
+\r
+"There now, I knew how it would be. You men have such restless\r
+curiosity! Talk of the curiosity of women, indeed! 'Tis nothing. But be\r
+satisfied, for you are not to know anything at all of the matter."\r
+\r
+"And is that likely to satisfy me, do you think?"\r
+\r
+"Well, I declare I never knew anything like you. What can it signify to\r
+you, what we are talking of. Perhaps we are talking about you; therefore\r
+I would advise you not to listen, or you may happen to hear something\r
+not very agreeable."\r
+\r
+In this commonplace chatter, which lasted some time, the original\r
+subject seemed entirely forgotten; and though Catherine was very well\r
+pleased to have it dropped for a while, she could not avoid a little\r
+suspicion at the total suspension of all Isabella's impatient desire to\r
+see Mr. Tilney. When the orchestra struck up a fresh dance, James would\r
+have led his fair partner away, but she resisted. "I tell you, Mr.\r
+Morland," she cried, "I would not do such a thing for all the world.\r
+How can you be so teasing; only conceive, my dear Catherine, what your\r
+brother wants me to do. He wants me to dance with him again, though\r
+I tell him that it is a most improper thing, and entirely against the\r
+rules. It would make us the talk of the place, if we were not to change\r
+partners."\r
+\r
+"Upon my honour," said James, "in these public assemblies, it is as\r
+often done as not."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, how can you say so? But when you men have a point to carry,\r
+you never stick at anything. My sweet Catherine, do support me; persuade\r
+your brother how impossible it is. Tell him that it would quite shock\r
+you to see me do such a thing; now would not it?"\r
+\r
+"No, not at all; but if you think it wrong, you had much better change."\r
+\r
+"There," cried Isabella, "you hear what your sister says, and yet you\r
+will not mind her. Well, remember that it is not my fault, if we set all\r
+the old ladies in Bath in a bustle. Come along, my dearest Catherine,\r
+for heaven's sake, and stand by me." And off they went, to regain\r
+their former place. John Thorpe, in the meanwhile, had walked away; and\r
+Catherine, ever willing to give Mr. Tilney an opportunity of repeating\r
+the agreeable request which had already flattered her once, made her\r
+way to Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thorpe as fast as she could, in the hope\r
+of finding him still with them--a hope which, when it proved to be\r
+fruitless, she felt to have been highly unreasonable. "Well, my dear,"\r
+said Mrs. Thorpe, impatient for praise of her son, "I hope you have had\r
+an agreeable partner."\r
+\r
+"Very agreeable, madam."\r
+\r
+"I am glad of it. John has charming spirits, has not he?"\r
+\r
+"Did you meet Mr. Tilney, my dear?" said Mrs. Allen.\r
+\r
+"No, where is he?"\r
+\r
+"He was with us just now, and said he was so tired of lounging about,\r
+that he was resolved to go and dance; so I thought perhaps he would ask\r
+you, if he met with you."\r
+\r
+"Where can he be?" said Catherine, looking round; but she had not looked\r
+round long before she saw him leading a young lady to the dance.\r
+\r
+"Ah! He has got a partner; I wish he had asked you," said Mrs. Allen;\r
+and after a short silence, she added, "he is a very agreeable young\r
+man."\r
+\r
+"Indeed he is, Mrs. Allen," said Mrs. Thorpe, smiling complacently; "I\r
+must say it, though I am his mother, that there is not a more agreeable\r
+young man in the world."\r
+\r
+This inapplicable answer might have been too much for the comprehension\r
+of many; but it did not puzzle Mrs. Allen, for after only a moment's\r
+consideration, she said, in a whisper to Catherine, "I dare say she\r
+thought I was speaking of her son."\r
+\r
+Catherine was disappointed and vexed. She seemed to have missed by so\r
+little the very object she had had in view; and this persuasion did not\r
+incline her to a very gracious reply, when John Thorpe came up to her\r
+soon afterwards and said, "Well, Miss Morland, I suppose you and I are\r
+to stand up and jig it together again."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no; I am much obliged to you, our two dances are over; and,\r
+besides, I am tired, and do not mean to dance any more."\r
+\r
+"Do not you? Then let us walk about and quiz people. Come along with\r
+me, and I will show you the four greatest quizzers in the room; my two\r
+younger sisters and their partners. I have been laughing at them this\r
+half hour."\r
+\r
+Again Catherine excused herself; and at last he walked off to quiz his\r
+sisters by himself. The rest of the evening she found very dull; Mr.\r
+Tilney was drawn away from their party at tea, to attend that of his\r
+partner; Miss Tilney, though belonging to it, did not sit near her, and\r
+James and Isabella were so much engaged in conversing together that the\r
+latter had no leisure to bestow more on her friend than one smile, one\r
+squeeze, and one "dearest Catherine."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 9\r
+\r
+\r
+The progress of Catherine's unhappiness from the events of the evening\r
+was as follows. It appeared first in a general dissatisfaction with\r
+everybody about her, while she remained in the rooms, which speedily\r
+brought on considerable weariness and a violent desire to go home. This,\r
+on arriving in Pulteney Street, took the direction of extraordinary\r
+hunger, and when that was appeased, changed into an earnest longing to\r
+be in bed; such was the extreme point of her distress; for when there\r
+she immediately fell into a sound sleep which lasted nine hours, and\r
+from which she awoke perfectly revived, in excellent spirits, with fresh\r
+hopes and fresh schemes. The first wish of her heart was to improve her\r
+acquaintance with Miss Tilney, and almost her first resolution, to seek\r
+her for that purpose, in the pump-room at noon. In the pump-room, one\r
+so newly arrived in Bath must be met with, and that building she had\r
+already found so favourable for the discovery of female excellence,\r
+and the completion of female intimacy, so admirably adapted for secret\r
+discourses and unlimited confidence, that she was most reasonably\r
+encouraged to expect another friend from within its walls. Her plan\r
+for the morning thus settled, she sat quietly down to her book after\r
+breakfast, resolving to remain in the same place and the same employment\r
+till the clock struck one; and from habitude very little incommoded by\r
+the remarks and ejaculations of Mrs. Allen, whose vacancy of mind and\r
+incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great\r
+deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she\r
+sat at her work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she\r
+heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must\r
+observe it aloud, whether there were anyone at leisure to answer her or\r
+not. At about half past twelve, a remarkably loud rap drew her in haste\r
+to the window, and scarcely had she time to inform Catherine of there\r
+being two open carriages at the door, in the first only a servant,\r
+her brother driving Miss Thorpe in the second, before John Thorpe came\r
+running upstairs, calling out, "Well, Miss Morland, here I am. Have\r
+you been waiting long? We could not come before; the old devil of a\r
+coachmaker was such an eternity finding out a thing fit to be got into,\r
+and now it is ten thousand to one but they break down before we are out\r
+of the street. How do you do, Mrs. Allen? A famous ball last night, was\r
+not it? Come, Miss Morland, be quick, for the others are in a confounded\r
+hurry to be off. They want to get their tumble over."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?" said Catherine. "Where are you all going to?"\r
+\r
+"Going to? Why, you have not forgot our engagement! Did not we agree\r
+together to take a drive this morning? What a head you have! We are\r
+going up Claverton Down."\r
+\r
+"Something was said about it, I remember," said Catherine, looking at\r
+Mrs. Allen for her opinion; "but really I did not expect you."\r
+\r
+"Not expect me! That's a good one! And what a dust you would have made,\r
+if I had not come."\r
+\r
+Catherine's silent appeal to her friend, meanwhile, was entirely thrown\r
+away, for Mrs. Allen, not being at all in the habit of conveying any\r
+expression herself by a look, was not aware of its being ever intended\r
+by anybody else; and Catherine, whose desire of seeing Miss Tilney again\r
+could at that moment bear a short delay in favour of a drive, and who\r
+thought there could be no impropriety in her going with Mr. Thorpe, as\r
+Isabella was going at the same time with James, was therefore obliged to\r
+speak plainer. "Well, ma'am, what do you say to it? Can you spare me for\r
+an hour or two? Shall I go?"\r
+\r
+"Do just as you please, my dear," replied Mrs. Allen, with the most\r
+placid indifference. Catherine took the advice, and ran off to get\r
+ready. In a very few minutes she reappeared, having scarcely allowed\r
+the two others time enough to get through a few short sentences in her\r
+praise, after Thorpe had procured Mrs. Allen's admiration of his gig;\r
+and then receiving her friend's parting good wishes, they both hurried\r
+downstairs. "My dearest creature," cried Isabella, to whom the duty\r
+of friendship immediately called her before she could get into the\r
+carriage, "you have been at least three hours getting ready. I was\r
+afraid you were ill. What a delightful ball we had last night. I have a\r
+thousand things to say to you; but make haste and get in, for I long to\r
+be off."\r
+\r
+Catherine followed her orders and turned away, but not too soon to hear\r
+her friend exclaim aloud to James, "What a sweet girl she is! I quite\r
+dote on her."\r
+\r
+"You will not be frightened, Miss Morland," said Thorpe, as he handed\r
+her in, "if my horse should dance about a little at first setting off.\r
+He will, most likely, give a plunge or two, and perhaps take the rest\r
+for a minute; but he will soon know his master. He is full of spirits,\r
+playful as can be, but there is no vice in him."\r
+\r
+Catherine did not think the portrait a very inviting one, but it was too\r
+late to retreat, and she was too young to own herself frightened; so,\r
+resigning herself to her fate, and trusting to the animal's boasted\r
+knowledge of its owner, she sat peaceably down, and saw Thorpe sit down\r
+by her. Everything being then arranged, the servant who stood at the\r
+horse's head was bid in an important voice "to let him go," and off they\r
+went in the quietest manner imaginable, without a plunge or a caper, or\r
+anything like one. Catherine, delighted at so happy an escape, spoke\r
+her pleasure aloud with grateful surprise; and her companion immediately\r
+made the matter perfectly simple by assuring her that it was entirely\r
+owing to the peculiarly judicious manner in which he had then held the\r
+reins, and the singular discernment and dexterity with which he had\r
+directed his whip. Catherine, though she could not help wondering that\r
+with such perfect command of his horse, he should think it necessary to\r
+alarm her with a relation of its tricks, congratulated herself sincerely\r
+on being under the care of so excellent a coachman; and perceiving that\r
+the animal continued to go on in the same quiet manner, without\r
+showing the smallest propensity towards any unpleasant vivacity, and\r
+(considering its inevitable pace was ten miles an hour) by no means\r
+alarmingly fast, gave herself up to all the enjoyment of air and\r
+exercise of the most invigorating kind, in a fine mild day of February,\r
+with the consciousness of safety. A silence of several minutes succeeded\r
+their first short dialogue; it was broken by Thorpe's saying very\r
+abruptly, "Old Allen is as rich as a Jew--is not he?" Catherine did not\r
+understand him--and he repeated his question, adding in explanation,\r
+"Old Allen, the man you are with."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Mr. Allen, you mean. Yes, I believe, he is very rich."\r
+\r
+"And no children at all?"\r
+\r
+"No--not any."\r
+\r
+"A famous thing for his next heirs. He is your godfather, is not he?"\r
+\r
+"My godfather! No."\r
+\r
+"But you are always very much with them."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very much."\r
+\r
+"Aye, that is what I meant. He seems a good kind of old fellow enough,\r
+and has lived very well in his time, I dare say; he is not gouty for\r
+nothing. Does he drink his bottle a day now?"\r
+\r
+"His bottle a day! No. Why should you think of such a thing? He is a\r
+very temperate man, and you could not fancy him in liquor last night?"\r
+\r
+"Lord help you! You women are always thinking of men's being in liquor.\r
+Why, you do not suppose a man is overset by a bottle? I am sure of\r
+this--that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not\r
+be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a famous\r
+good thing for us all."\r
+\r
+"I cannot believe it."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Lord, it would be the saving of thousands. There is not the\r
+hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to\r
+be. Our foggy climate wants help."\r
+\r
+"And yet I have heard that there is a great deal of wine drunk in\r
+Oxford."\r
+\r
+"Oxford! There is no drinking at Oxford now, I assure you. Nobody drinks\r
+there. You would hardly meet with a man who goes beyond his four pints\r
+at the utmost. Now, for instance, it was reckoned a remarkable thing, at\r
+the last party in my rooms, that upon an average we cleared about five\r
+pints a head. It was looked upon as something out of the common way.\r
+Mine is famous good stuff, to be sure. You would not often meet with\r
+anything like it in Oxford--and that may account for it. But this will\r
+just give you a notion of the general rate of drinking there."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it does give a notion," said Catherine warmly, "and that is, that\r
+you all drink a great deal more wine than I thought you did. However, I\r
+am sure James does not drink so much."\r
+\r
+This declaration brought on a loud and overpowering reply, of which\r
+no part was very distinct, except the frequent exclamations, amounting\r
+almost to oaths, which adorned it, and Catherine was left, when it\r
+ended, with rather a strengthened belief of there being a great deal\r
+of wine drunk in Oxford, and the same happy conviction of her brother's\r
+comparative sobriety.\r
+\r
+Thorpe's ideas then all reverted to the merits of his own equipage, and\r
+she was called on to admire the spirit and freedom with which his horse\r
+moved along, and the ease which his paces, as well as the excellence of\r
+the springs, gave the motion of the carriage. She followed him in all\r
+his admiration as well as she could. To go before or beyond him was\r
+impossible. His knowledge and her ignorance of the subject, his rapidity\r
+of expression, and her diffidence of herself put that out of her power;\r
+she could strike out nothing new in commendation, but she readily echoed\r
+whatever he chose to assert, and it was finally settled between them\r
+without any difficulty that his equipage was altogether the most\r
+complete of its kind in England, his carriage the neatest, his horse the\r
+best goer, and himself the best coachman. "You do not really think,\r
+Mr. Thorpe," said Catherine, venturing after some time to consider the\r
+matter as entirely decided, and to offer some little variation on the\r
+subject, "that James's gig will break down?"\r
+\r
+"Break down! Oh! Lord! Did you ever see such a little tittuppy thing in\r
+your life? There is not a sound piece of iron about it. The wheels have\r
+been fairly worn out these ten years at least--and as for the body! Upon\r
+my soul, you might shake it to pieces yourself with a touch. It is the\r
+most devilish little rickety business I ever beheld! Thank God! we\r
+have got a better. I would not be bound to go two miles in it for fifty\r
+thousand pounds."\r
+\r
+"Good heavens!" cried Catherine, quite frightened. "Then pray let us\r
+turn back; they will certainly meet with an accident if we go on. Do let\r
+us turn back, Mr. Thorpe; stop and speak to my brother, and tell him how\r
+very unsafe it is."\r
+\r
+"Unsafe! Oh, lord! What is there in that? They will only get a roll if\r
+it does break down; and there is plenty of dirt; it will be excellent\r
+falling. Oh, curse it! The carriage is safe enough, if a man knows how\r
+to drive it; a thing of that sort in good hands will last above twenty\r
+years after it is fairly worn out. Lord bless you! I would undertake for\r
+five pounds to drive it to York and back again, without losing a nail."\r
+\r
+Catherine listened with astonishment; she knew not how to reconcile two\r
+such very different accounts of the same thing; for she had not been\r
+brought up to understand the propensities of a rattle, nor to know to\r
+how many idle assertions and impudent falsehoods the excess of vanity\r
+will lead. Her own family were plain, matter-of-fact people who seldom\r
+aimed at wit of any kind; her father, at the utmost, being contented\r
+with a pun, and her mother with a proverb; they were not in the habit\r
+therefore of telling lies to increase their importance, or of asserting\r
+at one moment what they would contradict the next. She reflected on the\r
+affair for some time in much perplexity, and was more than once on the\r
+point of requesting from Mr. Thorpe a clearer insight into his real\r
+opinion on the subject; but she checked herself, because it appeared to\r
+her that he did not excel in giving those clearer insights, in making\r
+those things plain which he had before made ambiguous; and, joining to\r
+this, the consideration that he would not really suffer his sister and\r
+his friend to be exposed to a danger from which he might easily preserve\r
+them, she concluded at last that he must know the carriage to be in fact\r
+perfectly safe, and therefore would alarm herself no longer. By him\r
+the whole matter seemed entirely forgotten; and all the rest of his\r
+conversation, or rather talk, began and ended with himself and his own\r
+concerns. He told her of horses which he had bought for a trifle and\r
+sold for incredible sums; of racing matches, in which his judgment had\r
+infallibly foretold the winner; of shooting parties, in which he had\r
+killed more birds (though without having one good shot) than all his\r
+companions together; and described to her some famous day's sport, with\r
+the fox-hounds, in which his foresight and skill in directing the dogs\r
+had repaired the mistakes of the most experienced huntsman, and in which\r
+the boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his own life\r
+for a moment, had been constantly leading others into difficulties,\r
+which he calmly concluded had broken the necks of many.\r
+\r
+Little as Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself, and unfixed\r
+as were her general notions of what men ought to be, she could not\r
+entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions of his\r
+endless conceit, of his being altogether completely agreeable. It was a\r
+bold surmise, for he was Isabella's brother; and she had been assured by\r
+James that his manners would recommend him to all her sex; but in spite\r
+of this, the extreme weariness of his company, which crept over her\r
+before they had been out an hour, and which continued unceasingly to\r
+increase till they stopped in Pulteney Street again, induced her, in\r
+some small degree, to resist such high authority, and to distrust his\r
+powers of giving universal pleasure.\r
+\r
+When they arrived at Mrs. Allen's door, the astonishment of Isabella was\r
+hardly to be expressed, on finding that it was too late in the day for\r
+them to attend her friend into the house: "Past three o'clock!" It was\r
+inconceivable, incredible, impossible! And she would neither believe her\r
+own watch, nor her brother's, nor the servant's; she would believe no\r
+assurance of it founded on reason or reality, till Morland produced his\r
+watch, and ascertained the fact; to have doubted a moment longer then\r
+would have been equally inconceivable, incredible, and impossible; and\r
+she could only protest, over and over again, that no two hours and a\r
+half had ever gone off so swiftly before, as Catherine was called on to\r
+confirm; Catherine could not tell a falsehood even to please Isabella;\r
+but the latter was spared the misery of her friend's dissenting voice,\r
+by not waiting for her answer. Her own feelings entirely engrossed\r
+her; her wretchedness was most acute on finding herself obliged to go\r
+directly home. It was ages since she had had a moment's conversation\r
+with her dearest Catherine; and, though she had such thousands of things\r
+to say to her, it appeared as if they were never to be together again;\r
+so, with smiles of most exquisite misery, and the laughing eye of utter\r
+despondency, she bade her friend adieu and went on.\r
+\r
+Catherine found Mrs. Allen just returned from all the busy idleness of\r
+the morning, and was immediately greeted with, "Well, my dear, here\r
+you are," a truth which she had no greater inclination than power to\r
+dispute; "and I hope you have had a pleasant airing?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, I thank you; we could not have had a nicer day."\r
+\r
+"So Mrs. Thorpe said; she was vastly pleased at your all going."\r
+\r
+"You have seen Mrs. Thorpe, then?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I went to the pump-room as soon as you were gone, and there I met\r
+her, and we had a great deal of talk together. She says there was hardly\r
+any veal to be got at market this morning, it is so uncommonly scarce."\r
+\r
+"Did you see anybody else of our acquaintance?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; we agreed to take a turn in the Crescent, and there we met Mrs.\r
+Hughes, and Mr. and Miss Tilney walking with her."\r
+\r
+"Did you indeed? And did they speak to you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, we walked along the Crescent together for half an hour. They seem\r
+very agreeable people. Miss Tilney was in a very pretty spotted\r
+muslin, and I fancy, by what I can learn, that she always dresses very\r
+handsomely. Mrs. Hughes talked to me a great deal about the family."\r
+\r
+"And what did she tell you of them?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! A vast deal indeed; she hardly talked of anything else."\r
+\r
+"Did she tell you what part of Gloucestershire they come from?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, she did; but I cannot recollect now. But they are very good kind\r
+of people, and very rich. Mrs. Tilney was a Miss Drummond, and she\r
+and Mrs. Hughes were schoolfellows; and Miss Drummond had a very large\r
+fortune; and, when she married, her father gave her twenty thousand\r
+pounds, and five hundred to buy wedding-clothes. Mrs. Hughes saw all the\r
+clothes after they came from the warehouse."\r
+\r
+"And are Mr. and Mrs. Tilney in Bath?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I fancy they are, but I am not quite certain. Upon recollection,\r
+however, I have a notion they are both dead; at least the mother is;\r
+yes, I am sure Mrs. Tilney is dead, because Mrs. Hughes told me there\r
+was a very beautiful set of pearls that Mr. Drummond gave his daughter\r
+on her wedding-day and that Miss Tilney has got now, for they were put\r
+by for her when her mother died."\r
+\r
+"And is Mr. Tilney, my partner, the only son?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot be quite positive about that, my dear; I have some idea he is;\r
+but, however, he is a very fine young man, Mrs. Hughes says, and likely\r
+to do very well."\r
+\r
+Catherine inquired no further; she had heard enough to feel that\r
+Mrs. Allen had no real intelligence to give, and that she was most\r
+particularly unfortunate herself in having missed such a meeting with\r
+both brother and sister. Could she have foreseen such a circumstance,\r
+nothing should have persuaded her to go out with the others; and, as\r
+it was, she could only lament her ill luck, and think over what she had\r
+lost, till it was clear to her that the drive had by no means been very\r
+pleasant and that John Thorpe himself was quite disagreeable.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 10\r
+\r
+\r
+The Allens, Thorpes, and Morlands all met in the evening at the\r
+theatre; and, as Catherine and Isabella sat together, there was then an\r
+opportunity for the latter to utter some few of the many thousand\r
+things which had been collecting within her for communication in the\r
+immeasurable length of time which had divided them. "Oh, heavens!\r
+My beloved Catherine, have I got you at last?" was her address on\r
+Catherine's entering the box and sitting by her. "Now, Mr. Morland," for\r
+he was close to her on the other side, "I shall not speak another word\r
+to you all the rest of the evening; so I charge you not to expect it. My\r
+sweetest Catherine, how have you been this long age? But I need not ask\r
+you, for you look delightfully. You really have done your hair in a\r
+more heavenly style than ever; you mischievous creature, do you want to\r
+attract everybody? I assure you, my brother is quite in love with you\r
+already; and as for Mr. Tilney--but that is a settled thing--even your\r
+modesty cannot doubt his attachment now; his coming back to Bath makes\r
+it too plain. Oh! What would not I give to see him! I really am quite\r
+wild with impatience. My mother says he is the most delightful young man\r
+in the world; she saw him this morning, you know; you must introduce him\r
+to me. Is he in the house now? Look about, for heaven's sake! I assure\r
+you, I can hardly exist till I see him."\r
+\r
+"No," said Catherine, "he is not here; I cannot see him anywhere."\r
+\r
+"Oh, horrid! Am I never to be acquainted with him? How do you like my\r
+gown? I think it does not look amiss; the sleeves were entirely my own\r
+thought. Do you know, I get so immoderately sick of Bath; your brother\r
+and I were agreeing this morning that, though it is vastly well to be\r
+here for a few weeks, we would not live here for millions. We soon found\r
+out that our tastes were exactly alike in preferring the country to\r
+every other place; really, our opinions were so exactly the same, it was\r
+quite ridiculous! There was not a single point in which we differed; I\r
+would not have had you by for the world; you are such a sly thing, I am\r
+sure you would have made some droll remark or other about it."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed I should not."\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes you would indeed; I know you better than you know yourself. You\r
+would have told us that we seemed born for each other, or some nonsense\r
+of that kind, which would have distressed me beyond conception; my\r
+cheeks would have been as red as your roses; I would not have had you by\r
+for the world."\r
+\r
+"Indeed you do me injustice; I would not have made so improper a remark\r
+upon any account; and besides, I am sure it would never have entered my\r
+head."\r
+\r
+Isabella smiled incredulously and talked the rest of the evening to\r
+James.\r
+\r
+Catherine's resolution of endeavouring to meet Miss Tilney again\r
+continued in full force the next morning; and till the usual moment of\r
+going to the pump-room, she felt some alarm from the dread of a second\r
+prevention. But nothing of that kind occurred, no visitors appeared to\r
+delay them, and they all three set off in good time for the pump-room,\r
+where the ordinary course of events and conversation took place; Mr.\r
+Allen, after drinking his glass of water, joined some gentlemen to\r
+talk over the politics of the day and compare the accounts of their\r
+newspapers; and the ladies walked about together, noticing every new\r
+face, and almost every new bonnet in the room. The female part of the\r
+Thorpe family, attended by James Morland, appeared among the crowd in\r
+less than a quarter of an hour, and Catherine immediately took her\r
+usual place by the side of her friend. James, who was now in constant\r
+attendance, maintained a similar position, and separating themselves\r
+from the rest of their party, they walked in that manner for some\r
+time, till Catherine began to doubt the happiness of a situation which,\r
+confining her entirely to her friend and brother, gave her very\r
+little share in the notice of either. They were always engaged in\r
+some sentimental discussion or lively dispute, but their sentiment was\r
+conveyed in such whispering voices, and their vivacity attended with\r
+so much laughter, that though Catherine's supporting opinion was not\r
+unfrequently called for by one or the other, she was never able to give\r
+any, from not having heard a word of the subject. At length however\r
+she was empowered to disengage herself from her friend, by the avowed\r
+necessity of speaking to Miss Tilney, whom she most joyfully saw just\r
+entering the room with Mrs. Hughes, and whom she instantly joined, with\r
+a firmer determination to be acquainted, than she might have had courage\r
+to command, had she not been urged by the disappointment of the day\r
+before. Miss Tilney met her with great civility, returned her advances\r
+with equal goodwill, and they continued talking together as long as\r
+both parties remained in the room; and though in all probability not\r
+an observation was made, nor an expression used by either which had not\r
+been made and used some thousands of times before, under that roof, in\r
+every Bath season, yet the merit of their being spoken with simplicity\r
+and truth, and without personal conceit, might be something uncommon.\r
+\r
+"How well your brother dances!" was an artless exclamation of\r
+Catherine's towards the close of their conversation, which at once\r
+surprised and amused her companion.\r
+\r
+"Henry!" she replied with a smile. "Yes, he does dance very well."\r
+\r
+"He must have thought it very odd to hear me say I was engaged the other\r
+evening, when he saw me sitting down. But I really had been engaged\r
+the whole day to Mr. Thorpe." Miss Tilney could only bow. "You cannot\r
+think," added Catherine after a moment's silence, "how surprised I was\r
+to see him again. I felt so sure of his being quite gone away."\r
+\r
+"When Henry had the pleasure of seeing you before, he was in Bath but\r
+for a couple of days. He came only to engage lodgings for us."\r
+\r
+"That never occurred to me; and of course, not seeing him anywhere, I\r
+thought he must be gone. Was not the young lady he danced with on Monday\r
+a Miss Smith?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, an acquaintance of Mrs. Hughes."\r
+\r
+"I dare say she was very glad to dance. Do you think her pretty?"\r
+\r
+"Not very."\r
+\r
+"He never comes to the pump-room, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sometimes; but he has rid out this morning with my father."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Hughes now joined them, and asked Miss Tilney if she was ready to\r
+go. "I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again soon," said\r
+Catherine. "Shall you be at the cotillion ball tomorrow?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps we--Yes, I think we certainly shall."\r
+\r
+"I am glad of it, for we shall all be there." This civility was duly\r
+returned; and they parted--on Miss Tilney's side with some knowledge\r
+of her new acquaintance's feelings, and on Catherine's, without the\r
+smallest consciousness of having explained them.\r
+\r
+She went home very happy. The morning had answered all her hopes, and\r
+the evening of the following day was now the object of expectation,\r
+the future good. What gown and what head-dress she should wear on the\r
+occasion became her chief concern. She cannot be justified in it. Dress\r
+is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about\r
+it often destroys its own aim. Catherine knew all this very well; her\r
+great aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the Christmas\r
+before; and yet she lay awake ten minutes on Wednesday night debating\r
+between her spotted and her tamboured muslin, and nothing but the\r
+shortness of the time prevented her buying a new one for the evening.\r
+This would have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon,\r
+from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather\r
+than a great aunt, might have warned her, for man only can be aware of\r
+the insensibility of man towards a new gown. It would be mortifying to\r
+the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little\r
+the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire;\r
+how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how\r
+unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged,\r
+the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone.\r
+No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for\r
+it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of\r
+shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter. But not\r
+one of these grave reflections troubled the tranquillity of Catherine.\r
+\r
+She entered the rooms on Thursday evening with feelings very different\r
+from what had attended her thither the Monday before. She had then been\r
+exulting in her engagement to Thorpe, and was now chiefly anxious to\r
+avoid his sight, lest he should engage her again; for though she could\r
+not, dared not expect that Mr. Tilney should ask her a third time to\r
+dance, her wishes, hopes, and plans all centred in nothing less. Every\r
+young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment, for every\r
+young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation. All have\r
+been, or at least all have believed themselves to be, in danger from the\r
+pursuit of someone whom they wished to avoid; and all have been anxious\r
+for the attentions of someone whom they wished to please. As soon as\r
+they were joined by the Thorpes, Catherine's agony began; she fidgeted\r
+about if John Thorpe came towards her, hid herself as much as possible\r
+from his view, and when he spoke to her pretended not to hear him. The\r
+cotillions were over, the country-dancing beginning, and she saw nothing\r
+of the Tilneys.\r
+\r
+"Do not be frightened, my dear Catherine," whispered Isabella, "but I am\r
+really going to dance with your brother again. I declare positively it\r
+is quite shocking. I tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself, but you\r
+and John must keep us in countenance. Make haste, my dear creature, and\r
+come to us. John is just walked off, but he will be back in a moment."\r
+\r
+Catherine had neither time nor inclination to answer. The others walked\r
+away, John Thorpe was still in view, and she gave herself up for lost.\r
+That she might not appear, however, to observe or expect him, she kept\r
+her eyes intently fixed on her fan; and a self-condemnation for her\r
+folly, in supposing that among such a crowd they should even meet with\r
+the Tilneys in any reasonable time, had just passed through her mind,\r
+when she suddenly found herself addressed and again solicited to dance,\r
+by Mr. Tilney himself. With what sparkling eyes and ready motion she\r
+granted his request, and with how pleasing a flutter of heart she went\r
+with him to the set, may be easily imagined. To escape, and, as\r
+she believed, so narrowly escape John Thorpe, and to be asked, so\r
+immediately on his joining her, asked by Mr. Tilney, as if he had sought\r
+her on purpose!--it did not appear to her that life could supply any\r
+greater felicity.\r
+\r
+Scarcely had they worked themselves into the quiet possession of a\r
+place, however, when her attention was claimed by John Thorpe, who stood\r
+behind her. "Heyday, Miss Morland!" said he. "What is the meaning of\r
+this? I thought you and I were to dance together."\r
+\r
+"I wonder you should think so, for you never asked me."\r
+\r
+"That is a good one, by Jove! I asked you as soon as I came into the\r
+room, and I was just going to ask you again, but when I turned round,\r
+you were gone! This is a cursed shabby trick! I only came for the sake\r
+of dancing with you, and I firmly believe you were engaged to me ever\r
+since Monday. Yes; I remember, I asked you while you were waiting in the\r
+lobby for your cloak. And here have I been telling all my acquaintance\r
+that I was going to dance with the prettiest girl in the room; and\r
+when they see you standing up with somebody else, they will quiz me\r
+famously."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no; they will never think of me, after such a description as that."\r
+\r
+"By heavens, if they do not, I will kick them out of the room for\r
+blockheads. What chap have you there?" Catherine satisfied his\r
+curiosity. "Tilney," he repeated. "Hum--I do not know him. A good figure\r
+of a man; well put together. Does he want a horse? Here is a friend\r
+of mine, Sam Fletcher, has got one to sell that would suit anybody. A\r
+famous clever animal for the road--only forty guineas. I had fifty minds\r
+to buy it myself, for it is one of my maxims always to buy a good horse\r
+when I meet with one; but it would not answer my purpose, it would not\r
+do for the field. I would give any money for a real good hunter. I\r
+have three now, the best that ever were backed. I would not take\r
+eight hundred guineas for them. Fletcher and I mean to get a house in\r
+Leicestershire, against the next season. It is so d--uncomfortable,\r
+living at an inn."\r
+\r
+This was the last sentence by which he could weary Catherine's\r
+attention, for he was just then borne off by the resistless pressure of\r
+a long string of passing ladies. Her partner now drew near, and said,\r
+"That gentleman would have put me out of patience, had he stayed with\r
+you half a minute longer. He has no business to withdraw the attention\r
+of my partner from me. We have entered into a contract of mutual\r
+agreeableness for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness\r
+belongs solely to each other for that time. Nobody can fasten themselves\r
+on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the other.\r
+I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and\r
+complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not\r
+choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners\r
+or wives of their neighbours."\r
+\r
+"But they are such very different things!"\r
+\r
+"--That you think they cannot be compared together."\r
+\r
+"To be sure not. People that marry can never part, but must go and keep\r
+house together. People that dance only stand opposite each other in a\r
+long room for half an hour."\r
+\r
+"And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that\r
+light certainly, their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could\r
+place them in such a view. You will allow, that in both, man has the\r
+advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both,\r
+it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of\r
+each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each\r
+other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each\r
+to endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had\r
+bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own\r
+imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbours,\r
+or fancying that they should have been better off with anyone else. You\r
+will allow all this?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well; but still\r
+they are so very different. I cannot look upon them at all in the same\r
+light, nor think the same duties belong to them."\r
+\r
+"In one respect, there certainly is a difference. In marriage, the man\r
+is supposed to provide for the support of the woman, the woman to make\r
+the home agreeable to the man; he is to purvey, and she is to smile.\r
+But in dancing, their duties are exactly changed; the agreeableness, the\r
+compliance are expected from him, while she furnishes the fan and the\r
+lavender water. That, I suppose, was the difference of duties which\r
+struck you, as rendering the conditions incapable of comparison."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I never thought of that."\r
+\r
+"Then I am quite at a loss. One thing, however, I must observe. This\r
+disposition on your side is rather alarming. You totally disallow any\r
+similarity in the obligations; and may I not thence infer that your\r
+notions of the duties of the dancing state are not so strict as your\r
+partner might wish? Have I not reason to fear that if the gentleman who\r
+spoke to you just now were to return, or if any other gentleman were to\r
+address you, there would be nothing to restrain you from conversing with\r
+him as long as you chose?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Thorpe is such a very particular friend of my brother's, that if he\r
+talks to me, I must talk to him again; but there are hardly three young\r
+men in the room besides him that I have any acquaintance with."\r
+\r
+"And is that to be my only security? Alas, alas!"\r
+\r
+"Nay, I am sure you cannot have a better; for if I do not know anybody,\r
+it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I do not want to\r
+talk to anybody."\r
+\r
+"Now you have given me a security worth having; and I shall proceed\r
+with courage. Do you find Bath as agreeable as when I had the honour of\r
+making the inquiry before?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, quite--more so, indeed."\r
+\r
+"More so! Take care, or you will forget to be tired of it at the proper\r
+time. You ought to be tired at the end of six weeks."\r
+\r
+"I do not think I should be tired, if I were to stay here six months."\r
+\r
+"Bath, compared with London, has little variety, and so everybody finds\r
+out every year. 'For six weeks, I allow Bath is pleasant enough; but\r
+beyond that, it is the most tiresome place in the world.' You would be\r
+told so by people of all descriptions, who come regularly every winter,\r
+lengthen their six weeks into ten or twelve, and go away at last because\r
+they can afford to stay no longer."\r
+\r
+"Well, other people must judge for themselves, and those who go to\r
+London may think nothing of Bath. But I, who live in a small retired\r
+village in the country, can never find greater sameness in such a place\r
+as this than in my own home; for here are a variety of amusements, a\r
+variety of things to be seen and done all day long, which I can know\r
+nothing of there."\r
+\r
+"You are not fond of the country."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I am. I have always lived there, and always been very happy. But\r
+certainly there is much more sameness in a country life than in a Bath\r
+life. One day in the country is exactly like another."\r
+\r
+"But then you spend your time so much more rationally in the country."\r
+\r
+"Do I?"\r
+\r
+"Do you not?"\r
+\r
+"I do not believe there is much difference."\r
+\r
+"Here you are in pursuit only of amusement all day long."\r
+\r
+"And so I am at home--only I do not find so much of it. I walk about\r
+here, and so I do there; but here I see a variety of people in every\r
+street, and there I can only go and call on Mrs. Allen."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tilney was very much amused.\r
+\r
+"Only go and call on Mrs. Allen!" he repeated. "What a picture of\r
+intellectual poverty! However, when you sink into this abyss again, you\r
+will have more to say. You will be able to talk of Bath, and of all that\r
+you did here."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Yes. I shall never be in want of something to talk of again to Mrs.\r
+Allen, or anybody else. I really believe I shall always be talking of\r
+Bath, when I am at home again--I do like it so very much. If I could but\r
+have Papa and Mamma, and the rest of them here, I suppose I should be\r
+too happy! James's coming (my eldest brother) is quite delightful--and\r
+especially as it turns out that the very family we are just got so\r
+intimate with are his intimate friends already. Oh! Who can ever be\r
+tired of Bath?"\r
+\r
+"Not those who bring such fresh feelings of every sort to it as you do.\r
+But papas and mammas, and brothers, and intimate friends are a good deal\r
+gone by, to most of the frequenters of Bath--and the honest relish of\r
+balls and plays, and everyday sights, is past with them." Here\r
+their conversation closed, the demands of the dance becoming now too\r
+importunate for a divided attention.\r
+\r
+Soon after their reaching the bottom of the set, Catherine perceived\r
+herself to be earnestly regarded by a gentleman who stood among the\r
+lookers-on, immediately behind her partner. He was a very handsome man,\r
+of a commanding aspect, past the bloom, but not past the vigour of\r
+life; and with his eye still directed towards her, she saw him presently\r
+address Mr. Tilney in a familiar whisper. Confused by his notice, and\r
+blushing from the fear of its being excited by something wrong in\r
+her appearance, she turned away her head. But while she did so, the\r
+gentleman retreated, and her partner, coming nearer, said, "I see that\r
+you guess what I have just been asked. That gentleman knows your name,\r
+and you have a right to know his. It is General Tilney, my father."\r
+\r
+Catherine's answer was only "Oh!"--but it was an "Oh!" expressing\r
+everything needful: attention to his words, and perfect reliance on\r
+their truth. With real interest and strong admiration did her eye now\r
+follow the general, as he moved through the crowd, and "How handsome a\r
+family they are!" was her secret remark.\r
+\r
+In chatting with Miss Tilney before the evening concluded, a new source\r
+of felicity arose to her. She had never taken a country walk since\r
+her arrival in Bath. Miss Tilney, to whom all the commonly frequented\r
+environs were familiar, spoke of them in terms which made her all\r
+eagerness to know them too; and on her openly fearing that she might\r
+find nobody to go with her, it was proposed by the brother and sister\r
+that they should join in a walk, some morning or other. "I shall like\r
+it," she cried, "beyond anything in the world; and do not let us put\r
+it off--let us go tomorrow." This was readily agreed to, with only a\r
+proviso of Miss Tilney's, that it did not rain, which Catherine was sure\r
+it would not. At twelve o'clock, they were to call for her in Pulteney\r
+Street; and "Remember--twelve o'clock," was her parting speech to\r
+her new friend. Of her other, her older, her more established friend,\r
+Isabella, of whose fidelity and worth she had enjoyed a fortnight's\r
+experience, she scarcely saw anything during the evening. Yet, though\r
+longing to make her acquainted with her happiness, she cheerfully\r
+submitted to the wish of Mr. Allen, which took them rather early away,\r
+and her spirits danced within her, as she danced in her chair all the\r
+way home.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 11\r
+\r
+\r
+The morrow brought a very sober-looking morning, the sun making only\r
+a few efforts to appear, and Catherine augured from it everything most\r
+favourable to her wishes. A bright morning so early in the year,\r
+she allowed, would generally turn to rain, but a cloudy one foretold\r
+improvement as the day advanced. She applied to Mr. Allen for\r
+confirmation of her hopes, but Mr. Allen, not having his own skies and\r
+barometer about him, declined giving any absolute promise of sunshine.\r
+She applied to Mrs. Allen, and Mrs. Allen's opinion was more positive.\r
+"She had no doubt in the world of its being a very fine day, if the\r
+clouds would only go off, and the sun keep out."\r
+\r
+At about eleven o'clock, however, a few specks of small rain upon the\r
+windows caught Catherine's watchful eye, and "Oh! dear, I do believe it\r
+will be wet," broke from her in a most desponding tone.\r
+\r
+"I thought how it would be," said Mrs. Allen.\r
+\r
+"No walk for me today," sighed Catherine; "but perhaps it may come to\r
+nothing, or it may hold up before twelve."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps it may, but then, my dear, it will be so dirty."\r
+\r
+"Oh! That will not signify; I never mind dirt."\r
+\r
+"No," replied her friend very placidly, "I know you never mind dirt."\r
+\r
+After a short pause, "It comes on faster and faster!" said Catherine, as\r
+she stood watching at a window.\r
+\r
+"So it does indeed. If it keeps raining, the streets will be very wet."\r
+\r
+"There are four umbrellas up already. How I hate the sight of an\r
+umbrella!"\r
+\r
+"They are disagreeable things to carry. I would much rather take a chair\r
+at any time."\r
+\r
+"It was such a nice-looking morning! I felt so convinced it would be\r
+dry!"\r
+\r
+"Anybody would have thought so indeed. There will be very few people in\r
+the pump-room, if it rains all the morning. I hope Mr. Allen will put\r
+on his greatcoat when he goes, but I dare say he will not, for he had\r
+rather do anything in the world than walk out in a greatcoat; I wonder\r
+he should dislike it, it must be so comfortable."\r
+\r
+The rain continued--fast, though not heavy. Catherine went every five\r
+minutes to the clock, threatening on each return that, if it still\r
+kept on raining another five minutes, she would give up the matter as\r
+hopeless. The clock struck twelve, and it still rained. "You will not be\r
+able to go, my dear."\r
+\r
+"I do not quite despair yet. I shall not give it up till a quarter after\r
+twelve. This is just the time of day for it to clear up, and I do think\r
+it looks a little lighter. There, it is twenty minutes after twelve, and\r
+now I shall give it up entirely. Oh! That we had such weather here\r
+as they had at Udolpho, or at least in Tuscany and the south of\r
+France!--the night that poor St. Aubin died!--such beautiful weather!"\r
+\r
+At half past twelve, when Catherine's anxious attention to the weather\r
+was over and she could no longer claim any merit from its amendment, the\r
+sky began voluntarily to clear. A gleam of sunshine took her quite by\r
+surprise; she looked round; the clouds were parting, and she instantly\r
+returned to the window to watch over and encourage the happy appearance.\r
+Ten minutes more made it certain that a bright afternoon would succeed,\r
+and justified the opinion of Mrs. Allen, who had "always thought it\r
+would clear up." But whether Catherine might still expect her friends,\r
+whether there had not been too much rain for Miss Tilney to venture,\r
+must yet be a question.\r
+\r
+It was too dirty for Mrs. Allen to accompany her husband to the\r
+pump-room; he accordingly set off by himself, and Catherine had barely\r
+watched him down the street when her notice was claimed by the approach\r
+of the same two open carriages, containing the same three people that\r
+had surprised her so much a few mornings back.\r
+\r
+"Isabella, my brother, and Mr. Thorpe, I declare! They are coming for\r
+me perhaps--but I shall not go--I cannot go indeed, for you know Miss\r
+Tilney may still call." Mrs. Allen agreed to it. John Thorpe was soon\r
+with them, and his voice was with them yet sooner, for on the stairs he\r
+was calling out to Miss Morland to be quick. "Make haste! Make haste!"\r
+as he threw open the door. "Put on your hat this moment--there is no\r
+time to be lost--we are going to Bristol. How d'ye do, Mrs. Allen?"\r
+\r
+"To Bristol! Is not that a great way off? But, however, I cannot go with\r
+you today, because I am engaged; I expect some friends every moment."\r
+This was of course vehemently talked down as no reason at all; Mrs.\r
+Allen was called on to second him, and the two others walked in, to give\r
+their assistance. "My sweetest Catherine, is not this delightful? We\r
+shall have a most heavenly drive. You are to thank your brother and me\r
+for the scheme; it darted into our heads at breakfast-time, I verily\r
+believe at the same instant; and we should have been off two hours ago\r
+if it had not been for this detestable rain. But it does not signify,\r
+the nights are moonlight, and we shall do delightfully. Oh! I am in such\r
+ecstasies at the thoughts of a little country air and quiet! So much\r
+better than going to the Lower Rooms. We shall drive directly to Clifton\r
+and dine there; and, as soon as dinner is over, if there is time for it,\r
+go on to Kingsweston."\r
+\r
+"I doubt our being able to do so much," said Morland.\r
+\r
+"You croaking fellow!" cried Thorpe. "We shall be able to do ten times\r
+more. Kingsweston! Aye, and Blaize Castle too, and anything else we can\r
+hear of; but here is your sister says she will not go."\r
+\r
+"Blaize Castle!" cried Catherine. "What is that?"\r
+\r
+"The finest place in England--worth going fifty miles at any time to\r
+see."\r
+\r
+"What, is it really a castle, an old castle?"\r
+\r
+"The oldest in the kingdom."\r
+\r
+"But is it like what one reads of?"\r
+\r
+"Exactly--the very same."\r
+\r
+"But now really--are there towers and long galleries?"\r
+\r
+"By dozens."\r
+\r
+"Then I should like to see it; but I cannot--I cannot go."\r
+\r
+"Not go! My beloved creature, what do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot go, because"--looking down as she spoke, fearful of Isabella's\r
+smile--"I expect Miss Tilney and her brother to call on me to take a\r
+country walk. They promised to come at twelve, only it rained; but now,\r
+as it is so fine, I dare say they will be here soon."\r
+\r
+"Not they indeed," cried Thorpe; "for, as we turned into Broad Street, I\r
+saw them--does he not drive a phaeton with bright chestnuts?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know indeed."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know he does; I saw him. You are talking of the man you danced\r
+with last night, are not you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Well, I saw him at that moment turn up the Lansdown Road, driving a\r
+smart-looking girl."\r
+\r
+"Did you indeed?"\r
+\r
+"Did upon my soul; knew him again directly, and he seemed to have got\r
+some very pretty cattle too."\r
+\r
+"It is very odd! But I suppose they thought it would be too dirty for a\r
+walk."\r
+\r
+"And well they might, for I never saw so much dirt in my life. Walk!\r
+You could no more walk than you could fly! It has not been so dirty the\r
+whole winter; it is ankle-deep everywhere."\r
+\r
+Isabella corroborated it: "My dearest Catherine, you cannot form an idea\r
+of the dirt; come, you must go; you cannot refuse going now."\r
+\r
+"I should like to see the castle; but may we go all over it? May we go\r
+up every staircase, and into every suite of rooms?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, every hole and corner."\r
+\r
+"But then, if they should only be gone out for an hour till it is dryer,\r
+and call by and by?"\r
+\r
+"Make yourself easy, there is no danger of that, for I heard Tilney\r
+hallooing to a man who was just passing by on horseback, that they were\r
+going as far as Wick Rocks."\r
+\r
+"Then I will. Shall I go, Mrs. Allen?"\r
+\r
+"Just as you please, my dear."\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Allen, you must persuade her to go," was the general cry. Mrs.\r
+Allen was not inattentive to it: "Well, my dear," said she, "suppose you\r
+go." And in two minutes they were off.\r
+\r
+Catherine's feelings, as she got into the carriage, were in a very\r
+unsettled state; divided between regret for the loss of one great\r
+pleasure, and the hope of soon enjoying another, almost its equal in\r
+degree, however unlike in kind. She could not think the Tilneys had\r
+acted quite well by her, in so readily giving up their engagement,\r
+without sending her any message of excuse. It was now but an hour later\r
+than the time fixed on for the beginning of their walk; and, in spite of\r
+what she had heard of the prodigious accumulation of dirt in the course\r
+of that hour, she could not from her own observation help thinking that\r
+they might have gone with very little inconvenience. To feel herself\r
+slighted by them was very painful. On the other hand, the delight of\r
+exploring an edifice like Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize\r
+Castle to be, was such a counterpoise of good as might console her for\r
+almost anything.\r
+\r
+They passed briskly down Pulteney Street, and through Laura Place,\r
+without the exchange of many words. Thorpe talked to his horse, and she\r
+meditated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons\r
+and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors. As they entered Argyle\r
+Buildings, however, she was roused by this address from her companion,\r
+"Who is that girl who looked at you so hard as she went by?"\r
+\r
+"Who? Where?"\r
+\r
+"On the right-hand pavement--she must be almost out of sight now."\r
+Catherine looked round and saw Miss Tilney leaning on her brother's arm,\r
+walking slowly down the street. She saw them both looking back at her.\r
+"Stop, stop, Mr. Thorpe," she impatiently cried; "it is Miss Tilney; it\r
+is indeed. How could you tell me they were gone? Stop, stop, I will\r
+get out this moment and go to them." But to what purpose did she speak?\r
+Thorpe only lashed his horse into a brisker trot; the Tilneys, who had\r
+soon ceased to look after her, were in a moment out of sight round the\r
+corner of Laura Place, and in another moment she was herself whisked\r
+into the marketplace. Still, however, and during the length of another\r
+street, she entreated him to stop. "Pray, pray stop, Mr. Thorpe. I\r
+cannot go on. I will not go on. I must go back to Miss Tilney." But Mr.\r
+Thorpe only laughed, smacked his whip, encouraged his horse, made odd\r
+noises, and drove on; and Catherine, angry and vexed as she was, having\r
+no power of getting away, was obliged to give up the point and submit.\r
+Her reproaches, however, were not spared. "How could you deceive me so,\r
+Mr. Thorpe? How could you say that you saw them driving up the Lansdown\r
+Road? I would not have had it happen so for the world. They must think\r
+it so strange, so rude of me! To go by them, too, without saying a word!\r
+You do not know how vexed I am; I shall have no pleasure at Clifton, nor\r
+in anything else. I had rather, ten thousand times rather, get out now,\r
+and walk back to them. How could you say you saw them driving out in a\r
+phaeton?" Thorpe defended himself very stoutly, declared he had never\r
+seen two men so much alike in his life, and would hardly give up the\r
+point of its having been Tilney himself.\r
+\r
+Their drive, even when this subject was over, was not likely to be very\r
+agreeable. Catherine's complaisance was no longer what it had been in\r
+their former airing. She listened reluctantly, and her replies were\r
+short. Blaize Castle remained her only comfort; towards that, she still\r
+looked at intervals with pleasure; though rather than be disappointed of\r
+the promised walk, and especially rather than be thought ill of by the\r
+Tilneys, she would willingly have given up all the happiness which its\r
+walls could supply--the happiness of a progress through a long suite of\r
+lofty rooms, exhibiting the remains of magnificent furniture, though\r
+now for many years deserted--the happiness of being stopped in their way\r
+along narrow, winding vaults, by a low, grated door; or even of having\r
+their lamp, their only lamp, extinguished by a sudden gust of wind, and\r
+of being left in total darkness. In the meanwhile, they proceeded on\r
+their journey without any mischance, and were within view of the town\r
+of Keynsham, when a halloo from Morland, who was behind them, made his\r
+friend pull up, to know what was the matter. The others then came close\r
+enough for conversation, and Morland said, "We had better go back,\r
+Thorpe; it is too late to go on today; your sister thinks so as well as\r
+I. We have been exactly an hour coming from Pulteney Street, very little\r
+more than seven miles; and, I suppose, we have at least eight more to\r
+go. It will never do. We set out a great deal too late. We had much\r
+better put it off till another day, and turn round."\r
+\r
+"It is all one to me," replied Thorpe rather angrily; and instantly\r
+turning his horse, they were on their way back to Bath.\r
+\r
+"If your brother had not got such a d--beast to drive," said he soon\r
+afterwards, "we might have done it very well. My horse would have\r
+trotted to Clifton within the hour, if left to himself, and I have\r
+almost broke my arm with pulling him in to that cursed broken-winded\r
+jade's pace. Morland is a fool for not keeping a horse and gig of his\r
+own."\r
+\r
+"No, he is not," said Catherine warmly, "for I am sure he could not\r
+afford it."\r
+\r
+"And why cannot he afford it?"\r
+\r
+"Because he has not money enough."\r
+\r
+"And whose fault is that?"\r
+\r
+"Nobody's, that I know of." Thorpe then said something in the loud,\r
+incoherent way to which he had often recourse, about its being a\r
+d--thing to be miserly; and that if people who rolled in money could not\r
+afford things, he did not know who could, which Catherine did not even\r
+endeavour to understand. Disappointed of what was to have been the\r
+consolation for her first disappointment, she was less and less disposed\r
+either to be agreeable herself or to find her companion so; and they\r
+returned to Pulteney Street without her speaking twenty words.\r
+\r
+As she entered the house, the footman told her that a gentleman and lady\r
+had called and inquired for her a few minutes after her setting off;\r
+that, when he told them she was gone out with Mr. Thorpe, the lady had\r
+asked whether any message had been left for her; and on his saying no,\r
+had felt for a card, but said she had none about her, and went away.\r
+Pondering over these heart-rending tidings, Catherine walked slowly\r
+upstairs. At the head of them she was met by Mr. Allen, who, on hearing\r
+the reason of their speedy return, said, "I am glad your brother had so\r
+much sense; I am glad you are come back. It was a strange, wild scheme."\r
+\r
+They all spent the evening together at Thorpe's. Catherine was disturbed\r
+and out of spirits; but Isabella seemed to find a pool of commerce, in\r
+the fate of which she shared, by private partnership with Morland, a\r
+very good equivalent for the quiet and country air of an inn at Clifton.\r
+Her satisfaction, too, in not being at the Lower Rooms was spoken more\r
+than once. "How I pity the poor creatures that are going there! How glad\r
+I am that I am not amongst them! I wonder whether it will be a full ball\r
+or not! They have not begun dancing yet. I would not be there for\r
+all the world. It is so delightful to have an evening now and then\r
+to oneself. I dare say it will not be a very good ball. I know the\r
+Mitchells will not be there. I am sure I pity everybody that is. But I\r
+dare say, Mr. Morland, you long to be at it, do not you? I am sure you\r
+do. Well, pray do not let anybody here be a restraint on you. I dare say\r
+we could do very well without you; but you men think yourselves of such\r
+consequence."\r
+\r
+Catherine could almost have accused Isabella of being wanting in\r
+tenderness towards herself and her sorrows, so very little did they\r
+appear to dwell on her mind, and so very inadequate was the comfort she\r
+offered. "Do not be so dull, my dearest creature," she whispered. "You\r
+will quite break my heart. It was amazingly shocking, to be sure; but\r
+the Tilneys were entirely to blame. Why were not they more punctual?\r
+It was dirty, indeed, but what did that signify? I am sure John and I\r
+should not have minded it. I never mind going through anything, where a\r
+friend is concerned; that is my disposition, and John is just the same;\r
+he has amazing strong feelings. Good heavens! What a delightful hand you\r
+have got! Kings, I vow! I never was so happy in my life! I would fifty\r
+times rather you should have them than myself."\r
+\r
+And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the\r
+true heroine's portion; to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with\r
+tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's\r
+rest in the course of the next three months.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 12\r
+\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Allen," said Catherine the next morning, "will there be any harm\r
+in my calling on Miss Tilney today? I shall not be easy till I have\r
+explained everything."\r
+\r
+"Go, by all means, my dear; only put on a white gown; Miss Tilney always\r
+wears white."\r
+\r
+Catherine cheerfully complied, and being properly equipped, was more\r
+impatient than ever to be at the pump-room, that she might inform\r
+herself of General Tilney's lodgings, for though she believed they were\r
+in Milsom Street, she was not certain of the house, and Mrs. Allen's\r
+wavering convictions only made it more doubtful. To Milsom Street she\r
+was directed, and having made herself perfect in the number, hastened\r
+away with eager steps and a beating heart to pay her visit, explain her\r
+conduct, and be forgiven; tripping lightly through the church-yard, and\r
+resolutely turning away her eyes, that she might not be obliged to\r
+see her beloved Isabella and her dear family, who, she had reason to\r
+believe, were in a shop hard by. She reached the house without any\r
+impediment, looked at the number, knocked at the door, and inquired for\r
+Miss Tilney. The man believed Miss Tilney to be at home, but was not\r
+quite certain. Would she be pleased to send up her name? She gave her\r
+card. In a few minutes the servant returned, and with a look which did\r
+not quite confirm his words, said he had been mistaken, for that Miss\r
+Tilney was walked out. Catherine, with a blush of mortification, left\r
+the house. She felt almost persuaded that Miss Tilney was at home, and\r
+too much offended to admit her; and as she retired down the street,\r
+could not withhold one glance at the drawing-room windows, in\r
+expectation of seeing her there, but no one appeared at them. At the\r
+bottom of the street, however, she looked back again, and then, not at a\r
+window, but issuing from the door, she saw Miss Tilney herself. She was\r
+followed by a gentleman, whom Catherine believed to be her father,\r
+and they turned up towards Edgar's Buildings. Catherine, in deep\r
+mortification, proceeded on her way. She could almost be angry herself\r
+at such angry incivility; but she checked the resentful sensation; she\r
+remembered her own ignorance. She knew not how such an offence as hers\r
+might be classed by the laws of worldly politeness, to what a degree\r
+of unforgivingness it might with propriety lead, nor to what rigours of\r
+rudeness in return it might justly make her amenable.\r
+\r
+Dejected and humbled, she had even some thoughts of not going with the\r
+others to the theatre that night; but it must be confessed that they\r
+were not of long continuance, for she soon recollected, in the first\r
+place, that she was without any excuse for staying at home; and, in the\r
+second, that it was a play she wanted very much to see. To the theatre\r
+accordingly they all went; no Tilneys appeared to plague or please her;\r
+she feared that, amongst the many perfections of the family, a fondness\r
+for plays was not to be ranked; but perhaps it was because they were\r
+habituated to the finer performances of the London stage, which she\r
+knew, on Isabella's authority, rendered everything else of the kind\r
+"quite horrid." She was not deceived in her own expectation of pleasure;\r
+the comedy so well suspended her care that no one, observing her during\r
+the first four acts, would have supposed she had any wretchedness about\r
+her. On the beginning of the fifth, however, the sudden view of Mr.\r
+Henry Tilney and his father, joining a party in the opposite box,\r
+recalled her to anxiety and distress. The stage could no longer excite\r
+genuine merriment--no longer keep her whole attention. Every other look\r
+upon an average was directed towards the opposite box; and, for the\r
+space of two entire scenes, did she thus watch Henry Tilney, without\r
+being once able to catch his eye. No longer could he be suspected of\r
+indifference for a play; his notice was never withdrawn from the stage\r
+during two whole scenes. At length, however, he did look towards her,\r
+and he bowed--but such a bow! No smile, no continued observance attended\r
+it; his eyes were immediately returned to their former direction.\r
+Catherine was restlessly miserable; she could almost have run round to\r
+the box in which he sat and forced him to hear her explanation. Feelings\r
+rather natural than heroic possessed her; instead of considering her\r
+own dignity injured by this ready condemnation--instead of proudly\r
+resolving, in conscious innocence, to show her resentment towards him\r
+who could harbour a doubt of it, to leave to him all the trouble\r
+of seeking an explanation, and to enlighten him on the past only by\r
+avoiding his sight, or flirting with somebody else--she took to herself\r
+all the shame of misconduct, or at least of its appearance, and was only\r
+eager for an opportunity of explaining its cause.\r
+\r
+The play concluded--the curtain fell--Henry Tilney was no longer to be\r
+seen where he had hitherto sat, but his father remained, and perhaps he\r
+might be now coming round to their box. She was right; in a few minutes\r
+he appeared, and, making his way through the then thinning rows, spoke\r
+with like calm politeness to Mrs. Allen and her friend. Not with such\r
+calmness was he answered by the latter: "Oh! Mr. Tilney, I have been\r
+quite wild to speak to you, and make my apologies. You must have thought\r
+me so rude; but indeed it was not my own fault, was it, Mrs. Allen?\r
+Did not they tell me that Mr. Tilney and his sister were gone out in a\r
+phaeton together? And then what could I do? But I had ten thousand times\r
+rather have been with you; now had not I, Mrs. Allen?"\r
+\r
+"My dear, you tumble my gown," was Mrs. Allen's reply.\r
+\r
+Her assurance, however, standing sole as it did, was not thrown away; it\r
+brought a more cordial, more natural smile into his countenance, and\r
+he replied in a tone which retained only a little affected reserve:\r
+"We were much obliged to you at any rate for wishing us a pleasant walk\r
+after our passing you in Argyle Street: you were so kind as to look back\r
+on purpose."\r
+\r
+"But indeed I did not wish you a pleasant walk; I never thought of such\r
+a thing; but I begged Mr. Thorpe so earnestly to stop; I called out to\r
+him as soon as ever I saw you; now, Mrs. Allen, did not--Oh! You were\r
+not there; but indeed I did; and, if Mr. Thorpe would only have stopped,\r
+I would have jumped out and run after you."\r
+\r
+Is there a Henry in the world who could be insensible to such a\r
+declaration? Henry Tilney at least was not. With a yet sweeter smile, he\r
+said everything that need be said of his sister's concern, regret, and\r
+dependence on Catherine's honour. "Oh! Do not say Miss Tilney was not\r
+angry," cried Catherine, "because I know she was; for she would not see\r
+me this morning when I called; I saw her walk out of the house the next\r
+minute after my leaving it; I was hurt, but I was not affronted. Perhaps\r
+you did not know I had been there."\r
+\r
+"I was not within at the time; but I heard of it from Eleanor, and she\r
+has been wishing ever since to see you, to explain the reason of such\r
+incivility; but perhaps I can do it as well. It was nothing more than\r
+that my father--they were just preparing to walk out, and he being\r
+hurried for time, and not caring to have it put off--made a point of her\r
+being denied. That was all, I do assure you. She was very much vexed,\r
+and meant to make her apology as soon as possible."\r
+\r
+Catherine's mind was greatly eased by this information, yet a something\r
+of solicitude remained, from which sprang the following question,\r
+thoroughly artless in itself, though rather distressing to the\r
+gentleman: "But, Mr. Tilney, why were you less generous than your\r
+sister? If she felt such confidence in my good intentions, and could\r
+suppose it to be only a mistake, why should you be so ready to take\r
+offence?"\r
+\r
+"Me! I take offence!"\r
+\r
+"Nay, I am sure by your look, when you came into the box, you were\r
+angry."\r
+\r
+"I angry! I could have no right."\r
+\r
+"Well, nobody would have thought you had no right who saw your face." He\r
+replied by asking her to make room for him, and talking of the play.\r
+\r
+He remained with them some time, and was only too agreeable for\r
+Catherine to be contented when he went away. Before they parted,\r
+however, it was agreed that the projected walk should be taken as soon\r
+as possible; and, setting aside the misery of his quitting their box,\r
+she was, upon the whole, left one of the happiest creatures in the\r
+world.\r
+\r
+While talking to each other, she had observed with some surprise that\r
+John Thorpe, who was never in the same part of the house for ten minutes\r
+together, was engaged in conversation with General Tilney; and she felt\r
+something more than surprise when she thought she could perceive herself\r
+the object of their attention and discourse. What could they have to say\r
+of her? She feared General Tilney did not like her appearance: she found\r
+it was implied in his preventing her admittance to his daughter, rather\r
+than postpone his own walk a few minutes. "How came Mr. Thorpe to know\r
+your father?" was her anxious inquiry, as she pointed them out to her\r
+companion. He knew nothing about it; but his father, like every military\r
+man, had a very large acquaintance.\r
+\r
+When the entertainment was over, Thorpe came to assist them in getting\r
+out. Catherine was the immediate object of his gallantry; and, while\r
+they waited in the lobby for a chair, he prevented the inquiry which had\r
+travelled from her heart almost to the tip of her tongue, by asking, in\r
+a consequential manner, whether she had seen him talking with General\r
+Tilney: "He is a fine old fellow, upon my soul! Stout, active--looks\r
+as young as his son. I have a great regard for him, I assure you: a\r
+gentleman-like, good sort of fellow as ever lived."\r
+\r
+"But how came you to know him?"\r
+\r
+"Know him! There are few people much about town that I do not know. I\r
+have met him forever at the Bedford; and I knew his face again today the\r
+moment he came into the billiard-room. One of the best players we have,\r
+by the by; and we had a little touch together, though I was almost\r
+afraid of him at first: the odds were five to four against me; and, if\r
+I had not made one of the cleanest strokes that perhaps ever was made in\r
+this world--I took his ball exactly--but I could not make you understand\r
+it without a table; however, I did beat him. A very fine fellow; as rich\r
+as a Jew. I should like to dine with him; I dare say he gives famous\r
+dinners. But what do you think we have been talking of? You. Yes, by\r
+heavens! And the general thinks you the finest girl in Bath."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Nonsense! How can you say so?"\r
+\r
+"And what do you think I said?"--lowering his voice--"well done,\r
+general, said I; I am quite of your mind."\r
+\r
+Here Catherine, who was much less gratified by his admiration than by\r
+General Tilney's, was not sorry to be called away by Mr. Allen. Thorpe,\r
+however, would see her to her chair, and, till she entered it, continued\r
+the same kind of delicate flattery, in spite of her entreating him to\r
+have done.\r
+\r
+That General Tilney, instead of disliking, should admire her, was very\r
+delightful; and she joyfully thought that there was not one of the\r
+family whom she need now fear to meet. The evening had done more, much\r
+more, for her than could have been expected.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 13\r
+\r
+\r
+Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday have now\r
+passed in review before the reader; the events of each day, its hopes\r
+and fears, mortifications and pleasures, have been separately stated,\r
+and the pangs of Sunday only now remain to be described, and close the\r
+week. The Clifton scheme had been deferred, not relinquished, and on\r
+the afternoon's Crescent of this day, it was brought forward again. In a\r
+private consultation between Isabella and James, the former of whom had\r
+particularly set her heart upon going, and the latter no less anxiously\r
+placed his upon pleasing her, it was agreed that, provided the weather\r
+were fair, the party should take place on the following morning; and\r
+they were to set off very early, in order to be at home in good time.\r
+The affair thus determined, and Thorpe's approbation secured, Catherine\r
+only remained to be apprised of it. She had left them for a few minutes\r
+to speak to Miss Tilney. In that interval the plan was completed, and as\r
+soon as she came again, her agreement was demanded; but instead of the\r
+gay acquiescence expected by Isabella, Catherine looked grave, was very\r
+sorry, but could not go. The engagement which ought to have kept her\r
+from joining in the former attempt would make it impossible for her to\r
+accompany them now. She had that moment settled with Miss Tilney to take\r
+their proposed walk tomorrow; it was quite determined, and she would\r
+not, upon any account, retract. But that she must and should retract\r
+was instantly the eager cry of both the Thorpes; they must go to Clifton\r
+tomorrow, they would not go without her, it would be nothing to put off\r
+a mere walk for one day longer, and they would not hear of a refusal.\r
+Catherine was distressed, but not subdued. "Do not urge me, Isabella. I\r
+am engaged to Miss Tilney. I cannot go." This availed nothing. The same\r
+arguments assailed her again; she must go, she should go, and they would\r
+not hear of a refusal. "It would be so easy to tell Miss Tilney that you\r
+had just been reminded of a prior engagement, and must only beg to put\r
+off the walk till Tuesday."\r
+\r
+"No, it would not be easy. I could not do it. There has been no prior\r
+engagement." But Isabella became only more and more urgent, calling\r
+on her in the most affectionate manner, addressing her by the most\r
+endearing names. She was sure her dearest, sweetest Catherine would not\r
+seriously refuse such a trifling request to a friend who loved her so\r
+dearly. She knew her beloved Catherine to have so feeling a heart, so\r
+sweet a temper, to be so easily persuaded by those she loved. But all\r
+in vain; Catherine felt herself to be in the right, and though pained\r
+by such tender, such flattering supplication, could not allow it to\r
+influence her. Isabella then tried another method. She reproached her\r
+with having more affection for Miss Tilney, though she had known her so\r
+little a while, than for her best and oldest friends, with being grown\r
+cold and indifferent, in short, towards herself. "I cannot help being\r
+jealous, Catherine, when I see myself slighted for strangers, I, who\r
+love you so excessively! When once my affections are placed, it is not\r
+in the power of anything to change them. But I believe my feelings are\r
+stronger than anybody's; I am sure they are too strong for my own peace;\r
+and to see myself supplanted in your friendship by strangers does cut me\r
+to the quick, I own. These Tilneys seem to swallow up everything else."\r
+\r
+Catherine thought this reproach equally strange and unkind. Was it the\r
+part of a friend thus to expose her feelings to the notice of others?\r
+Isabella appeared to her ungenerous and selfish, regardless of\r
+everything but her own gratification. These painful ideas crossed her\r
+mind, though she said nothing. Isabella, in the meanwhile, had applied\r
+her handkerchief to her eyes; and Morland, miserable at such a sight,\r
+could not help saying, "Nay, Catherine. I think you cannot stand out any\r
+longer now. The sacrifice is not much; and to oblige such a friend--I\r
+shall think you quite unkind, if you still refuse."\r
+\r
+This was the first time of her brother's openly siding against her, and\r
+anxious to avoid his displeasure, she proposed a compromise. If they\r
+would only put off their scheme till Tuesday, which they might easily\r
+do, as it depended only on themselves, she could go with them, and\r
+everybody might then be satisfied. But "No, no, no!" was the immediate\r
+answer; "that could not be, for Thorpe did not know that he might not\r
+go to town on Tuesday." Catherine was sorry, but could do no more; and\r
+a short silence ensued, which was broken by Isabella, who in a voice of\r
+cold resentment said, "Very well, then there is an end of the party.\r
+If Catherine does not go, I cannot. I cannot be the only woman. I would\r
+not, upon any account in the world, do so improper a thing."\r
+\r
+"Catherine, you must go," said James.\r
+\r
+"But why cannot Mr. Thorpe drive one of his other sisters? I dare say\r
+either of them would like to go."\r
+\r
+"Thank ye," cried Thorpe, "but I did not come to Bath to drive my\r
+sisters about, and look like a fool. No, if you do not go, d---- me if I\r
+do. I only go for the sake of driving you."\r
+\r
+"That is a compliment which gives me no pleasure." But her words were\r
+lost on Thorpe, who had turned abruptly away.\r
+\r
+The three others still continued together, walking in a most\r
+uncomfortable manner to poor Catherine; sometimes not a word was said,\r
+sometimes she was again attacked with supplications or reproaches, and\r
+her arm was still linked within Isabella's, though their hearts were\r
+at war. At one moment she was softened, at another irritated; always\r
+distressed, but always steady.\r
+\r
+"I did not think you had been so obstinate, Catherine," said James;\r
+"you were not used to be so hard to persuade; you once were the kindest,\r
+best-tempered of my sisters."\r
+\r
+"I hope I am not less so now," she replied, very feelingly; "but indeed\r
+I cannot go. If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to be right."\r
+\r
+"I suspect," said Isabella, in a low voice, "there is no great\r
+struggle."\r
+\r
+Catherine's heart swelled; she drew away her arm, and Isabella made no\r
+opposition. Thus passed a long ten minutes, till they were again joined\r
+by Thorpe, who, coming to them with a gayer look, said, "Well, I\r
+have settled the matter, and now we may all go tomorrow with a safe\r
+conscience. I have been to Miss Tilney, and made your excuses."\r
+\r
+"You have not!" cried Catherine.\r
+\r
+"I have, upon my soul. Left her this moment. Told her you had sent me to\r
+say that, having just recollected a prior engagement of going to Clifton\r
+with us tomorrow, you could not have the pleasure of walking with her\r
+till Tuesday. She said very well, Tuesday was just as convenient to her;\r
+so there is an end of all our difficulties. A pretty good thought of\r
+mine--hey?"\r
+\r
+Isabella's countenance was once more all smiles and good humour, and\r
+James too looked happy again.\r
+\r
+"A most heavenly thought indeed! Now, my sweet Catherine, all our\r
+distresses are over; you are honourably acquitted, and we shall have a\r
+most delightful party."\r
+\r
+"This will not do," said Catherine; "I cannot submit to this. I must run\r
+after Miss Tilney directly and set her right."\r
+\r
+Isabella, however, caught hold of one hand, Thorpe of the other, and\r
+remonstrances poured in from all three. Even James was quite angry. When\r
+everything was settled, when Miss Tilney herself said that Tuesday would\r
+suit her as well, it was quite ridiculous, quite absurd, to make any\r
+further objection.\r
+\r
+"I do not care. Mr. Thorpe had no business to invent any such message.\r
+If I had thought it right to put it off, I could have spoken to Miss\r
+Tilney myself. This is only doing it in a ruder way; and how do I know\r
+that Mr. Thorpe has--He may be mistaken again perhaps; he led me into\r
+one act of rudeness by his mistake on Friday. Let me go, Mr. Thorpe;\r
+Isabella, do not hold me."\r
+\r
+Thorpe told her it would be in vain to go after the Tilneys; they were\r
+turning the corner into Brock Street, when he had overtaken them, and\r
+were at home by this time.\r
+\r
+"Then I will go after them," said Catherine; "wherever they are I will\r
+go after them. It does not signify talking. If I could not be persuaded\r
+into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it."\r
+And with these words she broke away and hurried off. Thorpe would have\r
+darted after her, but Morland withheld him. "Let her go, let her go, if\r
+she will go."\r
+\r
+"She is as obstinate as--"\r
+\r
+Thorpe never finished the simile, for it could hardly have been a proper\r
+one.\r
+\r
+Away walked Catherine in great agitation, as fast as the crowd would\r
+permit her, fearful of being pursued, yet determined to persevere. As\r
+she walked, she reflected on what had passed. It was painful to her to\r
+disappoint and displease them, particularly to displease her brother;\r
+but she could not repent her resistance. Setting her own inclination\r
+apart, to have failed a second time in her engagement to Miss Tilney, to\r
+have retracted a promise voluntarily made only five minutes before,\r
+and on a false pretence too, must have been wrong. She had not been\r
+withstanding them on selfish principles alone, she had not consulted\r
+merely her own gratification; that might have been ensured in some\r
+degree by the excursion itself, by seeing Blaize Castle; no, she had\r
+attended to what was due to others, and to her own character in their\r
+opinion. Her conviction of being right, however, was not enough to\r
+restore her composure; till she had spoken to Miss Tilney she could not\r
+be at ease; and quickening her pace when she got clear of the Crescent,\r
+she almost ran over the remaining ground till she gained the top of\r
+Milsom Street. So rapid had been her movements that in spite of the\r
+Tilneys' advantage in the outset, they were but just turning into\r
+their lodgings as she came within view of them; and the servant still\r
+remaining at the open door, she used only the ceremony of saying\r
+that she must speak with Miss Tilney that moment, and hurrying by him\r
+proceeded upstairs. Then, opening the first door before her, which\r
+happened to be the right, she immediately found herself in the\r
+drawing-room with General Tilney, his son, and daughter. Her\r
+explanation, defective only in being--from her irritation of nerves and\r
+shortness of breath--no explanation at all, was instantly given. "I am\r
+come in a great hurry--It was all a mistake--I never promised to go--I\r
+told them from the first I could not go.--I ran away in a great hurry\r
+to explain it.--I did not care what you thought of me.--I would not stay\r
+for the servant."\r
+\r
+The business, however, though not perfectly elucidated by this speech,\r
+soon ceased to be a puzzle. Catherine found that John Thorpe had given\r
+the message; and Miss Tilney had no scruple in owning herself greatly\r
+surprised by it. But whether her brother had still exceeded her in\r
+resentment, Catherine, though she instinctively addressed herself as\r
+much to one as to the other in her vindication, had no means of knowing.\r
+Whatever might have been felt before her arrival, her eager declarations\r
+immediately made every look and sentence as friendly as she could\r
+desire.\r
+\r
+The affair thus happily settled, she was introduced by Miss Tilney\r
+to her father, and received by him with such ready, such solicitous\r
+politeness as recalled Thorpe's information to her mind, and made her\r
+think with pleasure that he might be sometimes depended on. To such\r
+anxious attention was the general's civility carried, that not aware of\r
+her extraordinary swiftness in entering the house, he was quite angry\r
+with the servant whose neglect had reduced her to open the door of the\r
+apartment herself. "What did William mean by it? He should make a point\r
+of inquiring into the matter." And if Catherine had not most warmly\r
+asserted his innocence, it seemed likely that William would lose the\r
+favour of his master forever, if not his place, by her rapidity.\r
+\r
+After sitting with them a quarter of an hour, she rose to take leave,\r
+and was then most agreeably surprised by General Tilney's asking her if\r
+she would do his daughter the honour of dining and spending the rest\r
+of the day with her. Miss Tilney added her own wishes. Catherine was\r
+greatly obliged; but it was quite out of her power. Mr. and Mrs. Allen\r
+would expect her back every moment. The general declared he could say no\r
+more; the claims of Mr. and Mrs. Allen were not to be superseded; but on\r
+some other day he trusted, when longer notice could be given, they would\r
+not refuse to spare her to her friend. "Oh, no; Catherine was sure they\r
+would not have the least objection, and she should have great pleasure\r
+in coming." The general attended her himself to the street-door, saying\r
+everything gallant as they went downstairs, admiring the elasticity of\r
+her walk, which corresponded exactly with the spirit of her dancing, and\r
+making her one of the most graceful bows she had ever beheld, when they\r
+parted.\r
+\r
+Catherine, delighted by all that had passed, proceeded gaily to Pulteney\r
+Street, walking, as she concluded, with great elasticity, though she\r
+had never thought of it before. She reached home without seeing anything\r
+more of the offended party; and now that she had been triumphant\r
+throughout, had carried her point, and was secure of her walk, she began\r
+(as the flutter of her spirits subsided) to doubt whether she had been\r
+perfectly right. A sacrifice was always noble; and if she had given way\r
+to their entreaties, she should have been spared the distressing idea of\r
+a friend displeased, a brother angry, and a scheme of great happiness\r
+to both destroyed, perhaps through her means. To ease her mind, and\r
+ascertain by the opinion of an unprejudiced person what her own conduct\r
+had really been, she took occasion to mention before Mr. Allen the\r
+half-settled scheme of her brother and the Thorpes for the following\r
+day. Mr. Allen caught at it directly. "Well," said he, "and do you think\r
+of going too?"\r
+\r
+"No; I had just engaged myself to walk with Miss Tilney before they told\r
+me of it; and therefore you know I could not go with them, could I?"\r
+\r
+"No, certainly not; and I am glad you do not think of it. These schemes\r
+are not at all the thing. Young men and women driving about the country\r
+in open carriages! Now and then it is very well; but going to inns and\r
+public places together! It is not right; and I wonder Mrs. Thorpe should\r
+allow it. I am glad you do not think of going; I am sure Mrs. Morland\r
+would not be pleased. Mrs. Allen, are not you of my way of thinking? Do\r
+not you think these kind of projects objectionable?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very much so indeed. Open carriages are nasty things. A clean\r
+gown is not five minutes' wear in them. You are splashed getting in\r
+and getting out; and the wind takes your hair and your bonnet in every\r
+direction. I hate an open carriage myself."\r
+\r
+"I know you do; but that is not the question. Do not you think it has an\r
+odd appearance, if young ladies are frequently driven about in them by\r
+young men, to whom they are not even related?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear, a very odd appearance indeed. I cannot bear to see it."\r
+\r
+"Dear madam," cried Catherine, "then why did not you tell me so before?\r
+I am sure if I had known it to be improper, I would not have gone with\r
+Mr. Thorpe at all; but I always hoped you would tell me, if you thought\r
+I was doing wrong."\r
+\r
+"And so I should, my dear, you may depend on it; for as I told Mrs.\r
+Morland at parting, I would always do the best for you in my power. But\r
+one must not be over particular. Young people will be young people,\r
+as your good mother says herself. You know I wanted you, when we first\r
+came, not to buy that sprigged muslin, but you would. Young people do\r
+not like to be always thwarted."\r
+\r
+"But this was something of real consequence; and I do not think you\r
+would have found me hard to persuade."\r
+\r
+"As far as it has gone hitherto, there is no harm done," said Mr. Allen;\r
+"and I would only advise you, my dear, not to go out with Mr. Thorpe any\r
+more."\r
+\r
+"That is just what I was going to say," added his wife.\r
+\r
+Catherine, relieved for herself, felt uneasy for Isabella, and after a\r
+moment's thought, asked Mr. Allen whether it would not be both proper\r
+and kind in her to write to Miss Thorpe, and explain the indecorum of\r
+which she must be as insensible as herself; for she considered that\r
+Isabella might otherwise perhaps be going to Clifton the next day, in\r
+spite of what had passed. Mr. Allen, however, discouraged her from doing\r
+any such thing. "You had better leave her alone, my dear; she is old\r
+enough to know what she is about, and if not, has a mother to advise\r
+her. Mrs. Thorpe is too indulgent beyond a doubt; but, however, you had\r
+better not interfere. She and your brother choose to go, and you will be\r
+only getting ill will."\r
+\r
+Catherine submitted, and though sorry to think that Isabella should be\r
+doing wrong, felt greatly relieved by Mr. Allen's approbation of her\r
+own conduct, and truly rejoiced to be preserved by his advice from the\r
+danger of falling into such an error herself. Her escape from being one\r
+of the party to Clifton was now an escape indeed; for what would the\r
+Tilneys have thought of her, if she had broken her promise to them in\r
+order to do what was wrong in itself, if she had been guilty of one\r
+breach of propriety, only to enable her to be guilty of another?\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 14\r
+\r
+\r
+The next morning was fair, and Catherine almost expected another attack\r
+from the assembled party. With Mr. Allen to support her, she felt no\r
+dread of the event: but she would gladly be spared a contest, where\r
+victory itself was painful, and was heartily rejoiced therefore at\r
+neither seeing nor hearing anything of them. The Tilneys called for\r
+her at the appointed time; and no new difficulty arising, no sudden\r
+recollection, no unexpected summons, no impertinent intrusion to\r
+disconcert their measures, my heroine was most unnaturally able to\r
+fulfil her engagement, though it was made with the hero himself.\r
+They determined on walking round Beechen Cliff, that noble hill whose\r
+beautiful verdure and hanging coppice render it so striking an object\r
+from almost every opening in Bath.\r
+\r
+"I never look at it," said Catherine, as they walked along the side of\r
+the river, "without thinking of the south of France."\r
+\r
+"You have been abroad then?" said Henry, a little surprised.\r
+\r
+"Oh! No, I only mean what I have read about. It always puts me in mind\r
+of the country that Emily and her father travelled through, in The\r
+Mysteries of Udolpho. But you never read novels, I dare say?"\r
+\r
+"Why not?"\r
+\r
+"Because they are not clever enough for you--gentlemen read better\r
+books."\r
+\r
+"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good\r
+novel, must be intolerably stupid. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe's\r
+works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho,\r
+when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember\r
+finishing it in two days--my hair standing on end the whole time."\r
+\r
+"Yes," added Miss Tilney, "and I remember that you undertook to read it\r
+aloud to me, and that when I was called away for only five minutes to\r
+answer a note, instead of waiting for me, you took the volume into the\r
+Hermitage Walk, and I was obliged to stay till you had finished it."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Eleanor--a most honourable testimony. You see, Miss Morland,\r
+the injustice of your suspicions. Here was I, in my eagerness to get on,\r
+refusing to wait only five minutes for my sister, breaking the promise\r
+I had made of reading it aloud, and keeping her in suspense at a most\r
+interesting part, by running away with the volume, which, you are to\r
+observe, was her own, particularly her own. I am proud when I reflect on\r
+it, and I think it must establish me in your good opinion."\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to hear it indeed, and now I shall never be ashamed of\r
+liking Udolpho myself. But I really thought before, young men despised\r
+novels amazingly."\r
+\r
+"It is amazingly; it may well suggest amazement if they do--for they\r
+read nearly as many as women. I myself have read hundreds and hundreds.\r
+Do not imagine that you can cope with me in a knowledge of Julias and\r
+Louisas. If we proceed to particulars, and engage in the never-ceasing\r
+inquiry of 'Have you read this?' and 'Have you read that?' I shall soon\r
+leave you as far behind me as--what shall I say?--I want an appropriate\r
+simile.--as far as your friend Emily herself left poor Valancourt when\r
+she went with her aunt into Italy. Consider how many years I have had\r
+the start of you. I had entered on my studies at Oxford, while you were\r
+a good little girl working your sampler at home!"\r
+\r
+"Not very good, I am afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho\r
+the nicest book in the world?"\r
+\r
+"The nicest--by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend\r
+upon the binding."\r
+\r
+"Henry," said Miss Tilney, "you are very impertinent. Miss Morland, he\r
+is treating you exactly as he does his sister. He is forever finding\r
+fault with me, for some incorrectness of language, and now he is taking\r
+the same liberty with you. The word 'nicest,' as you used it, did not\r
+suit him; and you had better change it as soon as you can, or we shall\r
+be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way."\r
+\r
+"I am sure," cried Catherine, "I did not mean to say anything wrong; but\r
+it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?"\r
+\r
+"Very true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day, and we are taking\r
+a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a\r
+very nice word indeed! It does for everything. Originally perhaps it\r
+was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or\r
+refinement--people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or\r
+their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised\r
+in that one word."\r
+\r
+"While, in fact," cried his sister, "it ought only to be applied to you,\r
+without any commendation at all. You are more nice than wise. Come,\r
+Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost\r
+propriety of diction, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we\r
+like best. It is a most interesting work. You are fond of that kind of\r
+reading?"\r
+\r
+"To say the truth, I do not much like any other."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!"\r
+\r
+"That is, I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and\r
+do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be\r
+interested in. Can you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I am fond of history."\r
+\r
+"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me\r
+nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and\r
+kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for\r
+nothing, and hardly any women at all--it is very tiresome: and yet I\r
+often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it\r
+must be invention. The speeches that are put into the heroes' mouths,\r
+their thoughts and designs--the chief of all this must be invention, and\r
+invention is what delights me in other books."\r
+\r
+"Historians, you think," said Miss Tilney, "are not happy in their\r
+flights of fancy. They display imagination without raising interest. I\r
+am fond of history--and am very well contented to take the false with\r
+the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence\r
+in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on,\r
+I conclude, as anything that does not actually pass under one's own\r
+observation; and as for the little embellishments you speak of, they are\r
+embellishments, and I like them as such. If a speech be well drawn up,\r
+I read it with pleasure, by whomsoever it may be made--and probably with\r
+much greater, if the production of Mr. Hume or Mr. Robertson, than if\r
+the genuine words of Caractacus, Agricola, or Alfred the Great."\r
+\r
+"You are fond of history! And so are Mr. Allen and my father; and I have\r
+two brothers who do not dislike it. So many instances within my small\r
+circle of friends is remarkable! At this rate, I shall not pity the\r
+writers of history any longer. If people like to read their books, it\r
+is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes,\r
+which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be\r
+labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck\r
+me as a hard fate; and though I know it is all very right and necessary,\r
+I have often wondered at the person's courage that could sit down on\r
+purpose to do it."\r
+\r
+"That little boys and girls should be tormented," said Henry, "is what\r
+no one at all acquainted with human nature in a civilized state can\r
+deny; but in behalf of our most distinguished historians, I must observe\r
+that they might well be offended at being supposed to have no higher\r
+aim, and that by their method and style, they are perfectly well\r
+qualified to torment readers of the most advanced reason and mature\r
+time of life. I use the verb 'to torment,' as I observed to be your own\r
+method, instead of 'to instruct,' supposing them to be now admitted as\r
+synonymous."\r
+\r
+"You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but if you had been\r
+as much used as myself to hear poor little children first learning their\r
+letters and then learning to spell, if you had ever seen how stupid they\r
+can be for a whole morning together, and how tired my poor mother is\r
+at the end of it, as I am in the habit of seeing almost every day of my\r
+life at home, you would allow that 'to torment' and 'to instruct' might\r
+sometimes be used as synonymous words."\r
+\r
+"Very probably. But historians are not accountable for the difficulty\r
+of learning to read; and even you yourself, who do not altogether seem\r
+particularly friendly to very severe, very intense application, may\r
+perhaps be brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth-while to\r
+be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of\r
+being able to read all the rest of it. Consider--if reading had not been\r
+taught, Mrs. Radcliffe would have written in vain--or perhaps might not\r
+have written at all."\r
+\r
+Catherine assented--and a very warm panegyric from her on that lady's\r
+merits closed the subject. The Tilneys were soon engaged in another on\r
+which she had nothing to say. They were viewing the country with the\r
+eyes of persons accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of\r
+being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste. Here\r
+Catherine was quite lost. She knew nothing of drawing--nothing of taste:\r
+and she listened to them with an attention which brought her little\r
+profit, for they talked in phrases which conveyed scarcely any idea\r
+to her. The little which she could understand, however, appeared to\r
+contradict the very few notions she had entertained on the matter\r
+before. It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from the\r
+top of an high hill, and that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof\r
+of a fine day. She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced\r
+shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant.\r
+To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of\r
+administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would\r
+always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of\r
+knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.\r
+\r
+The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already\r
+set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment\r
+of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the\r
+larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a\r
+great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them\r
+too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything\r
+more in woman than ignorance. But Catherine did not know her own\r
+advantages--did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate\r
+heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young\r
+man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward. In the present\r
+instance, she confessed and lamented her want of knowledge, declared\r
+that she would give anything in the world to be able to draw; and\r
+a lecture on the picturesque immediately followed, in which his\r
+instructions were so clear that she soon began to see beauty in\r
+everything admired by him, and her attention was so earnest that he\r
+became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal of natural taste.\r
+He talked of foregrounds, distances, and second distances--side-screens\r
+and perspectives--lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a\r
+scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily\r
+rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape.\r
+Delighted with her progress, and fearful of wearying her with too much\r
+wisdom at once, Henry suffered the subject to decline, and by an easy\r
+transition from a piece of rocky fragment and the withered oak which\r
+he had placed near its summit, to oaks in general, to forests, the\r
+enclosure of them, waste lands, crown lands and government, he shortly\r
+found himself arrived at politics; and from politics, it was an\r
+easy step to silence. The general pause which succeeded his short\r
+disquisition on the state of the nation was put an end to by Catherine,\r
+who, in rather a solemn tone of voice, uttered these words, "I have\r
+heard that something very shocking indeed will soon come out in London."\r
+\r
+Miss Tilney, to whom this was chiefly addressed, was startled, and\r
+hastily replied, "Indeed! And of what nature?"\r
+\r
+"That I do not know, nor who is the author. I have only heard that it is\r
+to be more horrible than anything we have met with yet."\r
+\r
+"Good heaven! Where could you hear of such a thing?"\r
+\r
+"A particular friend of mine had an account of it in a letter from\r
+London yesterday. It is to be uncommonly dreadful. I shall expect murder\r
+and everything of the kind."\r
+\r
+"You speak with astonishing composure! But I hope your friend's accounts\r
+have been exaggerated; and if such a design is known beforehand, proper\r
+measures will undoubtedly be taken by government to prevent its coming\r
+to effect."\r
+\r
+"Government," said Henry, endeavouring not to smile, "neither desires\r
+nor dares to interfere in such matters. There must be murder; and\r
+government cares not how much."\r
+\r
+The ladies stared. He laughed, and added, "Come, shall I make you\r
+understand each other, or leave you to puzzle out an explanation as\r
+you can? No--I will be noble. I will prove myself a man, no less by the\r
+generosity of my soul than the clearness of my head. I have no patience\r
+with such of my sex as disdain to let themselves sometimes down to the\r
+comprehension of yours. Perhaps the abilities of women are neither sound\r
+nor acute--neither vigorous nor keen. Perhaps they may want observation,\r
+discernment, judgment, fire, genius, and wit."\r
+\r
+"Miss Morland, do not mind what he says; but have the goodness to\r
+satisfy me as to this dreadful riot."\r
+\r
+"Riot! What riot?"\r
+\r
+"My dear Eleanor, the riot is only in your own brain. The confusion\r
+there is scandalous. Miss Morland has been talking of nothing more\r
+dreadful than a new publication which is shortly to come out, in three\r
+duodecimo volumes, two hundred and seventy-six pages in each, with\r
+a frontispiece to the first, of two tombstones and a lantern--do you\r
+understand? And you, Miss Morland--my stupid sister has mistaken all\r
+your clearest expressions. You talked of expected horrors in London--and\r
+instead of instantly conceiving, as any rational creature would have\r
+done, that such words could relate only to a circulating library, she\r
+immediately pictured to herself a mob of three thousand men assembling\r
+in St. George's Fields, the Bank attacked, the Tower threatened, the\r
+streets of London flowing with blood, a detachment of the Twelfth Light\r
+Dragoons (the hopes of the nation) called up from Northampton to quell\r
+the insurgents, and the gallant Captain Frederick Tilney, in the\r
+moment of charging at the head of his troop, knocked off his horse by a\r
+brickbat from an upper window. Forgive her stupidity. The fears of the\r
+sister have added to the weakness of the woman; but she is by no means a\r
+simpleton in general."\r
+\r
+Catherine looked grave. "And now, Henry," said Miss Tilney, "that you\r
+have made us understand each other, you may as well make Miss Morland\r
+understand yourself--unless you mean to have her think you intolerably\r
+rude to your sister, and a great brute in your opinion of women in\r
+general. Miss Morland is not used to your odd ways."\r
+\r
+"I shall be most happy to make her better acquainted with them."\r
+\r
+"No doubt; but that is no explanation of the present."\r
+\r
+"What am I to do?"\r
+\r
+"You know what you ought to do. Clear your character handsomely before\r
+her. Tell her that you think very highly of the understanding of women."\r
+\r
+"Miss Morland, I think very highly of the understanding of all the women\r
+in the world--especially of those--whoever they may be--with whom I\r
+happen to be in company."\r
+\r
+"That is not enough. Be more serious."\r
+\r
+"Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of\r
+women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much that they\r
+never find it necessary to use more than half."\r
+\r
+"We shall get nothing more serious from him now, Miss Morland. He is\r
+not in a sober mood. But I do assure you that he must be entirely\r
+misunderstood, if he can ever appear to say an unjust thing of any woman\r
+at all, or an unkind one of me."\r
+\r
+It was no effort to Catherine to believe that Henry Tilney could never\r
+be wrong. His manner might sometimes surprise, but his meaning must\r
+always be just: and what she did not understand, she was almost as ready\r
+to admire, as what she did. The whole walk was delightful, and though it\r
+ended too soon, its conclusion was delightful too; her friends attended\r
+her into the house, and Miss Tilney, before they parted, addressing\r
+herself with respectful form, as much to Mrs. Allen as to Catherine,\r
+petitioned for the pleasure of her company to dinner on the day after\r
+the next. No difficulty was made on Mrs. Allen's side, and the only\r
+difficulty on Catherine's was in concealing the excess of her pleasure.\r
+\r
+The morning had passed away so charmingly as to banish all her\r
+friendship and natural affection, for no thought of Isabella or James\r
+had crossed her during their walk. When the Tilneys were gone, she\r
+became amiable again, but she was amiable for some time to little\r
+effect; Mrs. Allen had no intelligence to give that could relieve her\r
+anxiety; she had heard nothing of any of them. Towards the end of the\r
+morning, however, Catherine, having occasion for some indispensable yard\r
+of ribbon which must be bought without a moment's delay, walked out into\r
+the town, and in Bond Street overtook the second Miss Thorpe as she was\r
+loitering towards Edgar's Buildings between two of the sweetest girls in\r
+the world, who had been her dear friends all the morning. From her, she\r
+soon learned that the party to Clifton had taken place. "They set off at\r
+eight this morning," said Miss Anne, "and I am sure I do not envy\r
+them their drive. I think you and I are very well off to be out of the\r
+scrape. It must be the dullest thing in the world, for there is not a\r
+soul at Clifton at this time of year. Belle went with your brother, and\r
+John drove Maria."\r
+\r
+Catherine spoke the pleasure she really felt on hearing this part of the\r
+arrangement.\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes," rejoined the other, "Maria is gone. She was quite wild to go.\r
+She thought it would be something very fine. I cannot say I admire her\r
+taste; and for my part, I was determined from the first not to go, if\r
+they pressed me ever so much."\r
+\r
+Catherine, a little doubtful of this, could not help answering, "I wish\r
+you could have gone too. It is a pity you could not all go."\r
+\r
+"Thank you; but it is quite a matter of indifference to me. Indeed, I\r
+would not have gone on any account. I was saying so to Emily and Sophia\r
+when you overtook us."\r
+\r
+Catherine was still unconvinced; but glad that Anne should have the\r
+friendship of an Emily and a Sophia to console her, she bade her adieu\r
+without much uneasiness, and returned home, pleased that the party had\r
+not been prevented by her refusing to join it, and very heartily wishing\r
+that it might be too pleasant to allow either James or Isabella to\r
+resent her resistance any longer.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 15\r
+\r
+\r
+Early the next day, a note from Isabella, speaking peace and tenderness\r
+in every line, and entreating the immediate presence of her friend on\r
+a matter of the utmost importance, hastened Catherine, in the happiest\r
+state of confidence and curiosity, to Edgar's Buildings. The two\r
+youngest Miss Thorpes were by themselves in the parlour; and, on Anne's\r
+quitting it to call her sister, Catherine took the opportunity of asking\r
+the other for some particulars of their yesterday's party. Maria desired\r
+no greater pleasure than to speak of it; and Catherine immediately\r
+learnt that it had been altogether the most delightful scheme in the\r
+world, that nobody could imagine how charming it had been, and that\r
+it had been more delightful than anybody could conceive. Such was the\r
+information of the first five minutes; the second unfolded thus much in\r
+detail--that they had driven directly to the York Hotel, ate some soup,\r
+and bespoke an early dinner, walked down to the pump-room, tasted the\r
+water, and laid out some shillings in purses and spars; thence adjourned\r
+to eat ice at a pastry-cook's, and hurrying back to the hotel, swallowed\r
+their dinner in haste, to prevent being in the dark; and then had a\r
+delightful drive back, only the moon was not up, and it rained a little,\r
+and Mr. Morland's horse was so tired he could hardly get it along.\r
+\r
+Catherine listened with heartfelt satisfaction. It appeared that Blaize\r
+Castle had never been thought of; and, as for all the rest, there was\r
+nothing to regret for half an instant. Maria's intelligence concluded\r
+with a tender effusion of pity for her sister Anne, whom she represented\r
+as insupportably cross, from being excluded the party.\r
+\r
+"She will never forgive me, I am sure; but, you know, how could I help\r
+it? John would have me go, for he vowed he would not drive her, because\r
+she had such thick ankles. I dare say she will not be in good humour\r
+again this month; but I am determined I will not be cross; it is not a\r
+little matter that puts me out of temper."\r
+\r
+Isabella now entered the room with so eager a step, and a look of such\r
+happy importance, as engaged all her friend's notice. Maria was without\r
+ceremony sent away, and Isabella, embracing Catherine, thus began: "Yes,\r
+my dear Catherine, it is so indeed; your penetration has not deceived\r
+you. Oh! That arch eye of yours! It sees through everything."\r
+\r
+Catherine replied only by a look of wondering ignorance.\r
+\r
+"Nay, my beloved, sweetest friend," continued the other, "compose\r
+yourself. I am amazingly agitated, as you perceive. Let us sit down and\r
+talk in comfort. Well, and so you guessed it the moment you had my note?\r
+Sly creature! Oh! My dear Catherine, you alone, who know my heart, can\r
+judge of my present happiness. Your brother is the most charming of\r
+men. I only wish I were more worthy of him. But what will your excellent\r
+father and mother say? Oh! Heavens! When I think of them I am so\r
+agitated!"\r
+\r
+Catherine's understanding began to awake: an idea of the truth suddenly\r
+darted into her mind; and, with the natural blush of so new an emotion,\r
+she cried out, "Good heaven! My dear Isabella, what do you mean? Can\r
+you--can you really be in love with James?"\r
+\r
+This bold surmise, however, she soon learnt comprehended but half the\r
+fact. The anxious affection, which she was accused of having continually\r
+watched in Isabella's every look and action, had, in the course of their\r
+yesterday's party, received the delightful confession of an equal love.\r
+Her heart and faith were alike engaged to James. Never had Catherine\r
+listened to anything so full of interest, wonder, and joy. Her brother\r
+and her friend engaged! New to such circumstances, the importance of\r
+it appeared unspeakably great, and she contemplated it as one of those\r
+grand events, of which the ordinary course of life can hardly afford a\r
+return. The strength of her feelings she could not express; the nature\r
+of them, however, contented her friend. The happiness of having such a\r
+sister was their first effusion, and the fair ladies mingled in embraces\r
+and tears of joy.\r
+\r
+Delighting, however, as Catherine sincerely did in the prospect of the\r
+connection, it must be acknowledged that Isabella far surpassed her\r
+in tender anticipations. "You will be so infinitely dearer to me, my\r
+Catherine, than either Anne or Maria: I feel that I shall be so much\r
+more attached to my dear Morland's family than to my own."\r
+\r
+This was a pitch of friendship beyond Catherine.\r
+\r
+"You are so like your dear brother," continued Isabella, "that I quite\r
+doted on you the first moment I saw you. But so it always is with me;\r
+the first moment settles everything. The very first day that Morland\r
+came to us last Christmas--the very first moment I beheld him--my heart\r
+was irrecoverably gone. I remember I wore my yellow gown, with my hair\r
+done up in braids; and when I came into the drawing-room, and John\r
+introduced him, I thought I never saw anybody so handsome before."\r
+\r
+Here Catherine secretly acknowledged the power of love; for, though\r
+exceedingly fond of her brother, and partial to all his endowments, she\r
+had never in her life thought him handsome.\r
+\r
+"I remember too, Miss Andrews drank tea with us that evening, and wore\r
+her puce-coloured sarsenet; and she looked so heavenly that I thought\r
+your brother must certainly fall in love with her; I could not sleep\r
+a wink all right for thinking of it. Oh! Catherine, the many sleepless\r
+nights I have had on your brother's account! I would not have you suffer\r
+half what I have done! I am grown wretchedly thin, I know; but I will\r
+not pain you by describing my anxiety; you have seen enough of it. I\r
+feel that I have betrayed myself perpetually--so unguarded in speaking\r
+of my partiality for the church! But my secret I was always sure would\r
+be safe with you."\r
+\r
+Catherine felt that nothing could have been safer; but ashamed of an\r
+ignorance little expected, she dared no longer contest the point,\r
+nor refuse to have been as full of arch penetration and affectionate\r
+sympathy as Isabella chose to consider her. Her brother, she found,\r
+was preparing to set off with all speed to Fullerton, to make known his\r
+situation and ask consent; and here was a source of some real agitation\r
+to the mind of Isabella. Catherine endeavoured to persuade her, as she\r
+was herself persuaded, that her father and mother would never oppose\r
+their son's wishes. "It is impossible," said she, "for parents to be\r
+more kind, or more desirous of their children's happiness; I have no\r
+doubt of their consenting immediately."\r
+\r
+"Morland says exactly the same," replied Isabella; "and yet I dare not\r
+expect it; my fortune will be so small; they never can consent to it.\r
+Your brother, who might marry anybody!"\r
+\r
+Here Catherine again discerned the force of love.\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Isabella, you are too humble. The difference of fortune can be\r
+nothing to signify."\r
+\r
+"Oh! My sweet Catherine, in your generous heart I know it would signify\r
+nothing; but we must not expect such disinterestedness in many. As for\r
+myself, I am sure I only wish our situations were reversed. Had I the\r
+command of millions, were I mistress of the whole world, your brother\r
+would be my only choice."\r
+\r
+This charming sentiment, recommended as much by sense as novelty,\r
+gave Catherine a most pleasing remembrance of all the heroines of her\r
+acquaintance; and she thought her friend never looked more lovely than\r
+in uttering the grand idea. "I am sure they will consent," was her\r
+frequent declaration; "I am sure they will be delighted with you."\r
+\r
+"For my own part," said Isabella, "my wishes are so moderate that the\r
+smallest income in nature would be enough for me. Where people are\r
+really attached, poverty itself is wealth; grandeur I detest: I would\r
+not settle in London for the universe. A cottage in some retired village\r
+would be ecstasy. There are some charming little villas about Richmond."\r
+\r
+"Richmond!" cried Catherine. "You must settle near Fullerton. You must\r
+be near us."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I shall be miserable if we do not. If I can but be near you,\r
+I shall be satisfied. But this is idle talking! I will not allow myself\r
+to think of such things, till we have your father's answer. Morland\r
+says that by sending it tonight to Salisbury, we may have it tomorrow.\r
+Tomorrow? I know I shall never have courage to open the letter. I know\r
+it will be the death of me."\r
+\r
+A reverie succeeded this conviction--and when Isabella spoke again, it\r
+was to resolve on the quality of her wedding-gown.\r
+\r
+Their conference was put an end to by the anxious young lover himself,\r
+who came to breathe his parting sigh before he set off for Wiltshire.\r
+Catherine wished to congratulate him, but knew not what to say, and her\r
+eloquence was only in her eyes. From them, however, the eight parts of\r
+speech shone out most expressively, and James could combine them with\r
+ease. Impatient for the realization of all that he hoped at home, his\r
+adieus were not long; and they would have been yet shorter, had he not\r
+been frequently detained by the urgent entreaties of his fair one that\r
+he would go. Twice was he called almost from the door by her eagerness\r
+to have him gone. "Indeed, Morland, I must drive you away. Consider how\r
+far you have to ride. I cannot bear to see you linger so. For heaven's\r
+sake, waste no more time. There, go, go--I insist on it."\r
+\r
+The two friends, with hearts now more united than ever, were inseparable\r
+for the day; and in schemes of sisterly happiness the hours flew along.\r
+Mrs. Thorpe and her son, who were acquainted with everything, and\r
+who seemed only to want Mr. Morland's consent, to consider Isabella's\r
+engagement as the most fortunate circumstance imaginable for their\r
+family, were allowed to join their counsels, and add their quota of\r
+significant looks and mysterious expressions to fill up the measure\r
+of curiosity to be raised in the unprivileged younger sisters. To\r
+Catherine's simple feelings, this odd sort of reserve seemed neither\r
+kindly meant, nor consistently supported; and its unkindness she would\r
+hardly have forborne pointing out, had its inconsistency been less their\r
+friend; but Anne and Maria soon set her heart at ease by the sagacity of\r
+their "I know what"; and the evening was spent in a sort of war of wit,\r
+a display of family ingenuity, on one side in the mystery of an affected\r
+secret, on the other of undefined discovery, all equally acute.\r
+\r
+Catherine was with her friend again the next day, endeavouring to\r
+support her spirits and while away the many tedious hours before\r
+the delivery of the letters; a needful exertion, for as the time\r
+of reasonable expectation drew near, Isabella became more and more\r
+desponding, and before the letter arrived, had worked herself into a\r
+state of real distress. But when it did come, where could distress\r
+be found? "I have had no difficulty in gaining the consent of my kind\r
+parents, and am promised that everything in their power shall be done to\r
+forward my happiness," were the first three lines, and in one moment\r
+all was joyful security. The brightest glow was instantly spread over\r
+Isabella's features, all care and anxiety seemed removed, her spirits\r
+became almost too high for control, and she called herself without\r
+scruple the happiest of mortals.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Thorpe, with tears of joy, embraced her daughter, her son, her\r
+visitor, and could have embraced half the inhabitants of Bath with\r
+satisfaction. Her heart was overflowing with tenderness. It was "dear\r
+John" and "dear Catherine" at every word; "dear Anne and dear Maria"\r
+must immediately be made sharers in their felicity; and two "dears" at\r
+once before the name of Isabella were not more than that beloved child\r
+had now well earned. John himself was no skulker in joy. He not only\r
+bestowed on Mr. Morland the high commendation of being one of the finest\r
+fellows in the world, but swore off many sentences in his praise.\r
+\r
+The letter, whence sprang all this felicity, was short, containing\r
+little more than this assurance of success; and every particular was\r
+deferred till James could write again. But for particulars Isabella\r
+could well afford to wait. The needful was comprised in Mr. Morland's\r
+promise; his honour was pledged to make everything easy; and by what\r
+means their income was to be formed, whether landed property were to\r
+be resigned, or funded money made over, was a matter in which her\r
+disinterested spirit took no concern. She knew enough to feel secure of\r
+an honourable and speedy establishment, and her imagination took a rapid\r
+flight over its attendant felicities. She saw herself at the end of\r
+a few weeks, the gaze and admiration of every new acquaintance at\r
+Fullerton, the envy of every valued old friend in Putney, with a\r
+carriage at her command, a new name on her tickets, and a brilliant\r
+exhibition of hoop rings on her finger.\r
+\r
+When the contents of the letter were ascertained, John Thorpe, who had\r
+only waited its arrival to begin his journey to London, prepared to set\r
+off. "Well, Miss Morland," said he, on finding her alone in the parlour,\r
+"I am come to bid you good-bye." Catherine wished him a good journey.\r
+Without appearing to hear her, he walked to the window, fidgeted about,\r
+hummed a tune, and seemed wholly self-occupied.\r
+\r
+"Shall not you be late at Devizes?" said Catherine. He made no answer;\r
+but after a minute's silence burst out with, "A famous good thing this\r
+marrying scheme, upon my soul! A clever fancy of Morland's and Belle's.\r
+What do you think of it, Miss Morland? I say it is no bad notion."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I think it a very good one."\r
+\r
+"Do you? That's honest, by heavens! I am glad you are no enemy to\r
+matrimony, however. Did you ever hear the old song 'Going to One Wedding\r
+Brings on Another?' I say, you will come to Belle's wedding, I hope."\r
+\r
+"Yes; I have promised your sister to be with her, if possible."\r
+\r
+"And then you know"--twisting himself about and forcing a foolish\r
+laugh--"I say, then you know, we may try the truth of this same old\r
+song."\r
+\r
+"May we? But I never sing. Well, I wish you a good journey. I dine with\r
+Miss Tilney today, and must now be going home."\r
+\r
+"Nay, but there is no such confounded hurry. Who knows when we may\r
+be together again? Not but that I shall be down again by the end of a\r
+fortnight, and a devilish long fortnight it will appear to me."\r
+\r
+"Then why do you stay away so long?" replied Catherine--finding that he\r
+waited for an answer.\r
+\r
+"That is kind of you, however--kind and good-natured. I shall not forget\r
+it in a hurry. But you have more good nature and all that, than anybody\r
+living, I believe. A monstrous deal of good nature, and it is not only\r
+good nature, but you have so much, so much of everything; and then you\r
+have such--upon my soul, I do not know anybody like you."\r
+\r
+"Oh! dear, there are a great many people like me, I dare say, only a\r
+great deal better. Good morning to you."\r
+\r
+"But I say, Miss Morland, I shall come and pay my respects at Fullerton\r
+before it is long, if not disagreeable."\r
+\r
+"Pray do. My father and mother will be very glad to see you."\r
+\r
+"And I hope--I hope, Miss Morland, you will not be sorry to see me."\r
+\r
+"Oh! dear, not at all. There are very few people I am sorry to see.\r
+Company is always cheerful."\r
+\r
+"That is just my way of thinking. Give me but a little cheerful company,\r
+let me only have the company of the people I love, let me only be where\r
+I like and with whom I like, and the devil take the rest, say I. And\r
+I am heartily glad to hear you say the same. But I have a notion, Miss\r
+Morland, you and I think pretty much alike upon most matters."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps we may; but it is more than I ever thought of. And as to most\r
+matters, to say the truth, there are not many that I know my own mind\r
+about."\r
+\r
+"By Jove, no more do I. It is not my way to bother my brains with what\r
+does not concern me. My notion of things is simple enough. Let me only\r
+have the girl I like, say I, with a comfortable house over my head, and\r
+what care I for all the rest? Fortune is nothing. I am sure of a good\r
+income of my own; and if she had not a penny, why, so much the better."\r
+\r
+"Very true. I think like you there. If there is a good fortune on one\r
+side, there can be no occasion for any on the other. No matter which\r
+has it, so that there is enough. I hate the idea of one great fortune\r
+looking out for another. And to marry for money I think the wickedest\r
+thing in existence. Good day. We shall be very glad to see you at\r
+Fullerton, whenever it is convenient." And away she went. It was not in\r
+the power of all his gallantry to detain her longer. With such news to\r
+communicate, and such a visit to prepare for, her departure was not\r
+to be delayed by anything in his nature to urge; and she hurried away,\r
+leaving him to the undivided consciousness of his own happy address, and\r
+her explicit encouragement.\r
+\r
+The agitation which she had herself experienced on first learning her\r
+brother's engagement made her expect to raise no inconsiderable emotion\r
+in Mr. and Mrs. Allen, by the communication of the wonderful event. How\r
+great was her disappointment! The important affair, which many words of\r
+preparation ushered in, had been foreseen by them both ever since\r
+her brother's arrival; and all that they felt on the occasion was\r
+comprehended in a wish for the young people's happiness, with a remark,\r
+on the gentleman's side, in favour of Isabella's beauty, and on the\r
+lady's, of her great good luck. It was to Catherine the most surprising\r
+insensibility. The disclosure, however, of the great secret of James's\r
+going to Fullerton the day before, did raise some emotion in Mrs. Allen.\r
+She could not listen to that with perfect calmness, but repeatedly\r
+regretted the necessity of its concealment, wished she could have known\r
+his intention, wished she could have seen him before he went, as she\r
+should certainly have troubled him with her best regards to his father\r
+and mother, and her kind compliments to all the Skinners.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 16\r
+\r
+\r
+Catherine's expectations of pleasure from her visit in Milsom Street\r
+were so very high that disappointment was inevitable; and accordingly,\r
+though she was most politely received by General Tilney, and kindly\r
+welcomed by his daughter, though Henry was at home, and no one else of\r
+the party, she found, on her return, without spending many hours in\r
+the examination of her feelings, that she had gone to her appointment\r
+preparing for happiness which it had not afforded. Instead of finding\r
+herself improved in acquaintance with Miss Tilney, from the intercourse\r
+of the day, she seemed hardly so intimate with her as before; instead\r
+of seeing Henry Tilney to greater advantage than ever, in the ease of a\r
+family party, he had never said so little, nor been so little agreeable;\r
+and, in spite of their father's great civilities to her--in spite of his\r
+thanks, invitations, and compliments--it had been a release to get\r
+away from him. It puzzled her to account for all this. It could not\r
+be General Tilney's fault. That he was perfectly agreeable and\r
+good-natured, and altogether a very charming man, did not admit of a\r
+doubt, for he was tall and handsome, and Henry's father. He could not\r
+be accountable for his children's want of spirits, or for her want of\r
+enjoyment in his company. The former she hoped at last might have\r
+been accidental, and the latter she could only attribute to her own\r
+stupidity. Isabella, on hearing the particulars of the visit, gave\r
+a different explanation: "It was all pride, pride, insufferable\r
+haughtiness and pride! She had long suspected the family to be very\r
+high, and this made it certain. Such insolence of behaviour as Miss\r
+Tilney's she had never heard of in her life! Not to do the honours of\r
+her house with common good breeding! To behave to her guest with such\r
+superciliousness! Hardly even to speak to her!"\r
+\r
+"But it was not so bad as that, Isabella; there was no superciliousness;\r
+she was very civil."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Don't defend her! And then the brother, he, who had appeared\r
+so attached to you! Good heavens! Well, some people's feelings are\r
+incomprehensible. And so he hardly looked once at you the whole day?"\r
+\r
+"I do not say so; but he did not seem in good spirits."\r
+\r
+"How contemptible! Of all things in the world inconstancy is my\r
+aversion. Let me entreat you never to think of him again, my dear\r
+Catherine; indeed he is unworthy of you."\r
+\r
+"Unworthy! I do not suppose he ever thinks of me."\r
+\r
+"That is exactly what I say; he never thinks of you. Such fickleness!\r
+Oh! How different to your brother and to mine! I really believe John has\r
+the most constant heart."\r
+\r
+"But as for General Tilney, I assure you it would be impossible for\r
+anybody to behave to me with greater civility and attention; it seemed\r
+to be his only care to entertain and make me happy."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I know no harm of him; I do not suspect him of pride. I believe he\r
+is a very gentleman-like man. John thinks very well of him, and John's\r
+judgment--"\r
+\r
+"Well, I shall see how they behave to me this evening; we shall meet\r
+them at the rooms."\r
+\r
+"And must I go?"\r
+\r
+"Do not you intend it? I thought it was all settled."\r
+\r
+"Nay, since you make such a point of it, I can refuse you nothing. But\r
+do not insist upon my being very agreeable, for my heart, you know, will\r
+be some forty miles off. And as for dancing, do not mention it, I beg;\r
+that is quite out of the question. Charles Hodges will plague me to\r
+death, I dare say; but I shall cut him very short. Ten to one but he\r
+guesses the reason, and that is exactly what I want to avoid, so I shall\r
+insist on his keeping his conjecture to himself."\r
+\r
+Isabella's opinion of the Tilneys did not influence her friend; she was\r
+sure there had been no insolence in the manners either of brother or\r
+sister; and she did not credit there being any pride in their hearts.\r
+The evening rewarded her confidence; she was met by one with the same\r
+kindness, and by the other with the same attention, as heretofore: Miss\r
+Tilney took pains to be near her, and Henry asked her to dance.\r
+\r
+Having heard the day before in Milsom Street that their elder brother,\r
+Captain Tilney, was expected almost every hour, she was at no loss for\r
+the name of a very fashionable-looking, handsome young man, whom she had\r
+never seen before, and who now evidently belonged to their party. She\r
+looked at him with great admiration, and even supposed it possible that\r
+some people might think him handsomer than his brother, though, in her\r
+eyes, his air was more assuming, and his countenance less prepossessing.\r
+His taste and manners were beyond a doubt decidedly inferior; for,\r
+within her hearing, he not only protested against every thought of\r
+dancing himself, but even laughed openly at Henry for finding it\r
+possible. From the latter circumstance it may be presumed that, whatever\r
+might be our heroine's opinion of him, his admiration of her was not\r
+of a very dangerous kind; not likely to produce animosities between the\r
+brothers, nor persecutions to the lady. He cannot be the instigator of\r
+the three villains in horsemen's greatcoats, by whom she will hereafter\r
+be forced into a traveling-chaise and four, which will drive off with\r
+incredible speed. Catherine, meanwhile, undisturbed by presentiments of\r
+such an evil, or of any evil at all, except that of having but a short\r
+set to dance down, enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney,\r
+listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him\r
+irresistible, becoming so herself.\r
+\r
+At the end of the first dance, Captain Tilney came towards them again,\r
+and, much to Catherine's dissatisfaction, pulled his brother away. They\r
+retired whispering together; and, though her delicate sensibility did\r
+not take immediate alarm, and lay it down as fact, that Captain Tilney\r
+must have heard some malevolent misrepresentation of her, which he now\r
+hastened to communicate to his brother, in the hope of separating them\r
+forever, she could not have her partner conveyed from her sight without\r
+very uneasy sensations. Her suspense was of full five minutes' duration;\r
+and she was beginning to think it a very long quarter of an hour, when\r
+they both returned, and an explanation was given, by Henry's requesting\r
+to know if she thought her friend, Miss Thorpe, would have any objection\r
+to dancing, as his brother would be most happy to be introduced to\r
+her. Catherine, without hesitation, replied that she was very sure Miss\r
+Thorpe did not mean to dance at all. The cruel reply was passed on to\r
+the other, and he immediately walked away.\r
+\r
+"Your brother will not mind it, I know," said she, "because I heard him\r
+say before that he hated dancing; but it was very good-natured in him\r
+to think of it. I suppose he saw Isabella sitting down, and fancied she\r
+might wish for a partner; but he is quite mistaken, for she would not\r
+dance upon any account in the world."\r
+\r
+Henry smiled, and said, "How very little trouble it can give you to\r
+understand the motive of other people's actions."\r
+\r
+"Why? What do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"With you, it is not, How is such a one likely to be influenced, What\r
+is the inducement most likely to act upon such a person's feelings, age,\r
+situation, and probable habits of life considered--but, How should I be\r
+influenced, What would be my inducement in acting so and so?"\r
+\r
+"I do not understand you."\r
+\r
+"Then we are on very unequal terms, for I understand you perfectly\r
+well."\r
+\r
+"Me? Yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."\r
+\r
+"Bravo! An excellent satire on modern language."\r
+\r
+"But pray tell me what you mean."\r
+\r
+"Shall I indeed? Do you really desire it? But you are not aware of the\r
+consequences; it will involve you in a very cruel embarrassment, and\r
+certainly bring on a disagreement between us."\r
+\r
+"No, no; it shall not do either; I am not afraid."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I only meant that your attributing my brother's wish of\r
+dancing with Miss Thorpe to good nature alone convinced me of your being\r
+superior in good nature yourself to all the rest of the world."\r
+\r
+Catherine blushed and disclaimed, and the gentleman's predictions were\r
+verified. There was a something, however, in his words which repaid her\r
+for the pain of confusion; and that something occupied her mind so much\r
+that she drew back for some time, forgetting to speak or to listen, and\r
+almost forgetting where she was; till, roused by the voice of Isabella,\r
+she looked up and saw her with Captain Tilney preparing to give them\r
+hands across.\r
+\r
+Isabella shrugged her shoulders and smiled, the only explanation of this\r
+extraordinary change which could at that time be given; but as it\r
+was not quite enough for Catherine's comprehension, she spoke her\r
+astonishment in very plain terms to her partner.\r
+\r
+"I cannot think how it could happen! Isabella was so determined not to\r
+dance."\r
+\r
+"And did Isabella never change her mind before?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! But, because--And your brother! After what you told him from me,\r
+how could he think of going to ask her?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot take surprise to myself on that head. You bid me be surprised\r
+on your friend's account, and therefore I am; but as for my brother, his\r
+conduct in the business, I must own, has been no more than I believed\r
+him perfectly equal to. The fairness of your friend was an open\r
+attraction; her firmness, you know, could only be understood by\r
+yourself."\r
+\r
+"You are laughing; but, I assure you, Isabella is very firm in general."\r
+\r
+"It is as much as should be said of anyone. To be always firm must be\r
+to be often obstinate. When properly to relax is the trial of judgment;\r
+and, without reference to my brother, I really think Miss Thorpe has by\r
+no means chosen ill in fixing on the present hour."\r
+\r
+The friends were not able to get together for any confidential discourse\r
+till all the dancing was over; but then, as they walked about the room\r
+arm in arm, Isabella thus explained herself: "I do not wonder at your\r
+surprise; and I am really fatigued to death. He is such a rattle!\r
+Amusing enough, if my mind had been disengaged; but I would have given\r
+the world to sit still."\r
+\r
+"Then why did not you?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! My dear! It would have looked so particular; and you know how I\r
+abhor doing that. I refused him as long as I possibly could, but he\r
+would take no denial. You have no idea how he pressed me. I begged him\r
+to excuse me, and get some other partner--but no, not he; after aspiring\r
+to my hand, there was nobody else in the room he could bear to think of;\r
+and it was not that he wanted merely to dance, he wanted to be with\r
+me. Oh! Such nonsense! I told him he had taken a very unlikely way to\r
+prevail upon me; for, of all things in the world, I hated fine speeches\r
+and compliments; and so--and so then I found there would be no peace if\r
+I did not stand up. Besides, I thought Mrs. Hughes, who introduced him,\r
+might take it ill if I did not: and your dear brother, I am sure he\r
+would have been miserable if I had sat down the whole evening. I am\r
+so glad it is over! My spirits are quite jaded with listening to his\r
+nonsense: and then, being such a smart young fellow, I saw every eye was\r
+upon us."\r
+\r
+"He is very handsome indeed."\r
+\r
+"Handsome! Yes, I suppose he may. I dare say people would admire him\r
+in general; but he is not at all in my style of beauty. I hate a florid\r
+complexion and dark eyes in a man. However, he is very well. Amazingly\r
+conceited, I am sure. I took him down several times, you know, in my\r
+way."\r
+\r
+When the young ladies next met, they had a far more interesting subject\r
+to discuss. James Morland's second letter was then received, and the\r
+kind intentions of his father fully explained. A living, of which Mr.\r
+Morland was himself patron and incumbent, of about four hundred pounds\r
+yearly value, was to be resigned to his son as soon as he should be\r
+old enough to take it; no trifling deduction from the family income, no\r
+niggardly assignment to one of ten children. An estate of at least equal\r
+value, moreover, was assured as his future inheritance.\r
+\r
+James expressed himself on the occasion with becoming gratitude; and\r
+the necessity of waiting between two and three years before they could\r
+marry, being, however unwelcome, no more than he had expected, was borne\r
+by him without discontent. Catherine, whose expectations had been as\r
+unfixed as her ideas of her father's income, and whose judgment was now\r
+entirely led by her brother, felt equally well satisfied, and heartily\r
+congratulated Isabella on having everything so pleasantly settled.\r
+\r
+"It is very charming indeed," said Isabella, with a grave face. "Mr.\r
+Morland has behaved vastly handsome indeed," said the gentle Mrs.\r
+Thorpe, looking anxiously at her daughter. "I only wish I could do as\r
+much. One could not expect more from him, you know. If he finds he\r
+can do more by and by, I dare say he will, for I am sure he must be an\r
+excellent good-hearted man. Four hundred is but a small income to begin\r
+on indeed, but your wishes, my dear Isabella, are so moderate, you do\r
+not consider how little you ever want, my dear."\r
+\r
+"It is not on my own account I wish for more; but I cannot bear to\r
+be the means of injuring my dear Morland, making him sit down upon an\r
+income hardly enough to find one in the common necessaries of life. For\r
+myself, it is nothing; I never think of myself."\r
+\r
+"I know you never do, my dear; and you will always find your reward in\r
+the affection it makes everybody feel for you. There never was a young\r
+woman so beloved as you are by everybody that knows you; and I dare say\r
+when Mr. Morland sees you, my dear child--but do not let us distress\r
+our dear Catherine by talking of such things. Mr. Morland has behaved so\r
+very handsome, you know. I always heard he was a most excellent man;\r
+and you know, my dear, we are not to suppose but what, if you had had a\r
+suitable fortune, he would have come down with something more, for I am\r
+sure he must be a most liberal-minded man."\r
+\r
+"Nobody can think better of Mr. Morland than I do, I am sure. But\r
+everybody has their failing, you know, and everybody has a right to\r
+do what they like with their own money." Catherine was hurt by these\r
+insinuations. "I am very sure," said she, "that my father has promised\r
+to do as much as he can afford."\r
+\r
+Isabella recollected herself. "As to that, my sweet Catherine, there\r
+cannot be a doubt, and you know me well enough to be sure that a much\r
+smaller income would satisfy me. It is not the want of more money that\r
+makes me just at present a little out of spirits; I hate money; and if\r
+our union could take place now upon only fifty pounds a year, I should\r
+not have a wish unsatisfied. Ah! my Catherine, you have found me out.\r
+There's the sting. The long, long, endless two years and half that are\r
+to pass before your brother can hold the living."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, my darling Isabella," said Mrs. Thorpe, "we perfectly see\r
+into your heart. You have no disguise. We perfectly understand the\r
+present vexation; and everybody must love you the better for such a\r
+noble honest affection."\r
+\r
+Catherine's uncomfortable feelings began to lessen. She endeavoured to\r
+believe that the delay of the marriage was the only source of Isabella's\r
+regret; and when she saw her at their next interview as cheerful and\r
+amiable as ever, endeavoured to forget that she had for a minute thought\r
+otherwise. James soon followed his letter, and was received with the\r
+most gratifying kindness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 17\r
+\r
+\r
+The Allens had now entered on the sixth week of their stay in Bath; and\r
+whether it should be the last was for some time a question, to which\r
+Catherine listened with a beating heart. To have her acquaintance with\r
+the Tilneys end so soon was an evil which nothing could counterbalance.\r
+Her whole happiness seemed at stake, while the affair was in suspense,\r
+and everything secured when it was determined that the lodgings should\r
+be taken for another fortnight. What this additional fortnight was to\r
+produce to her beyond the pleasure of sometimes seeing Henry Tilney made\r
+but a small part of Catherine's speculation. Once or twice indeed, since\r
+James's engagement had taught her what could be done, she had got so\r
+far as to indulge in a secret "perhaps," but in general the felicity of\r
+being with him for the present bounded her views: the present was now\r
+comprised in another three weeks, and her happiness being certain for\r
+that period, the rest of her life was at such a distance as to excite\r
+but little interest. In the course of the morning which saw this\r
+business arranged, she visited Miss Tilney, and poured forth her\r
+joyful feelings. It was doomed to be a day of trial. No sooner had she\r
+expressed her delight in Mr. Allen's lengthened stay than Miss Tilney\r
+told her of her father's having just determined upon quitting Bath\r
+by the end of another week. Here was a blow! The past suspense of\r
+the morning had been ease and quiet to the present disappointment.\r
+Catherine's countenance fell, and in a voice of most sincere concern she\r
+echoed Miss Tilney's concluding words, "By the end of another week!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my father can seldom be prevailed on to give the waters what I\r
+think a fair trial. He has been disappointed of some friends' arrival\r
+whom he expected to meet here, and as he is now pretty well, is in a\r
+hurry to get home."\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry for it," said Catherine dejectedly; "if I had known\r
+this before--"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Miss Tilney in an embarrassed manner, "you would be so\r
+good--it would make me very happy if--"\r
+\r
+The entrance of her father put a stop to the civility, which Catherine\r
+was beginning to hope might introduce a desire of their corresponding.\r
+After addressing her with his usual politeness, he turned to his\r
+daughter and said, "Well, Eleanor, may I congratulate you on being\r
+successful in your application to your fair friend?"\r
+\r
+"I was just beginning to make the request, sir, as you came in."\r
+\r
+"Well, proceed by all means. I know how much your heart is in it. My\r
+daughter, Miss Morland," he continued, without leaving his daughter time\r
+to speak, "has been forming a very bold wish. We leave Bath, as she has\r
+perhaps told you, on Saturday se'nnight. A letter from my steward tells\r
+me that my presence is wanted at home; and being disappointed in my hope\r
+of seeing the Marquis of Longtown and General Courteney here, some of\r
+my very old friends, there is nothing to detain me longer in Bath. And\r
+could we carry our selfish point with you, we should leave it without a\r
+single regret. Can you, in short, be prevailed on to quit this scene\r
+of public triumph and oblige your friend Eleanor with your company in\r
+Gloucestershire? I am almost ashamed to make the request, though its\r
+presumption would certainly appear greater to every creature in Bath\r
+than yourself. Modesty such as yours--but not for the world would I pain\r
+it by open praise. If you can be induced to honour us with a visit,\r
+you will make us happy beyond expression. 'Tis true, we can offer you\r
+nothing like the gaieties of this lively place; we can tempt you neither\r
+by amusement nor splendour, for our mode of living, as you see, is plain\r
+and unpretending; yet no endeavours shall be wanting on our side to make\r
+Northanger Abbey not wholly disagreeable."\r
+\r
+Northanger Abbey! These were thrilling words, and wound up Catherine's\r
+feelings to the highest point of ecstasy. Her grateful and gratified\r
+heart could hardly restrain its expressions within the language of\r
+tolerable calmness. To receive so flattering an invitation! To have her\r
+company so warmly solicited! Everything honourable and soothing, every\r
+present enjoyment, and every future hope was contained in it; and her\r
+acceptance, with only the saving clause of Papa and Mamma's approbation,\r
+was eagerly given. "I will write home directly," said she, "and if they\r
+do not object, as I dare say they will not--"\r
+\r
+General Tilney was not less sanguine, having already waited on her\r
+excellent friends in Pulteney Street, and obtained their sanction of\r
+his wishes. "Since they can consent to part with you," said he, "we may\r
+expect philosophy from all the world."\r
+\r
+Miss Tilney was earnest, though gentle, in her secondary civilities, and\r
+the affair became in a few minutes as nearly settled as this necessary\r
+reference to Fullerton would allow.\r
+\r
+The circumstances of the morning had led Catherine's feelings through\r
+the varieties of suspense, security, and disappointment; but they were\r
+now safely lodged in perfect bliss; and with spirits elated to rapture,\r
+with Henry at her heart, and Northanger Abbey on her lips, she\r
+hurried home to write her letter. Mr. and Mrs. Morland, relying on\r
+the discretion of the friends to whom they had already entrusted their\r
+daughter, felt no doubt of the propriety of an acquaintance which had\r
+been formed under their eye, and sent therefore by return of post their\r
+ready consent to her visit in Gloucestershire. This indulgence, though\r
+not more than Catherine had hoped for, completed her conviction of being\r
+favoured beyond every other human creature, in friends and fortune,\r
+circumstance and chance. Everything seemed to cooperate for her\r
+advantage. By the kindness of her first friends, the Allens, she had\r
+been introduced into scenes where pleasures of every kind had met her.\r
+Her feelings, her preferences, had each known the happiness of a return.\r
+Wherever she felt attachment, she had been able to create it. The\r
+affection of Isabella was to be secured to her in a sister. The Tilneys,\r
+they, by whom, above all, she desired to be favourably thought of,\r
+outstripped even her wishes in the flattering measures by which their\r
+intimacy was to be continued. She was to be their chosen visitor, she\r
+was to be for weeks under the same roof with the person whose society\r
+she mostly prized--and, in addition to all the rest, this roof was to\r
+be the roof of an abbey! Her passion for ancient edifices was next in\r
+degree to her passion for Henry Tilney--and castles and abbeys made\r
+usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill. To see\r
+and explore either the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters\r
+of the other, had been for many weeks a darling wish, though to be more\r
+than the visitor of an hour had seemed too nearly impossible for desire.\r
+And yet, this was to happen. With all the chances against her of house,\r
+hall, place, park, court, and cottage, Northanger turned up an abbey,\r
+and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long, damp passages, its narrow\r
+cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her daily reach, and she\r
+could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some\r
+awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun.\r
+\r
+It was wonderful that her friends should seem so little elated by the\r
+possession of such a home, that the consciousness of it should be so\r
+meekly borne. The power of early habit only could account for it. A\r
+distinction to which they had been born gave no pride. Their superiority\r
+of abode was no more to them than their superiority of person.\r
+\r
+Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss Tilney; but so\r
+active were her thoughts, that when these inquiries were answered, she\r
+was hardly more assured than before, of Northanger Abbey having been\r
+a richly endowed convent at the time of the Reformation, of its having\r
+fallen into the hands of an ancestor of the Tilneys on its dissolution,\r
+of a large portion of the ancient building still making a part of the\r
+present dwelling although the rest was decayed, or of its standing low\r
+in a valley, sheltered from the north and east by rising woods of oak.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 18\r
+\r
+\r
+With a mind thus full of happiness, Catherine was hardly aware that two\r
+or three days had passed away, without her seeing Isabella for more than\r
+a few minutes together. She began first to be sensible of this, and\r
+to sigh for her conversation, as she walked along the pump-room one\r
+morning, by Mrs. Allen's side, without anything to say or to hear; and\r
+scarcely had she felt a five minutes' longing of friendship, before the\r
+object of it appeared, and inviting her to a secret conference, led the\r
+way to a seat. "This is my favourite place," said she as they sat\r
+down on a bench between the doors, which commanded a tolerable view of\r
+everybody entering at either; "it is so out of the way."\r
+\r
+Catherine, observing that Isabella's eyes were continually bent towards\r
+one door or the other, as in eager expectation, and remembering how\r
+often she had been falsely accused of being arch, thought the present a\r
+fine opportunity for being really so; and therefore gaily said, "Do not\r
+be uneasy, Isabella, James will soon be here."\r
+\r
+"Psha! My dear creature," she replied, "do not think me such a simpleton\r
+as to be always wanting to confine him to my elbow. It would be hideous\r
+to be always together; we should be the jest of the place. And so you\r
+are going to Northanger! I am amazingly glad of it. It is one of the\r
+finest old places in England, I understand. I shall depend upon a most\r
+particular description of it."\r
+\r
+"You shall certainly have the best in my power to give. But who are you\r
+looking for? Are your sisters coming?"\r
+\r
+"I am not looking for anybody. One's eyes must be somewhere, and you\r
+know what a foolish trick I have of fixing mine, when my thoughts are an\r
+hundred miles off. I am amazingly absent; I believe I am the most absent\r
+creature in the world. Tilney says it is always the case with minds of a\r
+certain stamp."\r
+\r
+"But I thought, Isabella, you had something in particular to tell me?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! Yes, and so I have. But here is a proof of what I was saying. My\r
+poor head, I had quite forgot it. Well, the thing is this: I have just\r
+had a letter from John; you can guess the contents."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I cannot."\r
+\r
+"My sweet love, do not be so abominably affected. What can he write\r
+about, but yourself? You know he is over head and ears in love with\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"With me, dear Isabella!"\r
+\r
+"Nay, my sweetest Catherine, this is being quite absurd! Modesty, and\r
+all that, is very well in its way, but really a little common honesty is\r
+sometimes quite as becoming. I have no idea of being so overstrained!\r
+It is fishing for compliments. His attentions were such as a child must\r
+have noticed. And it was but half an hour before he left Bath that you\r
+gave him the most positive encouragement. He says so in this letter,\r
+says that he as good as made you an offer, and that you received his\r
+advances in the kindest way; and now he wants me to urge his suit,\r
+and say all manner of pretty things to you. So it is in vain to affect\r
+ignorance."\r
+\r
+Catherine, with all the earnestness of truth, expressed her astonishment\r
+at such a charge, protesting her innocence of every thought of Mr.\r
+Thorpe's being in love with her, and the consequent impossibility of\r
+her having ever intended to encourage him. "As to any attentions on his\r
+side, I do declare, upon my honour, I never was sensible of them for a\r
+moment--except just his asking me to dance the first day of his coming.\r
+And as to making me an offer, or anything like it, there must be some\r
+unaccountable mistake. I could not have misunderstood a thing of that\r
+kind, you know! And, as I ever wish to be believed, I solemnly protest\r
+that no syllable of such a nature ever passed between us. The last half\r
+hour before he went away! It must be all and completely a mistake--for I\r
+did not see him once that whole morning."\r
+\r
+"But that you certainly did, for you spent the whole morning in Edgar's\r
+Buildings--it was the day your father's consent came--and I am pretty\r
+sure that you and John were alone in the parlour some time before you\r
+left the house."\r
+\r
+"Are you? Well, if you say it, it was so, I dare say--but for the life\r
+of me, I cannot recollect it. I do remember now being with you, and\r
+seeing him as well as the rest--but that we were ever alone for five\r
+minutes--However, it is not worth arguing about, for whatever might pass\r
+on his side, you must be convinced, by my having no recollection of it,\r
+that I never thought, nor expected, nor wished for anything of the kind\r
+from him. I am excessively concerned that he should have any regard for\r
+me--but indeed it has been quite unintentional on my side; I never had\r
+the smallest idea of it. Pray undeceive him as soon as you can, and tell\r
+him I beg his pardon--that is--I do not know what I ought to say--but\r
+make him understand what I mean, in the properest way. I would not speak\r
+disrespectfully of a brother of yours, Isabella, I am sure; but you know\r
+very well that if I could think of one man more than another--he is not\r
+the person." Isabella was silent. "My dear friend, you must not be angry\r
+with me. I cannot suppose your brother cares so very much about me. And,\r
+you know, we shall still be sisters."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes" (with a blush), "there are more ways than one of our being\r
+sisters. But where am I wandering to? Well, my dear Catherine, the case\r
+seems to be that you are determined against poor John--is not it so?"\r
+\r
+"I certainly cannot return his affection, and as certainly never meant\r
+to encourage it."\r
+\r
+"Since that is the case, I am sure I shall not tease you any further.\r
+John desired me to speak to you on the subject, and therefore I have.\r
+But I confess, as soon as I read his letter, I thought it a very\r
+foolish, imprudent business, and not likely to promote the good of\r
+either; for what were you to live upon, supposing you came together? You\r
+have both of you something, to be sure, but it is not a trifle that will\r
+support a family nowadays; and after all that romancers may say, there\r
+is no doing without money. I only wonder John could think of it; he\r
+could not have received my last."\r
+\r
+"You do acquit me, then, of anything wrong?--You are convinced that I\r
+never meant to deceive your brother, never suspected him of liking me\r
+till this moment?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! As to that," answered Isabella laughingly, "I do not pretend to\r
+determine what your thoughts and designs in time past may have been. All\r
+that is best known to yourself. A little harmless flirtation or so will\r
+occur, and one is often drawn on to give more encouragement than one\r
+wishes to stand by. But you may be assured that I am the last person in\r
+the world to judge you severely. All those things should be allowed for\r
+in youth and high spirits. What one means one day, you know, one may not\r
+mean the next. Circumstances change, opinions alter."\r
+\r
+"But my opinion of your brother never did alter; it was always the same.\r
+You are describing what never happened."\r
+\r
+"My dearest Catherine," continued the other without at all listening to\r
+her, "I would not for all the world be the means of hurrying you into an\r
+engagement before you knew what you were about. I do not think anything\r
+would justify me in wishing you to sacrifice all your happiness merely\r
+to oblige my brother, because he is my brother, and who perhaps after\r
+all, you know, might be just as happy without you, for people seldom\r
+know what they would be at, young men especially, they are so amazingly\r
+changeable and inconstant. What I say is, why should a brother's\r
+happiness be dearer to me than a friend's? You know I carry my notions\r
+of friendship pretty high. But, above all things, my dear Catherine, do\r
+not be in a hurry. Take my word for it, that if you are in too great\r
+a hurry, you will certainly live to repent it. Tilney says there is\r
+nothing people are so often deceived in as the state of their own\r
+affections, and I believe he is very right. Ah! Here he comes; never\r
+mind, he will not see us, I am sure."\r
+\r
+Catherine, looking up, perceived Captain Tilney; and Isabella,\r
+earnestly fixing her eye on him as she spoke, soon caught his notice. He\r
+approached immediately, and took the seat to which her movements invited\r
+him. His first address made Catherine start. Though spoken low, she\r
+could distinguish, "What! Always to be watched, in person or by proxy!"\r
+\r
+"Psha, nonsense!" was Isabella's answer in the same half whisper. "Why\r
+do you put such things into my head? If I could believe it--my spirit,\r
+you know, is pretty independent."\r
+\r
+"I wish your heart were independent. That would be enough for me."\r
+\r
+"My heart, indeed! What can you have to do with hearts? You men have\r
+none of you any hearts."\r
+\r
+"If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment enough."\r
+\r
+"Do they? I am sorry for it; I am sorry they find anything so\r
+disagreeable in me. I will look another way. I hope this pleases you"\r
+(turning her back on him); "I hope your eyes are not tormented now."\r
+\r
+"Never more so; for the edge of a blooming cheek is still in view--at\r
+once too much and too little."\r
+\r
+Catherine heard all this, and quite out of countenance, could listen\r
+no longer. Amazed that Isabella could endure it, and jealous for her\r
+brother, she rose up, and saying she should join Mrs. Allen, proposed\r
+their walking. But for this Isabella showed no inclination. She was so\r
+amazingly tired, and it was so odious to parade about the pump-room;\r
+and if she moved from her seat she should miss her sisters; she was\r
+expecting her sisters every moment; so that her dearest Catherine must\r
+excuse her, and must sit quietly down again. But Catherine could be\r
+stubborn too; and Mrs. Allen just then coming up to propose their\r
+returning home, she joined her and walked out of the pump-room, leaving\r
+Isabella still sitting with Captain Tilney. With much uneasiness did\r
+she thus leave them. It seemed to her that Captain Tilney was falling\r
+in love with Isabella, and Isabella unconsciously encouraging him;\r
+unconsciously it must be, for Isabella's attachment to James was as\r
+certain and well acknowledged as her engagement. To doubt her truth\r
+or good intentions was impossible; and yet, during the whole of their\r
+conversation her manner had been odd. She wished Isabella had talked\r
+more like her usual self, and not so much about money, and had not\r
+looked so well pleased at the sight of Captain Tilney. How strange that\r
+she should not perceive his admiration! Catherine longed to give her a\r
+hint of it, to put her on her guard, and prevent all the pain which\r
+her too lively behaviour might otherwise create both for him and her\r
+brother.\r
+\r
+The compliment of John Thorpe's affection did not make amends for this\r
+thoughtlessness in his sister. She was almost as far from believing as\r
+from wishing it to be sincere; for she had not forgotten that he\r
+could mistake, and his assertion of the offer and of her encouragement\r
+convinced her that his mistakes could sometimes be very egregious.\r
+In vanity, therefore, she gained but little; her chief profit was in\r
+wonder. That he should think it worth his while to fancy himself in love\r
+with her was a matter of lively astonishment. Isabella talked of his\r
+attentions; she had never been sensible of any; but Isabella had said\r
+many things which she hoped had been spoken in haste, and would never\r
+be said again; and upon this she was glad to rest altogether for present\r
+ease and comfort.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 19\r
+\r
+\r
+A few days passed away, and Catherine, though not allowing herself to\r
+suspect her friend, could not help watching her closely. The result of\r
+her observations was not agreeable. Isabella seemed an altered creature.\r
+When she saw her, indeed, surrounded only by their immediate friends\r
+in Edgar's Buildings or Pulteney Street, her change of manners was so\r
+trifling that, had it gone no farther, it might have passed unnoticed.\r
+A something of languid indifference, or of that boasted absence of\r
+mind which Catherine had never heard of before, would occasionally come\r
+across her; but had nothing worse appeared, that might only have spread\r
+a new grace and inspired a warmer interest. But when Catherine saw her\r
+in public, admitting Captain Tilney's attentions as readily as they were\r
+offered, and allowing him almost an equal share with James in her notice\r
+and smiles, the alteration became too positive to be passed over. What\r
+could be meant by such unsteady conduct, what her friend could be at,\r
+was beyond her comprehension. Isabella could not be aware of the pain\r
+she was inflicting; but it was a degree of wilful thoughtlessness which\r
+Catherine could not but resent. James was the sufferer. She saw him\r
+grave and uneasy; and however careless of his present comfort the woman\r
+might be who had given him her heart, to her it was always an object.\r
+For poor Captain Tilney too she was greatly concerned. Though his looks\r
+did not please her, his name was a passport to her goodwill, and she\r
+thought with sincere compassion of his approaching disappointment; for,\r
+in spite of what she had believed herself to overhear in the pump-room,\r
+his behaviour was so incompatible with a knowledge of Isabella's\r
+engagement that she could not, upon reflection, imagine him aware of it.\r
+He might be jealous of her brother as a rival, but if more had seemed\r
+implied, the fault must have been in her misapprehension. She wished, by\r
+a gentle remonstrance, to remind Isabella of her situation, and make\r
+her aware of this double unkindness; but for remonstrance, either\r
+opportunity or comprehension was always against her. If able to suggest\r
+a hint, Isabella could never understand it. In this distress, the\r
+intended departure of the Tilney family became her chief consolation;\r
+their journey into Gloucestershire was to take place within a few days,\r
+and Captain Tilney's removal would at least restore peace to every heart\r
+but his own. But Captain Tilney had at present no intention of removing;\r
+he was not to be of the party to Northanger; he was to continue at Bath.\r
+When Catherine knew this, her resolution was directly made. She spoke to\r
+Henry Tilney on the subject, regretting his brother's evident partiality\r
+for Miss Thorpe, and entreating him to make known her prior engagement.\r
+\r
+"My brother does know it," was Henry's answer.\r
+\r
+"Does he? Then why does he stay here?"\r
+\r
+He made no reply, and was beginning to talk of something else; but she\r
+eagerly continued, "Why do not you persuade him to go away? The longer\r
+he stays, the worse it will be for him at last. Pray advise him for his\r
+own sake, and for everybody's sake, to leave Bath directly. Absence will\r
+in time make him comfortable again; but he can have no hope here, and it\r
+is only staying to be miserable."\r
+\r
+Henry smiled and said, "I am sure my brother would not wish to do that."\r
+\r
+"Then you will persuade him to go away?"\r
+\r
+"Persuasion is not at command; but pardon me, if I cannot even endeavour\r
+to persuade him. I have myself told him that Miss Thorpe is engaged. He\r
+knows what he is about, and must be his own master."\r
+\r
+"No, he does not know what he is about," cried Catherine; "he does not\r
+know the pain he is giving my brother. Not that James has ever told me\r
+so, but I am sure he is very uncomfortable."\r
+\r
+"And are you sure it is my brother's doing?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very sure."\r
+\r
+"Is it my brother's attentions to Miss Thorpe, or Miss Thorpe's\r
+admission of them, that gives the pain?"\r
+\r
+"Is not it the same thing?"\r
+\r
+"I think Mr. Morland would acknowledge a difference. No man is offended\r
+by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only\r
+who can make it a torment."\r
+\r
+Catherine blushed for her friend, and said, "Isabella is wrong. But I\r
+am sure she cannot mean to torment, for she is very much attached to my\r
+brother. She has been in love with him ever since they first met, and\r
+while my father's consent was uncertain, she fretted herself almost into\r
+a fever. You know she must be attached to him."\r
+\r
+"I understand: she is in love with James, and flirts with Frederick."\r
+\r
+"Oh! no, not flirts. A woman in love with one man cannot flirt with\r
+another."\r
+\r
+"It is probable that she will neither love so well, nor flirt so\r
+well, as she might do either singly. The gentlemen must each give up a\r
+little."\r
+\r
+After a short pause, Catherine resumed with, "Then you do not believe\r
+Isabella so very much attached to my brother?"\r
+\r
+"I can have no opinion on that subject."\r
+\r
+"But what can your brother mean? If he knows her engagement, what can he\r
+mean by his behaviour?"\r
+\r
+"You are a very close questioner."\r
+\r
+"Am I? I only ask what I want to be told."\r
+\r
+"But do you only ask what I can be expected to tell?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think so; for you must know your brother's heart."\r
+\r
+"My brother's heart, as you term it, on the present occasion, I assure\r
+you I can only guess at."\r
+\r
+"Well?"\r
+\r
+"Well! Nay, if it is to be guesswork, let us all guess for ourselves. To\r
+be guided by second-hand conjecture is pitiful. The premises are before\r
+you. My brother is a lively and perhaps sometimes a thoughtless young\r
+man; he has had about a week's acquaintance with your friend, and he has\r
+known her engagement almost as long as he has known her."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Catherine, after some moments' consideration, "you may be\r
+able to guess at your brother's intentions from all this; but I am sure\r
+I cannot. But is not your father uncomfortable about it? Does not he\r
+want Captain Tilney to go away? Sure, if your father were to speak to\r
+him, he would go."\r
+\r
+"My dear Miss Morland," said Henry, "in this amiable solicitude for your\r
+brother's comfort, may you not be a little mistaken? Are you not carried\r
+a little too far? Would he thank you, either on his own account or\r
+Miss Thorpe's, for supposing that her affection, or at least her good\r
+behaviour, is only to be secured by her seeing nothing of Captain\r
+Tilney? Is he safe only in solitude? Or is her heart constant to him\r
+only when unsolicited by anyone else? He cannot think this--and you may\r
+be sure that he would not have you think it. I will not say, 'Do not\r
+be uneasy,' because I know that you are so, at this moment; but be as\r
+little uneasy as you can. You have no doubt of the mutual attachment\r
+of your brother and your friend; depend upon it, therefore, that\r
+real jealousy never can exist between them; depend upon it that no\r
+disagreement between them can be of any duration. Their hearts are open\r
+to each other, as neither heart can be to you; they know exactly what\r
+is required and what can be borne; and you may be certain that one will\r
+never tease the other beyond what is known to be pleasant."\r
+\r
+Perceiving her still to look doubtful and grave, he added, "Though\r
+Frederick does not leave Bath with us, he will probably remain but a\r
+very short time, perhaps only a few days behind us. His leave of absence\r
+will soon expire, and he must return to his regiment. And what will then\r
+be their acquaintance? The mess-room will drink Isabella Thorpe for\r
+a fortnight, and she will laugh with your brother over poor Tilney's\r
+passion for a month."\r
+\r
+Catherine would contend no longer against comfort. She had resisted its\r
+approaches during the whole length of a speech, but it now carried her\r
+captive. Henry Tilney must know best. She blamed herself for the extent\r
+of her fears, and resolved never to think so seriously on the subject\r
+again.\r
+\r
+Her resolution was supported by Isabella's behaviour in their parting\r
+interview. The Thorpes spent the last evening of Catherine's stay in\r
+Pulteney Street, and nothing passed between the lovers to excite\r
+her uneasiness, or make her quit them in apprehension. James was in\r
+excellent spirits, and Isabella most engagingly placid. Her tenderness\r
+for her friend seemed rather the first feeling of her heart; but that\r
+at such a moment was allowable; and once she gave her lover a flat\r
+contradiction, and once she drew back her hand; but Catherine remembered\r
+Henry's instructions, and placed it all to judicious affection. The\r
+embraces, tears, and promises of the parting fair ones may be fancied.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 20\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Allen were sorry to lose their young friend, whose good\r
+humour and cheerfulness had made her a valuable companion, and in the\r
+promotion of whose enjoyment their own had been gently increased. Her\r
+happiness in going with Miss Tilney, however, prevented their wishing\r
+it otherwise; and, as they were to remain only one more week in Bath\r
+themselves, her quitting them now would not long be felt. Mr. Allen\r
+attended her to Milsom Street, where she was to breakfast, and saw her\r
+seated with the kindest welcome among her new friends; but so great was\r
+her agitation in finding herself as one of the family, and so fearful\r
+was she of not doing exactly what was right, and of not being able to\r
+preserve their good opinion, that, in the embarrassment of the first\r
+five minutes, she could almost have wished to return with him to\r
+Pulteney Street.\r
+\r
+Miss Tilney's manners and Henry's smile soon did away some of her\r
+unpleasant feelings; but still she was far from being at ease; nor could\r
+the incessant attentions of the general himself entirely reassure her.\r
+Nay, perverse as it seemed, she doubted whether she might not have felt\r
+less, had she been less attended to. His anxiety for her comfort--his\r
+continual solicitations that she would eat, and his often-expressed\r
+fears of her seeing nothing to her taste--though never in her life\r
+before had she beheld half such variety on a breakfast-table--made it\r
+impossible for her to forget for a moment that she was a visitor. She\r
+felt utterly unworthy of such respect, and knew not how to reply to it.\r
+Her tranquillity was not improved by the general's impatience for the\r
+appearance of his eldest son, nor by the displeasure he expressed at his\r
+laziness when Captain Tilney at last came down. She was quite pained by\r
+the severity of his father's reproof, which seemed disproportionate to\r
+the offence; and much was her concern increased when she found herself\r
+the principal cause of the lecture, and that his tardiness was chiefly\r
+resented from being disrespectful to her. This was placing her in a\r
+very uncomfortable situation, and she felt great compassion for Captain\r
+Tilney, without being able to hope for his goodwill.\r
+\r
+He listened to his father in silence, and attempted not any defence,\r
+which confirmed her in fearing that the inquietude of his mind, on\r
+Isabella's account, might, by keeping him long sleepless, have been\r
+the real cause of his rising late. It was the first time of her being\r
+decidedly in his company, and she had hoped to be now able to form\r
+her opinion of him; but she scarcely heard his voice while his father\r
+remained in the room; and even afterwards, so much were his spirits\r
+affected, she could distinguish nothing but these words, in a whisper to\r
+Eleanor, "How glad I shall be when you are all off."\r
+\r
+The bustle of going was not pleasant. The clock struck ten while the\r
+trunks were carrying down, and the general had fixed to be out of Milsom\r
+Street by that hour. His greatcoat, instead of being brought for him\r
+to put on directly, was spread out in the curricle in which he was to\r
+accompany his son. The middle seat of the chaise was not drawn out,\r
+though there were three people to go in it, and his daughter's maid had\r
+so crowded it with parcels that Miss Morland would not have room to sit;\r
+and, so much was he influenced by this apprehension when he handed her\r
+in, that she had some difficulty in saving her own new writing-desk from\r
+being thrown out into the street. At last, however, the door was closed\r
+upon the three females, and they set off at the sober pace in which\r
+the handsome, highly fed four horses of a gentleman usually perform a\r
+journey of thirty miles: such was the distance of Northanger from Bath,\r
+to be now divided into two equal stages. Catherine's spirits revived as\r
+they drove from the door; for with Miss Tilney she felt no restraint;\r
+and, with the interest of a road entirely new to her, of an abbey\r
+before, and a curricle behind, she caught the last view of Bath without\r
+any regret, and met with every milestone before she expected it. The\r
+tediousness of a two hours' wait at Petty France, in which there was\r
+nothing to be done but to eat without being hungry, and loiter about\r
+without anything to see, next followed--and her admiration of the style\r
+in which they travelled, of the fashionable chaise and four--postilions\r
+handsomely liveried, rising so regularly in their stirrups, and\r
+numerous outriders properly mounted, sunk a little under this consequent\r
+inconvenience. Had their party been perfectly agreeable, the delay would\r
+have been nothing; but General Tilney, though so charming a man, seemed\r
+always a check upon his children's spirits, and scarcely anything was\r
+said but by himself; the observation of which, with his discontent at\r
+whatever the inn afforded, and his angry impatience at the waiters, made\r
+Catherine grow every moment more in awe of him, and appeared to lengthen\r
+the two hours into four. At last, however, the order of release was\r
+given; and much was Catherine then surprised by the general's proposal\r
+of her taking his place in his son's curricle for the rest of the\r
+journey: "the day was fine, and he was anxious for her seeing as much of\r
+the country as possible."\r
+\r
+The remembrance of Mr. Allen's opinion, respecting young men's open\r
+carriages, made her blush at the mention of such a plan, and her first\r
+thought was to decline it; but her second was of greater deference for\r
+General Tilney's judgment; he could not propose anything improper for\r
+her; and, in the course of a few minutes, she found herself with Henry\r
+in the curricle, as happy a being as ever existed. A very short trial\r
+convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world;\r
+the chaise and four wheeled off with some grandeur, to be sure, but it\r
+was a heavy and troublesome business, and she could not easily forget\r
+its having stopped two hours at Petty France. Half the time would\r
+have been enough for the curricle, and so nimbly were the light horses\r
+disposed to move, that, had not the general chosen to have his own\r
+carriage lead the way, they could have passed it with ease in half a\r
+minute. But the merit of the curricle did not all belong to the horses;\r
+Henry drove so well--so quietly--without making any disturbance,\r
+without parading to her, or swearing at them: so different from the only\r
+gentleman-coachman whom it was in her power to compare him with! And\r
+then his hat sat so well, and the innumerable capes of his greatcoat\r
+looked so becomingly important! To be driven by him, next to being\r
+dancing with him, was certainly the greatest happiness in the world. In\r
+addition to every other delight, she had now that of listening to her\r
+own praise; of being thanked at least, on his sister's account, for\r
+her kindness in thus becoming her visitor; of hearing it ranked as real\r
+friendship, and described as creating real gratitude. His sister, he\r
+said, was uncomfortably circumstanced--she had no female companion--and,\r
+in the frequent absence of her father, was sometimes without any\r
+companion at all.\r
+\r
+"But how can that be?" said Catherine. "Are not you with her?"\r
+\r
+"Northanger is not more than half my home; I have an establishment at\r
+my own house in Woodston, which is nearly twenty miles from my father's,\r
+and some of my time is necessarily spent there."\r
+\r
+"How sorry you must be for that!"\r
+\r
+"I am always sorry to leave Eleanor."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but besides your affection for her, you must be so fond of\r
+the abbey! After being used to such a home as the abbey, an ordinary\r
+parsonage-house must be very disagreeable."\r
+\r
+He smiled, and said, "You have formed a very favourable idea of the\r
+abbey."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, I have. Is not it a fine old place, just like what one\r
+reads about?"\r
+\r
+"And are you prepared to encounter all the horrors that a building such\r
+as 'what one reads about' may produce? Have you a stout heart? Nerves\r
+fit for sliding panels and tapestry?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes--I do not think I should be easily frightened, because there\r
+would be so many people in the house--and besides, it has never been\r
+uninhabited and left deserted for years, and then the family come back\r
+to it unawares, without giving any notice, as generally happens."\r
+\r
+"No, certainly. We shall not have to explore our way into a hall dimly\r
+lighted by the expiring embers of a wood fire--nor be obliged to spread\r
+our beds on the floor of a room without windows, doors, or furniture.\r
+But you must be aware that when a young lady is (by whatever means)\r
+introduced into a dwelling of this kind, she is always lodged apart from\r
+the rest of the family. While they snugly repair to their own end of the\r
+house, she is formally conducted by Dorothy, the ancient housekeeper, up\r
+a different staircase, and along many gloomy passages, into an apartment\r
+never used since some cousin or kin died in it about twenty years\r
+before. Can you stand such a ceremony as this? Will not your mind\r
+misgive you when you find yourself in this gloomy chamber--too lofty and\r
+extensive for you, with only the feeble rays of a single lamp to take\r
+in its size--its walls hung with tapestry exhibiting figures as large as\r
+life, and the bed, of dark green stuff or purple velvet, presenting even\r
+a funereal appearance? Will not your heart sink within you?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! But this will not happen to me, I am sure."\r
+\r
+"How fearfully will you examine the furniture of your apartment! And\r
+what will you discern? Not tables, toilettes, wardrobes, or drawers,\r
+but on one side perhaps the remains of a broken lute, on the other a\r
+ponderous chest which no efforts can open, and over the fireplace\r
+the portrait of some handsome warrior, whose features will so\r
+incomprehensibly strike you, that you will not be able to withdraw your\r
+eyes from it. Dorothy, meanwhile, no less struck by your appearance,\r
+gazes on you in great agitation, and drops a few unintelligible hints.\r
+To raise your spirits, moreover, she gives you reason to suppose that\r
+the part of the abbey you inhabit is undoubtedly haunted, and informs\r
+you that you will not have a single domestic within call. With this\r
+parting cordial she curtsies off--you listen to the sound of her\r
+receding footsteps as long as the last echo can reach you--and when,\r
+with fainting spirits, you attempt to fasten your door, you discover,\r
+with increased alarm, that it has no lock."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Mr. Tilney, how frightful! This is just like a book! But it cannot\r
+really happen to me. I am sure your housekeeper is not really Dorothy.\r
+Well, what then?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first night. After\r
+surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire to\r
+rest, and get a few hours' unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at\r
+farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a\r
+violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice\r
+to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains--and during\r
+the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably think\r
+you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging\r
+more violently agitated than the rest. Unable of course to repress your\r
+curiosity in so favourable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly\r
+arise, and throwing your dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine\r
+this mystery. After a very short search, you will discover a division in\r
+the tapestry so artfully constructed as to defy the minutest inspection,\r
+and on opening it, a door will immediately appear--which door, being\r
+only secured by massy bars and a padlock, you will, after a few efforts,\r
+succeed in opening--and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through\r
+it into a small vaulted room."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any such thing."\r
+\r
+"What! Not when Dorothy has given you to understand that there is a\r
+secret subterraneous communication between your apartment and the chapel\r
+of St. Anthony, scarcely two miles off? Could you shrink from so simple\r
+an adventure? No, no, you will proceed into this small vaulted room,\r
+and through this into several others, without perceiving anything very\r
+remarkable in either. In one perhaps there may be a dagger, in another\r
+a few drops of blood, and in a third the remains of some instrument of\r
+torture; but there being nothing in all this out of the common way,\r
+and your lamp being nearly exhausted, you will return towards your own\r
+apartment. In repassing through the small vaulted room, however, your\r
+eyes will be attracted towards a large, old-fashioned cabinet of ebony\r
+and gold, which, though narrowly examining the furniture before, you\r
+had passed unnoticed. Impelled by an irresistible presentiment, you will\r
+eagerly advance to it, unlock its folding doors, and search into\r
+every drawer--but for some time without discovering anything of\r
+importance--perhaps nothing but a considerable hoard of diamonds. At\r
+last, however, by touching a secret spring, an inner compartment will\r
+open--a roll of paper appears--you seize it--it contains many sheets of\r
+manuscript--you hasten with the precious treasure into your own chamber,\r
+but scarcely have you been able to decipher 'Oh! Thou--whomsoever thou\r
+mayst be, into whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may\r
+fall'--when your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and leaves you in\r
+total darkness."\r
+\r
+"Oh! No, no--do not say so. Well, go on."\r
+\r
+But Henry was too much amused by the interest he had raised to be able\r
+to carry it farther; he could no longer command solemnity either of\r
+subject or voice, and was obliged to entreat her to use her own fancy\r
+in the perusal of Matilda's woes. Catherine, recollecting herself, grew\r
+ashamed of her eagerness, and began earnestly to assure him that her\r
+attention had been fixed without the smallest apprehension of really\r
+meeting with what he related. "Miss Tilney, she was sure, would never\r
+put her into such a chamber as he had described! She was not at all\r
+afraid."\r
+\r
+As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for a sight\r
+of the abbey--for some time suspended by his conversation on subjects\r
+very different--returned in full force, and every bend in the road was\r
+expected with solemn awe to afford a glimpse of its massy walls of grey\r
+stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the\r
+sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic windows. But so\r
+low did the building stand, that she found herself passing through the\r
+great gates of the lodge into the very grounds of Northanger, without\r
+having discerned even an antique chimney.\r
+\r
+She knew not that she had any right to be surprised, but there was a\r
+something in this mode of approach which she certainly had not expected.\r
+To pass between lodges of a modern appearance, to find herself with such\r
+ease in the very precincts of the abbey, and driven so rapidly along a\r
+smooth, level road of fine gravel, without obstacle, alarm, or solemnity\r
+of any kind, struck her as odd and inconsistent. She was not long\r
+at leisure, however, for such considerations. A sudden scud of rain,\r
+driving full in her face, made it impossible for her to observe anything\r
+further, and fixed all her thoughts on the welfare of her new straw\r
+bonnet; and she was actually under the abbey walls, was springing, with\r
+Henry's assistance, from the carriage, was beneath the shelter of the\r
+old porch, and had even passed on to the hall, where her friend and\r
+the general were waiting to welcome her, without feeling one awful\r
+foreboding of future misery to herself, or one moment's suspicion of any\r
+past scenes of horror being acted within the solemn edifice. The breeze\r
+had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her; it had wafted\r
+nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain; and having given a good shake\r
+to her habit, she was ready to be shown into the common drawing-room,\r
+and capable of considering where she was.\r
+\r
+An abbey! Yes, it was delightful to be really in an abbey! But she\r
+doubted, as she looked round the room, whether anything within her\r
+observation would have given her the consciousness. The furniture was in\r
+all the profusion and elegance of modern taste. The fireplace, where she\r
+had expected the ample width and ponderous carving of former times, was\r
+contracted to a Rumford, with slabs of plain though handsome marble, and\r
+ornaments over it of the prettiest English china. The windows, to which\r
+she looked with peculiar dependence, from having heard the general talk\r
+of his preserving them in their Gothic form with reverential care, were\r
+yet less what her fancy had portrayed. To be sure, the pointed arch\r
+was preserved--the form of them was Gothic--they might be even\r
+casements--but every pane was so large, so clear, so light! To an\r
+imagination which had hoped for the smallest divisions, and the heaviest\r
+stone-work, for painted glass, dirt, and cobwebs, the difference was\r
+very distressing.\r
+\r
+The general, perceiving how her eye was employed, began to talk of the\r
+smallness of the room and simplicity of the furniture, where everything,\r
+being for daily use, pretended only to comfort, etc.; flattering\r
+himself, however, that there were some apartments in the Abbey not\r
+unworthy her notice--and was proceeding to mention the costly gilding\r
+of one in particular, when, taking out his watch, he stopped short to\r
+pronounce it with surprise within twenty minutes of five! This seemed\r
+the word of separation, and Catherine found herself hurried away by Miss\r
+Tilney in such a manner as convinced her that the strictest punctuality\r
+to the family hours would be expected at Northanger.\r
+\r
+Returning through the large and lofty hall, they ascended a broad\r
+staircase of shining oak, which, after many flights and many\r
+landing-places, brought them upon a long, wide gallery. On one side it\r
+had a range of doors, and it was lighted on the other by windows which\r
+Catherine had only time to discover looked into a quadrangle, before\r
+Miss Tilney led the way into a chamber, and scarcely staying to hope she\r
+would find it comfortable, left her with an anxious entreaty that she\r
+would make as little alteration as possible in her dress.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 21\r
+\r
+\r
+A moment's glance was enough to satisfy Catherine that her apartment\r
+was very unlike the one which Henry had endeavoured to alarm her by the\r
+description of. It was by no means unreasonably large, and contained\r
+neither tapestry nor velvet. The walls were papered, the floor was\r
+carpeted; the windows were neither less perfect nor more dim than those\r
+of the drawing-room below; the furniture, though not of the latest\r
+fashion, was handsome and comfortable, and the air of the room\r
+altogether far from uncheerful. Her heart instantaneously at ease on\r
+this point, she resolved to lose no time in particular examination of\r
+anything, as she greatly dreaded disobliging the general by any delay.\r
+Her habit therefore was thrown off with all possible haste, and she was\r
+preparing to unpin the linen package, which the chaise-seat had conveyed\r
+for her immediate accommodation, when her eye suddenly fell on a large\r
+high chest, standing back in a deep recess on one side of the fireplace.\r
+The sight of it made her start; and, forgetting everything else, she\r
+stood gazing on it in motionless wonder, while these thoughts crossed\r
+her:\r
+\r
+"This is strange indeed! I did not expect such a sight as this! An\r
+immense heavy chest! What can it hold? Why should it be placed here?\r
+Pushed back too, as if meant to be out of sight! I will look into\r
+it--cost me what it may, I will look into it--and directly too--by\r
+daylight. If I stay till evening my candle may go out." She advanced and\r
+examined it closely: it was of cedar, curiously inlaid with some darker\r
+wood, and raised, about a foot from the ground, on a carved stand of the\r
+same. The lock was silver, though tarnished from age; at each end\r
+were the imperfect remains of handles also of silver, broken perhaps\r
+prematurely by some strange violence; and, on the centre of the lid, was\r
+a mysterious cipher, in the same metal. Catherine bent over it intently,\r
+but without being able to distinguish anything with certainty. She could\r
+not, in whatever direction she took it, believe the last letter to be\r
+a T; and yet that it should be anything else in that house was\r
+a circumstance to raise no common degree of astonishment. If not\r
+originally theirs, by what strange events could it have fallen into the\r
+Tilney family?\r
+\r
+Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater; and seizing,\r
+with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock, she resolved at all hazards\r
+to satisfy herself at least as to its contents. With difficulty, for\r
+something seemed to resist her efforts, she raised the lid a few inches;\r
+but at that moment a sudden knocking at the door of the room made her,\r
+starting, quit her hold, and the lid closed with alarming violence. This\r
+ill-timed intruder was Miss Tilney's maid, sent by her mistress to be of\r
+use to Miss Morland; and though Catherine immediately dismissed her, it\r
+recalled her to the sense of what she ought to be doing, and forced her,\r
+in spite of her anxious desire to penetrate this mystery, to proceed in\r
+her dressing without further delay. Her progress was not quick, for her\r
+thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the object so well calculated\r
+to interest and alarm; and though she dared not waste a moment upon\r
+a second attempt, she could not remain many paces from the chest. At\r
+length, however, having slipped one arm into her gown, her toilette\r
+seemed so nearly finished that the impatience of her curiosity might\r
+safely be indulged. One moment surely might be spared; and, so desperate\r
+should be the exertion of her strength, that, unless secured by\r
+supernatural means, the lid in one moment should be thrown back. With\r
+this spirit she sprang forward, and her confidence did not deceive her.\r
+Her resolute effort threw back the lid, and gave to her astonished eyes\r
+the view of a white cotton counterpane, properly folded, reposing at one\r
+end of the chest in undisputed possession!\r
+\r
+She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprise when Miss Tilney,\r
+anxious for her friend's being ready, entered the room, and to the\r
+rising shame of having harboured for some minutes an absurd expectation,\r
+was then added the shame of being caught in so idle a search. "That is\r
+a curious old chest, is not it?" said Miss Tilney, as Catherine hastily\r
+closed it and turned away to the glass. "It is impossible to say how\r
+many generations it has been here. How it came to be first put in this\r
+room I know not, but I have not had it moved, because I thought it might\r
+sometimes be of use in holding hats and bonnets. The worst of it is that\r
+its weight makes it difficult to open. In that corner, however, it is at\r
+least out of the way."\r
+\r
+Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at once blushing, tying her\r
+gown, and forming wise resolutions with the most violent dispatch. Miss\r
+Tilney gently hinted her fear of being late; and in half a minute they\r
+ran downstairs together, in an alarm not wholly unfounded, for General\r
+Tilney was pacing the drawing-room, his watch in his hand, and having,\r
+on the very instant of their entering, pulled the bell with violence,\r
+ordered "Dinner to be on table directly!"\r
+\r
+Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke, and sat pale\r
+and breathless, in a most humble mood, concerned for his children, and\r
+detesting old chests; and the general, recovering his politeness as he\r
+looked at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter for\r
+so foolishly hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely out of breath\r
+from haste, when there was not the least occasion for hurry in the\r
+world: but Catherine could not at all get over the double distress\r
+of having involved her friend in a lecture and been a great simpleton\r
+herself, till they were happily seated at the dinner-table, when the\r
+general's complacent smiles, and a good appetite of her own, restored\r
+her to peace. The dining-parlour was a noble room, suitable in its\r
+dimensions to a much larger drawing-room than the one in common use, and\r
+fitted up in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost on the\r
+unpractised eye of Catherine, who saw little more than its spaciousness\r
+and the number of their attendants. Of the former, she spoke aloud\r
+her admiration; and the general, with a very gracious countenance,\r
+acknowledged that it was by no means an ill-sized room, and further\r
+confessed that, though as careless on such subjects as most people, he\r
+did look upon a tolerably large eating-room as one of the necessaries\r
+of life; he supposed, however, "that she must have been used to much\r
+better-sized apartments at Mr. Allen's?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed," was Catherine's honest assurance; "Mr. Allen's\r
+dining-parlour was not more than half as large," and she had never\r
+seen so large a room as this in her life. The general's good humour\r
+increased. Why, as he had such rooms, he thought it would be simple not\r
+to make use of them; but, upon his honour, he believed there might be\r
+more comfort in rooms of only half their size. Mr. Allen's house, he was\r
+sure, must be exactly of the true size for rational happiness.\r
+\r
+The evening passed without any further disturbance, and, in the\r
+occasional absence of General Tilney, with much positive cheerfulness.\r
+It was only in his presence that Catherine felt the smallest fatigue\r
+from her journey; and even then, even in moments of languor or\r
+restraint, a sense of general happiness preponderated, and she could\r
+think of her friends in Bath without one wish of being with them.\r
+\r
+The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the whole\r
+afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it blew and rained\r
+violently. Catherine, as she crossed the hall, listened to the tempest\r
+with sensations of awe; and, when she heard it rage round a corner of\r
+the ancient building and close with sudden fury a distant door, felt\r
+for the first time that she was really in an abbey. Yes, these were\r
+characteristic sounds; they brought to her recollection a countless\r
+variety of dreadful situations and horrid scenes, which such buildings\r
+had witnessed, and such storms ushered in; and most heartily did she\r
+rejoice in the happier circumstances attending her entrance within walls\r
+so solemn! She had nothing to dread from midnight assassins or drunken\r
+gallants. Henry had certainly been only in jest in what he had told her\r
+that morning. In a house so furnished, and so guarded, she could have\r
+nothing to explore or to suffer, and might go to her bedroom as securely\r
+as if it had been her own chamber at Fullerton. Thus wisely fortifying\r
+her mind, as she proceeded upstairs, she was enabled, especially on\r
+perceiving that Miss Tilney slept only two doors from her, to enter\r
+her room with a tolerably stout heart; and her spirits were immediately\r
+assisted by the cheerful blaze of a wood fire. "How much better is\r
+this," said she, as she walked to the fender--"how much better to find a\r
+fire ready lit, than to have to wait shivering in the cold till all the\r
+family are in bed, as so many poor girls have been obliged to do, and\r
+then to have a faithful old servant frightening one by coming in with a\r
+faggot! How glad I am that Northanger is what it is! If it had been like\r
+some other places, I do not know that, in such a night as this, I could\r
+have answered for my courage: but now, to be sure, there is nothing to\r
+alarm one."\r
+\r
+She looked round the room. The window curtains seemed in motion. It\r
+could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through the\r
+divisions of the shutters; and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly\r
+humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so, peeped courageously\r
+behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window seat to scare her,\r
+and on placing a hand against the shutter, felt the strongest conviction\r
+of the wind's force. A glance at the old chest, as she turned away from\r
+this examination, was not without its use; she scorned the causeless\r
+fears of an idle fancy, and began with a most happy indifference to\r
+prepare herself for bed. "She should take her time; she should not hurry\r
+herself; she did not care if she were the last person up in the house.\r
+But she would not make up her fire; that would seem cowardly, as if\r
+she wished for the protection of light after she were in bed." The fire\r
+therefore died away, and Catherine, having spent the best part of an\r
+hour in her arrangements, was beginning to think of stepping into bed,\r
+when, on giving a parting glance round the room, she was struck by the\r
+appearance of a high, old-fashioned black cabinet, which, though in\r
+a situation conspicuous enough, had never caught her notice before.\r
+Henry's words, his description of the ebony cabinet which was to escape\r
+her observation at first, immediately rushed across her; and though\r
+there could be nothing really in it, there was something whimsical, it\r
+was certainly a very remarkable coincidence! She took her candle and\r
+looked closely at the cabinet. It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but\r
+it was japan, black and yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she\r
+held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect of gold. The key\r
+was in the door, and she had a strange fancy to look into it; not,\r
+however, with the smallest expectation of finding anything, but it was\r
+so very odd, after what Henry had said. In short, she could not sleep\r
+till she had examined it. So, placing the candle with great caution on\r
+a chair, she seized the key with a very tremulous hand and tried to turn\r
+it; but it resisted her utmost strength. Alarmed, but not discouraged,\r
+she tried it another way; a bolt flew, and she believed herself\r
+successful; but how strangely mysterious! The door was still immovable.\r
+She paused a moment in breathless wonder. The wind roared down the\r
+chimney, the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and everything\r
+seemed to speak the awfulness of her situation. To retire to bed,\r
+however, unsatisfied on such a point, would be vain, since sleep must be\r
+impossible with the consciousness of a cabinet so mysteriously closed\r
+in her immediate vicinity. Again, therefore, she applied herself to the\r
+key, and after moving it in every possible way for some instants with\r
+the determined celerity of hope's last effort, the door suddenly yielded\r
+to her hand: her heart leaped with exultation at such a victory, and\r
+having thrown open each folding door, the second being secured only by\r
+bolts of less wonderful construction than the lock, though in that her\r
+eye could not discern anything unusual, a double range of small drawers\r
+appeared in view, with some larger drawers above and below them; and in\r
+the centre, a small door, closed also with a lock and key, secured in\r
+all probability a cavity of importance.\r
+\r
+Catherine's heart beat quick, but her courage did not fail her. With a\r
+cheek flushed by hope, and an eye straining with curiosity, her fingers\r
+grasped the handle of a drawer and drew it forth. It was entirely empty.\r
+With less alarm and greater eagerness she seized a second, a third, a\r
+fourth; each was equally empty. Not one was left unsearched, and in not\r
+one was anything found. Well read in the art of concealing a treasure,\r
+the possibility of false linings to the drawers did not escape her, and\r
+she felt round each with anxious acuteness in vain. The place in the\r
+middle alone remained now unexplored; and though she had "never from\r
+the first had the smallest idea of finding anything in any part of the\r
+cabinet, and was not in the least disappointed at her ill success thus\r
+far, it would be foolish not to examine it thoroughly while she was\r
+about it." It was some time however before she could unfasten the door,\r
+the same difficulty occurring in the management of this inner lock as of\r
+the outer; but at length it did open; and not vain, as hitherto, was her\r
+search; her quick eyes directly fell on a roll of paper pushed back\r
+into the further part of the cavity, apparently for concealment, and\r
+her feelings at that moment were indescribable. Her heart fluttered, her\r
+knees trembled, and her cheeks grew pale. She seized, with an unsteady\r
+hand, the precious manuscript, for half a glance sufficed to ascertain\r
+written characters; and while she acknowledged with awful sensations\r
+this striking exemplification of what Henry had foretold, resolved\r
+instantly to peruse every line before she attempted to rest.\r
+\r
+The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her turn to it with\r
+alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden extinction; it had yet some\r
+hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater difficulty in\r
+distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion,\r
+she hastily snuffed it. Alas! It was snuffed and extinguished in one. A\r
+lamp could not have expired with more awful effect. Catherine, for a\r
+few moments, was motionless with horror. It was done completely; not a\r
+remnant of light in the wick could give hope to the rekindling breath.\r
+Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room. A violent gust\r
+of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment.\r
+Catherine trembled from head to foot. In the pause which succeeded, a\r
+sound like receding footsteps and the closing of a distant door struck\r
+on her affrighted ear. Human nature could support no more. A cold sweat\r
+stood on her forehead, the manuscript fell from her hand, and groping\r
+her way to the bed, she jumped hastily in, and sought some suspension of\r
+agony by creeping far underneath the clothes. To close her eyes in\r
+sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out of the question. With\r
+a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings in every way so agitated,\r
+repose must be absolutely impossible. The storm too abroad so dreadful!\r
+She had not been used to feel alarm from wind, but now every blast\r
+seemed fraught with awful intelligence. The manuscript so wonderfully\r
+found, so wonderfully accomplishing the morning's prediction, how was it\r
+to be accounted for? What could it contain? To whom could it relate?\r
+By what means could it have been so long concealed? And how singularly\r
+strange that it should fall to her lot to discover it! Till she had made\r
+herself mistress of its contents, however, she could have neither repose\r
+nor comfort; and with the sun's first rays she was determined to peruse\r
+it. But many were the tedious hours which must yet intervene. She\r
+shuddered, tossed about in her bed, and envied every quiet sleeper. The\r
+storm still raged, and various were the noises, more terrific even\r
+than the wind, which struck at intervals on her startled ear. The very\r
+curtains of her bed seemed at one moment in motion, and at another\r
+the lock of her door was agitated, as if by the attempt of somebody to\r
+enter. Hollow murmurs seemed to creep along the gallery, and more than\r
+once her blood was chilled by the sound of distant moans. Hour after\r
+hour passed away, and the wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed\r
+by all the clocks in the house before the tempest subsided or she\r
+unknowingly fell fast asleep.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 22\r
+\r
+\r
+The housemaid's folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock the\r
+next day was the sound which first roused Catherine; and she opened her\r
+eyes, wondering that they could ever have been closed, on objects of\r
+cheerfulness; her fire was already burning, and a bright morning\r
+had succeeded the tempest of the night. Instantaneously, with the\r
+consciousness of existence, returned her recollection of the manuscript;\r
+and springing from the bed in the very moment of the maid's going away,\r
+she eagerly collected every scattered sheet which had burst from the\r
+roll on its falling to the ground, and flew back to enjoy the luxury\r
+of their perusal on her pillow. She now plainly saw that she must not\r
+expect a manuscript of equal length with the generality of what she had\r
+shuddered over in books, for the roll, seeming to consist entirely of\r
+small disjointed sheets, was altogether but of trifling size, and much\r
+less than she had supposed it to be at first.\r
+\r
+Her greedy eye glanced rapidly over a page. She started at its import.\r
+Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her false? An inventory\r
+of linen, in coarse and modern characters, seemed all that was before\r
+her! If the evidence of sight might be trusted, she held a washing-bill\r
+in her hand. She seized another sheet, and saw the same articles with\r
+little variation; a third, a fourth, and a fifth presented nothing\r
+new. Shirts, stockings, cravats, and waistcoats faced her in each. Two\r
+others, penned by the same hand, marked an expenditure scarcely more\r
+interesting, in letters, hair-powder, shoe-string, and breeches-ball.\r
+And the larger sheet, which had enclosed the rest, seemed by its first\r
+cramp line, "To poultice chestnut mare"--a farrier's bill! Such was the\r
+collection of papers (left perhaps, as she could then suppose, by the\r
+negligence of a servant in the place whence she had taken them) which\r
+had filled her with expectation and alarm, and robbed her of half her\r
+night's rest! She felt humbled to the dust. Could not the adventure of\r
+the chest have taught her wisdom? A corner of it, catching her eye as\r
+she lay, seemed to rise up in judgment against her. Nothing could now\r
+be clearer than the absurdity of her recent fancies. To suppose that a\r
+manuscript of many generations back could have remained undiscovered in\r
+a room such as that, so modern, so habitable!--Or that she should be the\r
+first to possess the skill of unlocking a cabinet, the key of which was\r
+open to all!\r
+\r
+How could she have so imposed on herself? Heaven forbid that Henry\r
+Tilney should ever know her folly! And it was in a great measure his\r
+own doing, for had not the cabinet appeared so exactly to agree with his\r
+description of her adventures, she should never have felt the smallest\r
+curiosity about it. This was the only comfort that occurred. Impatient\r
+to get rid of those hateful evidences of her folly, those detestable\r
+papers then scattered over the bed, she rose directly, and folding them\r
+up as nearly as possible in the same shape as before, returned them\r
+to the same spot within the cabinet, with a very hearty wish that no\r
+untoward accident might ever bring them forward again, to disgrace her\r
+even with herself.\r
+\r
+Why the locks should have been so difficult to open, however, was still\r
+something remarkable, for she could now manage them with perfect ease.\r
+In this there was surely something mysterious, and she indulged in the\r
+flattering suggestion for half a minute, till the possibility of the\r
+door's having been at first unlocked, and of being herself its fastener,\r
+darted into her head, and cost her another blush.\r
+\r
+She got away as soon as she could from a room in which her conduct\r
+produced such unpleasant reflections, and found her way with all speed\r
+to the breakfast-parlour, as it had been pointed out to her by Miss\r
+Tilney the evening before. Henry was alone in it; and his immediate hope\r
+of her having been undisturbed by the tempest, with an arch reference\r
+to the character of the building they inhabited, was rather distressing.\r
+For the world would she not have her weakness suspected, and yet,\r
+unequal to an absolute falsehood, was constrained to acknowledge that\r
+the wind had kept her awake a little. "But we have a charming morning\r
+after it," she added, desiring to get rid of the subject; "and storms\r
+and sleeplessness are nothing when they are over. What beautiful\r
+hyacinths! I have just learnt to love a hyacinth."\r
+\r
+"And how might you learn? By accident or argument?"\r
+\r
+"Your sister taught me; I cannot tell how. Mrs. Allen used to take\r
+pains, year after year, to make me like them; but I never could, till\r
+I saw them the other day in Milsom Street; I am naturally indifferent\r
+about flowers."\r
+\r
+"But now you love a hyacinth. So much the better. You have gained a new\r
+source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness\r
+as possible. Besides, a taste for flowers is always desirable in your\r
+sex, as a means of getting you out of doors, and tempting you to more\r
+frequent exercise than you would otherwise take. And though the love\r
+of a hyacinth may be rather domestic, who can tell, the sentiment once\r
+raised, but you may in time come to love a rose?"\r
+\r
+"But I do not want any such pursuit to get me out of doors. The pleasure\r
+of walking and breathing fresh air is enough for me, and in fine weather\r
+I am out more than half my time. Mamma says I am never within."\r
+\r
+"At any rate, however, I am pleased that you have learnt to love\r
+a hyacinth. The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a\r
+teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing. Has my\r
+sister a pleasant mode of instruction?"\r
+\r
+Catherine was saved the embarrassment of attempting an answer by the\r
+entrance of the general, whose smiling compliments announced a happy\r
+state of mind, but whose gentle hint of sympathetic early rising did not\r
+advance her composure.\r
+\r
+The elegance of the breakfast set forced itself on Catherine's notice\r
+when they were seated at table; and, luckily, it had been the general's\r
+choice. He was enchanted by her approbation of his taste, confessed it\r
+to be neat and simple, thought it right to encourage the manufacture of\r
+his country; and for his part, to his uncritical palate, the tea was as\r
+well flavoured from the clay of Staffordshire, as from that of Dresden\r
+or Save. But this was quite an old set, purchased two years ago.\r
+The manufacture was much improved since that time; he had seen some\r
+beautiful specimens when last in town, and had he not been perfectly\r
+without vanity of that kind, might have been tempted to order a new\r
+set. He trusted, however, that an opportunity might ere long occur of\r
+selecting one--though not for himself. Catherine was probably the only\r
+one of the party who did not understand him.\r
+\r
+Shortly after breakfast Henry left them for Woodston, where business\r
+required and would keep him two or three days. They all attended in\r
+the hall to see him mount his horse, and immediately on re-entering the\r
+breakfast-room, Catherine walked to a window in the hope of catching\r
+another glimpse of his figure. "This is a somewhat heavy call upon your\r
+brother's fortitude," observed the general to Eleanor. "Woodston will\r
+make but a sombre appearance today."\r
+\r
+"Is it a pretty place?" asked Catherine.\r
+\r
+"What say you, Eleanor? Speak your opinion, for ladies can best tell the\r
+taste of ladies in regard to places as well as men. I think it would be\r
+acknowledged by the most impartial eye to have many recommendations. The\r
+house stands among fine meadows facing the south-east, with an excellent\r
+kitchen-garden in the same aspect; the walls surrounding which I built\r
+and stocked myself about ten years ago, for the benefit of my son. It\r
+is a family living, Miss Morland; and the property in the place being\r
+chiefly my own, you may believe I take care that it shall not be a bad\r
+one. Did Henry's income depend solely on this living, he would not be\r
+ill-provided for. Perhaps it may seem odd, that with only two younger\r
+children, I should think any profession necessary for him; and certainly\r
+there are moments when we could all wish him disengaged from every tie\r
+of business. But though I may not exactly make converts of you young\r
+ladies, I am sure your father, Miss Morland, would agree with me in\r
+thinking it expedient to give every young man some employment. The\r
+money is nothing, it is not an object, but employment is the thing.\r
+Even Frederick, my eldest son, you see, who will perhaps inherit as\r
+considerable a landed property as any private man in the county, has his\r
+profession."\r
+\r
+The imposing effect of this last argument was equal to his wishes. The\r
+silence of the lady proved it to be unanswerable.\r
+\r
+Something had been said the evening before of her being shown over the\r
+house, and he now offered himself as her conductor; and though Catherine\r
+had hoped to explore it accompanied only by his daughter, it was a\r
+proposal of too much happiness in itself, under any circumstances, not\r
+to be gladly accepted; for she had been already eighteen hours in the\r
+abbey, and had seen only a few of its rooms. The netting-box, just\r
+leisurely drawn forth, was closed with joyful haste, and she was ready\r
+to attend him in a moment. "And when they had gone over the house, he\r
+promised himself moreover the pleasure of accompanying her into the\r
+shrubberies and garden." She curtsied her acquiescence. "But perhaps\r
+it might be more agreeable to her to make those her first object.\r
+The weather was at present favourable, and at this time of year the\r
+uncertainty was very great of its continuing so. Which would she prefer?\r
+He was equally at her service. Which did his daughter think would most\r
+accord with her fair friend's wishes? But he thought he could discern.\r
+Yes, he certainly read in Miss Morland's eyes a judicious desire of\r
+making use of the present smiling weather. But when did she judge amiss?\r
+The abbey would be always safe and dry. He yielded implicitly, and\r
+would fetch his hat and attend them in a moment." He left the room,\r
+and Catherine, with a disappointed, anxious face, began to speak of her\r
+unwillingness that he should be taking them out of doors against his own\r
+inclination, under a mistaken idea of pleasing her; but she was stopped\r
+by Miss Tilney's saying, with a little confusion, "I believe it will be\r
+wisest to take the morning while it is so fine; and do not be uneasy on\r
+my father's account; he always walks out at this time of day."\r
+\r
+Catherine did not exactly know how this was to be understood. Why\r
+was Miss Tilney embarrassed? Could there be any unwillingness on the\r
+general's side to show her over the abbey? The proposal was his own. And\r
+was not it odd that he should always take his walk so early? Neither her\r
+father nor Mr. Allen did so. It was certainly very provoking. She was\r
+all impatience to see the house, and had scarcely any curiosity about\r
+the grounds. If Henry had been with them indeed! But now she should not\r
+know what was picturesque when she saw it. Such were her thoughts, but\r
+she kept them to herself, and put on her bonnet in patient discontent.\r
+\r
+She was struck, however, beyond her expectation, by the grandeur of\r
+the abbey, as she saw it for the first time from the lawn. The whole\r
+building enclosed a large court; and two sides of the quadrangle, rich\r
+in Gothic ornaments, stood forward for admiration. The remainder was\r
+shut off by knolls of old trees, or luxuriant plantations, and the steep\r
+woody hills rising behind, to give it shelter, were beautiful even in\r
+the leafless month of March. Catherine had seen nothing to compare with\r
+it; and her feelings of delight were so strong, that without waiting for\r
+any better authority, she boldly burst forth in wonder and praise. The\r
+general listened with assenting gratitude; and it seemed as if his own\r
+estimation of Northanger had waited unfixed till that hour.\r
+\r
+The kitchen-garden was to be next admired, and he led the way to it\r
+across a small portion of the park.\r
+\r
+The number of acres contained in this garden was such as Catherine could\r
+not listen to without dismay, being more than double the extent of all\r
+Mr. Allen's, as well as her father's, including church-yard and orchard.\r
+The walls seemed countless in number, endless in length; a village of\r
+hot-houses seemed to arise among them, and a whole parish to be at\r
+work within the enclosure. The general was flattered by her looks of\r
+surprise, which told him almost as plainly, as he soon forced her to\r
+tell him in words, that she had never seen any gardens at all equal to\r
+them before; and he then modestly owned that, "without any ambition of\r
+that sort himself--without any solicitude about it--he did believe them\r
+to be unrivalled in the kingdom. If he had a hobby-horse, it was that.\r
+He loved a garden. Though careless enough in most matters of eating, he\r
+loved good fruit--or if he did not, his friends and children did. There\r
+were great vexations, however, attending such a garden as his. The\r
+utmost care could not always secure the most valuable fruits. The pinery\r
+had yielded only one hundred in the last year. Mr. Allen, he supposed,\r
+must feel these inconveniences as well as himself."\r
+\r
+"No, not at all. Mr. Allen did not care about the garden, and never went\r
+into it."\r
+\r
+With a triumphant smile of self-satisfaction, the general wished he\r
+could do the same, for he never entered his, without being vexed in some\r
+way or other, by its falling short of his plan.\r
+\r
+"How were Mr. Allen's succession-houses worked?" describing the nature\r
+of his own as they entered them.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Allen had only one small hot-house, which Mrs. Allen had the use of\r
+for her plants in winter, and there was a fire in it now and then."\r
+\r
+"He is a happy man!" said the general, with a look of very happy\r
+contempt.\r
+\r
+Having taken her into every division, and led her under every wall, till\r
+she was heartily weary of seeing and wondering, he suffered the girls\r
+at last to seize the advantage of an outer door, and then expressing\r
+his wish to examine the effect of some recent alterations about the\r
+tea-house, proposed it as no unpleasant extension of their walk, if Miss\r
+Morland were not tired. "But where are you going, Eleanor? Why do you\r
+choose that cold, damp path to it? Miss Morland will get wet. Our best\r
+way is across the park."\r
+\r
+"This is so favourite a walk of mine," said Miss Tilney, "that I always\r
+think it the best and nearest way. But perhaps it may be damp."\r
+\r
+It was a narrow winding path through a thick grove of old Scotch firs;\r
+and Catherine, struck by its gloomy aspect, and eager to enter it,\r
+could not, even by the general's disapprobation, be kept from stepping\r
+forward. He perceived her inclination, and having again urged the plea\r
+of health in vain, was too polite to make further opposition. He excused\r
+himself, however, from attending them: "The rays of the sun were not too\r
+cheerful for him, and he would meet them by another course." He turned\r
+away; and Catherine was shocked to find how much her spirits were\r
+relieved by the separation. The shock, however, being less real than the\r
+relief, offered it no injury; and she began to talk with easy gaiety of\r
+the delightful melancholy which such a grove inspired.\r
+\r
+"I am particularly fond of this spot," said her companion, with a sigh.\r
+"It was my mother's favourite walk."\r
+\r
+Catherine had never heard Mrs. Tilney mentioned in the family before,\r
+and the interest excited by this tender remembrance showed itself\r
+directly in her altered countenance, and in the attentive pause with\r
+which she waited for something more.\r
+\r
+"I used to walk here so often with her!" added Eleanor; "though I never\r
+loved it then, as I have loved it since. At that time indeed I used to\r
+wonder at her choice. But her memory endears it now."\r
+\r
+"And ought it not," reflected Catherine, "to endear it to her husband?\r
+Yet the general would not enter it." Miss Tilney continuing silent, she\r
+ventured to say, "Her death must have been a great affliction!"\r
+\r
+"A great and increasing one," replied the other, in a low voice. "I was\r
+only thirteen when it happened; and though I felt my loss perhaps as\r
+strongly as one so young could feel it, I did not, I could not, then\r
+know what a loss it was." She stopped for a moment, and then added, with\r
+great firmness, "I have no sister, you know--and though Henry--though my\r
+brothers are very affectionate, and Henry is a great deal here, which I\r
+am most thankful for, it is impossible for me not to be often solitary."\r
+\r
+"To be sure you must miss him very much."\r
+\r
+"A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been a\r
+constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other."\r
+\r
+"Was she a very charming woman? Was she handsome? Was there any picture\r
+of her in the abbey? And why had she been so partial to that grove? Was\r
+it from dejection of spirits?"--were questions now eagerly poured forth;\r
+the first three received a ready affirmative, the two others were passed\r
+by; and Catherine's interest in the deceased Mrs. Tilney augmented with\r
+every question, whether answered or not. Of her unhappiness in marriage,\r
+she felt persuaded. The general certainly had been an unkind husband. He\r
+did not love her walk: could he therefore have loved her? And besides,\r
+handsome as he was, there was a something in the turn of his features\r
+which spoke his not having behaved well to her.\r
+\r
+"Her picture, I suppose," blushing at the consummate art of her own\r
+question, "hangs in your father's room?"\r
+\r
+"No; it was intended for the drawing-room; but my father was\r
+dissatisfied with the painting, and for some time it had no place.\r
+Soon after her death I obtained it for my own, and hung it in my\r
+bed-chamber--where I shall be happy to show it you; it is very like."\r
+Here was another proof. A portrait--very like--of a departed wife, not\r
+valued by the husband! He must have been dreadfully cruel to her!\r
+\r
+Catherine attempted no longer to hide from herself the nature of the\r
+feelings which, in spite of all his attentions, he had previously\r
+excited; and what had been terror and dislike before, was now absolute\r
+aversion. Yes, aversion! His cruelty to such a charming woman made him\r
+odious to her. She had often read of such characters, characters which\r
+Mr. Allen had been used to call unnatural and overdrawn; but here was\r
+proof positive of the contrary.\r
+\r
+She had just settled this point when the end of the path brought them\r
+directly upon the general; and in spite of all her virtuous indignation,\r
+she found herself again obliged to walk with him, listen to him, and\r
+even to smile when he smiled. Being no longer able, however, to receive\r
+pleasure from the surrounding objects, she soon began to walk with\r
+lassitude; the general perceived it, and with a concern for her health,\r
+which seemed to reproach her for her opinion of him, was most urgent\r
+for returning with his daughter to the house. He would follow them in\r
+a quarter of an hour. Again they parted--but Eleanor was called back in\r
+half a minute to receive a strict charge against taking her friend round\r
+the abbey till his return. This second instance of his anxiety to delay\r
+what she so much wished for struck Catherine as very remarkable.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 23\r
+\r
+\r
+An hour passed away before the general came in, spent, on the part of\r
+his young guest, in no very favourable consideration of his character.\r
+"This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not speak a mind\r
+at ease, or a conscience void of reproach." At length he appeared; and,\r
+whatever might have been the gloom of his meditations, he could still\r
+smile with them. Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend's\r
+curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject; and her father\r
+being, contrary to Catherine's expectations, unprovided with any\r
+pretence for further delay, beyond that of stopping five minutes to\r
+order refreshments to be in the room by their return, was at last ready\r
+to escort them.\r
+\r
+They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air, a dignified step,\r
+which caught the eye, but could not shake the doubts of the well-read\r
+Catherine, he led the way across the hall, through the common\r
+drawing-room and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent both\r
+in size and furniture--the real drawing-room, used only with company of\r
+consequence. It was very noble--very grand--very charming!--was all that\r
+Catherine had to say, for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned\r
+the colour of the satin; and all minuteness of praise, all praise\r
+that had much meaning, was supplied by the general: the costliness or\r
+elegance of any room's fitting-up could be nothing to her; she cared for\r
+no furniture of a more modern date than the fifteenth century. When the\r
+general had satisfied his own curiosity, in a close examination of every\r
+well-known ornament, they proceeded into the library, an apartment, in\r
+its way, of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection of books, on\r
+which an humble man might have looked with pride. Catherine heard,\r
+admired, and wondered with more genuine feeling than before--gathered\r
+all that she could from this storehouse of knowledge, by running over\r
+the titles of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed. But suites of\r
+apartments did not spring up with her wishes. Large as was the building,\r
+she had already visited the greatest part; though, on being told that,\r
+with the addition of the kitchen, the six or seven rooms she had now\r
+seen surrounded three sides of the court, she could scarcely believe it,\r
+or overcome the suspicion of there being many chambers secreted. It was\r
+some relief, however, that they were to return to the rooms in common\r
+use, by passing through a few of less importance, looking into the\r
+court, which, with occasional passages, not wholly unintricate,\r
+connected the different sides; and she was further soothed in her\r
+progress by being told that she was treading what had once been a\r
+cloister, having traces of cells pointed out, and observing several\r
+doors that were neither opened nor explained to her--by finding herself\r
+successively in a billiard-room, and in the general's private apartment,\r
+without comprehending their connection, or being able to turn aright\r
+when she left them; and lastly, by passing through a dark little room,\r
+owning Henry's authority, and strewed with his litter of books, guns,\r
+and greatcoats.\r
+\r
+From the dining-room, of which, though already seen, and always to be\r
+seen at five o'clock, the general could not forgo the pleasure of pacing\r
+out the length, for the more certain information of Miss Morland, as\r
+to what she neither doubted nor cared for, they proceeded by quick\r
+communication to the kitchen--the ancient kitchen of the convent, rich\r
+in the massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and hot\r
+closets of the present. The general's improving hand had not loitered\r
+here: every modern invention to facilitate the labour of the cooks had\r
+been adopted within this, their spacious theatre; and, when the genius\r
+of others had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted.\r
+His endowments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him high\r
+among the benefactors of the convent.\r
+\r
+With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey; the\r
+fourth side of the quadrangle having, on account of its decaying state,\r
+been removed by the general's father, and the present erected in its\r
+place. All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was not\r
+only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only for offices, and\r
+enclosed behind by stable-yards, no uniformity of architecture had been\r
+thought necessary. Catherine could have raved at the hand which had\r
+swept away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest, for the\r
+purposes of mere domestic economy; and would willingly have been spared\r
+the mortification of a walk through scenes so fallen, had the general\r
+allowed it; but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of his\r
+offices; and as he was convinced that, to a mind like Miss Morland's,\r
+a view of the accommodations and comforts, by which the labours of her\r
+inferiors were softened, must always be gratifying, he should make\r
+no apology for leading her on. They took a slight survey of all; and\r
+Catherine was impressed, beyond her expectation, by their multiplicity\r
+and their convenience. The purposes for which a few shapeless pantries\r
+and a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at Fullerton, were\r
+here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy. The\r
+number of servants continually appearing did not strike her less than\r
+the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some pattened girl\r
+stopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille sneaked off. Yet this\r
+was an abbey! How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements\r
+from such as she had read about--from abbeys and castles, in which,\r
+though certainly larger than Northanger, all the dirty work of the house\r
+was to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost. How they could\r
+get through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen; and, when Catherine saw\r
+what was necessary here, she began to be amazed herself.\r
+\r
+They returned to the hall, that the chief staircase might be ascended,\r
+and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments of rich carving might be\r
+pointed out: having gained the top, they turned in an opposite direction\r
+from the gallery in which her room lay, and shortly entered one on\r
+the same plan, but superior in length and breadth. She was here shown\r
+successively into three large bed-chambers, with their dressing-rooms,\r
+most completely and handsomely fitted up; everything that money and\r
+taste could do, to give comfort and elegance to apartments, had been\r
+bestowed on these; and, being furnished within the last five years, they\r
+were perfect in all that would be generally pleasing, and wanting in all\r
+that could give pleasure to Catherine. As they were surveying the last,\r
+the general, after slightly naming a few of the distinguished characters\r
+by whom they had at times been honoured, turned with a smiling\r
+countenance to Catherine, and ventured to hope that henceforward some of\r
+their earliest tenants might be "our friends from Fullerton." She felt\r
+the unexpected compliment, and deeply regretted the impossibility of\r
+thinking well of a man so kindly disposed towards herself, and so full\r
+of civility to all her family.\r
+\r
+The gallery was terminated by folding doors, which Miss Tilney,\r
+advancing, had thrown open, and passed through, and seemed on the point\r
+of doing the same by the first door to the left, in another long reach\r
+of gallery, when the general, coming forwards, called her hastily, and,\r
+as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding whether she were\r
+going?--And what was there more to be seen?--Had not Miss Morland\r
+already seen all that could be worth her notice?--And did she not\r
+suppose her friend might be glad of some refreshment after so much\r
+exercise? Miss Tilney drew back directly, and the heavy doors were\r
+closed upon the mortified Catherine, who, having seen, in a momentary\r
+glance beyond them, a narrower passage, more numerous openings, and\r
+symptoms of a winding staircase, believed herself at last within the\r
+reach of something worth her notice; and felt, as she unwillingly paced\r
+back the gallery, that she would rather be allowed to examine that end\r
+of the house than see all the finery of all the rest. The general's\r
+evident desire of preventing such an examination was an additional\r
+stimulant. Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy, though\r
+it had trespassed lately once or twice, could not mislead her here;\r
+and what that something was, a short sentence of Miss Tilney's, as they\r
+followed the general at some distance downstairs, seemed to point out:\r
+"I was going to take you into what was my mother's room--the room\r
+in which she died--" were all her words; but few as they were, they\r
+conveyed pages of intelligence to Catherine. It was no wonder that the\r
+general should shrink from the sight of such objects as that room\r
+must contain; a room in all probability never entered by him since the\r
+dreadful scene had passed, which released his suffering wife, and left\r
+him to the stings of conscience.\r
+\r
+She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor, to express her wish of being\r
+permitted to see it, as well as all the rest of that side of the house;\r
+and Eleanor promised to attend her there, whenever they should have a\r
+convenient hour. Catherine understood her: the general must be watched\r
+from home, before that room could be entered. "It remains as it was, I\r
+suppose?" said she, in a tone of feeling.\r
+\r
+"Yes, entirely."\r
+\r
+"And how long ago may it be that your mother died?"\r
+\r
+"She has been dead these nine years." And nine years, Catherine knew,\r
+was a trifle of time, compared with what generally elapsed after the\r
+death of an injured wife, before her room was put to rights.\r
+\r
+"You were with her, I suppose, to the last?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Miss Tilney, sighing; "I was unfortunately from home. Her\r
+illness was sudden and short; and, before I arrived it was all over."\r
+\r
+Catherine's blood ran cold with the horrid suggestions which naturally\r
+sprang from these words. Could it be possible? Could Henry's father--?\r
+And yet how many were the examples to justify even the blackest\r
+suspicions! And, when she saw him in the evening, while she worked\r
+with her friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together in\r
+silent thoughtfulness, with downcast eyes and contracted brow, she felt\r
+secure from all possibility of wronging him. It was the air and attitude\r
+of a Montoni! What could more plainly speak the gloomy workings of a\r
+mind not wholly dead to every sense of humanity, in its fearful review\r
+of past scenes of guilt? Unhappy man! And the anxiousness of her spirits\r
+directed her eyes towards his figure so repeatedly, as to catch Miss\r
+Tilney's notice. "My father," she whispered, "often walks about the room\r
+in this way; it is nothing unusual."\r
+\r
+"So much the worse!" thought Catherine; such ill-timed exercise was of a\r
+piece with the strange unseasonableness of his morning walks, and boded\r
+nothing good.\r
+\r
+After an evening, the little variety and seeming length of which made\r
+her peculiarly sensible of Henry's importance among them, she was\r
+heartily glad to be dismissed; though it was a look from the general not\r
+designed for her observation which sent his daughter to the bell.\r
+When the butler would have lit his master's candle, however, he was\r
+forbidden. The latter was not going to retire. "I have many pamphlets to\r
+finish," said he to Catherine, "before I can close my eyes, and perhaps\r
+may be poring over the affairs of the nation for hours after you are\r
+asleep. Can either of us be more meetly employed? My eyes will be\r
+blinding for the good of others, and yours preparing by rest for future\r
+mischief."\r
+\r
+But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment,\r
+could win Catherine from thinking that some very different object must\r
+occasion so serious a delay of proper repose. To be kept up for hours,\r
+after the family were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was not very likely.\r
+There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done which could\r
+be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs.\r
+Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the\r
+pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was the\r
+conclusion which necessarily followed. Shocking as was the idea, it\r
+was at least better than a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural\r
+course of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of her\r
+reputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other\r
+children, at the time--all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment.\r
+Its origin--jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty--was yet to be\r
+unravelled.\r
+\r
+In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck her\r
+as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very\r
+spot of this unfortunate woman's confinement--might have been within\r
+a few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what\r
+part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which\r
+yet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high-arched passage,\r
+paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar awe, she\r
+well remembered the doors of which the general had given no account. To\r
+what might not those doors lead? In support of the plausibility of this\r
+conjecture, it further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery, in\r
+which lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney, must be, as\r
+certainly as her memory could guide her, exactly over this suspected\r
+range of cells, and the staircase by the side of those apartments of\r
+which she had caught a transient glimpse, communicating by some\r
+secret means with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous\r
+proceedings of her husband. Down that staircase she had perhaps been\r
+conveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility!\r
+\r
+Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her own surmises, and\r
+sometimes hoped or feared that she had gone too far; but they were\r
+supported by such appearances as made their dismissal impossible.\r
+\r
+The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed the guilty scene to be\r
+acting, being, according to her belief, just opposite her own, it struck\r
+her that, if judiciously watched, some rays of light from the general's\r
+lamp might glimmer through the lower windows, as he passed to the prison\r
+of his wife; and, twice before she stepped into bed, she stole gently\r
+from her room to the corresponding window in the gallery, to see if it\r
+appeared; but all abroad was dark, and it must yet be too early. The\r
+various ascending noises convinced her that the servants must still be\r
+up. Till midnight, she supposed it would be in vain to watch; but then,\r
+when the clock had struck twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not\r
+quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more. The clock\r
+struck twelve--and Catherine had been half an hour asleep.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 24\r
+\r
+\r
+The next day afforded no opportunity for the proposed examination of the\r
+mysterious apartments. It was Sunday, and the whole time between morning\r
+and afternoon service was required by the general in exercise abroad or\r
+eating cold meat at home; and great as was Catherine's curiosity, her\r
+courage was not equal to a wish of exploring them after dinner, either\r
+by the fading light of the sky between six and seven o'clock, or by the\r
+yet more partial though stronger illumination of a treacherous lamp.\r
+The day was unmarked therefore by anything to interest her imagination\r
+beyond the sight of a very elegant monument to the memory of Mrs.\r
+Tilney, which immediately fronted the family pew. By that her eye\r
+was instantly caught and long retained; and the perusal of the highly\r
+strained epitaph, in which every virtue was ascribed to her by the\r
+inconsolable husband, who must have been in some way or other her\r
+destroyer, affected her even to tears.\r
+\r
+That the general, having erected such a monument, should be able to face\r
+it, was not perhaps very strange, and yet that he could sit so boldly\r
+collected within its view, maintain so elevated an air, look so\r
+fearlessly around, nay, that he should even enter the church, seemed\r
+wonderful to Catherine. Not, however, that many instances of beings\r
+equally hardened in guilt might not be produced. She could remember\r
+dozens who had persevered in every possible vice, going on from crime to\r
+crime, murdering whomsoever they chose, without any feeling of humanity\r
+or remorse; till a violent death or a religious retirement closed their\r
+black career. The erection of the monument itself could not in the\r
+smallest degree affect her doubts of Mrs. Tilney's actual decease. Were\r
+she even to descend into the family vault where her ashes were supposed\r
+to slumber, were she to behold the coffin in which they were said to\r
+be enclosed--what could it avail in such a case? Catherine had read too\r
+much not to be perfectly aware of the ease with which a waxen figure\r
+might be introduced, and a supposititious funeral carried on.\r
+\r
+The succeeding morning promised something better. The general's early\r
+walk, ill-timed as it was in every other view, was favourable here; and\r
+when she knew him to be out of the house, she directly proposed to Miss\r
+Tilney the accomplishment of her promise. Eleanor was ready to oblige\r
+her; and Catherine reminding her as they went of another promise, their\r
+first visit in consequence was to the portrait in her bed-chamber. It\r
+represented a very lovely woman, with a mild and pensive countenance,\r
+justifying, so far, the expectations of its new observer; but they were\r
+not in every respect answered, for Catherine had depended upon meeting\r
+with features, hair, complexion, that should be the very counterpart,\r
+the very image, if not of Henry's, of Eleanor's--the only portraits of\r
+which she had been in the habit of thinking, bearing always an equal\r
+resemblance of mother and child. A face once taken was taken for\r
+generations. But here she was obliged to look and consider and study\r
+for a likeness. She contemplated it, however, in spite of this drawback,\r
+with much emotion, and, but for a yet stronger interest, would have left\r
+it unwillingly.\r
+\r
+Her agitation as they entered the great gallery was too much for any\r
+endeavour at discourse; she could only look at her companion. Eleanor's\r
+countenance was dejected, yet sedate; and its composure spoke her inured\r
+to all the gloomy objects to which they were advancing. Again she passed\r
+through the folding doors, again her hand was upon the important lock,\r
+and Catherine, hardly able to breathe, was turning to close the former\r
+with fearful caution, when the figure, the dreaded figure of the general\r
+himself at the further end of the gallery, stood before her! The name of\r
+"Eleanor" at the same moment, in his loudest tone, resounded through the\r
+building, giving to his daughter the first intimation of his presence,\r
+and to Catherine terror upon terror. An attempt at concealment had been\r
+her first instinctive movement on perceiving him, yet she could\r
+scarcely hope to have escaped his eye; and when her friend, who with an\r
+apologizing look darted hastily by her, had joined and disappeared\r
+with him, she ran for safety to her own room, and, locking herself\r
+in, believed that she should never have courage to go down again. She\r
+remained there at least an hour, in the greatest agitation, deeply\r
+commiserating the state of her poor friend, and expecting a summons\r
+herself from the angry general to attend him in his own apartment. No\r
+summons, however, arrived; and at last, on seeing a carriage drive up\r
+to the abbey, she was emboldened to descend and meet him under the\r
+protection of visitors. The breakfast-room was gay with company; and\r
+she was named to them by the general as the friend of his daughter, in\r
+a complimentary style, which so well concealed his resentful ire, as to\r
+make her feel secure at least of life for the present. And Eleanor,\r
+with a command of countenance which did honour to her concern for his\r
+character, taking an early occasion of saying to her, "My father only\r
+wanted me to answer a note," she began to hope that she had either been\r
+unseen by the general, or that from some consideration of policy she\r
+should be allowed to suppose herself so. Upon this trust she dared still\r
+to remain in his presence, after the company left them, and nothing\r
+occurred to disturb it.\r
+\r
+In the course of this morning's reflections, she came to a resolution\r
+of making her next attempt on the forbidden door alone. It would be much\r
+better in every respect that Eleanor should know nothing of the matter.\r
+To involve her in the danger of a second detection, to court her into\r
+an apartment which must wring her heart, could not be the office of a\r
+friend. The general's utmost anger could not be to herself what it might\r
+be to a daughter; and, besides, she thought the examination itself\r
+would be more satisfactory if made without any companion. It would be\r
+impossible to explain to Eleanor the suspicions, from which the other\r
+had, in all likelihood, been hitherto happily exempt; nor could she\r
+therefore, in her presence, search for those proofs of the general's\r
+cruelty, which however they might yet have escaped discovery, she felt\r
+confident of somewhere drawing forth, in the shape of some fragmented\r
+journal, continued to the last gasp. Of the way to the apartment she was\r
+now perfectly mistress; and as she wished to get it over before Henry's\r
+return, who was expected on the morrow, there was no time to be lost.\r
+The day was bright, her courage high; at four o'clock, the sun was now\r
+two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her retiring to dress\r
+half an hour earlier than usual.\r
+\r
+It was done; and Catherine found herself alone in the gallery before the\r
+clocks had ceased to strike. It was no time for thought; she hurried\r
+on, slipped with the least possible noise through the folding doors,\r
+and without stopping to look or breathe, rushed forward to the one in\r
+question. The lock yielded to her hand, and, luckily, with no sullen\r
+sound that could alarm a human being. On tiptoe she entered; the room\r
+was before her; but it was some minutes before she could advance another\r
+step. She beheld what fixed her to the spot and agitated every feature.\r
+She saw a large, well-proportioned apartment, an handsome dimity bed,\r
+arranged as unoccupied with an housemaid's care, a bright Bath stove,\r
+mahogany wardrobes, and neatly painted chairs, on which the warm beams\r
+of a western sun gaily poured through two sash windows! Catherine had\r
+expected to have her feelings worked, and worked they were. Astonishment\r
+and doubt first seized them; and a shortly succeeding ray of common\r
+sense added some bitter emotions of shame. She could not be mistaken\r
+as to the room; but how grossly mistaken in everything else!--in Miss\r
+Tilney's meaning, in her own calculation! This apartment, to which she\r
+had given a date so ancient, a position so awful, proved to be one end\r
+of what the general's father had built. There were two other doors in\r
+the chamber, leading probably into dressing-closets; but she had no\r
+inclination to open either. Would the veil in which Mrs. Tilney had last\r
+walked, or the volume in which she had last read, remain to tell what\r
+nothing else was allowed to whisper? No: whatever might have been the\r
+general's crimes, he had certainly too much wit to let them sue for\r
+detection. She was sick of exploring, and desired but to be safe in her\r
+own room, with her own heart only privy to its folly; and she was on\r
+the point of retreating as softly as she had entered, when the sound of\r
+footsteps, she could hardly tell where, made her pause and tremble.\r
+To be found there, even by a servant, would be unpleasant; but by the\r
+general (and he seemed always at hand when least wanted), much worse!\r
+She listened--the sound had ceased; and resolving not to lose a\r
+moment, she passed through and closed the door. At that instant a door\r
+underneath was hastily opened; someone seemed with swift steps to ascend\r
+the stairs, by the head of which she had yet to pass before she could\r
+gain the gallery. She had no power to move. With a feeling of terror\r
+not very definable, she fixed her eyes on the staircase, and in a few\r
+moments it gave Henry to her view. "Mr. Tilney!" she exclaimed in a\r
+voice of more than common astonishment. He looked astonished too. "Good\r
+God!" she continued, not attending to his address. "How came you here?\r
+How came you up that staircase?"\r
+\r
+"How came I up that staircase!" he replied, greatly surprised. "Because\r
+it is my nearest way from the stable-yard to my own chamber; and why\r
+should I not come up it?"\r
+\r
+Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say no more. He\r
+seemed to be looking in her countenance for that explanation which her\r
+lips did not afford. She moved on towards the gallery. "And may I not,\r
+in my turn," said he, as he pushed back the folding doors, "ask how you\r
+came here? This passage is at least as extraordinary a road from the\r
+breakfast-parlour to your apartment, as that staircase can be from the\r
+stables to mine."\r
+\r
+"I have been," said Catherine, looking down, "to see your mother's\r
+room."\r
+\r
+"My mother's room! Is there anything extraordinary to be seen there?"\r
+\r
+"No, nothing at all. I thought you did not mean to come back till\r
+tomorrow."\r
+\r
+"I did not expect to be able to return sooner, when I went away; but\r
+three hours ago I had the pleasure of finding nothing to detain me. You\r
+look pale. I am afraid I alarmed you by running so fast up those stairs.\r
+Perhaps you did not know--you were not aware of their leading from the\r
+offices in common use?"\r
+\r
+"No, I was not. You have had a very fine day for your ride."\r
+\r
+"Very; and does Eleanor leave you to find your way into all the rooms in\r
+the house by yourself?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! No; she showed me over the greatest part on Saturday--and we were\r
+coming here to these rooms--but only"--dropping her voice--"your father\r
+was with us."\r
+\r
+"And that prevented you," said Henry, earnestly regarding her. "Have you\r
+looked into all the rooms in that passage?"\r
+\r
+"No, I only wanted to see--Is not it very late? I must go and dress."\r
+\r
+"It is only a quarter past four" showing his watch--"and you are not now\r
+in Bath. No theatre, no rooms to prepare for. Half an hour at Northanger\r
+must be enough."\r
+\r
+She could not contradict it, and therefore suffered herself to be\r
+detained, though her dread of further questions made her, for the first\r
+time in their acquaintance, wish to leave him. They walked slowly up the\r
+gallery. "Have you had any letter from Bath since I saw you?"\r
+\r
+"No, and I am very much surprised. Isabella promised so faithfully to\r
+write directly."\r
+\r
+"Promised so faithfully! A faithful promise! That puzzles me. I have\r
+heard of a faithful performance. But a faithful promise--the fidelity\r
+of promising! It is a power little worth knowing, however, since it can\r
+deceive and pain you. My mother's room is very commodious, is it not?\r
+Large and cheerful-looking, and the dressing-closets so well disposed!\r
+It always strikes me as the most comfortable apartment in the house, and\r
+I rather wonder that Eleanor should not take it for her own. She sent\r
+you to look at it, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"It has been your own doing entirely?" Catherine said nothing. After a\r
+short silence, during which he had closely observed her, he added, "As\r
+there is nothing in the room in itself to raise curiosity, this must\r
+have proceeded from a sentiment of respect for my mother's character,\r
+as described by Eleanor, which does honour to her memory. The world, I\r
+believe, never saw a better woman. But it is not often that virtue can\r
+boast an interest such as this. The domestic, unpretending merits of a\r
+person never known do not often create that kind of fervent, venerating\r
+tenderness which would prompt a visit like yours. Eleanor, I suppose,\r
+has talked of her a great deal?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, a great deal. That is--no, not much, but what she did say was very\r
+interesting. Her dying so suddenly" (slowly, and with hesitation it\r
+was spoken), "and you--none of you being at home--and your father, I\r
+thought--perhaps had not been very fond of her."\r
+\r
+"And from these circumstances," he replied (his quick eye\r
+fixed on hers), "you infer perhaps the probability of some\r
+negligence--some"--(involuntarily she shook her head)--"or it may be--of\r
+something still less pardonable." She raised her eyes towards him\r
+more fully than she had ever done before. "My mother's illness," he\r
+continued, "the seizure which ended in her death, was sudden. The malady\r
+itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious fever--its\r
+cause therefore constitutional. On the third day, in short, as soon as\r
+she could be prevailed on, a physician attended her, a very respectable\r
+man, and one in whom she had always placed great confidence. Upon his\r
+opinion of her danger, two others were called in the next day, and\r
+remained in almost constant attendance for four and twenty hours. On the\r
+fifth day she died. During the progress of her disorder, Frederick and I\r
+(we were both at home) saw her repeatedly; and from our own observation\r
+can bear witness to her having received every possible attention\r
+which could spring from the affection of those about her, or which her\r
+situation in life could command. Poor Eleanor was absent, and at such a\r
+distance as to return only to see her mother in her coffin."\r
+\r
+"But your father," said Catherine, "was he afflicted?"\r
+\r
+"For a time, greatly so. You have erred in supposing him not attached\r
+to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was possible for him\r
+to--we have not all, you know, the same tenderness of disposition--and\r
+I will not pretend to say that while she lived, she might not often have\r
+had much to bear, but though his temper injured her, his judgment never\r
+did. His value of her was sincere; and, if not permanently, he was truly\r
+afflicted by her death."\r
+\r
+"I am very glad of it," said Catherine; "it would have been very\r
+shocking!"\r
+\r
+"If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as\r
+I have hardly words to--Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature\r
+of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from?\r
+Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are\r
+English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your\r
+own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing\r
+around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our\r
+laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in\r
+a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a\r
+footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary\r
+spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss\r
+Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?"\r
+\r
+They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame she ran\r
+off to her own room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 25\r
+\r
+\r
+The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened.\r
+Henry's address, short as it had been, had more thoroughly opened her\r
+eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several\r
+disappointments had done. Most grievously was she humbled. Most bitterly\r
+did she cry. It was not only with herself that she was sunk--but with\r
+Henry. Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was all exposed to\r
+him, and he must despise her forever. The liberty which her imagination\r
+had dared to take with the character of his father--could he ever\r
+forgive it? The absurdity of her curiosity and her fears--could they\r
+ever be forgotten? She hated herself more than she could express. He\r
+had--she thought he had, once or twice before this fatal morning, shown\r
+something like affection for her. But now--in short, she made herself as\r
+miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down when the\r
+clock struck five, with a broken heart, and could scarcely give an\r
+intelligible answer to Eleanor's inquiry if she was well. The formidable\r
+Henry soon followed her into the room, and the only difference in his\r
+behaviour to her was that he paid her rather more attention than usual.\r
+Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he looked as if he was\r
+aware of it.\r
+\r
+The evening wore away with no abatement of this soothing politeness; and\r
+her spirits were gradually raised to a modest tranquillity. She did not\r
+learn either to forget or defend the past; but she learned to hope that\r
+it would never transpire farther, and that it might not cost her Henry's\r
+entire regard. Her thoughts being still chiefly fixed on what she had\r
+with such causeless terror felt and done, nothing could shortly be\r
+clearer than that it had been all a voluntary, self-created delusion,\r
+each trifling circumstance receiving importance from an imagination\r
+resolved on alarm, and everything forced to bend to one purpose by\r
+a mind which, before she entered the abbey, had been craving to be\r
+frightened. She remembered with what feelings she had prepared for a\r
+knowledge of Northanger. She saw that the infatuation had been created,\r
+the mischief settled, long before her quitting Bath, and it seemed as if\r
+the whole might be traced to the influence of that sort of reading which\r
+she had there indulged.\r
+\r
+Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and charming even as were\r
+the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human\r
+nature, at least in the Midland counties of England, was to be looked\r
+for. Of the Alps and Pyrenees, with their pine forests and their vices,\r
+they might give a faithful delineation; and Italy, Switzerland, and\r
+the south of France might be as fruitful in horrors as they were there\r
+represented. Catherine dared not doubt beyond her own country, and even\r
+of that, if hard pressed, would have yielded the northern and western\r
+extremities. But in the central part of England there was surely some\r
+security for the existence even of a wife not beloved, in the laws of\r
+the land, and the manners of the age. Murder was not tolerated, servants\r
+were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured,\r
+like rhubarb, from every druggist. Among the Alps and Pyrenees, perhaps,\r
+there were no mixed characters. There, such as were not as spotless as\r
+an angel might have the dispositions of a fiend. But in England it was\r
+not so; among the English, she believed, in their hearts and habits,\r
+there was a general though unequal mixture of good and bad. Upon this\r
+conviction, she would not be surprised if even in Henry and Eleanor\r
+Tilney, some slight imperfection might hereafter appear; and upon this\r
+conviction she need not fear to acknowledge some actual specks in\r
+the character of their father, who, though cleared from the grossly\r
+injurious suspicions which she must ever blush to have entertained, she\r
+did believe, upon serious consideration, to be not perfectly amiable.\r
+\r
+Her mind made up on these several points, and her resolution formed, of\r
+always judging and acting in future with the greatest good sense, she\r
+had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever; and\r
+the lenient hand of time did much for her by insensible gradations in\r
+the course of another day. Henry's astonishing generosity and nobleness\r
+of conduct, in never alluding in the slightest way to what had passed,\r
+was of the greatest assistance to her; and sooner than she could have\r
+supposed it possible in the beginning of her distress, her spirits\r
+became absolutely comfortable, and capable, as heretofore, of continual\r
+improvement by anything he said. There were still some subjects, indeed,\r
+under which she believed they must always tremble--the mention of a\r
+chest or a cabinet, for instance--and she did not love the sight of\r
+japan in any shape: but even she could allow that an occasional memento\r
+of past folly, however painful, might not be without use.\r
+\r
+The anxieties of common life began soon to succeed to the alarms of\r
+romance. Her desire of hearing from Isabella grew every day greater.\r
+She was quite impatient to know how the Bath world went on, and how the\r
+rooms were attended; and especially was she anxious to be assured of\r
+Isabella's having matched some fine netting-cotton, on which she had\r
+left her intent; and of her continuing on the best terms with James. Her\r
+only dependence for information of any kind was on Isabella. James had\r
+protested against writing to her till his return to Oxford; and Mrs.\r
+Allen had given her no hopes of a letter till she had got back to\r
+Fullerton. But Isabella had promised and promised again; and when she\r
+promised a thing, she was so scrupulous in performing it! This made it\r
+so particularly strange!\r
+\r
+For nine successive mornings, Catherine wondered over the repetition\r
+of a disappointment, which each morning became more severe: but, on\r
+the tenth, when she entered the breakfast-room, her first object was a\r
+letter, held out by Henry's willing hand. She thanked him as heartily\r
+as if he had written it himself. "'Tis only from James, however," as she\r
+looked at the direction. She opened it; it was from Oxford; and to this\r
+purpose:\r
+\r
+\r
+"Dear Catherine,\r
+\r
+"Though, God knows, with little inclination for writing, I think it my\r
+duty to tell you that everything is at an end between Miss Thorpe and\r
+me. I left her and Bath yesterday, never to see either again. I shall\r
+not enter into particulars--they would only pain you more. You will soon\r
+hear enough from another quarter to know where lies the blame; and I\r
+hope will acquit your brother of everything but the folly of too easily\r
+thinking his affection returned. Thank God! I am undeceived in time!\r
+But it is a heavy blow! After my father's consent had been so kindly\r
+given--but no more of this. She has made me miserable forever! Let me\r
+soon hear from you, dear Catherine; you are my only friend; your love\r
+I do build upon. I wish your visit at Northanger may be over before\r
+Captain Tilney makes his engagement known, or you will be uncomfortably\r
+circumstanced. Poor Thorpe is in town: I dread the sight of him; his\r
+honest heart would feel so much. I have written to him and my father.\r
+Her duplicity hurts me more than all; till the very last, if I reasoned\r
+with her, she declared herself as much attached to me as ever, and\r
+laughed at my fears. I am ashamed to think how long I bore with it;\r
+but if ever man had reason to believe himself loved, I was that man. I\r
+cannot understand even now what she would be at, for there could be no\r
+need of my being played off to make her secure of Tilney. We parted\r
+at last by mutual consent--happy for me had we never met! I can never\r
+expect to know such another woman! Dearest Catherine, beware how you\r
+give your heart.\r
+\r
+"Believe me," &c.\r
+\r
+\r
+Catherine had not read three lines before her sudden change of\r
+countenance, and short exclamations of sorrowing wonder, declared her to\r
+be receiving unpleasant news; and Henry, earnestly watching her through\r
+the whole letter, saw plainly that it ended no better than it began. He\r
+was prevented, however, from even looking his surprise by his father's\r
+entrance. They went to breakfast directly; but Catherine could hardly\r
+eat anything. Tears filled her eyes, and even ran down her cheeks as she\r
+sat. The letter was one moment in her hand, then in her lap, and then in\r
+her pocket; and she looked as if she knew not what she did. The general,\r
+between his cocoa and his newspaper, had luckily no leisure for noticing\r
+her; but to the other two her distress was equally visible. As soon\r
+as she dared leave the table she hurried away to her own room; but the\r
+housemaids were busy in it, and she was obliged to come down again.\r
+She turned into the drawing-room for privacy, but Henry and Eleanor had\r
+likewise retreated thither, and were at that moment deep in consultation\r
+about her. She drew back, trying to beg their pardon, but was, with\r
+gentle violence, forced to return; and the others withdrew, after\r
+Eleanor had affectionately expressed a wish of being of use or comfort\r
+to her.\r
+\r
+After half an hour's free indulgence of grief and reflection, Catherine\r
+felt equal to encountering her friends; but whether she should make\r
+her distress known to them was another consideration. Perhaps, if\r
+particularly questioned, she might just give an idea--just distantly\r
+hint at it--but not more. To expose a friend, such a friend as Isabella\r
+had been to her--and then their own brother so closely concerned in it!\r
+She believed she must waive the subject altogether. Henry and Eleanor\r
+were by themselves in the breakfast-room; and each, as she entered it,\r
+looked at her anxiously. Catherine took her place at the table, and,\r
+after a short silence, Eleanor said, "No bad news from Fullerton, I\r
+hope? Mr. and Mrs. Morland--your brothers and sisters--I hope they are\r
+none of them ill?"\r
+\r
+"No, I thank you" (sighing as she spoke); "they are all very well. My\r
+letter was from my brother at Oxford."\r
+\r
+Nothing further was said for a few minutes; and then speaking through\r
+her tears, she added, "I do not think I shall ever wish for a letter\r
+again!"\r
+\r
+"I am sorry," said Henry, closing the book he had just opened; "if I\r
+had suspected the letter of containing anything unwelcome, I should have\r
+given it with very different feelings."\r
+\r
+"It contained something worse than anybody could suppose! Poor James is\r
+so unhappy! You will soon know why."\r
+\r
+"To have so kind-hearted, so affectionate a sister," replied Henry\r
+warmly, "must be a comfort to him under any distress."\r
+\r
+"I have one favour to beg," said Catherine, shortly afterwards, in an\r
+agitated manner, "that, if your brother should be coming here, you will\r
+give me notice of it, that I may go away."\r
+\r
+"Our brother! Frederick!"\r
+\r
+"Yes; I am sure I should be very sorry to leave you so soon, but\r
+something has happened that would make it very dreadful for me to be in\r
+the same house with Captain Tilney."\r
+\r
+Eleanor's work was suspended while she gazed with increasing\r
+astonishment; but Henry began to suspect the truth, and something, in\r
+which Miss Thorpe's name was included, passed his lips.\r
+\r
+"How quick you are!" cried Catherine: "you have guessed it, I declare!\r
+And yet, when we talked about it in Bath, you little thought of its\r
+ending so. Isabella--no wonder now I have not heard from her--Isabella\r
+has deserted my brother, and is to marry yours! Could you have believed\r
+there had been such inconstancy and fickleness, and everything that is\r
+bad in the world?"\r
+\r
+"I hope, so far as concerns my brother, you are misinformed. I hope\r
+he has not had any material share in bringing on Mr. Morland's\r
+disappointment. His marrying Miss Thorpe is not probable. I think you\r
+must be deceived so far. I am very sorry for Mr. Morland--sorry that\r
+anyone you love should be unhappy; but my surprise would be greater at\r
+Frederick's marrying her than at any other part of the story."\r
+\r
+"It is very true, however; you shall read James's letter yourself.\r
+Stay--There is one part--" recollecting with a blush the last line.\r
+\r
+"Will you take the trouble of reading to us the passages which concern\r
+my brother?"\r
+\r
+"No, read it yourself," cried Catherine, whose second thoughts were\r
+clearer. "I do not know what I was thinking of" (blushing again that she\r
+had blushed before); "James only means to give me good advice."\r
+\r
+He gladly received the letter, and, having read it through, with close\r
+attention, returned it saying, "Well, if it is to be so, I can only\r
+say that I am sorry for it. Frederick will not be the first man who has\r
+chosen a wife with less sense than his family expected. I do not envy\r
+his situation, either as a lover or a son."\r
+\r
+Miss Tilney, at Catherine's invitation, now read the letter likewise,\r
+and, having expressed also her concern and surprise, began to inquire\r
+into Miss Thorpe's connections and fortune.\r
+\r
+"Her mother is a very good sort of woman," was Catherine's answer.\r
+\r
+"What was her father?"\r
+\r
+"A lawyer, I believe. They live at Putney."\r
+\r
+"Are they a wealthy family?"\r
+\r
+"No, not very. I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at all: but\r
+that will not signify in your family. Your father is so very liberal!\r
+He told me the other day that he only valued money as it allowed him to\r
+promote the happiness of his children." The brother and sister looked\r
+at each other. "But," said Eleanor, after a short pause, "would it be to\r
+promote his happiness, to enable him to marry such a girl? She must be\r
+an unprincipled one, or she could not have used your brother so. And how\r
+strange an infatuation on Frederick's side! A girl who, before his eyes,\r
+is violating an engagement voluntarily entered into with another man! Is\r
+not it inconceivable, Henry? Frederick too, who always wore his heart so\r
+proudly! Who found no woman good enough to be loved!"\r
+\r
+"That is the most unpromising circumstance, the strongest presumption\r
+against him. When I think of his past declarations, I give him up.\r
+Moreover, I have too good an opinion of Miss Thorpe's prudence to\r
+suppose that she would part with one gentleman before the other\r
+was secured. It is all over with Frederick indeed! He is a deceased\r
+man--defunct in understanding. Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor,\r
+and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in! Open, candid, artless,\r
+guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions,\r
+and knowing no disguise."\r
+\r
+"Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in," said Eleanor with a\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+"But perhaps," observed Catherine, "though she has behaved so ill by our\r
+family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has really got the man\r
+she likes, she may be constant."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I am afraid she will," replied Henry; "I am afraid she will\r
+be very constant, unless a baronet should come in her way; that is\r
+Frederick's only chance. I will get the Bath paper, and look over the\r
+arrivals."\r
+\r
+"You think it is all for ambition, then? And, upon my word, there are\r
+some things that seem very like it. I cannot forget that, when she first\r
+knew what my father would do for them, she seemed quite disappointed\r
+that it was not more. I never was so deceived in anyone's character in\r
+my life before."\r
+\r
+"Among all the great variety that you have known and studied."\r
+\r
+"My own disappointment and loss in her is very great; but, as for poor\r
+James, I suppose he will hardly ever recover it."\r
+\r
+"Your brother is certainly very much to be pitied at present; but we\r
+must not, in our concern for his sufferings, undervalue yours. You feel,\r
+I suppose, that in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself: you feel a\r
+void in your heart which nothing else can occupy. Society is becoming\r
+irksome; and as for the amusements in which you were wont to share at\r
+Bath, the very idea of them without her is abhorrent. You would not,\r
+for instance, now go to a ball for the world. You feel that you have no\r
+longer any friend to whom you can speak with unreserve, on whose regard\r
+you can place dependence, or whose counsel, in any difficulty, you could\r
+rely on. You feel all this?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Catherine, after a few moments' reflection, "I do not--ought\r
+I? To say the truth, though I am hurt and grieved, that I cannot still\r
+love her, that I am never to hear from her, perhaps never to see her\r
+again, I do not feel so very, very much afflicted as one would have\r
+thought."\r
+\r
+"You feel, as you always do, what is most to the credit of human nature.\r
+Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know themselves."\r
+\r
+Catherine, by some chance or other, found her spirits so very much\r
+relieved by this conversation that she could not regret her being led\r
+on, though so unaccountably, to mention the circumstance which had\r
+produced it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 26\r
+\r
+\r
+From this time, the subject was frequently canvassed by the three young\r
+people; and Catherine found, with some surprise, that her two young\r
+friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella's want of\r
+consequence and fortune as likely to throw great difficulties in the way\r
+of her marrying their brother. Their persuasion that the general would,\r
+upon this ground alone, independent of the objection that might be\r
+raised against her character, oppose the connection, turned her feelings\r
+moreover with some alarm towards herself. She was as insignificant,\r
+and perhaps as portionless, as Isabella; and if the heir of the Tilney\r
+property had not grandeur and wealth enough in himself, at what point\r
+of interest were the demands of his younger brother to rest? The very\r
+painful reflections to which this thought led could only be dispersed by\r
+a dependence on the effect of that particular partiality, which, as she\r
+was given to understand by his words as well as his actions, she had\r
+from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general; and by a\r
+recollection of some most generous and disinterested sentiments on the\r
+subject of money, which she had more than once heard him utter, and\r
+which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood\r
+by his children.\r
+\r
+They were so fully convinced, however, that their brother would not\r
+have the courage to apply in person for his father's consent, and so\r
+repeatedly assured her that he had never in his life been less likely to\r
+come to Northanger than at the present time, that she suffered her mind\r
+to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden removal of her own. But\r
+as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney, whenever he made his\r
+application, would give his father any just idea of Isabella's conduct,\r
+it occurred to her as highly expedient that Henry should lay the whole\r
+business before him as it really was, enabling the general by that means\r
+to form a cool and impartial opinion, and prepare his objections on\r
+a fairer ground than inequality of situations. She proposed it to him\r
+accordingly; but he did not catch at the measure so eagerly as she had\r
+expected. "No," said he, "my father's hands need not be strengthened,\r
+and Frederick's confession of folly need not be forestalled. He must\r
+tell his own story."\r
+\r
+"But he will tell only half of it."\r
+\r
+"A quarter would be enough."\r
+\r
+A day or two passed away and brought no tidings of Captain Tilney. His\r
+brother and sister knew not what to think. Sometimes it appeared to\r
+them as if his silence would be the natural result of the suspected\r
+engagement, and at others that it was wholly incompatible with it.\r
+The general, meanwhile, though offended every morning by Frederick's\r
+remissness in writing, was free from any real anxiety about him, and had\r
+no more pressing solicitude than that of making Miss Morland's time at\r
+Northanger pass pleasantly. He often expressed his uneasiness on this\r
+head, feared the sameness of every day's society and employments would\r
+disgust her with the place, wished the Lady Frasers had been in the\r
+country, talked every now and then of having a large party to dinner,\r
+and once or twice began even to calculate the number of young dancing\r
+people in the neighbourhood. But then it was such a dead time of year,\r
+no wild-fowl, no game, and the Lady Frasers were not in the country.\r
+And it all ended, at last, in his telling Henry one morning that when he\r
+next went to Woodston, they would take him by surprise there some day\r
+or other, and eat their mutton with him. Henry was greatly honoured and\r
+very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted with the scheme. "And when\r
+do you think, sir, I may look forward to this pleasure? I must be at\r
+Woodston on Monday to attend the parish meeting, and shall probably be\r
+obliged to stay two or three days."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, we will take our chance some one of those days. There is\r
+no need to fix. You are not to put yourself at all out of your way.\r
+Whatever you may happen to have in the house will be enough. I think I\r
+can answer for the young ladies making allowance for a bachelor's table.\r
+Let me see; Monday will be a busy day with you, we will not come on\r
+Monday; and Tuesday will be a busy one with me. I expect my surveyor\r
+from Brockham with his report in the morning; and afterwards I cannot in\r
+decency fail attending the club. I really could not face my acquaintance\r
+if I stayed away now; for, as I am known to be in the country, it would\r
+be taken exceedingly amiss; and it is a rule with me, Miss Morland,\r
+never to give offence to any of my neighbours, if a small sacrifice of\r
+time and attention can prevent it. They are a set of very worthy men.\r
+They have half a buck from Northanger twice a year; and I dine with them\r
+whenever I can. Tuesday, therefore, we may say is out of the question.\r
+But on Wednesday, I think, Henry, you may expect us; and we shall be\r
+with you early, that we may have time to look about us. Two hours and\r
+three quarters will carry us to Woodston, I suppose; we shall be in the\r
+carriage by ten; so, about a quarter before one on Wednesday, you may\r
+look for us."\r
+\r
+A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Catherine than\r
+this little excursion, so strong was her desire to be acquainted with\r
+Woodston; and her heart was still bounding with joy when Henry, about an\r
+hour afterwards, came booted and greatcoated into the room where she\r
+and Eleanor were sitting, and said, "I am come, young ladies, in a\r
+very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures in this world\r
+are always to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at a great\r
+disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual happiness for a draft on the\r
+future, that may not be honoured. Witness myself, at this present hour.\r
+Because I am to hope for the satisfaction of seeing you at Woodston on\r
+Wednesday, which bad weather, or twenty other causes, may prevent, I\r
+must go away directly, two days before I intended it."\r
+\r
+"Go away!" said Catherine, with a very long face. "And why?"\r
+\r
+"Why! How can you ask the question? Because no time is to be lost in\r
+frightening my old housekeeper out of her wits, because I must go and\r
+prepare a dinner for you, to be sure."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Not seriously!"\r
+\r
+"Aye, and sadly too--for I had much rather stay."\r
+\r
+"But how can you think of such a thing, after what the general said?\r
+When he so particularly desired you not to give yourself any trouble,\r
+because anything would do."\r
+\r
+Henry only smiled. "I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon your sister's\r
+account and mine. You must know it to be so; and the general made such\r
+a point of your providing nothing extraordinary: besides, if he had not\r
+said half so much as he did, he has always such an excellent dinner\r
+at home, that sitting down to a middling one for one day could not\r
+signify."\r
+\r
+"I wish I could reason like you, for his sake and my own. Good-bye. As\r
+tomorrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return."\r
+\r
+He went; and, it being at any time a much simpler operation to Catherine\r
+to doubt her own judgment than Henry's, she was very soon obliged to\r
+give him credit for being right, however disagreeable to her his going.\r
+But the inexplicability of the general's conduct dwelt much on her\r
+thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own\r
+unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say\r
+one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most\r
+unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but\r
+Henry could have been aware of what his father was at?\r
+\r
+From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without Henry.\r
+This was the sad finale of every reflection: and Captain Tilney's letter\r
+would certainly come in his absence; and Wednesday she was very sure\r
+would be wet. The past, present, and future were all equally in gloom.\r
+Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great; and Eleanor's\r
+spirits always affected by Henry's absence! What was there to interest\r
+or amuse her? She was tired of the woods and the shrubberies--always so\r
+smooth and so dry; and the abbey in itself was no more to her now than\r
+any other house. The painful remembrance of the folly it had helped\r
+to nourish and perfect was the only emotion which could spring from a\r
+consideration of the building. What a revolution in her ideas! She, who\r
+had so longed to be in an abbey! Now, there was nothing so charming\r
+to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a well-connected\r
+parsonage, something like Fullerton, but better: Fullerton had its\r
+faults, but Woodston probably had none. If Wednesday should ever come!\r
+\r
+It did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably looked for. It\r
+came--it was fine--and Catherine trod on air. By ten o'clock, the chaise\r
+and four conveyed the trio from the abbey; and, after an agreeable drive\r
+of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston, a large and populous\r
+village, in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine was ashamed to say\r
+how pretty she thought it, as the general seemed to think an apology\r
+necessary for the flatness of the country, and the size of the village;\r
+but in her heart she preferred it to any place she had ever been at,\r
+and looked with great admiration at every neat house above the rank of\r
+a cottage, and at all the little chandler's shops which they passed. At\r
+the further end of the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest\r
+of it, stood the parsonage, a new-built substantial stone house, with\r
+its semicircular sweep and green gates; and, as they drove up to the\r
+door, Henry, with the friends of his solitude, a large Newfoundland\r
+puppy and two or three terriers, was ready to receive and make much of\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Catherine's mind was too full, as she entered the house, for her either\r
+to observe or to say a great deal; and, till called on by the general\r
+for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the room in which she\r
+was sitting. Upon looking round it then, she perceived in a moment that\r
+it was the most comfortable room in the world; but she was too guarded\r
+to say so, and the coldness of her praise disappointed him.\r
+\r
+"We are not calling it a good house," said he. "We are not comparing\r
+it with Fullerton and Northanger--we are considering it as a mere\r
+parsonage, small and confined, we allow, but decent, perhaps, and\r
+habitable; and altogether not inferior to the generality; or, in other\r
+words, I believe there are few country parsonages in England half so\r
+good. It may admit of improvement, however. Far be it from me to say\r
+otherwise; and anything in reason--a bow thrown out, perhaps--though,\r
+between ourselves, if there is one thing more than another my aversion,\r
+it is a patched-on bow."\r
+\r
+Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be pained\r
+by it; and other subjects being studiously brought forward and supported\r
+by Henry, at the same time that a tray full of refreshments was\r
+introduced by his servant, the general was shortly restored to his\r
+complacency, and Catherine to all her usual ease of spirits.\r
+\r
+The room in question was of a commodious, well-proportioned size, and\r
+handsomely fitted up as a dining-parlour; and on their quitting it to\r
+walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller apartment,\r
+belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made unusually tidy\r
+on the occasion; and afterwards into what was to be the drawing-room,\r
+with the appearance of which, though unfurnished, Catherine was\r
+delighted enough even to satisfy the general. It was a prettily shaped\r
+room, the windows reaching to the ground, and the view from them\r
+pleasant, though only over green meadows; and she expressed her\r
+admiration at the moment with all the honest simplicity with which she\r
+felt it. "Oh! Why do not you fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What a pity\r
+not to have it fitted up! It is the prettiest room I ever saw; it is the\r
+prettiest room in the world!"\r
+\r
+"I trust," said the general, with a most satisfied smile, "that it will\r
+very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady's taste!"\r
+\r
+"Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else. Oh! What a\r
+sweet little cottage there is among the trees--apple trees, too! It is\r
+the prettiest cottage!"\r
+\r
+"You like it--you approve it as an object--it is enough. Henry, remember\r
+that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains."\r
+\r
+Such a compliment recalled all Catherine's consciousness, and silenced\r
+her directly; and, though pointedly applied to by the general for her\r
+choice of the prevailing colour of the paper and hangings, nothing like\r
+an opinion on the subject could be drawn from her. The influence of\r
+fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great use in dissipating\r
+these embarrassing associations; and, having reached the ornamental part\r
+of the premises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow, on\r
+which Henry's genius had begun to act about half a year ago, she was\r
+sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure-ground she\r
+had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher than\r
+the green bench in the corner.\r
+\r
+A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the village, with a\r
+visit to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming game\r
+of play with a litter of puppies just able to roll about, brought them\r
+to four o'clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At\r
+four they were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never had\r
+any day passed so quickly!\r
+\r
+She could not but observe that the abundance of the dinner did not seem\r
+to create the smallest astonishment in the general; nay, that he was\r
+even looking at the side-table for cold meat which was not there. His\r
+son and daughter's observations were of a different kind. They had\r
+seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own, and never\r
+before known him so little disconcerted by the melted butter's being\r
+oiled.\r
+\r
+At six o'clock, the general having taken his coffee, the carriage again\r
+received them; and so gratifying had been the tenor of his conduct\r
+throughout the whole visit, so well assured was her mind on the subject\r
+of his expectations, that, could she have felt equally confident of the\r
+wishes of his son, Catherine would have quitted Woodston with little\r
+anxiety as to the How or the When she might return to it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 27\r
+\r
+\r
+The next morning brought the following very unexpected letter from\r
+Isabella:\r
+\r
+\r
+Bath, April\r
+\r
+My dearest Catherine, I received your two kind letters with the greatest\r
+delight, and have a thousand apologies to make for not answering them\r
+sooner. I really am quite ashamed of my idleness; but in this horrid\r
+place one can find time for nothing. I have had my pen in my hand to\r
+begin a letter to you almost every day since you left Bath, but have\r
+always been prevented by some silly trifler or other. Pray write to me\r
+soon, and direct to my own home. Thank God, we leave this vile place\r
+tomorrow. Since you went away, I have had no pleasure in it--the dust\r
+is beyond anything; and everybody one cares for is gone. I believe if I\r
+could see you I should not mind the rest, for you are dearer to me than\r
+anybody can conceive. I am quite uneasy about your dear brother, not\r
+having heard from him since he went to Oxford; and am fearful of some\r
+misunderstanding. Your kind offices will set all right: he is the only\r
+man I ever did or could love, and I trust you will convince him of it.\r
+The spring fashions are partly down; and the hats the most frightful you\r
+can imagine. I hope you spend your time pleasantly, but am afraid you\r
+never think of me. I will not say all that I could of the family you are\r
+with, because I would not be ungenerous, or set you against those you\r
+esteem; but it is very difficult to know whom to trust, and young men\r
+never know their minds two days together. I rejoice to say that the\r
+young man whom, of all others, I particularly abhor, has left Bath. You\r
+will know, from this description, I must mean Captain Tilney, who, as\r
+you may remember, was amazingly disposed to follow and tease me, before\r
+you went away. Afterwards he got worse, and became quite my shadow. Many\r
+girls might have been taken in, for never were such attentions; but I\r
+knew the fickle sex too well. He went away to his regiment two days ago,\r
+and I trust I shall never be plagued with him again. He is the greatest\r
+coxcomb I ever saw, and amazingly disagreeable. The last two days he was\r
+always by the side of Charlotte Davis: I pitied his taste, but took no\r
+notice of him. The last time we met was in Bath Street, and I turned\r
+directly into a shop that he might not speak to me; I would not even\r
+look at him. He went into the pump-room afterwards; but I would not have\r
+followed him for all the world. Such a contrast between him and your\r
+brother! Pray send me some news of the latter--I am quite unhappy about\r
+him; he seemed so uncomfortable when he went away, with a cold, or\r
+something that affected his spirits. I would write to him myself, but\r
+have mislaid his direction; and, as I hinted above, am afraid he\r
+took something in my conduct amiss. Pray explain everything to his\r
+satisfaction; or, if he still harbours any doubt, a line from himself\r
+to me, or a call at Putney when next in town, might set all to rights.\r
+I have not been to the rooms this age, nor to the play, except going in\r
+last night with the Hodges, for a frolic, at half price: they teased\r
+me into it; and I was determined they should not say I shut myself up\r
+because Tilney was gone. We happened to sit by the Mitchells, and they\r
+pretended to be quite surprised to see me out. I knew their spite: at\r
+one time they could not be civil to me, but now they are all friendship;\r
+but I am not such a fool as to be taken in by them. You know I have a\r
+pretty good spirit of my own. Anne Mitchell had tried to put on a\r
+turban like mine, as I wore it the week before at the concert, but made\r
+wretched work of it--it happened to become my odd face, I believe, at\r
+least Tilney told me so at the time, and said every eye was upon me; but\r
+he is the last man whose word I would take. I wear nothing but purple\r
+now: I know I look hideous in it, but no matter--it is your dear\r
+brother's favourite colour. Lose no time, my dearest, sweetest\r
+Catherine, in writing to him and to me, Who ever am, etc.\r
+\r
+\r
+Such a strain of shallow artifice could not impose even upon Catherine.\r
+Its inconsistencies, contradictions, and falsehood struck her from the\r
+very first. She was ashamed of Isabella, and ashamed of having ever\r
+loved her. Her professions of attachment were now as disgusting as her\r
+excuses were empty, and her demands impudent. "Write to James on her\r
+behalf! No, James should never hear Isabella's name mentioned by her\r
+again."\r
+\r
+On Henry's arrival from Woodston, she made known to him and Eleanor\r
+their brother's safety, congratulating them with sincerity on it, and\r
+reading aloud the most material passages of her letter with strong\r
+indignation. When she had finished it--"So much for Isabella," she\r
+cried, "and for all our intimacy! She must think me an idiot, or she\r
+could not have written so; but perhaps this has served to make her\r
+character better known to me than mine is to her. I see what she has\r
+been about. She is a vain coquette, and her tricks have not answered. I\r
+do not believe she had ever any regard either for James or for me, and I\r
+wish I had never known her."\r
+\r
+"It will soon be as if you never had," said Henry.\r
+\r
+"There is but one thing that I cannot understand. I see that she has\r
+had designs on Captain Tilney, which have not succeeded; but I do not\r
+understand what Captain Tilney has been about all this time. Why should\r
+he pay her such attentions as to make her quarrel with my brother, and\r
+then fly off himself?"\r
+\r
+"I have very little to say for Frederick's motives, such as I believe\r
+them to have been. He has his vanities as well as Miss Thorpe, and the\r
+chief difference is, that, having a stronger head, they have not yet\r
+injured himself. If the effect of his behaviour does not justify him\r
+with you, we had better not seek after the cause."\r
+\r
+"Then you do not suppose he ever really cared about her?"\r
+\r
+"I am persuaded that he never did."\r
+\r
+"And only made believe to do so for mischief's sake?"\r
+\r
+Henry bowed his assent.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I must say that I do not like him at all. Though it has\r
+turned out so well for us, I do not like him at all. As it happens,\r
+there is no great harm done, because I do not think Isabella has any\r
+heart to lose. But, suppose he had made her very much in love with him?"\r
+\r
+"But we must first suppose Isabella to have had a heart to\r
+lose--consequently to have been a very different creature; and, in that\r
+case, she would have met with very different treatment."\r
+\r
+"It is very right that you should stand by your brother."\r
+\r
+"And if you would stand by yours, you would not be much distressed by\r
+the disappointment of Miss Thorpe. But your mind is warped by an innate\r
+principle of general integrity, and therefore not accessible to the cool\r
+reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge."\r
+\r
+Catherine was complimented out of further bitterness. Frederick could\r
+not be unpardonably guilty, while Henry made himself so agreeable. She\r
+resolved on not answering Isabella's letter, and tried to think no more\r
+of it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 28\r
+\r
+\r
+Soon after this, the general found himself obliged to go to London for\r
+a week; and he left Northanger earnestly regretting that any necessity\r
+should rob him even for an hour of Miss Morland's company, and anxiously\r
+recommending the study of her comfort and amusement to his children\r
+as their chief object in his absence. His departure gave Catherine the\r
+first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes a gain. The\r
+happiness with which their time now passed, every employment voluntary,\r
+every laugh indulged, every meal a scene of ease and good humour,\r
+walking where they liked and when they liked, their hours, pleasures,\r
+and fatigues at their own command, made her thoroughly sensible of the\r
+restraint which the general's presence had imposed, and most thankfully\r
+feel their present release from it. Such ease and such delights made her\r
+love the place and the people more and more every day; and had it not\r
+been for a dread of its soon becoming expedient to leave the one, and\r
+an apprehension of not being equally beloved by the other, she would at\r
+each moment of each day have been perfectly happy; but she was now in\r
+the fourth week of her visit; before the general came home, the fourth\r
+week would be turned, and perhaps it might seem an intrusion if she\r
+stayed much longer. This was a painful consideration whenever it\r
+occurred; and eager to get rid of such a weight on her mind, she very\r
+soon resolved to speak to Eleanor about it at once, propose going away,\r
+and be guided in her conduct by the manner in which her proposal might\r
+be taken.\r
+\r
+Aware that if she gave herself much time, she might feel it difficult to\r
+bring forward so unpleasant a subject, she took the first opportunity of\r
+being suddenly alone with Eleanor, and of Eleanor's being in the\r
+middle of a speech about something very different, to start forth her\r
+obligation of going away very soon. Eleanor looked and declared herself\r
+much concerned. She had "hoped for the pleasure of her company for a\r
+much longer time--had been misled (perhaps by her wishes) to suppose\r
+that a much longer visit had been promised--and could not but think that\r
+if Mr. and Mrs. Morland were aware of the pleasure it was to her to have\r
+her there, they would be too generous to hasten her return." Catherine\r
+explained: "Oh! As to that, Papa and Mamma were in no hurry at all. As\r
+long as she was happy, they would always be satisfied."\r
+\r
+"Then why, might she ask, in such a hurry herself to leave them?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! Because she had been there so long."\r
+\r
+"Nay, if you can use such a word, I can urge you no farther. If you\r
+think it long--"\r
+\r
+"Oh! No, I do not indeed. For my own pleasure, I could stay with you as\r
+long again." And it was directly settled that, till she had, her leaving\r
+them was not even to be thought of. In having this cause of uneasiness\r
+so pleasantly removed, the force of the other was likewise weakened. The\r
+kindness, the earnestness of Eleanor's manner in pressing her to stay,\r
+and Henry's gratified look on being told that her stay was determined,\r
+were such sweet proofs of her importance with them, as left her only\r
+just so much solicitude as the human mind can never do comfortably\r
+without. She did--almost always--believe that Henry loved her, and quite\r
+always that his father and sister loved and even wished her to belong\r
+to them; and believing so far, her doubts and anxieties were merely\r
+sportive irritations.\r
+\r
+Henry was not able to obey his father's injunction of remaining wholly\r
+at Northanger in attendance on the ladies, during his absence in London,\r
+the engagements of his curate at Woodston obliging him to leave them on\r
+Saturday for a couple of nights. His loss was not now what it had been\r
+while the general was at home; it lessened their gaiety, but did not\r
+ruin their comfort; and the two girls agreeing in occupation, and\r
+improving in intimacy, found themselves so well sufficient for the time\r
+to themselves, that it was eleven o'clock, rather a late hour at\r
+the abbey, before they quitted the supper-room on the day of Henry's\r
+departure. They had just reached the head of the stairs when it seemed,\r
+as far as the thickness of the walls would allow them to judge, that a\r
+carriage was driving up to the door, and the next moment confirmed the\r
+idea by the loud noise of the house-bell. After the first perturbation\r
+of surprise had passed away, in a "Good heaven! What can be the matter?"\r
+it was quickly decided by Eleanor to be her eldest brother, whose\r
+arrival was often as sudden, if not quite so unseasonable, and\r
+accordingly she hurried down to welcome him.\r
+\r
+Catherine walked on to her chamber, making up her mind as well as she\r
+could, to a further acquaintance with Captain Tilney, and comforting\r
+herself under the unpleasant impression his conduct had given her, and\r
+the persuasion of his being by far too fine a gentleman to approve of\r
+her, that at least they should not meet under such circumstances as\r
+would make their meeting materially painful. She trusted he would never\r
+speak of Miss Thorpe; and indeed, as he must by this time be ashamed of\r
+the part he had acted, there could be no danger of it; and as long as\r
+all mention of Bath scenes were avoided, she thought she could behave\r
+to him very civilly. In such considerations time passed away, and it was\r
+certainly in his favour that Eleanor should be so glad to see him, and\r
+have so much to say, for half an hour was almost gone since his arrival,\r
+and Eleanor did not come up.\r
+\r
+At that moment Catherine thought she heard her step in the gallery, and\r
+listened for its continuance; but all was silent. Scarcely, however,\r
+had she convicted her fancy of error, when the noise of something moving\r
+close to her door made her start; it seemed as if someone was touching\r
+the very doorway--and in another moment a slight motion of the lock\r
+proved that some hand must be on it. She trembled a little at the idea\r
+of anyone's approaching so cautiously; but resolving not to be again\r
+overcome by trivial appearances of alarm, or misled by a raised\r
+imagination, she stepped quietly forward, and opened the door. Eleanor,\r
+and only Eleanor, stood there. Catherine's spirits, however, were\r
+tranquillized but for an instant, for Eleanor's cheeks were pale, and\r
+her manner greatly agitated. Though evidently intending to come in, it\r
+seemed an effort to enter the room, and a still greater to speak when\r
+there. Catherine, supposing some uneasiness on Captain Tilney's account,\r
+could only express her concern by silent attention, obliged her to be\r
+seated, rubbed her temples with lavender-water, and hung over her with\r
+affectionate solicitude. "My dear Catherine, you must not--you must not\r
+indeed--" were Eleanor's first connected words. "I am quite well.\r
+This kindness distracts me--I cannot bear it--I come to you on such an\r
+errand!"\r
+\r
+"Errand! To me!"\r
+\r
+"How shall I tell you! Oh! How shall I tell you!"\r
+\r
+A new idea now darted into Catherine's mind, and turning as pale as her\r
+friend, she exclaimed, "'Tis a messenger from Woodston!"\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken, indeed," returned Eleanor, looking at her most\r
+compassionately; "it is no one from Woodston. It is my father himself."\r
+Her voice faltered, and her eyes were turned to the ground as she\r
+mentioned his name. His unlooked-for return was enough in itself to make\r
+Catherine's heart sink, and for a few moments she hardly supposed\r
+there were anything worse to be told. She said nothing; and Eleanor,\r
+endeavouring to collect herself and speak with firmness, but with eyes\r
+still cast down, soon went on. "You are too good, I am sure, to think\r
+the worse of me for the part I am obliged to perform. I am indeed a most\r
+unwilling messenger. After what has so lately passed, so lately been\r
+settled between us--how joyfully, how thankfully on my side!--as to your\r
+continuing here as I hoped for many, many weeks longer, how can I tell\r
+you that your kindness is not to be accepted--and that the happiness\r
+your company has hitherto given us is to be repaid by--But I must not\r
+trust myself with words. My dear Catherine, we are to part. My father\r
+has recollected an engagement that takes our whole family away on\r
+Monday. We are going to Lord Longtown's, near Hereford, for a fortnight.\r
+Explanation and apology are equally impossible. I cannot attempt\r
+either."\r
+\r
+"My dear Eleanor," cried Catherine, suppressing her feelings as well as\r
+she could, "do not be so distressed. A second engagement must give\r
+way to a first. I am very, very sorry we are to part--so soon, and so\r
+suddenly too; but I am not offended, indeed I am not. I can finish my\r
+visit here, you know, at any time; or I hope you will come to me. Can\r
+you, when you return from this lord's, come to Fullerton?"\r
+\r
+"It will not be in my power, Catherine."\r
+\r
+"Come when you can, then."\r
+\r
+Eleanor made no answer; and Catherine's thoughts recurring to something\r
+more directly interesting, she added, thinking aloud, "Monday--so soon\r
+as Monday; and you all go. Well, I am certain of--I shall be able to\r
+take leave, however. I need not go till just before you do, you know. Do\r
+not be distressed, Eleanor, I can go on Monday very well. My father\r
+and mother's having no notice of it is of very little consequence. The\r
+general will send a servant with me, I dare say, half the way--and then\r
+I shall soon be at Salisbury, and then I am only nine miles from home."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Catherine! Were it settled so, it would be somewhat less\r
+intolerable, though in such common attentions you would have received\r
+but half what you ought. But--how can I tell you?--tomorrow morning is\r
+fixed for your leaving us, and not even the hour is left to your choice;\r
+the very carriage is ordered, and will be here at seven o'clock, and no\r
+servant will be offered you."\r
+\r
+Catherine sat down, breathless and speechless. "I could hardly believe\r
+my senses, when I heard it; and no displeasure, no resentment that\r
+you can feel at this moment, however justly great, can be more than I\r
+myself--but I must not talk of what I felt. Oh! That I could suggest\r
+anything in extenuation! Good God! What will your father and mother say!\r
+After courting you from the protection of real friends to this--almost\r
+double distance from your home, to have you driven out of the house,\r
+without the considerations even of decent civility! Dear, dear\r
+Catherine, in being the bearer of such a message, I seem guilty myself\r
+of all its insult; yet, I trust you will acquit me, for you must have\r
+been long enough in this house to see that I am but a nominal mistress\r
+of it, that my real power is nothing."\r
+\r
+"Have I offended the general?" said Catherine in a faltering voice.\r
+\r
+"Alas! For my feelings as a daughter, all that I know, all that I\r
+answer for, is that you can have given him no just cause of offence. He\r
+certainly is greatly, very greatly discomposed; I have seldom seen him\r
+more so. His temper is not happy, and something has now occurred to\r
+ruffle it in an uncommon degree; some disappointment, some vexation,\r
+which just at this moment seems important, but which I can hardly\r
+suppose you to have any concern in, for how is it possible?"\r
+\r
+It was with pain that Catherine could speak at all; and it was only for\r
+Eleanor's sake that she attempted it. "I am sure," said she, "I am very\r
+sorry if I have offended him. It was the last thing I would willingly\r
+have done. But do not be unhappy, Eleanor. An engagement, you know, must\r
+be kept. I am only sorry it was not recollected sooner, that I might\r
+have written home. But it is of very little consequence."\r
+\r
+"I hope, I earnestly hope, that to your real safety it will be of none;\r
+but to everything else it is of the greatest consequence: to comfort,\r
+appearance, propriety, to your family, to the world. Were your friends,\r
+the Allens, still in Bath, you might go to them with comparative ease;\r
+a few hours would take you there; but a journey of seventy miles, to be\r
+taken post by you, at your age, alone, unattended!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, the journey is nothing. Do not think about that. And if we are to\r
+part, a few hours sooner or later, you know, makes no difference. I\r
+can be ready by seven. Let me be called in time." Eleanor saw that she\r
+wished to be alone; and believing it better for each that they should\r
+avoid any further conversation, now left her with, "I shall see you in\r
+the morning."\r
+\r
+Catherine's swelling heart needed relief. In Eleanor's presence\r
+friendship and pride had equally restrained her tears, but no sooner was\r
+she gone than they burst forth in torrents. Turned from the house, and\r
+in such a way! Without any reason that could justify, any apology that\r
+could atone for the abruptness, the rudeness, nay, the insolence of\r
+it. Henry at a distance--not able even to bid him farewell. Every hope,\r
+every expectation from him suspended, at least, and who could say how\r
+long? Who could say when they might meet again? And all this by such\r
+a man as General Tilney, so polite, so well bred, and heretofore\r
+so particularly fond of her! It was as incomprehensible as it was\r
+mortifying and grievous. From what it could arise, and where it would\r
+end, were considerations of equal perplexity and alarm. The manner in\r
+which it was done so grossly uncivil, hurrying her away without any\r
+reference to her own convenience, or allowing her even the appearance\r
+of choice as to the time or mode of her travelling; of two days, the\r
+earliest fixed on, and of that almost the earliest hour, as if resolved\r
+to have her gone before he was stirring in the morning, that he\r
+might not be obliged even to see her. What could all this mean but\r
+an intentional affront? By some means or other she must have had the\r
+misfortune to offend him. Eleanor had wished to spare her from so\r
+painful a notion, but Catherine could not believe it possible that any\r
+injury or any misfortune could provoke such ill will against a person\r
+not connected, or, at least, not supposed to be connected with it.\r
+\r
+Heavily passed the night. Sleep, or repose that deserved the name\r
+of sleep, was out of the question. That room, in which her disturbed\r
+imagination had tormented her on her first arrival, was again the scene\r
+of agitated spirits and unquiet slumbers. Yet how different now the\r
+source of her inquietude from what it had been then--how mournfully\r
+superior in reality and substance! Her anxiety had foundation in\r
+fact, her fears in probability; and with a mind so occupied in the\r
+contemplation of actual and natural evil, the solitude of her situation,\r
+the darkness of her chamber, the antiquity of the building, were felt\r
+and considered without the smallest emotion; and though the wind was\r
+high, and often produced strange and sudden noises throughout the house,\r
+she heard it all as she lay awake, hour after hour, without curiosity or\r
+terror.\r
+\r
+Soon after six Eleanor entered her room, eager to show attention or give\r
+assistance where it was possible; but very little remained to be done.\r
+Catherine had not loitered; she was almost dressed, and her packing\r
+almost finished. The possibility of some conciliatory message from the\r
+general occurred to her as his daughter appeared. What so natural, as\r
+that anger should pass away and repentance succeed it? And she only\r
+wanted to know how far, after what had passed, an apology might properly\r
+be received by her. But the knowledge would have been useless here;\r
+it was not called for; neither clemency nor dignity was put to the\r
+trial--Eleanor brought no message. Very little passed between them on\r
+meeting; each found her greatest safety in silence, and few and trivial\r
+were the sentences exchanged while they remained upstairs, Catherine in\r
+busy agitation completing her dress, and Eleanor with more goodwill than\r
+experience intent upon filling the trunk. When everything was done they\r
+left the room, Catherine lingering only half a minute behind her friend\r
+to throw a parting glance on every well-known, cherished object, and\r
+went down to the breakfast-parlour, where breakfast was prepared. She\r
+tried to eat, as well to save herself from the pain of being urged as\r
+to make her friend comfortable; but she had no appetite, and could not\r
+swallow many mouthfuls. The contrast between this and her last breakfast\r
+in that room gave her fresh misery, and strengthened her distaste for\r
+everything before her. It was not four and twenty hours ago since they\r
+had met there to the same repast, but in circumstances how different!\r
+With what cheerful ease, what happy, though false, security, had she\r
+then looked around her, enjoying everything present, and fearing little\r
+in future, beyond Henry's going to Woodston for a day! Happy, happy\r
+breakfast! For Henry had been there; Henry had sat by her and helped\r
+her. These reflections were long indulged undisturbed by any address\r
+from her companion, who sat as deep in thought as herself; and the\r
+appearance of the carriage was the first thing to startle and recall\r
+them to the present moment. Catherine's colour rose at the sight of it;\r
+and the indignity with which she was treated, striking at that instant\r
+on her mind with peculiar force, made her for a short time sensible only\r
+of resentment. Eleanor seemed now impelled into resolution and speech.\r
+\r
+"You must write to me, Catherine," she cried; "you must let me hear from\r
+you as soon as possible. Till I know you to be safe at home, I shall\r
+not have an hour's comfort. For one letter, at all risks, all hazards, I\r
+must entreat. Let me have the satisfaction of knowing that you are safe\r
+at Fullerton, and have found your family well, and then, till I can ask\r
+for your correspondence as I ought to do, I will not expect more. Direct\r
+to me at Lord Longtown's, and, I must ask it, under cover to Alice."\r
+\r
+"No, Eleanor, if you are not allowed to receive a letter from me, I am\r
+sure I had better not write. There can be no doubt of my getting home\r
+safe."\r
+\r
+Eleanor only replied, "I cannot wonder at your feelings. I will not\r
+importune you. I will trust to your own kindness of heart when I am at\r
+a distance from you." But this, with the look of sorrow accompanying\r
+it, was enough to melt Catherine's pride in a moment, and she instantly\r
+said, "Oh, Eleanor, I will write to you indeed."\r
+\r
+There was yet another point which Miss Tilney was anxious to settle,\r
+though somewhat embarrassed in speaking of. It had occurred to her that\r
+after so long an absence from home, Catherine might not be provided with\r
+money enough for the expenses of her journey, and, upon suggesting it\r
+to her with most affectionate offers of accommodation, it proved to be\r
+exactly the case. Catherine had never thought on the subject till that\r
+moment, but, upon examining her purse, was convinced that but for\r
+this kindness of her friend, she might have been turned from the house\r
+without even the means of getting home; and the distress in which she\r
+must have been thereby involved filling the minds of both, scarcely\r
+another word was said by either during the time of their remaining\r
+together. Short, however, was that time. The carriage was soon announced\r
+to be ready; and Catherine, instantly rising, a long and affectionate\r
+embrace supplied the place of language in bidding each other adieu; and,\r
+as they entered the hall, unable to leave the house without some mention\r
+of one whose name had not yet been spoken by either, she paused a\r
+moment, and with quivering lips just made it intelligible that she left\r
+"her kind remembrance for her absent friend." But with this approach to\r
+his name ended all possibility of restraining her feelings; and, hiding\r
+her face as well as she could with her handkerchief, she darted across\r
+the hall, jumped into the chaise, and in a moment was driven from the\r
+door.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 29\r
+\r
+\r
+Catherine was too wretched to be fearful. The journey in itself had no\r
+terrors for her; and she began it without either dreading its length or\r
+feeling its solitariness. Leaning back in one corner of the carriage, in\r
+a violent burst of tears, she was conveyed some miles beyond the walls\r
+of the abbey before she raised her head; and the highest point of ground\r
+within the park was almost closed from her view before she was capable\r
+of turning her eyes towards it. Unfortunately, the road she now\r
+travelled was the same which only ten days ago she had so happily passed\r
+along in going to and from Woodston; and, for fourteen miles, every\r
+bitter feeling was rendered more severe by the review of objects on\r
+which she had first looked under impressions so different. Every mile,\r
+as it brought her nearer Woodston, added to her sufferings, and when\r
+within the distance of five, she passed the turning which led to it, and\r
+thought of Henry, so near, yet so unconscious, her grief and agitation\r
+were excessive.\r
+\r
+The day which she had spent at that place had been one of the happiest\r
+of her life. It was there, it was on that day, that the general had made\r
+use of such expressions with regard to Henry and herself, had so\r
+spoken and so looked as to give her the most positive conviction of his\r
+actually wishing their marriage. Yes, only ten days ago had he\r
+elated her by his pointed regard--had he even confused her by his too\r
+significant reference! And now--what had she done, or what had she\r
+omitted to do, to merit such a change?\r
+\r
+The only offence against him of which she could accuse herself had been\r
+such as was scarcely possible to reach his knowledge. Henry and her own\r
+heart only were privy to the shocking suspicions which she had so idly\r
+entertained; and equally safe did she believe her secret with each.\r
+Designedly, at least, Henry could not have betrayed her. If, indeed, by\r
+any strange mischance his father should have gained intelligence of\r
+what she had dared to think and look for, of her causeless fancies\r
+and injurious examinations, she could not wonder at any degree of his\r
+indignation. If aware of her having viewed him as a murderer, she could\r
+not wonder at his even turning her from his house. But a justification\r
+so full of torture to herself, she trusted, would not be in his power.\r
+\r
+Anxious as were all her conjectures on this point, it was not, however,\r
+the one on which she dwelt most. There was a thought yet nearer, a more\r
+prevailing, more impetuous concern. How Henry would think, and feel,\r
+and look, when he returned on the morrow to Northanger and heard of\r
+her being gone, was a question of force and interest to rise over every\r
+other, to be never ceasing, alternately irritating and soothing; it\r
+sometimes suggested the dread of his calm acquiescence, and at others\r
+was answered by the sweetest confidence in his regret and resentment. To\r
+the general, of course, he would not dare to speak; but to Eleanor--what\r
+might he not say to Eleanor about her?\r
+\r
+In this unceasing recurrence of doubts and inquiries, on any one article\r
+of which her mind was incapable of more than momentary repose, the hours\r
+passed away, and her journey advanced much faster than she looked for.\r
+The pressing anxieties of thought, which prevented her from noticing\r
+anything before her, when once beyond the neighbourhood of Woodston,\r
+saved her at the same time from watching her progress; and though no\r
+object on the road could engage a moment's attention, she found no stage\r
+of it tedious. From this, she was preserved too by another cause, by\r
+feeling no eagerness for her journey's conclusion; for to return in such\r
+a manner to Fullerton was almost to destroy the pleasure of a meeting\r
+with those she loved best, even after an absence such as hers--an eleven\r
+weeks' absence. What had she to say that would not humble herself and\r
+pain her family, that would not increase her own grief by the confession\r
+of it, extend an useless resentment, and perhaps involve the innocent\r
+with the guilty in undistinguishing ill will? She could never do justice\r
+to Henry and Eleanor's merit; she felt it too strongly for expression;\r
+and should a dislike be taken against them, should they be thought of\r
+unfavourably, on their father's account, it would cut her to the heart.\r
+\r
+With these feelings, she rather dreaded than sought for the first view\r
+of that well-known spire which would announce her within twenty miles of\r
+home. Salisbury she had known to be her point on leaving Northanger; but\r
+after the first stage she had been indebted to the post-masters for the\r
+names of the places which were then to conduct her to it; so great\r
+had been her ignorance of her route. She met with nothing, however,\r
+to distress or frighten her. Her youth, civil manners, and liberal\r
+pay procured her all the attention that a traveller like herself could\r
+require; and stopping only to change horses, she travelled on for\r
+about eleven hours without accident or alarm, and between six and seven\r
+o'clock in the evening found herself entering Fullerton.\r
+\r
+A heroine returning, at the close of her career, to her native village,\r
+in all the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the dignity of\r
+a countess, with a long train of noble relations in their several\r
+phaetons, and three waiting-maids in a travelling chaise and four,\r
+behind her, is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well\r
+delight to dwell; it gives credit to every conclusion, and the author\r
+must share in the glory she so liberally bestows. But my affair is\r
+widely different; I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and\r
+disgrace; and no sweet elation of spirits can lead me into minuteness.\r
+A heroine in a hack post-chaise is such a blow upon sentiment, as no\r
+attempt at grandeur or pathos can withstand. Swiftly therefore shall her\r
+post-boy drive through the village, amid the gaze of Sunday groups, and\r
+speedy shall be her descent from it.\r
+\r
+But, whatever might be the distress of Catherine's mind, as she thus\r
+advanced towards the parsonage, and whatever the humiliation of her\r
+biographer in relating it, she was preparing enjoyment of no everyday\r
+nature for those to whom she went; first, in the appearance of her\r
+carriage--and secondly, in herself. The chaise of a traveller being\r
+a rare sight in Fullerton, the whole family were immediately at the\r
+window; and to have it stop at the sweep-gate was a pleasure to brighten\r
+every eye and occupy every fancy--a pleasure quite unlooked for by all\r
+but the two youngest children, a boy and girl of six and four years old,\r
+who expected a brother or sister in every carriage. Happy the glance\r
+that first distinguished Catherine! Happy the voice that proclaimed the\r
+discovery! But whether such happiness were the lawful property of George\r
+or Harriet could never be exactly understood.\r
+\r
+Her father, mother, Sarah, George, and Harriet, all assembled at the\r
+door to welcome her with affectionate eagerness, was a sight to awaken\r
+the best feelings of Catherine's heart; and in the embrace of each, as\r
+she stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed beyond anything\r
+that she had believed possible. So surrounded, so caressed, she was even\r
+happy! In the joyfulness of family love everything for a short time was\r
+subdued, and the pleasure of seeing her, leaving them at first little\r
+leisure for calm curiosity, they were all seated round the tea-table,\r
+which Mrs. Morland had hurried for the comfort of the poor traveller,\r
+whose pale and jaded looks soon caught her notice, before any inquiry so\r
+direct as to demand a positive answer was addressed to her.\r
+\r
+Reluctantly, and with much hesitation, did she then begin what might\r
+perhaps, at the end of half an hour, be termed, by the courtesy of her\r
+hearers, an explanation; but scarcely, within that time, could they\r
+at all discover the cause, or collect the particulars, of her sudden\r
+return. They were far from being an irritable race; far from any\r
+quickness in catching, or bitterness in resenting, affronts: but here,\r
+when the whole was unfolded, was an insult not to be overlooked, nor,\r
+for the first half hour, to be easily pardoned. Without suffering any\r
+romantic alarm, in the consideration of their daughter's long and lonely\r
+journey, Mr. and Mrs. Morland could not but feel that it might have been\r
+productive of much unpleasantness to her; that it was what they could\r
+never have voluntarily suffered; and that, in forcing her on such\r
+a measure, General Tilney had acted neither honourably nor\r
+feelingly--neither as a gentleman nor as a parent. Why he had done it,\r
+what could have provoked him to such a breach of hospitality, and so\r
+suddenly turned all his partial regard for their daughter into actual\r
+ill will, was a matter which they were at least as far from divining\r
+as Catherine herself; but it did not oppress them by any means so long;\r
+and, after a due course of useless conjecture, that "it was a strange\r
+business, and that he must be a very strange man," grew enough for all\r
+their indignation and wonder; though Sarah indeed still indulged in the\r
+sweets of incomprehensibility, exclaiming and conjecturing with youthful\r
+ardour. "My dear, you give yourself a great deal of needless trouble,"\r
+said her mother at last; "depend upon it, it is something not at all\r
+worth understanding."\r
+\r
+"I can allow for his wishing Catherine away, when he recollected this\r
+engagement," said Sarah, "but why not do it civilly?"\r
+\r
+"I am sorry for the young people," returned Mrs. Morland; "they must\r
+have a sad time of it; but as for anything else, it is no matter now;\r
+Catherine is safe at home, and our comfort does not depend upon General\r
+Tilney." Catherine sighed. "Well," continued her philosophic mother, "I\r
+am glad I did not know of your journey at the time; but now it is all\r
+over, perhaps there is no great harm done. It is always good for\r
+young people to be put upon exerting themselves; and you know, my dear\r
+Catherine, you always were a sad little scatter-brained creature; but\r
+now you must have been forced to have your wits about you, with so much\r
+changing of chaises and so forth; and I hope it will appear that you\r
+have not left anything behind you in any of the pockets."\r
+\r
+Catherine hoped so too, and tried to feel an interest in her own\r
+amendment, but her spirits were quite worn down; and, to be silent and\r
+alone becoming soon her only wish, she readily agreed to her mother's\r
+next counsel of going early to bed. Her parents, seeing nothing in\r
+her ill looks and agitation but the natural consequence of mortified\r
+feelings, and of the unusual exertion and fatigue of such a journey,\r
+parted from her without any doubt of their being soon slept away; and\r
+though, when they all met the next morning, her recovery was not equal\r
+to their hopes, they were still perfectly unsuspicious of there being\r
+any deeper evil. They never once thought of her heart, which, for the\r
+parents of a young lady of seventeen, just returned from her first\r
+excursion from home, was odd enough!\r
+\r
+As soon as breakfast was over, she sat down to fulfil her promise to\r
+Miss Tilney, whose trust in the effect of time and distance on her\r
+friend's disposition was already justified, for already did Catherine\r
+reproach herself with having parted from Eleanor coldly, with\r
+having never enough valued her merits or kindness, and never enough\r
+commiserated her for what she had been yesterday left to endure. The\r
+strength of these feelings, however, was far from assisting her pen;\r
+and never had it been harder for her to write than in addressing Eleanor\r
+Tilney. To compose a letter which might at once do justice to her\r
+sentiments and her situation, convey gratitude without servile regret,\r
+be guarded without coldness, and honest without resentment--a letter\r
+which Eleanor might not be pained by the perusal of--and, above all,\r
+which she might not blush herself, if Henry should chance to see, was an\r
+undertaking to frighten away all her powers of performance; and, after\r
+long thought and much perplexity, to be very brief was all that she\r
+could determine on with any confidence of safety. The money therefore\r
+which Eleanor had advanced was enclosed with little more than grateful\r
+thanks, and the thousand good wishes of a most affectionate heart.\r
+\r
+"This has been a strange acquaintance," observed Mrs. Morland, as the\r
+letter was finished; "soon made and soon ended. I am sorry it happens\r
+so, for Mrs. Allen thought them very pretty kind of young people; and\r
+you were sadly out of luck too in your Isabella. Ah! Poor James! Well,\r
+we must live and learn; and the next new friends you make I hope will be\r
+better worth keeping."\r
+\r
+Catherine coloured as she warmly answered, "No friend can be better\r
+worth keeping than Eleanor."\r
+\r
+"If so, my dear, I dare say you will meet again some time or other; do\r
+not be uneasy. It is ten to one but you are thrown together again in the\r
+course of a few years; and then what a pleasure it will be!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Morland was not happy in her attempt at consolation. The hope\r
+of meeting again in the course of a few years could only put into\r
+Catherine's head what might happen within that time to make a meeting\r
+dreadful to her. She could never forget Henry Tilney, or think of him\r
+with less tenderness than she did at that moment; but he might forget\r
+her; and in that case, to meet--! Her eyes filled with tears as she\r
+pictured her acquaintance so renewed; and her mother, perceiving her\r
+comfortable suggestions to have had no good effect, proposed, as another\r
+expedient for restoring her spirits, that they should call on Mrs.\r
+Allen.\r
+\r
+The two houses were only a quarter of a mile apart; and, as they walked,\r
+Mrs. Morland quickly dispatched all that she felt on the score of\r
+James's disappointment. "We are sorry for him," said she; "but otherwise\r
+there is no harm done in the match going off; for it could not be\r
+a desirable thing to have him engaged to a girl whom we had not the\r
+smallest acquaintance with, and who was so entirely without fortune; and\r
+now, after such behaviour, we cannot think at all well of her. Just at\r
+present it comes hard to poor James; but that will not last forever; and\r
+I dare say he will be a discreeter man all his life, for the foolishness\r
+of his first choice."\r
+\r
+This was just such a summary view of the affair as Catherine could\r
+listen to; another sentence might have endangered her complaisance,\r
+and made her reply less rational; for soon were all her thinking powers\r
+swallowed up in the reflection of her own change of feelings and spirits\r
+since last she had trodden that well-known road. It was not three months\r
+ago since, wild with joyful expectation, she had there run backwards\r
+and forwards some ten times a day, with an heart light, gay, and\r
+independent; looking forward to pleasures untasted and unalloyed, and\r
+free from the apprehension of evil as from the knowledge of it. Three\r
+months ago had seen her all this; and now, how altered a being did she\r
+return!\r
+\r
+She was received by the Allens with all the kindness which her\r
+unlooked-for appearance, acting on a steady affection, would naturally\r
+call forth; and great was their surprise, and warm their displeasure,\r
+on hearing how she had been treated--though Mrs. Morland's account of\r
+it was no inflated representation, no studied appeal to their passions.\r
+"Catherine took us quite by surprise yesterday evening," said she. "She\r
+travelled all the way post by herself, and knew nothing of coming till\r
+Saturday night; for General Tilney, from some odd fancy or other, all\r
+of a sudden grew tired of having her there, and almost turned her out\r
+of the house. Very unfriendly, certainly; and he must be a very odd\r
+man; but we are so glad to have her amongst us again! And it is a great\r
+comfort to find that she is not a poor helpless creature, but can shift\r
+very well for herself."\r
+\r
+Mr. Allen expressed himself on the occasion with the reasonable\r
+resentment of a sensible friend; and Mrs. Allen thought his expressions\r
+quite good enough to be immediately made use of again by herself. His\r
+wonder, his conjectures, and his explanations became in succession hers,\r
+with the addition of this single remark--"I really have not patience\r
+with the general"--to fill up every accidental pause. And, "I really\r
+have not patience with the general," was uttered twice after Mr.\r
+Allen left the room, without any relaxation of anger, or any material\r
+digression of thought. A more considerable degree of wandering attended\r
+the third repetition; and, after completing the fourth, she immediately\r
+added, "Only think, my dear, of my having got that frightful great rent\r
+in my best Mechlin so charmingly mended, before I left Bath, that one\r
+can hardly see where it was. I must show it you some day or other. Bath\r
+is a nice place, Catherine, after all. I assure you I did not above half\r
+like coming away. Mrs. Thorpe's being there was such a comfort to us,\r
+was not it? You know, you and I were quite forlorn at first."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but that did not last long," said Catherine, her eyes brightening\r
+at the recollection of what had first given spirit to her existence\r
+there.\r
+\r
+"Very true: we soon met with Mrs. Thorpe, and then we wanted for\r
+nothing. My dear, do not you think these silk gloves wear very well?\r
+I put them on new the first time of our going to the Lower Rooms, you\r
+know, and I have worn them a great deal since. Do you remember that\r
+evening?"\r
+\r
+"Do I! Oh! Perfectly."\r
+\r
+"It was very agreeable, was not it? Mr. Tilney drank tea with us, and I\r
+always thought him a great addition, he is so very agreeable. I have a\r
+notion you danced with him, but am not quite sure. I remember I had my\r
+favourite gown on."\r
+\r
+Catherine could not answer; and, after a short trial of other subjects,\r
+Mrs. Allen again returned to--"I really have not patience with the\r
+general! Such an agreeable, worthy man as he seemed to be! I do not\r
+suppose, Mrs. Morland, you ever saw a better-bred man in your life. His\r
+lodgings were taken the very day after he left them, Catherine. But no\r
+wonder; Milsom Street, you know."\r
+\r
+As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland endeavoured to impress on her\r
+daughter's mind the happiness of having such steady well-wishers as Mr.\r
+and Mrs. Allen, and the very little consideration which the neglect or\r
+unkindness of slight acquaintance like the Tilneys ought to have with\r
+her, while she could preserve the good opinion and affection of her\r
+earliest friends. There was a great deal of good sense in all this; but\r
+there are some situations of the human mind in which good sense has\r
+very little power; and Catherine's feelings contradicted almost every\r
+position her mother advanced. It was upon the behaviour of these very\r
+slight acquaintance that all her present happiness depended; and\r
+while Mrs. Morland was successfully confirming her own opinions by the\r
+justness of her own representations, Catherine was silently reflecting\r
+that now Henry must have arrived at Northanger; now he must have heard\r
+of her departure; and now, perhaps, they were all setting off for\r
+Hereford.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 30\r
+\r
+\r
+Catherine's disposition was not naturally sedentary, nor had her habits\r
+been ever very industrious; but whatever might hitherto have been her\r
+defects of that sort, her mother could not but perceive them now to be\r
+greatly increased. She could neither sit still nor employ herself for\r
+ten minutes together, walking round the garden and orchard again and\r
+again, as if nothing but motion was voluntary; and it seemed as if she\r
+could even walk about the house rather than remain fixed for any time\r
+in the parlour. Her loss of spirits was a yet greater alteration. In her\r
+rambling and her idleness she might only be a caricature of herself; but\r
+in her silence and sadness she was the very reverse of all that she had\r
+been before.\r
+\r
+For two days Mrs. Morland allowed it to pass even without a hint;\r
+but when a third night's rest had neither restored her cheerfulness,\r
+improved her in useful activity, nor given her a greater inclination for\r
+needlework, she could no longer refrain from the gentle reproof of, "My\r
+dear Catherine, I am afraid you are growing quite a fine lady. I do not\r
+know when poor Richard's cravats would be done, if he had no friend\r
+but you. Your head runs too much upon Bath; but there is a time for\r
+everything--a time for balls and plays, and a time for work. You have\r
+had a long run of amusement, and now you must try to be useful."\r
+\r
+Catherine took up her work directly, saying, in a dejected voice, that\r
+"her head did not run upon Bath--much."\r
+\r
+"Then you are fretting about General Tilney, and that is very simple\r
+of you; for ten to one whether you ever see him again. You should never\r
+fret about trifles." After a short silence--"I hope, my Catherine, you\r
+are not getting out of humour with home because it is not so grand\r
+as Northanger. That would be turning your visit into an evil indeed.\r
+Wherever you are you should always be contented, but especially at home,\r
+because there you must spend the most of your time. I did not quite\r
+like, at breakfast, to hear you talk so much about the French bread at\r
+Northanger."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I do not care about the bread. It is all the same to me what\r
+I eat."\r
+\r
+"There is a very clever essay in one of the books upstairs upon much\r
+such a subject, about young girls that have been spoilt for home by\r
+great acquaintance--The Mirror, I think. I will look it out for you some\r
+day or other, because I am sure it will do you good."\r
+\r
+Catherine said no more, and, with an endeavour to do right, applied\r
+to her work; but, after a few minutes, sunk again, without knowing it\r
+herself, into languor and listlessness, moving herself in her chair,\r
+from the irritation of weariness, much oftener than she moved her\r
+needle. Mrs. Morland watched the progress of this relapse; and seeing,\r
+in her daughter's absent and dissatisfied look, the full proof of that\r
+repining spirit to which she had now begun to attribute her want of\r
+cheerfulness, hastily left the room to fetch the book in question,\r
+anxious to lose no time in attacking so dreadful a malady. It was some\r
+time before she could find what she looked for; and other family matters\r
+occurring to detain her, a quarter of an hour had elapsed ere she\r
+returned downstairs with the volume from which so much was hoped. Her\r
+avocations above having shut out all noise but what she created herself,\r
+she knew not that a visitor had arrived within the last few minutes,\r
+till, on entering the room, the first object she beheld was a young\r
+man whom she had never seen before. With a look of much respect, he\r
+immediately rose, and being introduced to her by her conscious daughter\r
+as "Mr. Henry Tilney," with the embarrassment of real sensibility began\r
+to apologize for his appearance there, acknowledging that after what had\r
+passed he had little right to expect a welcome at Fullerton, and stating\r
+his impatience to be assured of Miss Morland's having reached her home\r
+in safety, as the cause of his intrusion. He did not address himself to\r
+an uncandid judge or a resentful heart. Far from comprehending him or\r
+his sister in their father's misconduct, Mrs. Morland had been always\r
+kindly disposed towards each, and instantly, pleased by his appearance,\r
+received him with the simple professions of unaffected benevolence;\r
+thanking him for such an attention to her daughter, assuring him that\r
+the friends of her children were always welcome there, and entreating\r
+him to say not another word of the past.\r
+\r
+He was not ill-inclined to obey this request, for, though his heart was\r
+greatly relieved by such unlooked-for mildness, it was not just at that\r
+moment in his power to say anything to the purpose. Returning in silence\r
+to his seat, therefore, he remained for some minutes most civilly\r
+answering all Mrs. Morland's common remarks about the weather and\r
+roads. Catherine meanwhile--the anxious, agitated, happy, feverish\r
+Catherine--said not a word; but her glowing cheek and brightened eye\r
+made her mother trust that this good-natured visit would at least set\r
+her heart at ease for a time, and gladly therefore did she lay aside the\r
+first volume of The Mirror for a future hour.\r
+\r
+Desirous of Mr. Morland's assistance, as well in giving encouragement,\r
+as in finding conversation for her guest, whose embarrassment on his\r
+father's account she earnestly pitied, Mrs. Morland had very early\r
+dispatched one of the children to summon him; but Mr. Morland was from\r
+home--and being thus without any support, at the end of a quarter of\r
+an hour she had nothing to say. After a couple of minutes' unbroken\r
+silence, Henry, turning to Catherine for the first time since her\r
+mother's entrance, asked her, with sudden alacrity, if Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Allen were now at Fullerton? And on developing, from amidst all her\r
+perplexity of words in reply, the meaning, which one short syllable\r
+would have given, immediately expressed his intention of paying his\r
+respects to them, and, with a rising colour, asked her if she would\r
+have the goodness to show him the way. "You may see the house from this\r
+window, sir," was information on Sarah's side, which produced only a\r
+bow of acknowledgment from the gentleman, and a silencing nod from\r
+her mother; for Mrs. Morland, thinking it probable, as a secondary\r
+consideration in his wish of waiting on their worthy neighbours, that he\r
+might have some explanation to give of his father's behaviour, which it\r
+must be more pleasant for him to communicate only to Catherine, would\r
+not on any account prevent her accompanying him. They began their walk,\r
+and Mrs. Morland was not entirely mistaken in his object in wishing it.\r
+Some explanation on his father's account he had to give; but his first\r
+purpose was to explain himself, and before they reached Mr. Allen's\r
+grounds he had done it so well that Catherine did not think it could\r
+ever be repeated too often. She was assured of his affection; and that\r
+heart in return was solicited, which, perhaps, they pretty equally\r
+knew was already entirely his own; for, though Henry was now sincerely\r
+attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies\r
+of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his\r
+affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other\r
+words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only\r
+cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in\r
+romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's\r
+dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild\r
+imagination will at least be all my own.\r
+\r
+A very short visit to Mrs. Allen, in which Henry talked at random,\r
+without sense or connection, and Catherine, rapt in the contemplation of\r
+her own unutterable happiness, scarcely opened her lips, dismissed them\r
+to the ecstasies of another tete-a-tete; and before it was suffered to\r
+close, she was enabled to judge how far he was sanctioned by parental\r
+authority in his present application. On his return from Woodston, two\r
+days before, he had been met near the abbey by his impatient father,\r
+hastily informed in angry terms of Miss Morland's departure, and ordered\r
+to think of her no more.\r
+\r
+Such was the permission upon which he had now offered her his hand.\r
+The affrighted Catherine, amidst all the terrors of expectation, as she\r
+listened to this account, could not but rejoice in the kind caution\r
+with which Henry had saved her from the necessity of a conscientious\r
+rejection, by engaging her faith before he mentioned the subject; and\r
+as he proceeded to give the particulars, and explain the motives of\r
+his father's conduct, her feelings soon hardened into even a triumphant\r
+delight. The general had had nothing to accuse her of, nothing to lay\r
+to her charge, but her being the involuntary, unconscious object of a\r
+deception which his pride could not pardon, and which a better pride\r
+would have been ashamed to own. She was guilty only of being less rich\r
+than he had supposed her to be. Under a mistaken persuasion of her\r
+possessions and claims, he had courted her acquaintance in Bath,\r
+solicited her company at Northanger, and designed her for his\r
+daughter-in-law. On discovering his error, to turn her from the house\r
+seemed the best, though to his feelings an inadequate proof of his\r
+resentment towards herself, and his contempt of her family.\r
+\r
+John Thorpe had first misled him. The general, perceiving his son\r
+one night at the theatre to be paying considerable attention to Miss\r
+Morland, had accidentally inquired of Thorpe if he knew more of her\r
+than her name. Thorpe, most happy to be on speaking terms with a man\r
+of General Tilney's importance, had been joyfully and proudly\r
+communicative; and being at that time not only in daily expectation\r
+of Morland's engaging Isabella, but likewise pretty well resolved upon\r
+marrying Catherine himself, his vanity induced him to represent the\r
+family as yet more wealthy than his vanity and avarice had made him\r
+believe them. With whomsoever he was, or was likely to be connected, his\r
+own consequence always required that theirs should be great, and as his\r
+intimacy with any acquaintance grew, so regularly grew their fortune.\r
+The expectations of his friend Morland, therefore, from the first\r
+overrated, had ever since his introduction to Isabella been gradually\r
+increasing; and by merely adding twice as much for the grandeur of the\r
+moment, by doubling what he chose to think the amount of Mr. Morland's\r
+preferment, trebling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt, and\r
+sinking half the children, he was able to represent the whole family\r
+to the general in a most respectable light. For Catherine, however, the\r
+peculiar object of the general's curiosity, and his own speculations,\r
+he had yet something more in reserve, and the ten or fifteen thousand\r
+pounds which her father could give her would be a pretty addition to Mr.\r
+Allen's estate. Her intimacy there had made him seriously determine on\r
+her being handsomely legacied hereafter; and to speak of her therefore\r
+as the almost acknowledged future heiress of Fullerton naturally\r
+followed. Upon such intelligence the general had proceeded; for never\r
+had it occurred to him to doubt its authority. Thorpe's interest in the\r
+family, by his sister's approaching connection with one of its members,\r
+and his own views on another (circumstances of which he boasted with\r
+almost equal openness), seemed sufficient vouchers for his truth; and\r
+to these were added the absolute facts of the Allens being wealthy and\r
+childless, of Miss Morland's being under their care, and--as soon as his\r
+acquaintance allowed him to judge--of their treating her with parental\r
+kindness. His resolution was soon formed. Already had he discerned a\r
+liking towards Miss Morland in the countenance of his son; and thankful\r
+for Mr. Thorpe's communication, he almost instantly determined to spare\r
+no pains in weakening his boasted interest and ruining his dearest\r
+hopes. Catherine herself could not be more ignorant at the time of all\r
+this, than his own children. Henry and Eleanor, perceiving nothing in\r
+her situation likely to engage their father's particular respect, had\r
+seen with astonishment the suddenness, continuance, and extent of his\r
+attention; and though latterly, from some hints which had accompanied an\r
+almost positive command to his son of doing everything in his power to\r
+attach her, Henry was convinced of his father's believing it to be\r
+an advantageous connection, it was not till the late explanation at\r
+Northanger that they had the smallest idea of the false calculations\r
+which had hurried him on. That they were false, the general had learnt\r
+from the very person who had suggested them, from Thorpe himself, whom\r
+he had chanced to meet again in town, and who, under the influence of\r
+exactly opposite feelings, irritated by Catherine's refusal, and\r
+yet more by the failure of a very recent endeavour to accomplish a\r
+reconciliation between Morland and Isabella, convinced that they were\r
+separated forever, and spurning a friendship which could be no longer\r
+serviceable, hastened to contradict all that he had said before to\r
+the advantage of the Morlands--confessed himself to have been totally\r
+mistaken in his opinion of their circumstances and character, misled by\r
+the rhodomontade of his friend to believe his father a man of substance\r
+and credit, whereas the transactions of the two or three last weeks\r
+proved him to be neither; for after coming eagerly forward on the first\r
+overture of a marriage between the families, with the most liberal\r
+proposals, he had, on being brought to the point by the shrewdness of\r
+the relator, been constrained to acknowledge himself incapable of\r
+giving the young people even a decent support. They were, in fact, a\r
+necessitous family; numerous, too, almost beyond example; by no means\r
+respected in their own neighbourhood, as he had lately had particular\r
+opportunities of discovering; aiming at a style of life which their\r
+fortune could not warrant; seeking to better themselves by wealthy\r
+connections; a forward, bragging, scheming race.\r
+\r
+The terrified general pronounced the name of Allen with an inquiring\r
+look; and here too Thorpe had learnt his error. The Allens, he believed,\r
+had lived near them too long, and he knew the young man on whom the\r
+Fullerton estate must devolve. The general needed no more. Enraged with\r
+almost everybody in the world but himself, he set out the next day for\r
+the abbey, where his performances have been seen.\r
+\r
+I leave it to my reader's sagacity to determine how much of all this\r
+it was possible for Henry to communicate at this time to Catherine, how\r
+much of it he could have learnt from his father, in what points his own\r
+conjectures might assist him, and what portion must yet remain to be\r
+told in a letter from James. I have united for their ease what they must\r
+divide for mine. Catherine, at any rate, heard enough to feel that in\r
+suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting up his wife,\r
+she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty.\r
+\r
+Henry, in having such things to relate of his father, was almost\r
+as pitiable as in their first avowal to himself. He blushed for the\r
+narrow-minded counsel which he was obliged to expose. The conversation\r
+between them at Northanger had been of the most unfriendly kind. Henry's\r
+indignation on hearing how Catherine had been treated, on comprehending\r
+his father's views, and being ordered to acquiesce in them, had been\r
+open and bold. The general, accustomed on every ordinary occasion to\r
+give the law in his family, prepared for no reluctance but of feeling,\r
+no opposing desire that should dare to clothe itself in words, could ill\r
+brook the opposition of his son, steady as the sanction of reason and\r
+the dictate of conscience could make it. But, in such a cause, his\r
+anger, though it must shock, could not intimidate Henry, who was\r
+sustained in his purpose by a conviction of its justice. He felt himself\r
+bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing\r
+that heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy\r
+retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable\r
+anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it\r
+prompted.\r
+\r
+He steadily refused to accompany his father into Herefordshire, an\r
+engagement formed almost at the moment to promote the dismissal of\r
+Catherine, and as steadily declared his intention of offering her his\r
+hand. The general was furious in his anger, and they parted in dreadful\r
+disagreement. Henry, in an agitation of mind which many solitary hours\r
+were required to compose, had returned almost instantly to Woodston,\r
+and, on the afternoon of the following day, had begun his journey to\r
+Fullerton.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 31\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Morland's surprise on being applied to by Mr. Tilney for\r
+their consent to his marrying their daughter was, for a few minutes,\r
+considerable, it having never entered their heads to suspect an\r
+attachment on either side; but as nothing, after all, could be more\r
+natural than Catherine's being beloved, they soon learnt to consider it\r
+with only the happy agitation of gratified pride, and, as far as they\r
+alone were concerned, had not a single objection to start. His pleasing\r
+manners and good sense were self-evident recommendations; and having\r
+never heard evil of him, it was not their way to suppose any evil could\r
+be told. Goodwill supplying the place of experience, his character\r
+needed no attestation. "Catherine would make a sad, heedless young\r
+housekeeper to be sure," was her mother's foreboding remark; but quick\r
+was the consolation of there being nothing like practice.\r
+\r
+There was but one obstacle, in short, to be mentioned; but till that one\r
+was removed, it must be impossible for them to sanction the engagement.\r
+Their tempers were mild, but their principles were steady, and while\r
+his parent so expressly forbade the connection, they could not allow\r
+themselves to encourage it. That the general should come forward to\r
+solicit the alliance, or that he should even very heartily approve it,\r
+they were not refined enough to make any parading stipulation; but\r
+the decent appearance of consent must be yielded, and that once\r
+obtained--and their own hearts made them trust that it could not be\r
+very long denied--their willing approbation was instantly to follow. His\r
+consent was all that they wished for. They were no more inclined than\r
+entitled to demand his money. Of a very considerable fortune, his son\r
+was, by marriage settlements, eventually secure; his present income was\r
+an income of independence and comfort, and under every pecuniary view,\r
+it was a match beyond the claims of their daughter.\r
+\r
+The young people could not be surprised at a decision like this. They\r
+felt and they deplored--but they could not resent it; and they parted,\r
+endeavouring to hope that such a change in the general, as each believed\r
+almost impossible, might speedily take place, to unite them again in\r
+the fullness of privileged affection. Henry returned to what was now\r
+his only home, to watch over his young plantations, and extend his\r
+improvements for her sake, to whose share in them he looked anxiously\r
+forward; and Catherine remained at Fullerton to cry. Whether the\r
+torments of absence were softened by a clandestine correspondence, let\r
+us not inquire. Mr. and Mrs. Morland never did--they had been too kind\r
+to exact any promise; and whenever Catherine received a letter, as, at\r
+that time, happened pretty often, they always looked another way.\r
+\r
+The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the portion\r
+of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, as to its final\r
+event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will\r
+see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are\r
+all hastening together to perfect felicity. The means by which their\r
+early marriage was effected can be the only doubt: what probable\r
+circumstance could work upon a temper like the general's? The\r
+circumstance which chiefly availed was the marriage of his daughter with\r
+a man of fortune and consequence, which took place in the course of\r
+the summer--an accession of dignity that threw him into a fit of good\r
+humour, from which he did not recover till after Eleanor had obtained\r
+his forgiveness of Henry, and his permission for him "to be a fool if he\r
+liked it!"\r
+\r
+The marriage of Eleanor Tilney, her removal from all the evils of such\r
+a home as Northanger had been made by Henry's banishment, to the home of\r
+her choice and the man of her choice, is an event which I expect to\r
+give general satisfaction among all her acquaintance. My own joy on the\r
+occasion is very sincere. I know no one more entitled, by unpretending\r
+merit, or better prepared by habitual suffering, to receive and enjoy\r
+felicity. Her partiality for this gentleman was not of recent origin;\r
+and he had been long withheld only by inferiority of situation from\r
+addressing her. His unexpected accession to title and fortune had\r
+removed all his difficulties; and never had the general loved his\r
+daughter so well in all her hours of companionship, utility, and patient\r
+endurance as when he first hailed her "Your Ladyship!" Her husband was\r
+really deserving of her; independent of his peerage, his wealth, and\r
+his attachment, being to a precision the most charming young man in the\r
+world. Any further definition of his merits must be unnecessary; the\r
+most charming young man in the world is instantly before the imagination\r
+of us all. Concerning the one in question, therefore, I have only to\r
+add--aware that the rules of composition forbid the introduction of a\r
+character not connected with my fable--that this was the very\r
+gentleman whose negligent servant left behind him that collection of\r
+washing-bills, resulting from a long visit at Northanger, by which my\r
+heroine was involved in one of her most alarming adventures.\r
+\r
+The influence of the viscount and viscountess in their brother's behalf\r
+was assisted by that right understanding of Mr. Morland's circumstances\r
+which, as soon as the general would allow himself to be informed, they\r
+were qualified to give. It taught him that he had been scarcely\r
+more misled by Thorpe's first boast of the family wealth than by his\r
+subsequent malicious overthrow of it; that in no sense of the word were\r
+they necessitous or poor, and that Catherine would have three thousand\r
+pounds. This was so material an amendment of his late expectations that\r
+it greatly contributed to smooth the descent of his pride; and by no\r
+means without its effect was the private intelligence, which he was at\r
+some pains to procure, that the Fullerton estate, being entirely at\r
+the disposal of its present proprietor, was consequently open to every\r
+greedy speculation.\r
+\r
+On the strength of this, the general, soon after Eleanor's marriage,\r
+permitted his son to return to Northanger, and thence made him the\r
+bearer of his consent, very courteously worded in a page full of empty\r
+professions to Mr. Morland. The event which it authorized soon followed:\r
+Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang, and everybody smiled;\r
+and, as this took place within a twelvemonth from the first day of their\r
+meeting, it will not appear, after all the dreadful delays occasioned by\r
+the general's cruelty, that they were essentially hurt by it. To begin\r
+perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is\r
+to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced that the\r
+general's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to\r
+their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their\r
+knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment,\r
+I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the\r
+tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or\r
+reward filial disobedience.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+*Vide a letter from Mr. Richardson, No. 97, Vol. II, Rambler.\r
+\r
--- /dev/null
+PRIDE AND PREJUDICE\r
+\r
+By Jane Austen\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 1\r
+\r
+\r
+It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession\r
+of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.\r
+\r
+However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his\r
+first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds\r
+of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property\r
+of some one or other of their daughters.\r
+\r
+"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that\r
+Netherfield Park is let at last?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.\r
+\r
+"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she\r
+told me all about it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet made no answer.\r
+\r
+"Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.\r
+\r
+"_You_ want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."\r
+\r
+This was invitation enough.\r
+\r
+"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken\r
+by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came\r
+down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much\r
+delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he\r
+is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to\r
+be in the house by the end of next week."\r
+\r
+"What is his name?"\r
+\r
+"Bingley."\r
+\r
+"Is he married or single?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or\r
+five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!"\r
+\r
+"How so? How can it affect them?"\r
+\r
+"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You\r
+must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them."\r
+\r
+"Is that his design in settling here?"\r
+\r
+"Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he\r
+_may_ fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as\r
+soon as he comes."\r
+\r
+"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send\r
+them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are\r
+as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the\r
+party."\r
+\r
+"My dear, you flatter me. I certainly _have_ had my share of beauty, but\r
+I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five\r
+grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty."\r
+\r
+"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into\r
+the neighbourhood."\r
+\r
+"It is more than I engage for, I assure you."\r
+\r
+"But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would\r
+be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to\r
+go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no\r
+newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for _us_ to\r
+visit him if you do not."\r
+\r
+"You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very\r
+glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my\r
+hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though\r
+I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy."\r
+\r
+"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the\r
+others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so\r
+good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving _her_ the preference."\r
+\r
+"They have none of them much to recommend them," replied he; "they are\r
+all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of\r
+quickness than her sisters."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Bennet, how _can_ you abuse your own children in such a way? You\r
+take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves."\r
+\r
+"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They\r
+are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration\r
+these last twenty years at least."\r
+\r
+"Ah, you do not know what I suffer."\r
+\r
+"But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four\r
+thousand a year come into the neighbourhood."\r
+\r
+"It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not\r
+visit them."\r
+\r
+"Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them\r
+all."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour,\r
+reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had\r
+been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. _Her_ mind\r
+was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding,\r
+little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented,\r
+she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her\r
+daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 2\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He\r
+had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring\r
+his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was\r
+paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following\r
+manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he\r
+suddenly addressed her with:\r
+\r
+"I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy."\r
+\r
+"We are not in a way to know _what_ Mr. Bingley likes," said her mother\r
+resentfully, "since we are not to visit."\r
+\r
+"But you forget, mamma," said Elizabeth, "that we shall meet him at the\r
+assemblies, and that Mrs. Long promised to introduce him."\r
+\r
+"I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces\r
+of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion\r
+of her."\r
+\r
+"No more have I," said Mr. Bennet; "and I am glad to find that you do\r
+not depend on her serving you."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply, but, unable to contain\r
+herself, began scolding one of her daughters.\r
+\r
+"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven's sake! Have a little\r
+compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces."\r
+\r
+"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs," said her father; "she times\r
+them ill."\r
+\r
+"I do not cough for my own amusement," replied Kitty fretfully. "When is\r
+your next ball to be, Lizzy?"\r
+\r
+"To-morrow fortnight."\r
+\r
+"Aye, so it is," cried her mother, "and Mrs. Long does not come back\r
+till the day before; so it will be impossible for her to introduce him,\r
+for she will not know him herself."\r
+\r
+"Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce\r
+Mr. Bingley to _her_."\r
+\r
+"Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him\r
+myself; how can you be so teasing?"\r
+\r
+"I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly\r
+very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a\r
+fortnight. But if _we_ do not venture somebody else will; and after all,\r
+Mrs. Long and her neices must stand their chance; and, therefore, as\r
+she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will\r
+take it on myself."\r
+\r
+The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet said only, "Nonsense,\r
+nonsense!"\r
+\r
+"What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?" cried he. "Do\r
+you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on\r
+them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you _there_. What say you,\r
+Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read\r
+great books and make extracts."\r
+\r
+Mary wished to say something sensible, but knew not how.\r
+\r
+"While Mary is adjusting her ideas," he continued, "let us return to Mr.\r
+Bingley."\r
+\r
+"I am sick of Mr. Bingley," cried his wife.\r
+\r
+"I am sorry to hear _that_; but why did not you tell me that before? If\r
+I had known as much this morning I certainly would not have called\r
+on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we\r
+cannot escape the acquaintance now."\r
+\r
+The astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished; that of Mrs.\r
+Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though, when the first tumult of joy\r
+was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the\r
+while.\r
+\r
+"How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I knew I should\r
+persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to\r
+neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a\r
+good joke, too, that you should have gone this morning and never said a\r
+word about it till now."\r
+\r
+"Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose," said Mr. Bennet; and,\r
+as he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife.\r
+\r
+"What an excellent father you have, girls!" said she, when the door was\r
+shut. "I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness;\r
+or me, either, for that matter. At our time of life it is not so\r
+pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintances every day; but\r
+for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, my love, though you _are_\r
+the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next\r
+ball."\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Lydia stoutly, "I am not afraid; for though I _am_ the\r
+youngest, I'm the tallest."\r
+\r
+The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would\r
+return Mr. Bennet's visit, and determining when they should ask him to\r
+dinner.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 3\r
+\r
+\r
+Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five\r
+daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her\r
+husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him\r
+in various ways--with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and\r
+distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all, and they were at\r
+last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour,\r
+Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been\r
+delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely\r
+agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly\r
+with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of\r
+dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively\r
+hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained.\r
+\r
+"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,"\r
+said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, "and all the others equally well\r
+married, I shall have nothing to wish for."\r
+\r
+In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet's visit, and sat about\r
+ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being\r
+admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had\r
+heard much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more\r
+fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining from an upper\r
+window that he wore a blue coat, and rode a black horse.\r
+\r
+An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards dispatched; and already\r
+had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her\r
+housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley\r
+was obliged to be in town the following day, and, consequently, unable\r
+to accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite\r
+disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town\r
+so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that\r
+he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never\r
+settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears\r
+a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get\r
+a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley\r
+was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly.\r
+The girls grieved over such a number of ladies, but were comforted the\r
+day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve he brought only\r
+six with him from London--his five sisters and a cousin. And when\r
+the party entered the assembly room it consisted of only five\r
+altogether--Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and\r
+another young man.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant\r
+countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women,\r
+with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely\r
+looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention\r
+of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and\r
+the report which was in general circulation within five minutes\r
+after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen\r
+pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he\r
+was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great\r
+admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust\r
+which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be\r
+proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all\r
+his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most\r
+forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared\r
+with his friend.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal\r
+people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance,\r
+was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving\r
+one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for\r
+themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced\r
+only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being\r
+introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in\r
+walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party.\r
+His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man\r
+in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again.\r
+Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of\r
+his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his\r
+having slighted one of her daughters.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit\r
+down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been\r
+standing near enough for her to hear a conversation between him and Mr.\r
+Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes, to press his friend\r
+to join it.\r
+\r
+"Come, Darcy," said he, "I must have you dance. I hate to see you\r
+standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better\r
+dance."\r
+\r
+"I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am\r
+particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this\r
+it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not\r
+another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to\r
+stand up with."\r
+\r
+"I would not be so fastidious as you are," cried Mr. Bingley, "for a\r
+kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in\r
+my life as I have this evening; and there are several of them you see\r
+uncommonly pretty."\r
+\r
+"_You_ are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room," said Mr.\r
+Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet.\r
+\r
+"Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one\r
+of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I\r
+dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you."\r
+\r
+"Which do you mean?" and turning round he looked for a moment at\r
+Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said:\r
+"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt _me_; I am in no\r
+humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted\r
+by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her\r
+smiles, for you are wasting your time with me."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth\r
+remained with no very cordial feelings toward him. She told the story,\r
+however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively,\r
+playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.\r
+\r
+The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs.\r
+Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield\r
+party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been\r
+distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as\r
+her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's\r
+pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most\r
+accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been\r
+fortunate enough never to be without partners, which was all that they\r
+had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They returned, therefore, in good\r
+spirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they\r
+were the principal inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. With\r
+a book he was regardless of time; and on the present occasion he had a\r
+good deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised\r
+such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that his wife's views on\r
+the stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found out that he had a\r
+different story to hear.\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet," as she entered the room, "we have had a most\r
+delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there.\r
+Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well\r
+she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with\r
+her twice! Only think of _that_, my dear; he actually danced with her\r
+twice! and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second\r
+time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand\r
+up with her! But, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody\r
+can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going\r
+down the dance. So he inquired who she was, and got introduced, and\r
+asked her for the two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss King,\r
+and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again,\r
+and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the _Boulanger_--"\r
+\r
+"If he had had any compassion for _me_," cried her husband impatiently,\r
+"he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of\r
+his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!"\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear, I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively\r
+handsome! And his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw\r
+anything more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs.\r
+Hurst's gown--"\r
+\r
+Here she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any\r
+description of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch\r
+of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some\r
+exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy.\r
+\r
+"But I can assure you," she added, "that Lizzy does not lose much by not\r
+suiting _his_ fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at\r
+all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring\r
+him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very\r
+great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my\r
+dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 4\r
+\r
+\r
+When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in\r
+her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister just how very\r
+much she admired him.\r
+\r
+"He is just what a young man ought to be," said she, "sensible,\r
+good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!--so much\r
+ease, with such perfect good breeding!"\r
+\r
+"He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth, "which a young man ought\r
+likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete."\r
+\r
+"I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I\r
+did not expect such a compliment."\r
+\r
+"Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between\r
+us. Compliments always take _you_ by surprise, and _me_ never. What\r
+could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help\r
+seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman\r
+in the room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is\r
+very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a\r
+stupider person."\r
+\r
+"Dear Lizzy!"\r
+\r
+"Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general.\r
+You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable\r
+in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in your\r
+life."\r
+\r
+"I would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone; but I always speak\r
+what I think."\r
+\r
+"I know you do; and it is _that_ which makes the wonder. With _your_\r
+good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of\r
+others! Affectation of candour is common enough--one meets with it\r
+everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design--to take the\r
+good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing\r
+of the bad--belongs to you alone. And so you like this man's sisters,\r
+too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his."\r
+\r
+"Certainly not--at first. But they are very pleasing women when you\r
+converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep\r
+his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming\r
+neighbour in her."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced; their behaviour at\r
+the assembly had not been calculated to please in general; and with more\r
+quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister,\r
+and with a judgement too unassailed by any attention to herself, she\r
+was very little disposed to approve them. They were in fact very fine\r
+ladies; not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the\r
+power of making themselves agreeable when they chose it, but proud and\r
+conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the\r
+first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand\r
+pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of\r
+associating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect\r
+entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of\r
+a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply\r
+impressed on their memories than that their brother's fortune and their\r
+own had been acquired by trade.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred\r
+thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an\r
+estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and\r
+sometimes made choice of his county; but as he was now provided with a\r
+good house and the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those\r
+who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the\r
+remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to\r
+purchase.\r
+\r
+His sisters were anxious for his having an estate of his own; but,\r
+though he was now only established as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no\r
+means unwilling to preside at his table--nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had\r
+married a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider\r
+his house as her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of\r
+age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation\r
+to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for\r
+half-an-hour--was pleased with the situation and the principal\r
+rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it\r
+immediately.\r
+\r
+Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of\r
+great opposition of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the\r
+easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition\r
+could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he\r
+never appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of Darcy's regard, Bingley\r
+had the firmest reliance, and of his judgement the highest opinion.\r
+In understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means\r
+deficient, but Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty,\r
+reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not\r
+inviting. In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage. Bingley\r
+was sure of being liked wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually\r
+giving offense.\r
+\r
+The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently\r
+characteristic. Bingley had never met with more pleasant people or\r
+prettier girls in his life; everybody had been most kind and attentive\r
+to him; there had been no formality, no stiffness; he had soon felt\r
+acquainted with all the room; and, as to Miss Bennet, he could not\r
+conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a\r
+collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for\r
+none of whom he had felt the smallest interest, and from none received\r
+either attention or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty,\r
+but she smiled too much.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so--but still they admired\r
+her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one\r
+whom they would not object to know more of. Miss Bennet was therefore\r
+established as a sweet girl, and their brother felt authorized by such\r
+commendation to think of her as he chose.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 5\r
+\r
+\r
+Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets\r
+were particularly intimate. Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade\r
+in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the\r
+honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty.\r
+The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a\r
+disgust to his business, and to his residence in a small market town;\r
+and, in quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house\r
+about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge,\r
+where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and,\r
+unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all\r
+the world. For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him\r
+supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By\r
+nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St.\r
+James's had made him courteous.\r
+\r
+Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a\r
+valuable neighbour to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest\r
+of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was\r
+Elizabeth's intimate friend.\r
+\r
+That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over\r
+a ball was absolutely necessary; and the morning after the assembly\r
+brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate.\r
+\r
+"_You_ began the evening well, Charlotte," said Mrs. Bennet with civil\r
+self-command to Miss Lucas. "_You_ were Mr. Bingley's first choice."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but he seemed to like his second better."\r
+\r
+"Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be\r
+sure that _did_ seem as if he admired her--indeed I rather believe he\r
+_did_--I heard something about it--but I hardly know what--something\r
+about Mr. Robinson."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson; did not\r
+I mention it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him how he liked our Meryton\r
+assemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many\r
+pretty women in the room, and _which_ he thought the prettiest? and his\r
+answering immediately to the last question: 'Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet,\r
+beyond a doubt; there cannot be two opinions on that point.'"\r
+\r
+"Upon my word! Well, that is very decided indeed--that does seem as\r
+if--but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know."\r
+\r
+"_My_ overhearings were more to the purpose than _yours_, Eliza," said\r
+Charlotte. "Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend,\r
+is he?--poor Eliza!--to be only just _tolerable_."\r
+\r
+"I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his\r
+ill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite\r
+a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he\r
+sat close to her for half-an-hour without once opening his lips."\r
+\r
+"Are you quite sure, ma'am?--is not there a little mistake?" said Jane.\r
+"I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her."\r
+\r
+"Aye--because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he\r
+could not help answering her; but she said he seemed quite angry at\r
+being spoke to."\r
+\r
+"Miss Bingley told me," said Jane, "that he never speaks much,\r
+unless among his intimate acquaintances. With _them_ he is remarkably\r
+agreeable."\r
+\r
+"I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very\r
+agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it\r
+was; everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had\r
+heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to\r
+the ball in a hack chaise."\r
+\r
+"I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long," said Miss Lucas, "but I\r
+wish he had danced with Eliza."\r
+\r
+"Another time, Lizzy," said her mother, "I would not dance with _him_,\r
+if I were you."\r
+\r
+"I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you _never_ to dance with him."\r
+\r
+"His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not offend _me_ so much as pride\r
+often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so\r
+very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour,\r
+should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a _right_\r
+to be proud."\r
+\r
+"That is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and I could easily forgive\r
+_his_ pride, if he had not mortified _mine_."\r
+\r
+"Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her\r
+reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have\r
+ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human\r
+nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us\r
+who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some\r
+quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different\r
+things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may\r
+be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of\r
+ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us."\r
+\r
+"If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy," cried a young Lucas, who came with\r
+his sisters, "I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of\r
+foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine a day."\r
+\r
+"Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought," said Mrs.\r
+Bennet; "and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle\r
+directly."\r
+\r
+The boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she\r
+would, and the argument ended only with the visit.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 6\r
+\r
+\r
+The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit\r
+was soon returned in due form. Miss Bennet's pleasing manners grew on\r
+the goodwill of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was\r
+found to be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth speaking to,\r
+a wish of being better acquainted with _them_ was expressed towards\r
+the two eldest. By Jane, this attention was received with the greatest\r
+pleasure, but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment\r
+of everybody, hardly excepting even her sister, and could not like them;\r
+though their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value as arising in\r
+all probability from the influence of their brother's admiration. It\r
+was generally evident whenever they met, that he _did_ admire her and\r
+to _her_ it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference\r
+which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a\r
+way to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it\r
+was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane\r
+united, with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a\r
+uniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard her from the suspicions\r
+of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas.\r
+\r
+"It may perhaps be pleasant," replied Charlotte, "to be able to impose\r
+on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be\r
+so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill\r
+from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and\r
+it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in\r
+the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every\r
+attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all\r
+_begin_ freely--a slight preference is natural enough; but there are\r
+very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without\r
+encouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show _more_\r
+affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he\r
+may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on."\r
+\r
+"But she does help him on, as much as her nature will allow. If I can\r
+perceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton, indeed, not to\r
+discover it too."\r
+\r
+"Remember, Eliza, that he does not know Jane's disposition as you do."\r
+\r
+"But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal\r
+it, he must find it out."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. But, though Bingley and Jane\r
+meet tolerably often, it is never for many hours together; and, as they\r
+always see each other in large mixed parties, it is impossible that\r
+every moment should be employed in conversing together. Jane should\r
+therefore make the most of every half-hour in which she can command his\r
+attention. When she is secure of him, there will be more leisure for\r
+falling in love as much as she chooses."\r
+\r
+"Your plan is a good one," replied Elizabeth, "where nothing is in\r
+question but the desire of being well married, and if I were determined\r
+to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But\r
+these are not Jane's feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet,\r
+she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard nor of its\r
+reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four\r
+dances with him at Meryton; she saw him one morning at his own house,\r
+and has since dined with him in company four times. This is not quite\r
+enough to make her understand his character."\r
+\r
+"Not as you represent it. Had she merely _dined_ with him, she might\r
+only have discovered whether he had a good appetite; but you must\r
+remember that four evenings have also been spent together--and four\r
+evenings may do a great deal."\r
+\r
+"Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they\r
+both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other\r
+leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Charlotte, "I wish Jane success with all my heart; and\r
+if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a\r
+chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a\r
+twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If\r
+the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or\r
+ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the\r
+least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to\r
+have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as\r
+possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your\r
+life."\r
+\r
+"You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not\r
+sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself."\r
+\r
+Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth\r
+was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some\r
+interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely\r
+allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the\r
+ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no\r
+sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly\r
+had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered\r
+uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To\r
+this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had\r
+detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry\r
+in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and\r
+pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those\r
+of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of\r
+this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who made\r
+himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough\r
+to dance with.\r
+\r
+He began to wish to know more of her, and as a step towards conversing\r
+with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so\r
+drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas's, where a large party were\r
+assembled.\r
+\r
+"What does Mr. Darcy mean," said she to Charlotte, "by listening to my\r
+conversation with Colonel Forster?"\r
+\r
+"That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer."\r
+\r
+"But if he does it any more I shall certainly let him know that I see\r
+what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by\r
+being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him."\r
+\r
+On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have\r
+any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such\r
+a subject to him; which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she\r
+turned to him and said:\r
+\r
+"Did you not think, Mr. Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly\r
+well just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at\r
+Meryton?"\r
+\r
+"With great energy; but it is always a subject which makes a lady\r
+energetic."\r
+\r
+"You are severe on us."\r
+\r
+"It will be _her_ turn soon to be teased," said Miss Lucas. "I am going\r
+to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows."\r
+\r
+"You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!--always wanting me\r
+to play and sing before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had taken\r
+a musical turn, you would have been invaluable; but as it is, I would\r
+really rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of\r
+hearing the very best performers." On Miss Lucas's persevering, however,\r
+she added, "Very well, if it must be so, it must." And gravely glancing\r
+at Mr. Darcy, "There is a fine old saying, which everybody here is of\r
+course familiar with: 'Keep your breath to cool your porridge'; and I\r
+shall keep mine to swell my song."\r
+\r
+Her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. After a song\r
+or two, and before she could reply to the entreaties of several that\r
+she would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her\r
+sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in\r
+the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always\r
+impatient for display.\r
+\r
+Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her\r
+application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited\r
+manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she\r
+had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with\r
+much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the\r
+end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by\r
+Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who,\r
+with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in\r
+dancing at one end of the room.\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent indignation at such a mode of\r
+passing the evening, to the exclusion of all conversation, and was too\r
+much engrossed by his thoughts to perceive that Sir William Lucas was\r
+his neighbour, till Sir William thus began:\r
+\r
+"What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There\r
+is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first\r
+refinements of polished society."\r
+\r
+"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst\r
+the less polished societies of the world. Every savage can dance."\r
+\r
+Sir William only smiled. "Your friend performs delightfully," he\r
+continued after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; "and I doubt\r
+not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy."\r
+\r
+"You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do\r
+you often dance at St. James's?"\r
+\r
+"Never, sir."\r
+\r
+"Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place?"\r
+\r
+"It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it."\r
+\r
+"You have a house in town, I conclude?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy bowed.\r
+\r
+"I had once had some thought of fixing in town myself--for I am fond\r
+of superior society; but I did not feel quite certain that the air of\r
+London would agree with Lady Lucas."\r
+\r
+He paused in hopes of an answer; but his companion was not disposed\r
+to make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was\r
+struck with the action of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to\r
+her:\r
+\r
+"My dear Miss Eliza, why are you not dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow\r
+me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You\r
+cannot refuse to dance, I am sure when so much beauty is before you."\r
+And, taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy who, though\r
+extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly\r
+drew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William:\r
+\r
+"Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you\r
+not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner."\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honour of\r
+her hand, but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at\r
+all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion.\r
+\r
+"You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny\r
+me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the\r
+amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us\r
+for one half-hour."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Darcy is all politeness," said Elizabeth, smiling.\r
+\r
+"He is, indeed; but, considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza,\r
+we cannot wonder at his complaisance--for who would object to such a\r
+partner?"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not\r
+injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some\r
+complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley:\r
+\r
+"I can guess the subject of your reverie."\r
+\r
+"I should imagine not."\r
+\r
+"You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings\r
+in this manner--in such society; and indeed I am quite of your opinion.\r
+I was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise--the\r
+nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all those people! What would\r
+I give to hear your strictures on them!"\r
+\r
+"Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more\r
+agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure\r
+which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow."\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he\r
+would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections.\r
+Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity:\r
+\r
+"Miss Elizabeth Bennet."\r
+\r
+"Miss Elizabeth Bennet!" repeated Miss Bingley. "I am all astonishment.\r
+How long has she been such a favourite?--and pray, when am I to wish you\r
+joy?"\r
+\r
+"That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady's\r
+imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love\r
+to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy."\r
+\r
+"Nay, if you are serious about it, I shall consider the matter is\r
+absolutely settled. You will be having a charming mother-in-law, indeed;\r
+and, of course, she will always be at Pemberley with you."\r
+\r
+He listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to\r
+entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her\r
+that all was safe, her wit flowed long.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 7\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two\r
+thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed,\r
+in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's\r
+fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply\r
+the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and\r
+had left her four thousand pounds.\r
+\r
+She had a sister married to a Mr. Phillips, who had been a clerk to\r
+their father and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in\r
+London in a respectable line of trade.\r
+\r
+The village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most\r
+convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted\r
+thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt and\r
+to a milliner's shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family,\r
+Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions;\r
+their minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing\r
+better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning\r
+hours and furnish conversation for the evening; and however bare of news\r
+the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some\r
+from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with\r
+news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the\r
+neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the\r
+headquarters.\r
+\r
+Their visits to Mrs. Phillips were now productive of the most\r
+interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge\r
+of the officers' names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a\r
+secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr.\r
+Phillips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a store of\r
+felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and\r
+Mr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which gave animation\r
+to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the\r
+regimentals of an ensign.\r
+\r
+After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr.\r
+Bennet coolly observed:\r
+\r
+"From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two\r
+of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but\r
+I am now convinced."\r
+\r
+Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect\r
+indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter,\r
+and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the\r
+next morning to London.\r
+\r
+"I am astonished, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "that you should be so\r
+ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly\r
+of anybody's children, it should not be of my own, however."\r
+\r
+"If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it."\r
+\r
+"Yes--but as it happens, they are all of them very clever."\r
+\r
+"This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I\r
+had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must\r
+so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly\r
+foolish."\r
+\r
+"My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of\r
+their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will\r
+not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when\r
+I liked a red coat myself very well--and, indeed, so I do still at my\r
+heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year,\r
+should want one of my girls I shall not say nay to him; and I thought\r
+Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William's in\r
+his regimentals."\r
+\r
+"Mamma," cried Lydia, "my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain\r
+Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first\r
+came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke's library."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with\r
+a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited\r
+for an answer. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was\r
+eagerly calling out, while her daughter read,\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well,\r
+Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love."\r
+\r
+"It is from Miss Bingley," said Jane, and then read it aloud.\r
+\r
+"MY DEAR FRIEND,--\r
+\r
+"If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me,\r
+we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives,\r
+for a whole day's tete-a-tete between two women can never end without a\r
+quarrel. Come as soon as you can on receipt of this. My brother and the\r
+gentlemen are to dine with the officers.--Yours ever,\r
+\r
+"CAROLINE BINGLEY"\r
+\r
+"With the officers!" cried Lydia. "I wonder my aunt did not tell us of\r
+_that_."\r
+\r
+"Dining out," said Mrs. Bennet, "that is very unlucky."\r
+\r
+"Can I have the carriage?" said Jane.\r
+\r
+"No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to\r
+rain; and then you must stay all night."\r
+\r
+"That would be a good scheme," said Elizabeth, "if you were sure that\r
+they would not offer to send her home."\r
+\r
+"Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley's chaise to go to Meryton,\r
+and the Hursts have no horses to theirs."\r
+\r
+"I had much rather go in the coach."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are\r
+wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are they not?"\r
+\r
+"They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them."\r
+\r
+"But if you have got them to-day," said Elizabeth, "my mother's purpose\r
+will be answered."\r
+\r
+She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses\r
+were engaged. Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her\r
+mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a\r
+bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before\r
+it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was\r
+delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission;\r
+Jane certainly could not come back.\r
+\r
+"This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!" said Mrs. Bennet more than\r
+once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the\r
+next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her\r
+contrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield\r
+brought the following note for Elizabeth:\r
+\r
+"MY DEAREST LIZZY,--\r
+\r
+"I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be\r
+imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not\r
+hear of my returning till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr.\r
+Jones--therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been\r
+to me--and, excepting a sore throat and headache, there is not much the\r
+matter with me.--Yours, etc."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear," said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note\r
+aloud, "if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness--if she\r
+should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of\r
+Mr. Bingley, and under your orders."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I am not afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling\r
+colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is\r
+all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though\r
+the carriage was not to be had; and as she was no horsewoman, walking\r
+was her only alternative. She declared her resolution.\r
+\r
+"How can you be so silly," cried her mother, "as to think of such a\r
+thing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get\r
+there."\r
+\r
+"I shall be very fit to see Jane--which is all I want."\r
+\r
+"Is this a hint to me, Lizzy," said her father, "to send for the\r
+horses?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing\r
+when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner."\r
+\r
+"I admire the activity of your benevolence," observed Mary, "but every\r
+impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion,\r
+exertion should always be in proportion to what is required."\r
+\r
+"We will go as far as Meryton with you," said Catherine and Lydia.\r
+Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off\r
+together.\r
+\r
+"If we make haste," said Lydia, as they walked along, "perhaps we may\r
+see something of Captain Carter before he goes."\r
+\r
+In Meryton they parted; the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one\r
+of the officers' wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing\r
+field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing\r
+over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last\r
+within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face\r
+glowing with the warmth of exercise.\r
+\r
+She was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were\r
+assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise.\r
+That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such\r
+dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and\r
+Miss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt\r
+for it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their\r
+brother's manners there was something better than politeness; there\r
+was good humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr.\r
+Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the\r
+brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as\r
+to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was\r
+thinking only of his breakfast.\r
+\r
+Her inquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss\r
+Bennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not\r
+well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her\r
+immediately; and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving\r
+alarm or inconvenience from expressing in her note how much she longed\r
+for such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal,\r
+however, to much conversation, and when Miss Bingley left them\r
+together, could attempt little besides expressions of gratitude for the\r
+extraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended\r
+her.\r
+\r
+When breakfast was over they were joined by the sisters; and Elizabeth\r
+began to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and\r
+solicitude they showed for Jane. The apothecary came, and having\r
+examined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught\r
+a violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it;\r
+advised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts. The advice\r
+was followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head\r
+ached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment; nor were\r
+the other ladies often absent; the gentlemen being out, they had, in\r
+fact, nothing to do elsewhere.\r
+\r
+When the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go, and very\r
+unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only\r
+wanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern\r
+in parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer\r
+of the chaise to an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present.\r
+Elizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was dispatched to\r
+Longbourn to acquaint the family with her stay and bring back a supply\r
+of clothes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 8\r
+\r
+\r
+At five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at half-past six\r
+Elizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil inquiries which then\r
+poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the\r
+much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley's, she could not make a very\r
+favourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing\r
+this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how\r
+shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked\r
+being ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter: and their\r
+indifference towards Jane when not immediately before them restored\r
+Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her former dislike.\r
+\r
+Their brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could\r
+regard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his\r
+attentions to herself most pleasing, and they prevented her feeling\r
+herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the\r
+others. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was\r
+engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr.\r
+Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to\r
+eat, drink, and play at cards; who, when he found her to prefer a plain\r
+dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her.\r
+\r
+When dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley\r
+began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were\r
+pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence;\r
+she had no conversation, no style, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the\r
+same, and added:\r
+\r
+"She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent\r
+walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really\r
+looked almost wild."\r
+\r
+"She did, indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very\r
+nonsensical to come at all! Why must _she_ be scampering about the\r
+country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair, so untidy, so blowsy!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep\r
+in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to\r
+hide it not doing its office."\r
+\r
+"Your picture may be very exact, Louisa," said Bingley; "but this was\r
+all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably\r
+well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite\r
+escaped my notice."\r
+\r
+"_You_ observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure," said Miss Bingley; "and I am\r
+inclined to think that you would not wish to see _your_ sister make such\r
+an exhibition."\r
+\r
+"Certainly not."\r
+\r
+"To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is,\r
+above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! What could she mean by\r
+it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence,\r
+a most country-town indifference to decorum."\r
+\r
+"It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing," said\r
+Bingley.\r
+\r
+"I am afraid, Mr. Darcy," observed Miss Bingley in a half whisper, "that\r
+this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes."\r
+\r
+"Not at all," he replied; "they were brightened by the exercise." A\r
+short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again:\r
+\r
+"I have an excessive regard for Miss Jane Bennet, she is really a very\r
+sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with\r
+such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is\r
+no chance of it."\r
+\r
+"I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in\r
+Meryton."\r
+\r
+"Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside."\r
+\r
+"That is capital," added her sister, and they both laughed heartily.\r
+\r
+"If they had uncles enough to fill _all_ Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it\r
+would not make them one jot less agreeable."\r
+\r
+"But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any\r
+consideration in the world," replied Darcy.\r
+\r
+To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their\r
+hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of\r
+their dear friend's vulgar relations.\r
+\r
+With a renewal of tenderness, however, they returned to her room on\r
+leaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee.\r
+She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till\r
+late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her sleep, and\r
+when it seemed to her rather right than pleasant that she should go\r
+downstairs herself. On entering the drawing-room she found the whole\r
+party at loo, and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting\r
+them to be playing high she declined it, and making her sister the\r
+excuse, said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay\r
+below, with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment.\r
+\r
+"Do you prefer reading to cards?" said he; "that is rather singular."\r
+\r
+"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great\r
+reader, and has no pleasure in anything else."\r
+\r
+"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am\r
+_not_ a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."\r
+\r
+"In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure," said Bingley; "and\r
+I hope it will be soon increased by seeing her quite well."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards the\r
+table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her\r
+others--all that his library afforded.\r
+\r
+"And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own\r
+credit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more\r
+than I ever looked into."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those\r
+in the room.\r
+\r
+"I am astonished," said Miss Bingley, "that my father should have left\r
+so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at\r
+Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!"\r
+\r
+"It ought to be good," he replied, "it has been the work of many\r
+generations."\r
+\r
+"And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying\r
+books."\r
+\r
+"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as\r
+these."\r
+\r
+"Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of\r
+that noble place. Charles, when you build _your_ house, I wish it may be\r
+half as delightful as Pemberley."\r
+\r
+"I wish it may."\r
+\r
+"But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that\r
+neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a\r
+finer county in England than Derbyshire."\r
+\r
+"With all my heart; I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it."\r
+\r
+"I am talking of possibilities, Charles."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get\r
+Pemberley by purchase than by imitation."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was so much caught with what passed, as to leave her very\r
+little attention for her book; and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew\r
+near the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his\r
+eldest sister, to observe the game.\r
+\r
+"Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?" said Miss Bingley; "will\r
+she be as tall as I am?"\r
+\r
+"I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or\r
+rather taller."\r
+\r
+"How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me\r
+so much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished\r
+for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite."\r
+\r
+"It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "how young ladies can have patience\r
+to be so very accomplished as they all are."\r
+\r
+"All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and\r
+net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure\r
+I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being\r
+informed that she was very accomplished."\r
+\r
+"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has\r
+too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no\r
+otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very\r
+far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I\r
+cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my\r
+acquaintance, that are really accomplished."\r
+\r
+"Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley.\r
+\r
+"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your\r
+idea of an accomplished woman."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."\r
+\r
+"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really\r
+esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met\r
+with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing,\r
+dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides\r
+all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of\r
+walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word\r
+will be but half-deserved."\r
+\r
+"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must\r
+yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by\r
+extensive reading."\r
+\r
+"I am no longer surprised at your knowing _only_ six accomplished women.\r
+I rather wonder now at your knowing _any_."\r
+\r
+"Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all\r
+this?"\r
+\r
+"I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and\r
+application, and elegance, as you describe united."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her\r
+implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who\r
+answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with\r
+bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all\r
+conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+"Elizabeth Bennet," said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her,\r
+"is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the\r
+other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it\r
+succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art."\r
+\r
+"Undoubtedly," replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed,\r
+"there is a meanness in _all_ the arts which ladies sometimes condescend\r
+to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is\r
+despicable."\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to\r
+continue the subject.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and\r
+that she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones being sent for\r
+immediately; while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could\r
+be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most\r
+eminent physicians. This she would not hear of; but she was not so\r
+unwilling to comply with their brother's proposal; and it was settled\r
+that Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning, if Miss Bennet\r
+were not decidedly better. Bingley was quite uncomfortable; his sisters\r
+declared that they were miserable. They solaced their wretchedness,\r
+however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief\r
+to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every\r
+attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 9\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister's room, and in the\r
+morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the\r
+inquiries which she very early received from Mr. Bingley by a housemaid,\r
+and some time afterwards from the two elegant ladies who waited on his\r
+sisters. In spite of this amendment, however, she requested to have a\r
+note sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit Jane, and form her\r
+own judgement of her situation. The note was immediately dispatched, and\r
+its contents as quickly complied with. Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her\r
+two youngest girls, reached Netherfield soon after the family breakfast.\r
+\r
+Had she found Jane in any apparent danger, Mrs. Bennet would have been\r
+very miserable; but being satisfied on seeing her that her illness was\r
+not alarming, she had no wish of her recovering immediately, as her\r
+restoration to health would probably remove her from Netherfield. She\r
+would not listen, therefore, to her daughter's proposal of being carried\r
+home; neither did the apothecary, who arrived about the same time, think\r
+it at all advisable. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss\r
+Bingley's appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all\r
+attended her into the breakfast parlour. Bingley met them with hopes\r
+that Mrs. Bennet had not found Miss Bennet worse than she expected.\r
+\r
+"Indeed I have, sir," was her answer. "She is a great deal too ill to be\r
+moved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her. We must trespass\r
+a little longer on your kindness."\r
+\r
+"Removed!" cried Bingley. "It must not be thought of. My sister, I am\r
+sure, will not hear of her removal."\r
+\r
+"You may depend upon it, Madam," said Miss Bingley, with cold civility,\r
+"that Miss Bennet will receive every possible attention while she\r
+remains with us."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet was profuse in her acknowledgments.\r
+\r
+"I am sure," she added, "if it was not for such good friends I do not\r
+know what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers\r
+a vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world, which is\r
+always the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest\r
+temper I have ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are\r
+nothing to _her_. You have a sweet room here, Mr. Bingley, and a\r
+charming prospect over the gravel walk. I do not know a place in the\r
+country that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it\r
+in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease."\r
+\r
+"Whatever I do is done in a hurry," replied he; "and therefore if I\r
+should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five\r
+minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here."\r
+\r
+"That is exactly what I should have supposed of you," said Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"You begin to comprehend me, do you?" cried he, turning towards her.\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes--I understand you perfectly."\r
+\r
+"I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen\r
+through I am afraid is pitiful."\r
+\r
+"That is as it happens. It does not follow that a deep, intricate\r
+character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours."\r
+\r
+"Lizzy," cried her mother, "remember where you are, and do not run on in\r
+the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home."\r
+\r
+"I did not know before," continued Bingley immediately, "that you were a\r
+studier of character. It must be an amusing study."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but intricate characters are the _most_ amusing. They have at\r
+least that advantage."\r
+\r
+"The country," said Darcy, "can in general supply but a few subjects for\r
+such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and\r
+unvarying society."\r
+\r
+"But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be\r
+observed in them for ever."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed," cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning\r
+a country neighbourhood. "I assure you there is quite as much of _that_\r
+going on in the country as in town."\r
+\r
+Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment,\r
+turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete\r
+victory over him, continued her triumph.\r
+\r
+"I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for\r
+my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal\r
+pleasanter, is it not, Mr. Bingley?"\r
+\r
+"When I am in the country," he replied, "I never wish to leave it;\r
+and when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their\r
+advantages, and I can be equally happy in either."\r
+\r
+"Aye--that is because you have the right disposition. But that\r
+gentleman," looking at Darcy, "seemed to think the country was nothing\r
+at all."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Mamma, you are mistaken," said Elizabeth, blushing for her\r
+mother. "You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not\r
+such a variety of people to be met with in the country as in the town,\r
+which you must acknowledge to be true."\r
+\r
+"Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting\r
+with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few\r
+neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with four-and-twenty families."\r
+\r
+Nothing but concern for Elizabeth could enable Bingley to keep his\r
+countenance. His sister was less delicate, and directed her eyes towards\r
+Mr. Darcy with a very expressive smile. Elizabeth, for the sake of\r
+saying something that might turn her mother's thoughts, now asked her if\r
+Charlotte Lucas had been at Longbourn since _her_ coming away.\r
+\r
+"Yes, she called yesterday with her father. What an agreeable man Sir\r
+William is, Mr. Bingley, is not he? So much the man of fashion! So\r
+genteel and easy! He has always something to say to everybody. _That_\r
+is my idea of good breeding; and those persons who fancy themselves very\r
+important, and never open their mouths, quite mistake the matter."\r
+\r
+"Did Charlotte dine with you?"\r
+\r
+"No, she would go home. I fancy she was wanted about the mince-pies. For\r
+my part, Mr. Bingley, I always keep servants that can do their own work;\r
+_my_ daughters are brought up very differently. But everybody is to\r
+judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls,\r
+I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think\r
+Charlotte so _very_ plain--but then she is our particular friend."\r
+\r
+"She seems a very pleasant young woman."\r
+\r
+"Oh! dear, yes; but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself\r
+has often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. I do not like to boast\r
+of my own child, but to be sure, Jane--one does not often see anybody\r
+better looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own\r
+partiality. When she was only fifteen, there was a man at my brother\r
+Gardiner's in town so much in love with her that my sister-in-law was\r
+sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he\r
+did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses\r
+on her, and very pretty they were."\r
+\r
+"And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has\r
+been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first\r
+discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"\r
+\r
+"I have been used to consider poetry as the _food_ of love," said Darcy.\r
+\r
+"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is\r
+strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I\r
+am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."\r
+\r
+Darcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth\r
+tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to\r
+speak, but could think of nothing to say; and after a short silence Mrs.\r
+Bennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to\r
+Jane, with an apology for troubling him also with Lizzy. Mr. Bingley was\r
+unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be\r
+civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part\r
+indeed without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet was satisfied, and\r
+soon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of\r
+her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to\r
+each other during the whole visit, and the result of it was, that the\r
+youngest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming\r
+into the country to give a ball at Netherfield.\r
+\r
+Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion\r
+and good-humoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose\r
+affection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high\r
+animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the\r
+attention of the officers, to whom her uncle's good dinners, and her own\r
+easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very\r
+equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and\r
+abruptly reminded him of his promise; adding, that it would be the most\r
+shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this\r
+sudden attack was delightful to their mother's ear:\r
+\r
+"I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and when\r
+your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of\r
+the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing when she is ill."\r
+\r
+Lydia declared herself satisfied. "Oh! yes--it would be much better to\r
+wait till Jane was well, and by that time most likely Captain Carter\r
+would be at Meryton again. And when you have given _your_ ball," she\r
+added, "I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel\r
+Forster it will be quite a shame if he does not."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Elizabeth returned\r
+instantly to Jane, leaving her own and her relations' behaviour to the\r
+remarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy; the latter of whom, however,\r
+could not be prevailed on to join in their censure of _her_, in spite of\r
+all Miss Bingley's witticisms on _fine eyes_.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 10\r
+\r
+\r
+The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss\r
+Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who\r
+continued, though slowly, to mend; and in the evening Elizabeth joined\r
+their party in the drawing-room. The loo-table, however, did not appear.\r
+Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching\r
+the progress of his letter and repeatedly calling off his attention by\r
+messages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and\r
+Mrs. Hurst was observing their game.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in\r
+attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual\r
+commendations of the lady, either on his handwriting, or on the evenness\r
+of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern\r
+with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was\r
+exactly in union with her opinion of each.\r
+\r
+"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!"\r
+\r
+He made no answer.\r
+\r
+"You write uncommonly fast."\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken. I write rather slowly."\r
+\r
+"How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a\r
+year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!"\r
+\r
+"It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of yours."\r
+\r
+"Pray tell your sister that I long to see her."\r
+\r
+"I have already told her so once, by your desire."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend\r
+pens remarkably well."\r
+\r
+"Thank you--but I always mend my own."\r
+\r
+"How can you contrive to write so even?"\r
+\r
+He was silent.\r
+\r
+"Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp;\r
+and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful\r
+little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss\r
+Grantley's."\r
+\r
+"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At\r
+present I have not room to do them justice."\r
+\r
+"Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you\r
+always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?"\r
+\r
+"They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not for me\r
+to determine."\r
+\r
+"It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with\r
+ease, cannot write ill."\r
+\r
+"That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline," cried her\r
+brother, "because he does _not_ write with ease. He studies too much for\r
+words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?"\r
+\r
+"My style of writing is very different from yours."\r
+\r
+"Oh!" cried Miss Bingley, "Charles writes in the most careless way\r
+imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest."\r
+\r
+"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them--by which\r
+means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents."\r
+\r
+"Your humility, Mr. Bingley," said Elizabeth, "must disarm reproof."\r
+\r
+"Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of\r
+humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an\r
+indirect boast."\r
+\r
+"And which of the two do you call _my_ little recent piece of modesty?"\r
+\r
+"The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in\r
+writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of\r
+thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you\r
+think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with\r
+quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any\r
+attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs.\r
+Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved upon quitting Netherfield\r
+you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of\r
+panegyric, of compliment to yourself--and yet what is there so very\r
+laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business\r
+undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone else?"\r
+\r
+"Nay," cried Bingley, "this is too much, to remember at night all the\r
+foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour,\r
+I believe what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this\r
+moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless\r
+precipitance merely to show off before the ladies."\r
+\r
+"I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that\r
+you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as\r
+dependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were\r
+mounting your horse, a friend were to say, 'Bingley, you had better\r
+stay till next week,' you would probably do it, you would probably not\r
+go--and at another word, might stay a month."\r
+\r
+"You have only proved by this," cried Elizabeth, "that Mr. Bingley did\r
+not do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much\r
+more than he did himself."\r
+\r
+"I am exceedingly gratified," said Bingley, "by your converting what my\r
+friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am\r
+afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means\r
+intend; for he would certainly think better of me, if under such a\r
+circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I\r
+could."\r
+\r
+"Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intentions\r
+as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?"\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter; Darcy must speak for\r
+himself."\r
+\r
+"You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine,\r
+but which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to\r
+stand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet,\r
+that the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and\r
+the delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering\r
+one argument in favour of its propriety."\r
+\r
+"To yield readily--easily--to the _persuasion_ of a friend is no merit\r
+with you."\r
+\r
+"To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of\r
+either."\r
+\r
+"You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of\r
+friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make\r
+one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason\r
+one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have\r
+supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the\r
+circumstance occurs before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour\r
+thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend,\r
+where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no\r
+very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying\r
+with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?"\r
+\r
+"Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to\r
+arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to\r
+appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting\r
+between the parties?"\r
+\r
+"By all means," cried Bingley; "let us hear all the particulars, not\r
+forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more\r
+weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure\r
+you, that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with\r
+myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not\r
+know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in\r
+particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening,\r
+when he has nothing to do."\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was\r
+rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly\r
+resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her\r
+brother for talking such nonsense.\r
+\r
+"I see your design, Bingley," said his friend. "You dislike an argument,\r
+and want to silence this."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss\r
+Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very\r
+thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me."\r
+\r
+"What you ask," said Elizabeth, "is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr.\r
+Darcy had much better finish his letter."\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter.\r
+\r
+When that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth\r
+for an indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with some alacrity\r
+to the pianoforte; and, after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead\r
+the way which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she\r
+seated herself.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed,\r
+Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music-books\r
+that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed\r
+on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of\r
+admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her\r
+because he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine,\r
+however, at last that she drew his notice because there was something\r
+more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in\r
+any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked\r
+him too little to care for his approbation.\r
+\r
+After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by\r
+a lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near\r
+Elizabeth, said to her:\r
+\r
+"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an\r
+opportunity of dancing a reel?"\r
+\r
+She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some\r
+surprise at her silence.\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said she, "I heard you before, but I could not immediately\r
+determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,'\r
+that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always\r
+delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of\r
+their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell\r
+you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if\r
+you dare."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I do not dare."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his\r
+gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her\r
+manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy\r
+had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really\r
+believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he\r
+should be in some danger.\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous; and her great\r
+anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some\r
+assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of\r
+their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance.\r
+\r
+"I hope," said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery\r
+the next day, "you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this\r
+desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue;\r
+and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after\r
+officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to\r
+check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence,\r
+which your lady possesses."\r
+\r
+"Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Phillips be placed\r
+in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great-uncle the\r
+judge. They are in the same profession, you know, only in different\r
+lines. As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not have it taken, for\r
+what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?"\r
+\r
+"It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their\r
+colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be\r
+copied."\r
+\r
+At that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and\r
+Elizabeth herself.\r
+\r
+"I did not know that you intended to walk," said Miss Bingley, in some\r
+confusion, lest they had been overheard.\r
+\r
+"You used us abominably ill," answered Mrs. Hurst, "running away without\r
+telling us that you were coming out."\r
+\r
+Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk\r
+by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness,\r
+and immediately said:\r
+\r
+"This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the\r
+avenue."\r
+\r
+But Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them,\r
+laughingly answered:\r
+\r
+"No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear\r
+to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a\r
+fourth. Good-bye."\r
+\r
+She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of\r
+being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered\r
+as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 11\r
+\r
+\r
+When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her\r
+sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the\r
+drawing-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many\r
+professions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable\r
+as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared.\r
+Their powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an\r
+entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh\r
+at their acquaintance with spirit.\r
+\r
+But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object;\r
+Miss Bingley's eyes were instantly turned toward Darcy, and she had\r
+something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed\r
+himself to Miss Bennet, with a polite congratulation; Mr. Hurst also\r
+made her a slight bow, and said he was "very glad;" but diffuseness\r
+and warmth remained for Bingley's salutation. He was full of joy and\r
+attention. The first half-hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she\r
+should suffer from the change of room; and she removed at his desire\r
+to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be further from\r
+the door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to anyone\r
+else. Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great\r
+delight.\r
+\r
+When tea was over, Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the\r
+card-table--but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr.\r
+Darcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open\r
+petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and\r
+the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr.\r
+Hurst had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the\r
+sofas and go to sleep. Darcy took up a book; Miss Bingley did the same;\r
+and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets\r
+and rings, joined now and then in her brother's conversation with Miss\r
+Bennet.\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr.\r
+Darcy's progress through _his_ book, as in reading her own; and she\r
+was perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She\r
+could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her\r
+question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be\r
+amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the\r
+second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, "How pleasant\r
+it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no\r
+enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a\r
+book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not\r
+an excellent library."\r
+\r
+No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and\r
+cast her eyes round the room in quest for some amusement; when hearing\r
+her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly\r
+towards him and said:\r
+\r
+"By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at\r
+Netherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult\r
+the wishes of the present party; I am much mistaken if there are\r
+not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a\r
+pleasure."\r
+\r
+"If you mean Darcy," cried her brother, "he may go to bed, if he\r
+chooses, before it begins--but as for the ball, it is quite a settled\r
+thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send\r
+round my cards."\r
+\r
+"I should like balls infinitely better," she replied, "if they were\r
+carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably\r
+tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much\r
+more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of\r
+the day."\r
+\r
+"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be\r
+near so much like a ball."\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley made no answer, and soon afterwards she got up and walked\r
+about the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but\r
+Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In\r
+the desperation of her feelings, she resolved on one effort more, and,\r
+turning to Elizabeth, said:\r
+\r
+"Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a\r
+turn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so\r
+long in one attitude."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. Miss Bingley\r
+succeeded no less in the real object of her civility; Mr. Darcy looked\r
+up. He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as\r
+Elizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book. He was\r
+directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that\r
+he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down\r
+the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would\r
+interfere. "What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his\r
+meaning?"--and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him?\r
+\r
+"Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe\r
+on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing\r
+about it."\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in\r
+anything, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of his\r
+two motives.\r
+\r
+"I have not the smallest objection to explaining them," said he, as soon\r
+as she allowed him to speak. "You either choose this method of passing\r
+the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret\r
+affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures\r
+appear to the greatest advantage in walking; if the first, I would be\r
+completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better\r
+as I sit by the fire."\r
+\r
+"Oh! shocking!" cried Miss Bingley. "I never heard anything so\r
+abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination," said Elizabeth. "We\r
+can all plague and punish one another. Tease him--laugh at him. Intimate\r
+as you are, you must know how it is to be done."\r
+\r
+"But upon my honour, I do _not_. I do assure you that my intimacy has\r
+not yet taught me _that_. Tease calmness of manner and presence of\r
+mind! No, no; I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will\r
+not expose ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a\r
+subject. Mr. Darcy may hug himself."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!" cried Elizabeth. "That is an\r
+uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would\r
+be a great loss to _me_ to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a\r
+laugh."\r
+\r
+"Miss Bingley," said he, "has given me more credit than can be.\r
+The wisest and the best of men--nay, the wisest and best of their\r
+actions--may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in\r
+life is a joke."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," replied Elizabeth--"there are such people, but I hope I\r
+am not one of _them_. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good.\r
+Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, _do_ divert me, I own,\r
+and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely\r
+what you are without."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study\r
+of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong\r
+understanding to ridicule."\r
+\r
+"Such as vanity and pride."\r
+\r
+"Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride--where there is a real\r
+superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile.\r
+\r
+"Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume," said Miss Bingley;\r
+"and pray what is the result?"\r
+\r
+"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it\r
+himself without disguise."\r
+\r
+"No," said Darcy, "I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough,\r
+but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch\r
+for. It is, I believe, too little yielding--certainly too little for the\r
+convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others\r
+so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings\r
+are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper\r
+would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost\r
+forever."\r
+\r
+"_That_ is a failing indeed!" cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment\r
+_is_ a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I\r
+really cannot _laugh_ at it. You are safe from me."\r
+\r
+"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular\r
+evil--a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."\r
+\r
+"And _your_ defect is to hate everybody."\r
+\r
+"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand\r
+them."\r
+\r
+"Do let us have a little music," cried Miss Bingley, tired of a\r
+conversation in which she had no share. "Louisa, you will not mind my\r
+waking Mr. Hurst?"\r
+\r
+Her sister had not the smallest objection, and the pianoforte was\r
+opened; and Darcy, after a few moments' recollection, was not sorry for\r
+it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 12\r
+\r
+\r
+In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the\r
+next morning to their mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for\r
+them in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on\r
+her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which\r
+would exactly finish Jane's week, could not bring herself to receive\r
+them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at\r
+least not to Elizabeth's wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs.\r
+Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage\r
+before Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley\r
+and his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them\r
+very well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively\r
+resolved--nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the\r
+contrary, as being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long,\r
+she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage immediately, and at\r
+length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield\r
+that morning should be mentioned, and the request made.\r
+\r
+The communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was\r
+said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work\r
+on Jane; and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was\r
+then sorry that she had proposed the delay, for her jealousy and dislike\r
+of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other.\r
+\r
+The master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so\r
+soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be\r
+safe for her--that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where\r
+she felt herself to be right.\r
+\r
+To Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligence--Elizabeth had been at\r
+Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked--and Miss\r
+Bingley was uncivil to _her_, and more teasing than usual to himself.\r
+He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration\r
+should _now_ escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope\r
+of influencing his felicity; sensible that if such an idea had been\r
+suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight\r
+in confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke\r
+ten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were\r
+at one time left by themselves for half-an-hour, he adhered most\r
+conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her.\r
+\r
+On Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost\r
+all, took place. Miss Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increased at last\r
+very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted,\r
+after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her\r
+to see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most\r
+tenderly, she even shook hands with the former. Elizabeth took leave of\r
+the whole party in the liveliest of spirits.\r
+\r
+They were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet\r
+wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much\r
+trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their\r
+father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really\r
+glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The\r
+evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of\r
+its animation, and almost all its sense by the absence of Jane and\r
+Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough-bass and human\r
+nature; and had some extracts to admire, and some new observations of\r
+threadbare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information\r
+for them of a different sort. Much had been done and much had been said\r
+in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of the officers\r
+had dined lately with their uncle, a private had been flogged, and it\r
+had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 13\r
+\r
+\r
+"I hope, my dear," said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at\r
+breakfast the next morning, "that you have ordered a good dinner to-day,\r
+because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party."\r
+\r
+"Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure,\r
+unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in--and I hope _my_ dinners\r
+are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home."\r
+\r
+"The person of whom I speak is a gentleman, and a stranger."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled. "A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr.\r
+Bingley, I am sure! Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr.\r
+Bingley. But--good Lord! how unlucky! There is not a bit of fish to be\r
+got to-day. Lydia, my love, ring the bell--I must speak to Hill this\r
+moment."\r
+\r
+"It is _not_ Mr. Bingley," said her husband; "it is a person whom I\r
+never saw in the whole course of my life."\r
+\r
+This roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being\r
+eagerly questioned by his wife and his five daughters at once.\r
+\r
+After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained:\r
+\r
+"About a month ago I received this letter; and about a fortnight ago\r
+I answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring\r
+early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead,\r
+may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases."\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear," cried his wife, "I cannot bear to hear that mentioned.\r
+Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing\r
+in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own\r
+children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago\r
+to do something or other about it."\r
+\r
+Jane and Elizabeth tried to explain to her the nature of an entail. They\r
+had often attempted to do it before, but it was a subject on which\r
+Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason, and she continued to rail\r
+bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of\r
+five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about.\r
+\r
+"It certainly is a most iniquitous affair," said Mr. Bennet, "and\r
+nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn.\r
+But if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little\r
+softened by his manner of expressing himself."\r
+\r
+"No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it is very impertinent of\r
+him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false\r
+friends. Why could he not keep on quarreling with you, as his father did\r
+before him?"\r
+\r
+"Why, indeed; he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that\r
+head, as you will hear."\r
+\r
+"Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent, 15th October.\r
+\r
+"Dear Sir,--\r
+\r
+"The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured\r
+father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the\r
+misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but\r
+for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might\r
+seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with anyone\r
+with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.--'There, Mrs.\r
+Bennet.'--My mind, however, is now made up on the subject, for having\r
+received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be\r
+distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de\r
+Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has\r
+preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be\r
+my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her\r
+ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which\r
+are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I\r
+feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in\r
+all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I\r
+flatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and\r
+that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate\r
+will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the\r
+offered olive-branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the\r
+means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for\r
+it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible\r
+amends--but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to\r
+receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting\r
+on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and\r
+shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'ennight\r
+following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine\r
+is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided\r
+that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.--I\r
+remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and\r
+daughters, your well-wisher and friend,\r
+\r
+"WILLIAM COLLINS"\r
+\r
+"At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peace-making gentleman,"\r
+said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. "He seems to be a most\r
+conscientious and polite young man, upon my word, and I doubt not will\r
+prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so\r
+indulgent as to let him come to us again."\r
+\r
+"There is some sense in what he says about the girls, however, and if\r
+he is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to\r
+discourage him."\r
+\r
+"Though it is difficult," said Jane, "to guess in what way he can mean\r
+to make us the atonement he thinks our due, the wish is certainly to his\r
+credit."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was chiefly struck by his extraordinary deference for Lady\r
+Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying\r
+his parishioners whenever it were required.\r
+\r
+"He must be an oddity, I think," said she. "I cannot make him\r
+out.--There is something very pompous in his style.--And what can he\r
+mean by apologising for being next in the entail?--We cannot suppose he\r
+would help it if he could.--Could he be a sensible man, sir?"\r
+\r
+"No, my dear, I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the\r
+reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his\r
+letter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him."\r
+\r
+"In point of composition," said Mary, "the letter does not seem\r
+defective. The idea of the olive-branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I\r
+think it is well expressed."\r
+\r
+To Catherine and Lydia, neither the letter nor its writer were in any\r
+degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should\r
+come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had\r
+received pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour. As for\r
+their mother, Mr. Collins's letter had done away much of her ill-will,\r
+and she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure which\r
+astonished her husband and daughters.\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great\r
+politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the\r
+ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in\r
+need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a\r
+tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and\r
+stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated\r
+before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of\r
+daughters; said he had heard much of their beauty, but that in this\r
+instance fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did\r
+not doubt her seeing them all in due time disposed of in marriage. This\r
+gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers; but Mrs.\r
+Bennet, who quarreled with no compliments, answered most readily.\r
+\r
+"You are very kind, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may\r
+prove so, for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so\r
+oddly."\r
+\r
+"You allude, perhaps, to the entail of this estate."\r
+\r
+"Ah! sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you\r
+must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with _you_, for such things\r
+I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates\r
+will go when once they come to be entailed."\r
+\r
+"I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and\r
+could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing\r
+forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come\r
+prepared to admire them. At present I will not say more; but, perhaps,\r
+when we are better acquainted--"\r
+\r
+He was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each\r
+other. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration. The\r
+hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture, were examined and praised;\r
+and his commendation of everything would have touched Mrs. Bennet's\r
+heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his\r
+own future property. The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and\r
+he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its\r
+cooking was owing. But he was set right there by Mrs. Bennet, who\r
+assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a\r
+good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He\r
+begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared\r
+herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a\r
+quarter of an hour.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 14\r
+\r
+\r
+During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants\r
+were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his\r
+guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to\r
+shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady\r
+Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for\r
+his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen\r
+better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him\r
+to more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect\r
+he protested that "he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in\r
+a person of rank--such affability and condescension, as he had himself\r
+experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to\r
+approve of both of the discourses which he had already had the honour of\r
+preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings,\r
+and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of\r
+quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many\r
+people he knew, but _he_ had never seen anything but affability in her.\r
+She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she\r
+made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the\r
+neighbourhood nor to his leaving the parish occasionally for a week or\r
+two, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to\r
+marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had\r
+once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly\r
+approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed\r
+to suggest some herself--some shelves in the closet up stairs."\r
+\r
+"That is all very proper and civil, I am sure," said Mrs. Bennet, "and\r
+I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies\r
+in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?"\r
+\r
+"The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane\r
+from Rosings Park, her ladyship's residence."\r
+\r
+"I think you said she was a widow, sir? Has she any family?"\r
+\r
+"She has only one daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very\r
+extensive property."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, "then she is better off than\r
+many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? Is she handsome?"\r
+\r
+"She is a most charming young lady indeed. Lady Catherine herself says\r
+that, in point of true beauty, Miss de Bourgh is far superior to the\r
+handsomest of her sex, because there is that in her features which marks\r
+the young lady of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly\r
+constitution, which has prevented her from making that progress in many\r
+accomplishments which she could not have otherwise failed of, as I am\r
+informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still\r
+resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends\r
+to drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies."\r
+\r
+"Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at\r
+court."\r
+\r
+"Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town;\r
+and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine one day, has deprived the\r
+British court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased\r
+with the idea; and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to\r
+offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable\r
+to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that\r
+her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most\r
+elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by\r
+her. These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and\r
+it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to\r
+pay."\r
+\r
+"You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you\r
+that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask\r
+whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the\r
+moment, or are the result of previous study?"\r
+\r
+"They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I\r
+sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant\r
+compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to\r
+give them as unstudied an air as possible."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd\r
+as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment,\r
+maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance,\r
+and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner\r
+in his pleasure.\r
+\r
+By tea-time, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad\r
+to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and, when tea was over,\r
+glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily\r
+assented, and a book was produced; but, on beholding it (for everything\r
+announced it to be from a circulating library), he started back, and\r
+begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at\r
+him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some\r
+deliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons. Lydia gaped as he opened the\r
+volume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three\r
+pages, she interrupted him with:\r
+\r
+"Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Phillips talks of turning away\r
+Richard; and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me\r
+so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more\r
+about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town."\r
+\r
+Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr.\r
+Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said:\r
+\r
+"I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books\r
+of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes\r
+me, I confess; for, certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to\r
+them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin."\r
+\r
+Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at\r
+backgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted\r
+very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements.\r
+Mrs. Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia's\r
+interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would\r
+resume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his\r
+young cousin no ill-will, and should never resent her behaviour as any\r
+affront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared\r
+for backgammon.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 15\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had\r
+been but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part\r
+of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and\r
+miserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he\r
+had merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful\r
+acquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had\r
+given him originally great humility of manner; but it was now a\r
+good deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in\r
+retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected\r
+prosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de\r
+Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which\r
+he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness,\r
+mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a\r
+clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of\r
+pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.\r
+\r
+Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to\r
+marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had\r
+a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found\r
+them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report.\r
+This was his plan of amends--of atonement--for inheriting their father's\r
+estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and\r
+suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own\r
+part.\r
+\r
+His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet's lovely face\r
+confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what\r
+was due to seniority; and for the first evening _she_ was his settled\r
+choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a\r
+quarter of an hour's tete-a-tete with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a\r
+conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally\r
+to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at\r
+Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general\r
+encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. "As to\r
+her _younger_ daughters, she could not take upon her to say--she could\r
+not positively answer--but she did not _know_ of any prepossession; her\r
+_eldest_ daughter, she must just mention--she felt it incumbent on her\r
+to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged."\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth--and it was soon\r
+done--done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally\r
+next to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have\r
+two daughters married; and the man whom she could not bear to speak of\r
+the day before was now high in her good graces.\r
+\r
+Lydia's intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten; every sister\r
+except Mary agreed to go with her; and Mr. Collins was to attend them,\r
+at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him,\r
+and have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed\r
+him after breakfast; and there he would continue, nominally engaged with\r
+one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr.\r
+Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such\r
+doings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been\r
+always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told\r
+Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room of the\r
+house, he was used to be free from them there; his civility, therefore,\r
+was most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his daughters in their\r
+walk; and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker\r
+than a reader, was extremely pleased to close his large book, and go.\r
+\r
+In pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his\r
+cousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton. The attention of\r
+the younger ones was then no longer to be gained by him. Their eyes were\r
+immediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and\r
+nothing less than a very smart bonnet indeed, or a really new muslin in\r
+a shop window, could recall them.\r
+\r
+But the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom\r
+they had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance, walking\r
+with another officer on the other side of the way. The officer was\r
+the very Mr. Denny concerning whose return from London Lydia came\r
+to inquire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the\r
+stranger's air, all wondered who he could be; and Kitty and Lydia,\r
+determined if possible to find out, led the way across the street, under\r
+pretense of wanting something in an opposite shop, and fortunately\r
+had just gained the pavement when the two gentlemen, turning back, had\r
+reached the same spot. Mr. Denny addressed them directly, and entreated\r
+permission to introduce his friend, Mr. Wickham, who had returned with\r
+him the day before from town, and he was happy to say had accepted a\r
+commission in their corps. This was exactly as it should be; for the\r
+young man wanted only regimentals to make him completely charming.\r
+His appearance was greatly in his favour; he had all the best part of\r
+beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address.\r
+The introduction was followed up on his side by a happy readiness\r
+of conversation--a readiness at the same time perfectly correct and\r
+unassuming; and the whole party were still standing and talking together\r
+very agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and Darcy\r
+and Bingley were seen riding down the street. On distinguishing the\r
+ladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and\r
+began the usual civilities. Bingley was the principal spokesman, and\r
+Miss Bennet the principal object. He was then, he said, on his way to\r
+Longbourn on purpose to inquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated\r
+it with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes\r
+on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the\r
+stranger, and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they\r
+looked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting.\r
+Both changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham,\r
+after a few moments, touched his hat--a salutation which Mr. Darcy just\r
+deigned to return. What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to\r
+imagine; it was impossible not to long to know.\r
+\r
+In another minute, Mr. Bingley, but without seeming to have noticed what\r
+passed, took leave and rode on with his friend.\r
+\r
+Mr. Denny and Mr. Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of\r
+Mr. Phillip's house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Lydia's\r
+pressing entreaties that they should come in, and even in spite of\r
+Mrs. Phillips's throwing up the parlour window and loudly seconding the\r
+invitation.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Phillips was always glad to see her nieces; and the two eldest,\r
+from their recent absence, were particularly welcome, and she was\r
+eagerly expressing her surprise at their sudden return home, which, as\r
+their own carriage had not fetched them, she should have known nothing\r
+about, if she had not happened to see Mr. Jones's shop-boy in the\r
+street, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to\r
+Netherfield because the Miss Bennets were come away, when her civility\r
+was claimed towards Mr. Collins by Jane's introduction of him. She\r
+received him with her very best politeness, which he returned with\r
+as much more, apologising for his intrusion, without any previous\r
+acquaintance with her, which he could not help flattering himself,\r
+however, might be justified by his relationship to the young ladies who\r
+introduced him to her notice. Mrs. Phillips was quite awed by such an\r
+excess of good breeding; but her contemplation of one stranger was soon\r
+put to an end by exclamations and inquiries about the other; of whom,\r
+however, she could only tell her nieces what they already knew, that\r
+Mr. Denny had brought him from London, and that he was to have a\r
+lieutenant's commission in the ----shire. She had been watching him the\r
+last hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr.\r
+Wickham appeared, Kitty and Lydia would certainly have continued the\r
+occupation, but unluckily no one passed windows now except a few of the\r
+officers, who, in comparison with the stranger, were become "stupid,\r
+disagreeable fellows." Some of them were to dine with the Phillipses\r
+the next day, and their aunt promised to make her husband call on Mr.\r
+Wickham, and give him an invitation also, if the family from Longbourn\r
+would come in the evening. This was agreed to, and Mrs. Phillips\r
+protested that they would have a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery\r
+tickets, and a little bit of hot supper afterwards. The prospect of such\r
+delights was very cheering, and they parted in mutual good spirits. Mr.\r
+Collins repeated his apologies in quitting the room, and was assured\r
+with unwearying civility that they were perfectly needless.\r
+\r
+As they walked home, Elizabeth related to Jane what she had seen pass\r
+between the two gentlemen; but though Jane would have defended either\r
+or both, had they appeared to be in the wrong, she could no more explain\r
+such behaviour than her sister.\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins on his return highly gratified Mrs. Bennet by admiring\r
+Mrs. Phillips's manners and politeness. He protested that, except Lady\r
+Catherine and her daughter, he had never seen a more elegant woman;\r
+for she had not only received him with the utmost civility, but even\r
+pointedly included him in her invitation for the next evening, although\r
+utterly unknown to her before. Something, he supposed, might be\r
+attributed to his connection with them, but yet he had never met with so\r
+much attention in the whole course of his life.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 16\r
+\r
+\r
+As no objection was made to the young people's engagement with their\r
+aunt, and all Mr. Collins's scruples of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bennet for\r
+a single evening during his visit were most steadily resisted, the coach\r
+conveyed him and his five cousins at a suitable hour to Meryton; and\r
+the girls had the pleasure of hearing, as they entered the drawing-room,\r
+that Mr. Wickham had accepted their uncle's invitation, and was then in\r
+the house.\r
+\r
+When this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr.\r
+Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much\r
+struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he\r
+might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast\r
+parlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much\r
+gratification; but when Mrs. Phillips understood from him what\r
+Rosings was, and who was its proprietor--when she had listened to the\r
+description of only one of Lady Catherine's drawing-rooms, and found\r
+that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all\r
+the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison\r
+with the housekeeper's room.\r
+\r
+In describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion,\r
+with occasional digressions in praise of his own humble abode, and\r
+the improvements it was receiving, he was happily employed until the\r
+gentlemen joined them; and he found in Mrs. Phillips a very attentive\r
+listener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she\r
+heard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as\r
+soon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin,\r
+and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine\r
+their own indifferent imitations of china on the mantelpiece, the\r
+interval of waiting appeared very long. It was over at last, however.\r
+The gentlemen did approach, and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room,\r
+Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking\r
+of him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration.\r
+The officers of the ----shire were in general a very creditable,\r
+gentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party; but\r
+Mr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and\r
+walk, as _they_ were superior to the broad-faced, stuffy uncle Phillips,\r
+breathing port wine, who followed them into the room.\r
+\r
+Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was\r
+turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated\r
+himself; and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into\r
+conversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, made her feel\r
+that the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered\r
+interesting by the skill of the speaker.\r
+\r
+With such rivals for the notice of the fair as Mr. Wickham and the\r
+officers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink into insignificance; to the young\r
+ladies he certainly was nothing; but he had still at intervals a kind\r
+listener in Mrs. Phillips, and was by her watchfulness, most abundantly\r
+supplied with coffee and muffin. When the card-tables were placed, he\r
+had the opportunity of obliging her in turn, by sitting down to whist.\r
+\r
+"I know little of the game at present," said he, "but I shall be glad\r
+to improve myself, for in my situation in life--" Mrs. Phillips was very\r
+glad for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason.\r
+\r
+Mr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he\r
+received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there\r
+seemed danger of Lydia's engrossing him entirely, for she was a most\r
+determined talker; but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets,\r
+she soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets\r
+and exclaiming after prizes to have attention for anyone in particular.\r
+Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore\r
+at leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear\r
+him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be\r
+told--the history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not\r
+even mention that gentleman. Her curiosity, however, was unexpectedly\r
+relieved. Mr. Wickham began the subject himself. He inquired how far\r
+Netherfield was from Meryton; and, after receiving her answer, asked in\r
+a hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there.\r
+\r
+"About a month," said Elizabeth; and then, unwilling to let the subject\r
+drop, added, "He is a man of very large property in Derbyshire, I\r
+understand."\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied Mr. Wickham; "his estate there is a noble one. A clear\r
+ten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more\r
+capable of giving you certain information on that head than myself, for\r
+I have been connected with his family in a particular manner from my\r
+infancy."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could not but look surprised.\r
+\r
+"You may well be surprised, Miss Bennet, at such an assertion, after\r
+seeing, as you probably might, the very cold manner of our meeting\r
+yesterday. Are you much acquainted with Mr. Darcy?"\r
+\r
+"As much as I ever wish to be," cried Elizabeth very warmly. "I have\r
+spent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very\r
+disagreeable."\r
+\r
+"I have no right to give _my_ opinion," said Wickham, "as to his being\r
+agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him\r
+too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for _me_\r
+to be impartial. But I believe your opinion of him would in general\r
+astonish--and perhaps you would not express it quite so strongly\r
+anywhere else. Here you are in your own family."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, I say no more _here_ than I might say in any house in\r
+the neighbourhood, except Netherfield. He is not at all liked in\r
+Hertfordshire. Everybody is disgusted with his pride. You will not find\r
+him more favourably spoken of by anyone."\r
+\r
+"I cannot pretend to be sorry," said Wickham, after a short\r
+interruption, "that he or that any man should not be estimated beyond\r
+their deserts; but with _him_ I believe it does not often happen. The\r
+world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his\r
+high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen."\r
+\r
+"I should take him, even on _my_ slight acquaintance, to be an\r
+ill-tempered man." Wickham only shook his head.\r
+\r
+"I wonder," said he, at the next opportunity of speaking, "whether he is\r
+likely to be in this country much longer."\r
+\r
+"I do not at all know; but I _heard_ nothing of his going away when I\r
+was at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the ----shire will\r
+not be affected by his being in the neighbourhood."\r
+\r
+"Oh! no--it is not for _me_ to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If _he_\r
+wishes to avoid seeing _me_, he must go. We are not on friendly terms,\r
+and it always gives me pain to meet him, but I have no reason for\r
+avoiding _him_ but what I might proclaim before all the world, a sense\r
+of very great ill-usage, and most painful regrets at his being what he\r
+is. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men\r
+that ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had; and I can never\r
+be in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by\r
+a thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to myself has been\r
+scandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and\r
+everything, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the\r
+memory of his father."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth found the interest of the subject increase, and listened with\r
+all her heart; but the delicacy of it prevented further inquiry.\r
+\r
+Mr. Wickham began to speak on more general topics, Meryton, the\r
+neighbourhood, the society, appearing highly pleased with all that\r
+he had yet seen, and speaking of the latter with gentle but very\r
+intelligible gallantry.\r
+\r
+"It was the prospect of constant society, and good society," he added,\r
+"which was my chief inducement to enter the ----shire. I knew it to be\r
+a most respectable, agreeable corps, and my friend Denny tempted me\r
+further by his account of their present quarters, and the very great\r
+attentions and excellent acquaintances Meryton had procured them.\r
+Society, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and\r
+my spirits will not bear solitude. I _must_ have employment and society.\r
+A military life is not what I was intended for, but circumstances have\r
+now made it eligible. The church _ought_ to have been my profession--I\r
+was brought up for the church, and I should at this time have been in\r
+possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we\r
+were speaking of just now."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!"\r
+\r
+"Yes--the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best\r
+living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me.\r
+I cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply,\r
+and thought he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given\r
+elsewhere."\r
+\r
+"Good heavens!" cried Elizabeth; "but how could _that_ be? How could his\r
+will be disregarded? Why did you not seek legal redress?"\r
+\r
+"There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to\r
+give me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the\r
+intention, but Mr. Darcy chose to doubt it--or to treat it as a merely\r
+conditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim\r
+to it by extravagance, imprudence--in short anything or nothing. Certain\r
+it is, that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was\r
+of an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man; and no\r
+less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done\r
+anything to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and\r
+I may have spoken my opinion _of_ him, and _to_ him, too freely. I can\r
+recall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort\r
+of men, and that he hates me."\r
+\r
+"This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced."\r
+\r
+"Some time or other he _will_ be--but it shall not be by _me_. Till I\r
+can forget his father, I can never defy or expose _him_."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than\r
+ever as he expressed them.\r
+\r
+"But what," said she, after a pause, "can have been his motive? What can\r
+have induced him to behave so cruelly?"\r
+\r
+"A thorough, determined dislike of me--a dislike which I cannot but\r
+attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me\r
+less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father's uncommon\r
+attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had\r
+not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood--the sort\r
+of preference which was often given me."\r
+\r
+"I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this--though I have never liked\r
+him. I had not thought so very ill of him. I had supposed him to be\r
+despising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of\r
+descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as\r
+this."\r
+\r
+After a few minutes' reflection, however, she continued, "I _do_\r
+remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of\r
+his resentments, of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition\r
+must be dreadful."\r
+\r
+"I will not trust myself on the subject," replied Wickham; "I can hardly\r
+be just to him."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, "To\r
+treat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his\r
+father!" She could have added, "A young man, too, like _you_, whose very\r
+countenance may vouch for your being amiable"--but she contented herself\r
+with, "and one, too, who had probably been his companion from childhood,\r
+connected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner!"\r
+\r
+"We were born in the same parish, within the same park; the greatest\r
+part of our youth was passed together; inmates of the same house,\r
+sharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. _My_\r
+father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Phillips,\r
+appears to do so much credit to--but he gave up everything to be of\r
+use to the late Mr. Darcy and devoted all his time to the care of the\r
+Pemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most\r
+intimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged himself to\r
+be under the greatest obligations to my father's active superintendence,\r
+and when, immediately before my father's death, Mr. Darcy gave him a\r
+voluntary promise of providing for me, I am convinced that he felt it to\r
+be as much a debt of gratitude to _him_, as of his affection to myself."\r
+\r
+"How strange!" cried Elizabeth. "How abominable! I wonder that the very\r
+pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you! If from no better\r
+motive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonest--for\r
+dishonesty I must call it."\r
+\r
+"It _is_ wonderful," replied Wickham, "for almost all his actions may\r
+be traced to pride; and pride had often been his best friend. It has\r
+connected him nearer with virtue than with any other feeling. But we are\r
+none of us consistent, and in his behaviour to me there were stronger\r
+impulses even than pride."\r
+\r
+"Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good?"\r
+\r
+"Yes. It has often led him to be liberal and generous, to give his money\r
+freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the\r
+poor. Family pride, and _filial_ pride--for he is very proud of what\r
+his father was--have done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family,\r
+to degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the\r
+Pemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also _brotherly_ pride,\r
+which, with _some_ brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and\r
+careful guardian of his sister, and you will hear him generally cried up\r
+as the most attentive and best of brothers."\r
+\r
+"What sort of girl is Miss Darcy?"\r
+\r
+He shook his head. "I wish I could call her amiable. It gives me pain to\r
+speak ill of a Darcy. But she is too much like her brother--very, very\r
+proud. As a child, she was affectionate and pleasing, and extremely fond\r
+of me; and I have devoted hours and hours to her amusement. But she is\r
+nothing to me now. She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen,\r
+and, I understand, highly accomplished. Since her father's death, her\r
+home has been London, where a lady lives with her, and superintends her\r
+education."\r
+\r
+After many pauses and many trials of other subjects, Elizabeth could not\r
+help reverting once more to the first, and saying:\r
+\r
+"I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley! How can Mr. Bingley,\r
+who seems good humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable,\r
+be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you\r
+know Mr. Bingley?"\r
+\r
+"Not at all."\r
+\r
+"He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr.\r
+Darcy is."\r
+\r
+"Probably not; but Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not\r
+want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth\r
+his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is\r
+a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His\r
+pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just,\r
+sincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeable--allowing something\r
+for fortune and figure."\r
+\r
+The whist party soon afterwards breaking up, the players gathered round\r
+the other table and Mr. Collins took his station between his cousin\r
+Elizabeth and Mrs. Phillips. The usual inquiries as to his success were\r
+made by the latter. It had not been very great; he had lost every\r
+point; but when Mrs. Phillips began to express her concern thereupon,\r
+he assured her with much earnest gravity that it was not of the least\r
+importance, that he considered the money as a mere trifle, and begged\r
+that she would not make herself uneasy.\r
+\r
+"I know very well, madam," said he, "that when persons sit down to a\r
+card-table, they must take their chances of these things, and happily I\r
+am not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. There\r
+are undoubtedly many who could not say the same, but thanks to Lady\r
+Catherine de Bourgh, I am removed far beyond the necessity of regarding\r
+little matters."\r
+\r
+Mr. Wickham's attention was caught; and after observing Mr. Collins for\r
+a few moments, he asked Elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation\r
+was very intimately acquainted with the family of de Bourgh.\r
+\r
+"Lady Catherine de Bourgh," she replied, "has very lately given him\r
+a living. I hardly know how Mr. Collins was first introduced to her\r
+notice, but he certainly has not known her long."\r
+\r
+"You know of course that Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy\r
+were sisters; consequently that she is aunt to the present Mr. Darcy."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I did not. I knew nothing at all of Lady Catherine's\r
+connections. I never heard of her existence till the day before\r
+yesterday."\r
+\r
+"Her daughter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large fortune, and it is\r
+believed that she and her cousin will unite the two estates."\r
+\r
+This information made Elizabeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss\r
+Bingley. Vain indeed must be all her attentions, vain and useless her\r
+affection for his sister and her praise of himself, if he were already\r
+self-destined for another.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Collins," said she, "speaks highly both of Lady Catherine and her\r
+daughter; but from some particulars that he has related of her ladyship,\r
+I suspect his gratitude misleads him, and that in spite of her being his\r
+patroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman."\r
+\r
+"I believe her to be both in a great degree," replied Wickham; "I have\r
+not seen her for many years, but I very well remember that I never liked\r
+her, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the\r
+reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe\r
+she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from\r
+her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride for her\r
+nephew, who chooses that everyone connected with him should have an\r
+understanding of the first class."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth allowed that he had given a very rational account of it, and\r
+they continued talking together, with mutual satisfaction till supper\r
+put an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr.\r
+Wickham's attentions. There could be no conversation in the noise\r
+of Mrs. Phillips's supper party, but his manners recommended him to\r
+everybody. Whatever he said, was said well; and whatever he did, done\r
+gracefully. Elizabeth went away with her head full of him. She could\r
+think of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all\r
+the way home; but there was not time for her even to mention his name\r
+as they went, for neither Lydia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Lydia\r
+talked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the\r
+fish she had won; and Mr. Collins in describing the civility of Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Phillips, protesting that he did not in the least regard his losses\r
+at whist, enumerating all the dishes at supper, and repeatedly fearing\r
+that he crowded his cousins, had more to say than he could well manage\r
+before the carriage stopped at Longbourn House.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 17\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth related to Jane the next day what had passed between Mr.\r
+Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; she\r
+knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr.\r
+Bingley's regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the\r
+veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. The\r
+possibility of his having endured such unkindness, was enough to\r
+interest all her tender feelings; and nothing remained therefore to be\r
+done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each,\r
+and throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be\r
+otherwise explained.\r
+\r
+"They have both," said she, "been deceived, I dare say, in some way\r
+or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps\r
+misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to\r
+conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them,\r
+without actual blame on either side."\r
+\r
+"Very true, indeed; and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say on\r
+behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the\r
+business? Do clear _them_ too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of\r
+somebody."\r
+\r
+"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my\r
+opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light\r
+it places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father's favourite in such\r
+a manner, one whom his father had promised to provide for. It is\r
+impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his\r
+character, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so\r
+excessively deceived in him? Oh! no."\r
+\r
+"I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than\r
+that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me\r
+last night; names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it\r
+be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his\r
+looks."\r
+\r
+"It is difficult indeed--it is distressing. One does not know what to\r
+think."\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon; one knows exactly what to think."\r
+\r
+But Jane could think with certainty on only one point--that Mr. Bingley,\r
+if he _had_ been imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair\r
+became public.\r
+\r
+The two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery, where this\r
+conversation passed, by the arrival of the very persons of whom they had\r
+been speaking; Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal\r
+invitation for the long-expected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed\r
+for the following Tuesday. The two ladies were delighted to see their\r
+dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly\r
+asked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To\r
+the rest of the family they paid little attention; avoiding Mrs. Bennet\r
+as much as possible, saying not much to Elizabeth, and nothing at all to\r
+the others. They were soon gone again, rising from their seats with an\r
+activity which took their brother by surprise, and hurrying off as if\r
+eager to escape from Mrs. Bennet's civilities.\r
+\r
+The prospect of the Netherfield ball was extremely agreeable to every\r
+female of the family. Mrs. Bennet chose to consider it as given in\r
+compliment to her eldest daughter, and was particularly flattered\r
+by receiving the invitation from Mr. Bingley himself, instead of a\r
+ceremonious card. Jane pictured to herself a happy evening in the\r
+society of her two friends, and the attentions of their brother; and\r
+Elizabeth thought with pleasure of dancing a great deal with Mr.\r
+Wickham, and of seeing a confirmation of everything in Mr. Darcy's look\r
+and behaviour. The happiness anticipated by Catherine and Lydia depended\r
+less on any single event, or any particular person, for though they\r
+each, like Elizabeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wickham,\r
+he was by no means the only partner who could satisfy them, and a ball\r
+was, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could assure her family that she\r
+had no disinclination for it.\r
+\r
+"While I can have my mornings to myself," said she, "it is enough--I\r
+think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements.\r
+Society has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those\r
+who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for\r
+everybody."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's spirits were so high on this occasion, that though she did\r
+not often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking\r
+him whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley's invitation, and if\r
+he did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening's\r
+amusement; and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no\r
+scruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke\r
+either from the Archbishop, or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to\r
+dance.\r
+\r
+"I am by no means of the opinion, I assure you," said he, "that a ball\r
+of this kind, given by a young man of character, to respectable people,\r
+can have any evil tendency; and I am so far from objecting to dancing\r
+myself, that I shall hope to be honoured with the hands of all my fair\r
+cousins in the course of the evening; and I take this opportunity of\r
+soliciting yours, Miss Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially,\r
+a preference which I trust my cousin Jane will attribute to the right\r
+cause, and not to any disrespect for her."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth felt herself completely taken in. She had fully proposed being\r
+engaged by Mr. Wickham for those very dances; and to have Mr. Collins\r
+instead! her liveliness had never been worse timed. There was no help\r
+for it, however. Mr. Wickham's happiness and her own were perforce\r
+delayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins's proposal accepted with as\r
+good a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his\r
+gallantry from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first\r
+struck her, that _she_ was selected from among her sisters as worthy\r
+of being mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a\r
+quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visitors.\r
+The idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing\r
+civilities toward herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a\r
+compliment on her wit and vivacity; and though more astonished than\r
+gratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before\r
+her mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage\r
+was extremely agreeable to _her_. Elizabeth, however, did not choose\r
+to take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the\r
+consequence of any reply. Mr. Collins might never make the offer, and\r
+till he did, it was useless to quarrel about him.\r
+\r
+If there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the\r
+younger Miss Bennets would have been in a very pitiable state at this\r
+time, for from the day of the invitation, to the day of the ball, there\r
+was such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton\r
+once. No aunt, no officers, no news could be sought after--the very\r
+shoe-roses for Netherfield were got by proxy. Even Elizabeth might have\r
+found some trial of her patience in weather which totally suspended the\r
+improvement of her acquaintance with Mr. Wickham; and nothing less than\r
+a dance on Tuesday, could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and\r
+Monday endurable to Kitty and Lydia.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 18\r
+\r
+\r
+Till Elizabeth entered the drawing-room at Netherfield, and looked in\r
+vain for Mr. Wickham among the cluster of red coats there assembled, a\r
+doubt of his being present had never occurred to her. The certainty\r
+of meeting him had not been checked by any of those recollections that\r
+might not unreasonably have alarmed her. She had dressed with more than\r
+usual care, and prepared in the highest spirits for the conquest of all\r
+that remained unsubdued of his heart, trusting that it was not more than\r
+might be won in the course of the evening. But in an instant arose\r
+the dreadful suspicion of his being purposely omitted for Mr. Darcy's\r
+pleasure in the Bingleys' invitation to the officers; and though\r
+this was not exactly the case, the absolute fact of his absence was\r
+pronounced by his friend Denny, to whom Lydia eagerly applied, and who\r
+told them that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the\r
+day before, and was not yet returned; adding, with a significant smile,\r
+"I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if\r
+he had not wanted to avoid a certain gentleman here."\r
+\r
+This part of his intelligence, though unheard by Lydia, was caught by\r
+Elizabeth, and, as it assured her that Darcy was not less answerable for\r
+Wickham's absence than if her first surmise had been just, every\r
+feeling of displeasure against the former was so sharpened by immediate\r
+disappointment, that she could hardly reply with tolerable civility to\r
+the polite inquiries which he directly afterwards approached to make.\r
+Attendance, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham. She\r
+was resolved against any sort of conversation with him, and turned away\r
+with a degree of ill-humour which she could not wholly surmount even in\r
+speaking to Mr. Bingley, whose blind partiality provoked her.\r
+\r
+But Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect\r
+of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her\r
+spirits; and having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had\r
+not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition\r
+to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular\r
+notice. The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress;\r
+they were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn,\r
+apologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being\r
+aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable\r
+partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from\r
+him was ecstasy.\r
+\r
+She danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of\r
+Wickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked. When those dances\r
+were over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with\r
+her, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy who took\r
+her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that,\r
+without knowing what she did, she accepted him. He walked away again\r
+immediately, and she was left to fret over her own want of presence of\r
+mind; Charlotte tried to console her:\r
+\r
+"I dare say you will find him very agreeable."\r
+\r
+"Heaven forbid! _That_ would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find\r
+a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an\r
+evil."\r
+\r
+When the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her\r
+hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her in a whisper, not to be a\r
+simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant\r
+in the eyes of a man ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no\r
+answer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which\r
+she was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and\r
+reading in her neighbours' looks, their equal amazement in beholding\r
+it. They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to\r
+imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and at\r
+first was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would\r
+be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made\r
+some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again\r
+silent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time\r
+with:--"It is _your_ turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked\r
+about the dance, and _you_ ought to make some sort of remark on the size\r
+of the room, or the number of couples."\r
+\r
+He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be\r
+said.\r
+\r
+"Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may\r
+observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But\r
+_now_ we may be silent."\r
+\r
+"Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?"\r
+\r
+"Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be\r
+entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet for the advantage of\r
+_some_, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the\r
+trouble of saying as little as possible."\r
+\r
+"Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you\r
+imagine that you are gratifying mine?"\r
+\r
+"Both," replied Elizabeth archly; "for I have always seen a great\r
+similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial,\r
+taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say\r
+something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to\r
+posterity with all the eclat of a proverb."\r
+\r
+"This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,"\r
+said he. "How near it may be to _mine_, I cannot pretend to say. _You_\r
+think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly."\r
+\r
+"I must not decide on my own performance."\r
+\r
+He made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down\r
+the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often\r
+walk to Meryton. She answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist\r
+the temptation, added, "When you met us there the other day, we had just\r
+been forming a new acquaintance."\r
+\r
+The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of _hauteur_ overspread his\r
+features, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself\r
+for her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a\r
+constrained manner said, "Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners\r
+as may ensure his _making_ friends--whether he may be equally capable of\r
+_retaining_ them, is less certain."\r
+\r
+"He has been so unlucky as to lose _your_ friendship," replied Elizabeth\r
+with emphasis, "and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all\r
+his life."\r
+\r
+Darcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject. At\r
+that moment, Sir William Lucas appeared close to them, meaning to pass\r
+through the set to the other side of the room; but on perceiving Mr.\r
+Darcy, he stopped with a bow of superior courtesy to compliment him on\r
+his dancing and his partner.\r
+\r
+"I have been most highly gratified indeed, my dear sir. Such very\r
+superior dancing is not often seen. It is evident that you belong to the\r
+first circles. Allow me to say, however, that your fair partner does not\r
+disgrace you, and that I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated,\r
+especially when a certain desirable event, my dear Eliza (glancing at\r
+her sister and Bingley) shall take place. What congratulations will then\r
+flow in! I appeal to Mr. Darcy:--but let me not interrupt you, sir. You\r
+will not thank me for detaining you from the bewitching converse of that\r
+young lady, whose bright eyes are also upbraiding me."\r
+\r
+The latter part of this address was scarcely heard by Darcy; but Sir\r
+William's allusion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his\r
+eyes were directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and\r
+Jane, who were dancing together. Recovering himself, however, shortly,\r
+he turned to his partner, and said, "Sir William's interruption has made\r
+me forget what we were talking of."\r
+\r
+"I do not think we were speaking at all. Sir William could not have\r
+interrupted two people in the room who had less to say for themselves.\r
+We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we\r
+are to talk of next I cannot imagine."\r
+\r
+"What think you of books?" said he, smiling.\r
+\r
+"Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same\r
+feelings."\r
+\r
+"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be\r
+no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions."\r
+\r
+"No--I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of\r
+something else."\r
+\r
+"The _present_ always occupies you in such scenes--does it?" said he,\r
+with a look of doubt.\r
+\r
+"Yes, always," she replied, without knowing what she said, for her\r
+thoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared\r
+by her suddenly exclaiming, "I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy,\r
+that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was\r
+unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its _being\r
+created_."\r
+\r
+"I am," said he, with a firm voice.\r
+\r
+"And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?"\r
+\r
+"I hope not."\r
+\r
+"It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion,\r
+to be secure of judging properly at first."\r
+\r
+"May I ask to what these questions tend?"\r
+\r
+"Merely to the illustration of _your_ character," said she, endeavouring\r
+to shake off her gravity. "I am trying to make it out."\r
+\r
+"And what is your success?"\r
+\r
+She shook her head. "I do not get on at all. I hear such different\r
+accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly."\r
+\r
+"I can readily believe," answered he gravely, "that reports may vary\r
+greatly with respect to me; and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were\r
+not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to\r
+fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either."\r
+\r
+"But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another\r
+opportunity."\r
+\r
+"I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours," he coldly replied.\r
+She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in\r
+silence; and on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree,\r
+for in Darcy's breast there was a tolerably powerful feeling towards\r
+her, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against\r
+another.\r
+\r
+They had not long separated, when Miss Bingley came towards her, and\r
+with an expression of civil disdain accosted her:\r
+\r
+"So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham!\r
+Your sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand\r
+questions; and I find that the young man quite forgot to tell you, among\r
+his other communication, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late\r
+Mr. Darcy's steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to\r
+give implicit confidence to all his assertions; for as to Mr. Darcy's\r
+using him ill, it is perfectly false; for, on the contrary, he has\r
+always been remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated\r
+Mr. Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but\r
+I know very well that Mr. Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he\r
+cannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother\r
+thought that he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to\r
+the officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself\r
+out of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent\r
+thing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you,\r
+Miss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite's guilt; but really,\r
+considering his descent, one could not expect much better."\r
+\r
+"His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same," said\r
+Elizabeth angrily; "for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse\r
+than of being the son of Mr. Darcy's steward, and of _that_, I can\r
+assure you, he informed me himself."\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon," replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer.\r
+"Excuse my interference--it was kindly meant."\r
+\r
+"Insolent girl!" said Elizabeth to herself. "You are much mistaken\r
+if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see\r
+nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr.\r
+Darcy." She then sought her eldest sister, who had undertaken to make\r
+inquiries on the same subject of Bingley. Jane met her with a smile of\r
+such sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently\r
+marked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening.\r
+Elizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for\r
+Wickham, resentment against his enemies, and everything else, gave way\r
+before the hope of Jane's being in the fairest way for happiness.\r
+\r
+"I want to know," said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her\r
+sister's, "what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have\r
+been too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person; in which case\r
+you may be sure of my pardon."\r
+\r
+"No," replied Jane, "I have not forgotten him; but I have nothing\r
+satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of\r
+his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have\r
+principally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct,\r
+the probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that\r
+Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has\r
+received; and I am sorry to say by his account as well as his sister's,\r
+Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has\r
+been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy's regard."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself?"\r
+\r
+"No; he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton."\r
+\r
+"This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am\r
+satisfied. But what does he say of the living?"\r
+\r
+"He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard\r
+them from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to\r
+him _conditionally_ only."\r
+\r
+"I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity," said Elizabeth warmly;\r
+"but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr.\r
+Bingley's defense of his friend was a very able one, I dare say; but\r
+since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt\r
+the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture to still think of\r
+both gentlemen as I did before."\r
+\r
+She then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on\r
+which there could be no difference of sentiment. Elizabeth listened with\r
+delight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Mr.\r
+Bingley's regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence\r
+in it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew\r
+to Miss Lucas; to whose inquiry after the pleasantness of her last\r
+partner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them,\r
+and told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as\r
+to make a most important discovery.\r
+\r
+"I have found out," said he, "by a singular accident, that there is now\r
+in the room a near relation of my patroness. I happened to overhear the\r
+gentleman himself mentioning to the young lady who does the honours of\r
+the house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her mother Lady\r
+Catherine. How wonderfully these sort of things occur! Who would have\r
+thought of my meeting with, perhaps, a nephew of Lady Catherine de\r
+Bourgh in this assembly! I am most thankful that the discovery is made\r
+in time for me to pay my respects to him, which I am now going to\r
+do, and trust he will excuse my not having done it before. My total\r
+ignorance of the connection must plead my apology."\r
+\r
+"You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy!"\r
+\r
+"Indeed I am. I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier.\r
+I believe him to be Lady Catherine's _nephew_. It will be in my power to\r
+assure him that her ladyship was quite well yesterday se'nnight."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth tried hard to dissuade him from such a scheme, assuring him\r
+that Mr. Darcy would consider his addressing him without introduction\r
+as an impertinent freedom, rather than a compliment to his aunt; that\r
+it was not in the least necessary there should be any notice on either\r
+side; and that if it were, it must belong to Mr. Darcy, the superior in\r
+consequence, to begin the acquaintance. Mr. Collins listened to her\r
+with the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she\r
+ceased speaking, replied thus:\r
+\r
+"My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world in\r
+your excellent judgement in all matters within the scope of your\r
+understanding; but permit me to say, that there must be a wide\r
+difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity,\r
+and those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that\r
+I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with\r
+the highest rank in the kingdom--provided that a proper humility of\r
+behaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to\r
+follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to\r
+perform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to\r
+profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant\r
+guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by\r
+education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young\r
+lady like yourself." And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr.\r
+Darcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose\r
+astonishment at being so addressed was very evident. Her cousin prefaced\r
+his speech with a solemn bow and though she could not hear a word of\r
+it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the\r
+words "apology," "Hunsford," and "Lady Catherine de Bourgh." It vexed\r
+her to see him expose himself to such a man. Mr. Darcy was eyeing him\r
+with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time\r
+to speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however,\r
+was not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy's contempt seemed\r
+abundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the\r
+end of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way. Mr.\r
+Collins then returned to Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"I have no reason, I assure you," said he, "to be dissatisfied with my\r
+reception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered\r
+me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying\r
+that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine's discernment as to be\r
+certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very\r
+handsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him."\r
+\r
+As Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned\r
+her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley; and the\r
+train of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to,\r
+made her perhaps almost as happy as Jane. She saw her in idea settled in\r
+that very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection\r
+could bestow; and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of\r
+endeavouring even to like Bingley's two sisters. Her mother's thoughts\r
+she plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to\r
+venture near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to\r
+supper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which\r
+placed them within one of each other; and deeply was she vexed to find\r
+that her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely,\r
+openly, and of nothing else but her expectation that Jane would soon\r
+be married to Mr. Bingley. It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet\r
+seemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the\r
+match. His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but\r
+three miles from them, were the first points of self-gratulation; and\r
+then it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of\r
+Jane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as\r
+she could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger\r
+daughters, as Jane's marrying so greatly must throw them in the way of\r
+other rich men; and lastly, it was so pleasant at her time of life to be\r
+able to consign her single daughters to the care of their sister, that\r
+she might not be obliged to go into company more than she liked. It was\r
+necessary to make this circumstance a matter of pleasure, because on\r
+such occasions it is the etiquette; but no one was less likely than Mrs.\r
+Bennet to find comfort in staying home at any period of her life. She\r
+concluded with many good wishes that Lady Lucas might soon be equally\r
+fortunate, though evidently and triumphantly believing there was no\r
+chance of it.\r
+\r
+In vain did Elizabeth endeavour to check the rapidity of her mother's\r
+words, or persuade her to describe her felicity in a less audible\r
+whisper; for, to her inexpressible vexation, she could perceive that the\r
+chief of it was overheard by Mr. Darcy, who sat opposite to them. Her\r
+mother only scolded her for being nonsensical.\r
+\r
+"What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am\r
+sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say\r
+nothing _he_ may not like to hear."\r
+\r
+"For heaven's sake, madam, speak lower. What advantage can it be for you\r
+to offend Mr. Darcy? You will never recommend yourself to his friend by\r
+so doing!"\r
+\r
+Nothing that she could say, however, had any influence. Her mother would\r
+talk of her views in the same intelligible tone. Elizabeth blushed and\r
+blushed again with shame and vexation. She could not help frequently\r
+glancing her eye at Mr. Darcy, though every glance convinced her of what\r
+she dreaded; for though he was not always looking at her mother, she was\r
+convinced that his attention was invariably fixed by her. The expression\r
+of his face changed gradually from indignant contempt to a composed and\r
+steady gravity.\r
+\r
+At length, however, Mrs. Bennet had no more to say; and Lady Lucas, who\r
+had been long yawning at the repetition of delights which she saw no\r
+likelihood of sharing, was left to the comforts of cold ham and\r
+chicken. Elizabeth now began to revive. But not long was the interval of\r
+tranquillity; for, when supper was over, singing was talked of, and\r
+she had the mortification of seeing Mary, after very little entreaty,\r
+preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent\r
+entreaties, did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance,\r
+but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of\r
+exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. Elizabeth's\r
+eyes were fixed on her with most painful sensations, and she watched her\r
+progress through the several stanzas with an impatience which was very\r
+ill rewarded at their close; for Mary, on receiving, amongst the thanks\r
+of the table, the hint of a hope that she might be prevailed on to\r
+favour them again, after the pause of half a minute began another.\r
+Mary's powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was\r
+weak, and her manner affected. Elizabeth was in agonies. She looked at\r
+Jane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very composedly talking to\r
+Bingley. She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs\r
+of derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued, however,\r
+imperturbably grave. She looked at her father to entreat his\r
+interference, lest Mary should be singing all night. He took the hint,\r
+and when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud, "That will do\r
+extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other\r
+young ladies have time to exhibit."\r
+\r
+Mary, though pretending not to hear, was somewhat disconcerted; and\r
+Elizabeth, sorry for her, and sorry for her father's speech, was afraid\r
+her anxiety had done no good. Others of the party were now applied to.\r
+\r
+"If I," said Mr. Collins, "were so fortunate as to be able to sing, I\r
+should have great pleasure, I am sure, in obliging the company with an\r
+air; for I consider music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly\r
+compatible with the profession of a clergyman. I do not mean, however,\r
+to assert that we can be justified in devoting too much of our time\r
+to music, for there are certainly other things to be attended to. The\r
+rector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make\r
+such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not\r
+offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time\r
+that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care\r
+and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making\r
+as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance\r
+that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody,\r
+especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit\r
+him of that duty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an\r
+occasion of testifying his respect towards anybody connected with the\r
+family." And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had\r
+been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. Many stared--many\r
+smiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his\r
+wife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly,\r
+and observed in a half-whisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably\r
+clever, good kind of young man.\r
+\r
+To Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to\r
+expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would\r
+have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or\r
+finer success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister\r
+that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his\r
+feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he\r
+must have witnessed. That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should\r
+have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough,\r
+and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the\r
+gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable.\r
+\r
+The rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teased by\r
+Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though\r
+he could not prevail on her to dance with him again, put it out of her\r
+power to dance with others. In vain did she entreat him to stand up with\r
+somebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room.\r
+He assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it;\r
+that his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to\r
+her and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her\r
+the whole evening. There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed\r
+her greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and\r
+good-naturedly engaged Mr. Collins's conversation to herself.\r
+\r
+She was at least free from the offense of Mr. Darcy's further notice;\r
+though often standing within a very short distance of her, quite\r
+disengaged, he never came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the\r
+probable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in\r
+it.\r
+\r
+The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by\r
+a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of\r
+an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how\r
+heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her\r
+sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and\r
+were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed\r
+every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a\r
+languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the\r
+long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his\r
+sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and\r
+politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said\r
+nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene.\r
+Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the\r
+rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a\r
+silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too\r
+much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord,\r
+how tired I am!" accompanied by a violent yawn.\r
+\r
+When at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Bennet was most pressingly\r
+civil in her hope of seeing the whole family soon at Longbourn, and\r
+addressed herself especially to Mr. Bingley, to assure him how happy he\r
+would make them by eating a family dinner with them at any time, without\r
+the ceremony of a formal invitation. Bingley was all grateful pleasure,\r
+and he readily engaged for taking the earliest opportunity of waiting on\r
+her, after his return from London, whither he was obliged to go the next\r
+day for a short time.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet was perfectly satisfied, and quitted the house under the\r
+delightful persuasion that, allowing for the necessary preparations of\r
+settlements, new carriages, and wedding clothes, she should undoubtedly\r
+see her daughter settled at Netherfield in the course of three or four\r
+months. Of having another daughter married to Mr. Collins, she thought\r
+with equal certainty, and with considerable, though not equal, pleasure.\r
+Elizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children; and though the\r
+man and the match were quite good enough for _her_, the worth of each\r
+was eclipsed by Mr. Bingley and Netherfield.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 19\r
+\r
+\r
+The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his\r
+declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as\r
+his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having\r
+no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at\r
+the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the\r
+observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On\r
+finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together,\r
+soon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words:\r
+\r
+"May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth,\r
+when I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the\r
+course of this morning?"\r
+\r
+Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs.\r
+Bennet answered instantly, "Oh dear!--yes--certainly. I am sure Lizzy\r
+will be very happy--I am sure she can have no objection. Come, Kitty, I\r
+want you up stairs." And, gathering her work together, she was hastening\r
+away, when Elizabeth called out:\r
+\r
+"Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse\r
+me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am\r
+going away myself."\r
+\r
+"No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you to stay where you are." And upon\r
+Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to\r
+escape, she added: "Lizzy, I _insist_ upon your staying and hearing Mr.\r
+Collins."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction--and a moment's\r
+consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it\r
+over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again and tried to\r
+conceal, by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between\r
+distress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as\r
+they were gone, Mr. Collins began.\r
+\r
+"Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from\r
+doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You\r
+would have been less amiable in my eyes had there _not_ been this little\r
+unwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected\r
+mother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the\r
+purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to\r
+dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as\r
+soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of\r
+my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this\r
+subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for\r
+marrying--and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design\r
+of selecting a wife, as I certainly did."\r
+\r
+The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away\r
+with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing, that she could\r
+not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him further,\r
+and he continued:\r
+\r
+"My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for\r
+every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example\r
+of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced that it will\r
+add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly--which perhaps I ought\r
+to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and\r
+recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling\r
+patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked\r
+too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I\r
+left Hunsford--between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was\r
+arranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool, that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you\r
+must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose\r
+a gentlewoman for _my_ sake; and for your _own_, let her be an active,\r
+useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small\r
+income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as\r
+you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.' Allow me, by the\r
+way, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice\r
+and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the\r
+advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond\r
+anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be\r
+acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and\r
+respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general\r
+intention in favour of matrimony; it remains to be told why my views\r
+were directed towards Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I\r
+can assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that\r
+being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured\r
+father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy\r
+myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that\r
+the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy\r
+event takes place--which, however, as I have already said, may not\r
+be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and\r
+I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing\r
+remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the\r
+violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and\r
+shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well\r
+aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds\r
+in the four per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother's\r
+decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head,\r
+therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure yourself that\r
+no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married."\r
+\r
+It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.\r
+\r
+"You are too hasty, sir," she cried. "You forget that I have made no\r
+answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for\r
+the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of\r
+your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to\r
+decline them."\r
+\r
+"I am not now to learn," replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the\r
+hand, "that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the\r
+man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their\r
+favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a\r
+third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just\r
+said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, sir," cried Elizabeth, "your hope is a rather\r
+extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not\r
+one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so\r
+daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second\r
+time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make _me_\r
+happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who\r
+could make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I\r
+am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the\r
+situation."\r
+\r
+"Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so," said Mr. Collins\r
+very gravely--"but I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all\r
+disapprove of you. And you may be certain when I have the honour of\r
+seeing her again, I shall speak in the very highest terms of your\r
+modesty, economy, and other amiable qualification."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Mr. Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You\r
+must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment\r
+of believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by\r
+refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise.\r
+In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your\r
+feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn\r
+estate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may\r
+be considered, therefore, as finally settled." And rising as she\r
+thus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had Mr. Collins not thus\r
+addressed her:\r
+\r
+"When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I\r
+shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given\r
+me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I\r
+know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on\r
+the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to\r
+encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the\r
+female character."\r
+\r
+"Really, Mr. Collins," cried Elizabeth with some warmth, "you puzzle me\r
+exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form\r
+of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as\r
+to convince you of its being one."\r
+\r
+"You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your\r
+refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for\r
+believing it are briefly these: It does not appear to me that my hand is\r
+unworthy of your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would\r
+be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections\r
+with the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are\r
+circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further\r
+consideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no\r
+means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your\r
+portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo\r
+the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must\r
+therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me,\r
+I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by\r
+suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females."\r
+\r
+"I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind\r
+of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would\r
+rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you\r
+again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but\r
+to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect\r
+forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant\r
+female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking\r
+the truth from her heart."\r
+\r
+"You are uniformly charming!" cried he, with an air of awkward\r
+gallantry; "and I am persuaded that when sanctioned by the express\r
+authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of\r
+being acceptable."\r
+\r
+To such perseverance in wilful self-deception Elizabeth would make\r
+no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, if\r
+he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering\r
+encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered\r
+in such a manner as to be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could\r
+not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 20\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his\r
+successful love; for Mrs. Bennet, having dawdled about in the vestibule\r
+to watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open\r
+the door and with quick step pass her towards the staircase, than she\r
+entered the breakfast-room, and congratulated both him and herself in\r
+warm terms on the happy prospect of their nearer connection. Mr. Collins\r
+received and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure, and then\r
+proceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the result\r
+of which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the\r
+refusal which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow\r
+from her bashful modesty and the genuine delicacy of her character.\r
+\r
+This information, however, startled Mrs. Bennet; she would have been\r
+glad to be equally satisfied that her daughter had meant to encourage\r
+him by protesting against his proposals, but she dared not believe it,\r
+and could not help saying so.\r
+\r
+"But, depend upon it, Mr. Collins," she added, "that Lizzy shall be\r
+brought to reason. I will speak to her about it directly. She is a very\r
+headstrong, foolish girl, and does not know her own interest but I will\r
+_make_ her know it."\r
+\r
+"Pardon me for interrupting you, madam," cried Mr. Collins; "but if\r
+she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would\r
+altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who\r
+naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If therefore she\r
+actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps it were better not\r
+to force her into accepting me, because if liable to such defects of\r
+temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity."\r
+\r
+"Sir, you quite misunderstand me," said Mrs. Bennet, alarmed. "Lizzy is\r
+only headstrong in such matters as these. In everything else she is as\r
+good-natured a girl as ever lived. I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and\r
+we shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure."\r
+\r
+She would not give him time to reply, but hurrying instantly to her\r
+husband, called out as she entered the library, "Oh! Mr. Bennet, you\r
+are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make\r
+Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you\r
+do not make haste he will change his mind and not have _her_."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them\r
+on her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by\r
+her communication.\r
+\r
+"I have not the pleasure of understanding you," said he, when she had\r
+finished her speech. "Of what are you talking?"\r
+\r
+"Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins,\r
+and Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy."\r
+\r
+"And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems an hopeless business."\r
+\r
+"Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her\r
+marrying him."\r
+\r
+"Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the\r
+library.\r
+\r
+"Come here, child," cried her father as she appeared. "I have sent for\r
+you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made\r
+you an offer of marriage. Is it true?" Elizabeth replied that it was.\r
+"Very well--and this offer of marriage you have refused?"\r
+\r
+"I have, sir."\r
+\r
+"Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your\r
+accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, or I will never see her again."\r
+\r
+"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must\r
+be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you\r
+again if you do _not_ marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again\r
+if you _do_."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning,\r
+but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the\r
+affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed.\r
+\r
+"What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, in talking this way? You promised me to\r
+_insist_ upon her marrying him."\r
+\r
+"My dear," replied her husband, "I have two small favours to request.\r
+First, that you will allow me the free use of my understanding on the\r
+present occasion; and secondly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the\r
+library to myself as soon as may be."\r
+\r
+Not yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did\r
+Mrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again;\r
+coaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane\r
+in her interest; but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined\r
+interfering; and Elizabeth, sometimes with real earnestness, and\r
+sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks. Though her manner\r
+varied, however, her determination never did.\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins, meanwhile, was meditating in solitude on what had passed.\r
+He thought too well of himself to comprehend on what motives his cousin\r
+could refuse him; and though his pride was hurt, he suffered in no other\r
+way. His regard for her was quite imaginary; and the possibility of her\r
+deserving her mother's reproach prevented his feeling any regret.\r
+\r
+While the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend\r
+the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who, flying to\r
+her, cried in a half whisper, "I am glad you are come, for there is such\r
+fun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has\r
+made an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him."\r
+\r
+Charlotte hardly had time to answer, before they were joined by Kitty,\r
+who came to tell the same news; and no sooner had they entered the\r
+breakfast-room, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on\r
+the subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating\r
+her to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her\r
+family. "Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas," she added in a melancholy tone,\r
+"for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me. I am cruelly used,\r
+nobody feels for my poor nerves."\r
+\r
+Charlotte's reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"Aye, there she comes," continued Mrs. Bennet, "looking as unconcerned\r
+as may be, and caring no more for us than if we were at York, provided\r
+she can have her own way. But I tell you, Miss Lizzy--if you take it\r
+into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way,\r
+you will never get a husband at all--and I am sure I do not know who is\r
+to maintain you when your father is dead. I shall not be able to keep\r
+you--and so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told\r
+you in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again,\r
+and you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking\r
+to undutiful children. Not that I have much pleasure, indeed, in talking\r
+to anybody. People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have\r
+no great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it\r
+is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied."\r
+\r
+Her daughters listened in silence to this effusion, sensible that\r
+any attempt to reason with her or soothe her would only increase the\r
+irritation. She talked on, therefore, without interruption from any of\r
+them, till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who entered the room with\r
+an air more stately than usual, and on perceiving whom, she said to\r
+the girls, "Now, I do insist upon it, that you, all of you, hold\r
+your tongues, and let me and Mr. Collins have a little conversation\r
+together."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth passed quietly out of the room, Jane and Kitty followed, but\r
+Lydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could; and Charlotte,\r
+detained first by the civility of Mr. Collins, whose inquiries after\r
+herself and all her family were very minute, and then by a little\r
+curiosity, satisfied herself with walking to the window and pretending\r
+not to hear. In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet began the projected\r
+conversation: "Oh! Mr. Collins!"\r
+\r
+"My dear madam," replied he, "let us be for ever silent on this point.\r
+Far be it from me," he presently continued, in a voice that marked his\r
+displeasure, "to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation\r
+to inevitable evils is the duty of us all; the peculiar duty of a\r
+young man who has been so fortunate as I have been in early preferment;\r
+and I trust I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt\r
+of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand;\r
+for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as\r
+when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our\r
+estimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect\r
+to your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to\r
+your daughter's favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the\r
+compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my\r
+behalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my\r
+dismission from your daughter's lips instead of your own. But we are all\r
+liable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair.\r
+My object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due\r
+consideration for the advantage of all your family, and if my _manner_\r
+has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologise."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 21\r
+\r
+\r
+The discussion of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and\r
+Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily\r
+attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her\r
+mother. As for the gentleman himself, _his_ feelings were chiefly\r
+expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her,\r
+but by stiffness of manner and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke\r
+to her, and the assiduous attentions which he had been so sensible of\r
+himself were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose\r
+civility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and\r
+especially to her friend.\r
+\r
+The morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet's ill-humour or ill\r
+health. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth\r
+had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did\r
+not appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on\r
+Saturday, and to Saturday he meant to stay.\r
+\r
+After breakfast, the girls walked to Meryton to inquire if Mr. Wickham\r
+were returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball.\r
+He joined them on their entering the town, and attended them to their\r
+aunt's where his regret and vexation, and the concern of everybody, was\r
+well talked over. To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged\r
+that the necessity of his absence _had_ been self-imposed.\r
+\r
+"I found," said he, "as the time drew near that I had better not meet\r
+Mr. Darcy; that to be in the same room, the same party with him for so\r
+many hours together, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes\r
+might arise unpleasant to more than myself."\r
+\r
+She highly approved his forbearance, and they had leisure for a full\r
+discussion of it, and for all the commendation which they civilly\r
+bestowed on each other, as Wickham and another officer walked back with\r
+them to Longbourn, and during the walk he particularly attended to\r
+her. His accompanying them was a double advantage; she felt all the\r
+compliment it offered to herself, and it was most acceptable as an\r
+occasion of introducing him to her father and mother.\r
+\r
+Soon after their return, a letter was delivered to Miss Bennet; it came\r
+from Netherfield. The envelope contained a sheet of elegant, little,\r
+hot-pressed paper, well covered with a lady's fair, flowing hand; and\r
+Elizabeth saw her sister's countenance change as she read it, and saw\r
+her dwelling intently on some particular passages. Jane recollected\r
+herself soon, and putting the letter away, tried to join with her usual\r
+cheerfulness in the general conversation; but Elizabeth felt an anxiety\r
+on the subject which drew off her attention even from Wickham; and no\r
+sooner had he and his companion taken leave, than a glance from Jane\r
+invited her to follow her up stairs. When they had gained their own room,\r
+Jane, taking out the letter, said:\r
+\r
+"This is from Caroline Bingley; what it contains has surprised me a good\r
+deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on\r
+their way to town--and without any intention of coming back again. You\r
+shall hear what she says."\r
+\r
+She then read the first sentence aloud, which comprised the information\r
+of their having just resolved to follow their brother to town directly,\r
+and of their meaning to dine in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a\r
+house. The next was in these words: "I do not pretend to regret anything\r
+I shall leave in Hertfordshire, except your society, my dearest friend;\r
+but we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that\r
+delightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may\r
+lessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved\r
+correspondence. I depend on you for that." To these highflown\r
+expressions Elizabeth listened with all the insensibility of distrust;\r
+and though the suddenness of their removal surprised her, she saw\r
+nothing in it really to lament; it was not to be supposed that their\r
+absence from Netherfield would prevent Mr. Bingley's being there; and as\r
+to the loss of their society, she was persuaded that Jane must cease to\r
+regard it, in the enjoyment of his.\r
+\r
+"It is unlucky," said she, after a short pause, "that you should not be\r
+able to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not\r
+hope that the period of future happiness to which Miss Bingley looks\r
+forward may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful\r
+intercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater\r
+satisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by\r
+them."\r
+\r
+"Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into\r
+Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you:"\r
+\r
+"When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which\r
+took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we\r
+are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when\r
+Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have\r
+determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend\r
+his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are\r
+already there for the winter; I wish that I could hear that you, my\r
+dearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowd--but of\r
+that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may\r
+abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your\r
+beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the\r
+three of whom we shall deprive you."\r
+\r
+"It is evident by this," added Jane, "that he comes back no more this\r
+winter."\r
+\r
+"It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean that he _should_."\r
+\r
+"Why will you think so? It must be his own doing. He is his own\r
+master. But you do not know _all_. I _will_ read you the passage which\r
+particularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from _you_."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister; and, to confess the truth,\r
+_we_ are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think\r
+Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments;\r
+and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into\r
+something still more interesting, from the hope we dare entertain of\r
+her being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before\r
+mentioned to you my feelings on this subject; but I will not leave the\r
+country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them\r
+unreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already; he will have\r
+frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing;\r
+her relations all wish the connection as much as his own; and a sister's\r
+partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most\r
+capable of engaging any woman's heart. With all these circumstances to\r
+favour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest\r
+Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness\r
+of so many?"\r
+\r
+"What do you think of _this_ sentence, my dear Lizzy?" said Jane as she\r
+finished it. "Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare that\r
+Caroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister; that she is\r
+perfectly convinced of her brother's indifference; and that if she\r
+suspects the nature of my feelings for him, she means (most kindly!) to\r
+put me on my guard? Can there be any other opinion on the subject?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, there can; for mine is totally different. Will you hear it?"\r
+\r
+"Most willingly."\r
+\r
+"You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is\r
+in love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him\r
+to town in hope of keeping him there, and tries to persuade you that he\r
+does not care about you."\r
+\r
+Jane shook her head.\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you\r
+together can doubt his affection. Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot. She\r
+is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr.\r
+Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the\r
+case is this: We are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she\r
+is the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion\r
+that when there has been _one_ intermarriage, she may have less trouble\r
+in achieving a second; in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and\r
+I dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But,\r
+my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that because Miss Bingley\r
+tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest\r
+degree less sensible of _your_ merit than when he took leave of you on\r
+Tuesday, or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead\r
+of being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend."\r
+\r
+"If we thought alike of Miss Bingley," replied Jane, "your\r
+representation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the\r
+foundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of wilfully deceiving\r
+anyone; and all that I can hope in this case is that she is deceiving\r
+herself."\r
+\r
+"That is right. You could not have started a more happy idea, since you\r
+will not take comfort in mine. Believe her to be deceived, by all means.\r
+You have now done your duty by her, and must fret no longer."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear sister, can I be happy, even supposing the best, in\r
+accepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry\r
+elsewhere?"\r
+\r
+"You must decide for yourself," said Elizabeth; "and if, upon mature\r
+deliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is\r
+more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you by\r
+all means to refuse him."\r
+\r
+"How can you talk so?" said Jane, faintly smiling. "You must know that\r
+though I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could\r
+not hesitate."\r
+\r
+"I did not think you would; and that being the case, I cannot consider\r
+your situation with much compassion."\r
+\r
+"But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be\r
+required. A thousand things may arise in six months!"\r
+\r
+The idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost\r
+contempt. It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline's\r
+interested wishes, and she could not for a moment suppose that those\r
+wishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man\r
+so totally independent of everyone.\r
+\r
+She represented to her sister as forcibly as possible what she felt\r
+on the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect.\r
+Jane's temper was not desponding, and she was gradually led to hope,\r
+though the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that\r
+Bingley would return to Netherfield and answer every wish of her heart.\r
+\r
+They agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the\r
+family, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman's conduct;\r
+but even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern,\r
+and she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen\r
+to go away just as they were all getting so intimate together. After\r
+lamenting it, however, at some length, she had the consolation that Mr.\r
+Bingley would be soon down again and soon dining at Longbourn, and the\r
+conclusion of all was the comfortable declaration, that though he had\r
+been invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two\r
+full courses.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 22\r
+\r
+\r
+The Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases and again during the\r
+chief of the day was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins.\r
+Elizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. "It keeps him in good\r
+humour," said she, "and I am more obliged to you than I can express."\r
+Charlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and\r
+that it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was\r
+very amiable, but Charlotte's kindness extended farther than Elizabeth\r
+had any conception of; its object was nothing else than to secure her\r
+from any return of Mr. Collins's addresses, by engaging them towards\r
+herself. Such was Miss Lucas's scheme; and appearances were so\r
+favourable, that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost\r
+secure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very\r
+soon. But here she did injustice to the fire and independence of his\r
+character, for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next\r
+morning with admirable slyness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw\r
+himself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins,\r
+from a conviction that if they saw him depart, they could not fail to\r
+conjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known\r
+till its success might be known likewise; for though feeling almost\r
+secure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging,\r
+he was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday.\r
+His reception, however, was of the most flattering kind. Miss Lucas\r
+perceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and\r
+instantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had\r
+she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there.\r
+\r
+In as short a time as Mr. Collins's long speeches would allow,\r
+everything was settled between them to the satisfaction of both; and as\r
+they entered the house he earnestly entreated her to name the day that\r
+was to make him the happiest of men; and though such a solicitation must\r
+be waived for the present, the lady felt no inclination to trifle with\r
+his happiness. The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must\r
+guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its\r
+continuance; and Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure\r
+and disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that\r
+establishment were gained.\r
+\r
+Sir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent;\r
+and it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr. Collins's present\r
+circumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom\r
+they could give little fortune; and his prospects of future wealth were\r
+exceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate, with more\r
+interest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer\r
+Mr. Bennet was likely to live; and Sir William gave it as his decided\r
+opinion, that whenever Mr. Collins should be in possession of the\r
+Longbourn estate, it would be highly expedient that both he and his wife\r
+should make their appearance at St. James's. The whole family, in short,\r
+were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes\r
+of _coming out_ a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have\r
+done; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte's\r
+dying an old maid. Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had\r
+gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were\r
+in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible\r
+nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must\r
+be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly\r
+either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was\r
+the only provision for well-educated young women of small fortune,\r
+and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest\r
+preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at\r
+the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all\r
+the good luck of it. The least agreeable circumstance in the business\r
+was the surprise it must occasion to Elizabeth Bennet, whose friendship\r
+she valued beyond that of any other person. Elizabeth would wonder,\r
+and probably would blame her; and though her resolution was not to be\r
+shaken, her feelings must be hurt by such a disapprobation. She resolved\r
+to give her the information herself, and therefore charged Mr. Collins,\r
+when he returned to Longbourn to dinner, to drop no hint of what had\r
+passed before any of the family. A promise of secrecy was of course very\r
+dutifully given, but it could not be kept without difficulty; for the\r
+curiosity excited by his long absence burst forth in such very direct\r
+questions on his return as required some ingenuity to evade, and he was\r
+at the same time exercising great self-denial, for he was longing to\r
+publish his prosperous love.\r
+\r
+As he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the\r
+family, the ceremony of leave-taking was performed when the ladies moved\r
+for the night; and Mrs. Bennet, with great politeness and cordiality,\r
+said how happy they should be to see him at Longbourn again, whenever\r
+his engagements might allow him to visit them.\r
+\r
+"My dear madam," he replied, "this invitation is particularly\r
+gratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to receive; and\r
+you may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as\r
+possible."\r
+\r
+They were all astonished; and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for\r
+so speedy a return, immediately said:\r
+\r
+"But is there not danger of Lady Catherine's disapprobation here, my\r
+good sir? You had better neglect your relations than run the risk of\r
+offending your patroness."\r
+\r
+"My dear sir," replied Mr. Collins, "I am particularly obliged to you\r
+for this friendly caution, and you may depend upon my not taking so\r
+material a step without her ladyship's concurrence."\r
+\r
+"You cannot be too much upon your guard. Risk anything rather than her\r
+displeasure; and if you find it likely to be raised by your coming to us\r
+again, which I should think exceedingly probable, stay quietly at home,\r
+and be satisfied that _we_ shall take no offence."\r
+\r
+"Believe me, my dear sir, my gratitude is warmly excited by such\r
+affectionate attention; and depend upon it, you will speedily receive\r
+from me a letter of thanks for this, and for every other mark of your\r
+regard during my stay in Hertfordshire. As for my fair cousins, though\r
+my absence may not be long enough to render it necessary, I shall now\r
+take the liberty of wishing them health and happiness, not excepting my\r
+cousin Elizabeth."\r
+\r
+With proper civilities the ladies then withdrew; all of them equally\r
+surprised that he meditated a quick return. Mrs. Bennet wished to\r
+understand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her\r
+younger girls, and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him.\r
+She rated his abilities much higher than any of the others; there was\r
+a solidity in his reflections which often struck her, and though by no\r
+means so clever as herself, she thought that if encouraged to read\r
+and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very\r
+agreeable companion. But on the following morning, every hope of this\r
+kind was done away. Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast, and in a\r
+private conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before.\r
+\r
+The possibility of Mr. Collins's fancying himself in love with her\r
+friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two; but\r
+that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from\r
+possibility as she could encourage him herself, and her astonishment was\r
+consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and\r
+she could not help crying out:\r
+\r
+"Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte--impossible!"\r
+\r
+The steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her\r
+story, gave way to a momentary confusion here on receiving so direct a\r
+reproach; though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained\r
+her composure, and calmly replied:\r
+\r
+"Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible\r
+that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion,\r
+because he was not so happy as to succeed with you?"\r
+\r
+But Elizabeth had now recollected herself, and making a strong effort\r
+for it, was able to assure with tolerable firmness that the prospect of\r
+their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her\r
+all imaginable happiness.\r
+\r
+"I see what you are feeling," replied Charlotte. "You must be surprised,\r
+very much surprised--so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry\r
+you. But when you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be\r
+satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know; I never\r
+was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins's\r
+character, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my\r
+chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on\r
+entering the marriage state."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth quietly answered "Undoubtedly;" and after an awkward pause,\r
+they returned to the rest of the family. Charlotte did not stay much\r
+longer, and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard.\r
+It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so\r
+unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins's making two offers\r
+of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now\r
+accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was\r
+not exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible\r
+that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better\r
+feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a\r
+most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself\r
+and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it\r
+was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had\r
+chosen.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 23\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what\r
+she had heard, and doubting whether she was authorised to mention\r
+it, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter, to\r
+announce her engagement to the family. With many compliments to them,\r
+and much self-gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the\r
+houses, he unfolded the matter--to an audience not merely wondering, but\r
+incredulous; for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness,\r
+protested he must be entirely mistaken; and Lydia, always unguarded and\r
+often uncivil, boisterously exclaimed:\r
+\r
+"Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know\r
+that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?"\r
+\r
+Nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne\r
+without anger such treatment; but Sir William's good breeding carried\r
+him through it all; and though he begged leave to be positive as to the\r
+truth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the\r
+most forbearing courtesy.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant\r
+a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by\r
+mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and\r
+endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters\r
+by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she\r
+was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the\r
+happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character\r
+of Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet was in fact too much overpowered to say a great deal while\r
+Sir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings\r
+found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving\r
+the whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins\r
+had been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be\r
+happy together; and fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two\r
+inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole: one, that\r
+Elizabeth was the real cause of the mischief; and the other that she\r
+herself had been barbarously misused by them all; and on these two\r
+points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could\r
+console and nothing could appease her. Nor did that day wear out her\r
+resentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without\r
+scolding her, a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William\r
+or Lady Lucas without being rude, and many months were gone before she\r
+could at all forgive their daughter.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such\r
+as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for\r
+it gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had\r
+been used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and\r
+more foolish than his daughter!\r
+\r
+Jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match; but she said\r
+less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness;\r
+nor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty\r
+and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a\r
+clergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news\r
+to spread at Meryton.\r
+\r
+Lady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort\r
+on Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married; and she\r
+called at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was,\r
+though Mrs. Bennet's sour looks and ill-natured remarks might have been\r
+enough to drive happiness away.\r
+\r
+Between Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them\r
+mutually silent on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that\r
+no real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her\r
+disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her\r
+sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could\r
+never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious,\r
+as Bingley had now been gone a week and nothing more was heard of his\r
+return.\r
+\r
+Jane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting\r
+the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again. The promised\r
+letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to\r
+their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a\r
+twelvemonth's abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging\r
+his conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many\r
+rapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection\r
+of their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was\r
+merely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready\r
+to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither\r
+he hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight; for Lady Catherine,\r
+he added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take\r
+place as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable\r
+argument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him\r
+the happiest of men.\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of\r
+pleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary, she was as much disposed to\r
+complain of it as her husband. It was very strange that he should come\r
+to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient\r
+and exceedingly troublesome. She hated having visitors in the house\r
+while her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the\r
+most disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and\r
+they gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley's continued\r
+absence.\r
+\r
+Neither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject. Day after\r
+day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the\r
+report which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to\r
+Netherfield the whole winter; a report which highly incensed Mrs.\r
+Bennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous\r
+falsehood.\r
+\r
+Even Elizabeth began to fear--not that Bingley was indifferent--but that\r
+his sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as\r
+she was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane's happiness, and so\r
+dishonorable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its\r
+frequently occurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters\r
+and of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss\r
+Darcy and the amusements of London might be too much, she feared, for\r
+the strength of his attachment.\r
+\r
+As for Jane, _her_ anxiety under this suspense was, of course, more\r
+painful than Elizabeth's, but whatever she felt she was desirous of\r
+concealing, and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject\r
+was never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother,\r
+an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her\r
+impatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he\r
+did not come back she would think herself very ill used. It needed\r
+all Jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable\r
+tranquillity.\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins returned most punctually on Monday fortnight, but his\r
+reception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his\r
+first introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention;\r
+and luckily for the others, the business of love-making relieved them\r
+from a great deal of his company. The chief of every day was spent by\r
+him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time\r
+to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of\r
+anything concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill-humour,\r
+and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight\r
+of Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she\r
+regarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see\r
+them, she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession; and\r
+whenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that\r
+they were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself\r
+and her daughters out of the house, as soon as Mr. Bennet were dead. She\r
+complained bitterly of all this to her husband.\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Mr. Bennet," said she, "it is very hard to think that Charlotte\r
+Lucas should ever be mistress of this house, that I should be forced to\r
+make way for _her_, and live to see her take her place in it!"\r
+\r
+"My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for\r
+better things. Let us flatter ourselves that I may be the survivor."\r
+\r
+This was not very consoling to Mrs. Bennet, and therefore, instead of\r
+making any answer, she went on as before.\r
+\r
+"I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was\r
+not for the entail, I should not mind it."\r
+\r
+"What should not you mind?"\r
+\r
+"I should not mind anything at all."\r
+\r
+"Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such\r
+insensibility."\r
+\r
+"I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for anything about the entail. How\r
+anyone could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own\r
+daughters, I cannot understand; and all for the sake of Mr. Collins too!\r
+Why should _he_ have it more than anybody else?"\r
+\r
+"I leave it to yourself to determine," said Mr. Bennet.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 24\r
+\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley's letter arrived, and put an end to doubt. The very first\r
+sentence conveyed the assurance of their being all settled in London for\r
+the winter, and concluded with her brother's regret at not having had\r
+time to pay his respects to his friends in Hertfordshire before he left\r
+the country.\r
+\r
+Hope was over, entirely over; and when Jane could attend to the rest\r
+of the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the\r
+writer, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy's praise occupied\r
+the chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on, and Caroline\r
+boasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict\r
+the accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former\r
+letter. She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother's being an\r
+inmate of Mr. Darcy's house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of\r
+the latter with regard to new furniture.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, to whom Jane very soon communicated the chief of all this,\r
+heard it in silent indignation. Her heart was divided between concern\r
+for her sister, and resentment against all others. To Caroline's\r
+assertion of her brother's being partial to Miss Darcy she paid no\r
+credit. That he was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she\r
+had ever done; and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she\r
+could not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness\r
+of temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave\r
+of his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice of his own happiness\r
+to the caprice of their inclination. Had his own happiness, however,\r
+been the only sacrifice, he might have been allowed to sport with it in\r
+whatever manner he thought best, but her sister's was involved in it, as\r
+she thought he must be sensible himself. It was a subject, in short,\r
+on which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She\r
+could think of nothing else; and yet whether Bingley's regard had really\r
+died away, or were suppressed by his friends' interference; whether\r
+he had been aware of Jane's attachment, or whether it had escaped his\r
+observation; whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be\r
+materially affected by the difference, her sister's situation remained\r
+the same, her peace equally wounded.\r
+\r
+A day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to\r
+Elizabeth; but at last, on Mrs. Bennet's leaving them together, after a\r
+longer irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could\r
+not help saying:\r
+\r
+"Oh, that my dear mother had more command over herself! She can have no\r
+idea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But\r
+I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall\r
+all be as we were before."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said\r
+nothing.\r
+\r
+"You doubt me," cried Jane, slightly colouring; "indeed, you have\r
+no reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my\r
+acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear,\r
+and nothing to reproach him with. Thank God! I have not _that_ pain. A\r
+little time, therefore--I shall certainly try to get the better."\r
+\r
+With a stronger voice she soon added, "I have this comfort immediately,\r
+that it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it\r
+has done no harm to anyone but myself."\r
+\r
+"My dear Jane!" exclaimed Elizabeth, "you are too good. Your sweetness\r
+and disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say\r
+to you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you\r
+deserve."\r
+\r
+Miss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back\r
+the praise on her sister's warm affection.\r
+\r
+"Nay," said Elizabeth, "this is not fair. _You_ wish to think all the\r
+world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody. I only want\r
+to think _you_ perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not\r
+be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your\r
+privilege of universal good-will. You need not. There are few people\r
+whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see\r
+of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms\r
+my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the\r
+little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or\r
+sense. I have met with two instances lately, one I will not mention; the\r
+other is Charlotte's marriage. It is unaccountable! In every view it is\r
+unaccountable!"\r
+\r
+"My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will\r
+ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference\r
+of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and\r
+Charlotte's steady, prudent character. Remember that she is one of a\r
+large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be\r
+ready to believe, for everybody's sake, that she may feel something like\r
+regard and esteem for our cousin."\r
+\r
+"To oblige you, I would try to believe almost anything, but no one else\r
+could be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that\r
+Charlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her\r
+understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a\r
+conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as\r
+I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him\r
+cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though\r
+it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual,\r
+change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade\r
+yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of\r
+danger security for happiness."\r
+\r
+"I must think your language too strong in speaking of both," replied\r
+Jane; "and I hope you will be convinced of it by seeing them happy\r
+together. But enough of this. You alluded to something else. You\r
+mentioned _two_ instances. I cannot misunderstand you, but I entreat\r
+you, dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking _that person_ to blame, and\r
+saying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so ready to fancy\r
+ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man\r
+to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but\r
+our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than\r
+it does."\r
+\r
+"And men take care that they should."\r
+\r
+"If it is designedly done, they cannot be justified; but I have no idea\r
+of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine."\r
+\r
+"I am far from attributing any part of Mr. Bingley's conduct to design,"\r
+said Elizabeth; "but without scheming to do wrong, or to make others\r
+unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness,\r
+want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution,\r
+will do the business."\r
+\r
+"And do you impute it to either of those?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; to the last. But if I go on, I shall displease you by saying what\r
+I think of persons you esteem. Stop me whilst you can."\r
+\r
+"You persist, then, in supposing his sisters influence him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, in conjunction with his friend."\r
+\r
+"I cannot believe it. Why should they try to influence him? They can\r
+only wish his happiness; and if he is attached to me, no other woman can\r
+secure it."\r
+\r
+"Your first position is false. They may wish many things besides his\r
+happiness; they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they\r
+may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great\r
+connections, and pride."\r
+\r
+"Beyond a doubt, they _do_ wish him to choose Miss Darcy," replied Jane;\r
+"but this may be from better feelings than you are supposing. They have\r
+known her much longer than they have known me; no wonder if they love\r
+her better. But, whatever may be their own wishes, it is very unlikely\r
+they should have opposed their brother's. What sister would think\r
+herself at liberty to do it, unless there were something very\r
+objectionable? If they believed him attached to me, they would not try\r
+to part us; if he were so, they could not succeed. By supposing such an\r
+affection, you make everybody acting unnaturally and wrong, and me most\r
+unhappy. Do not distress me by the idea. I am not ashamed of having been\r
+mistaken--or, at least, it is light, it is nothing in comparison of what\r
+I should feel in thinking ill of him or his sisters. Let me take it in\r
+the best light, in the light in which it may be understood."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could not oppose such a wish; and from this time Mr. Bingley's\r
+name was scarcely ever mentioned between them.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet still continued to wonder and repine at his returning no\r
+more, and though a day seldom passed in which Elizabeth did not account\r
+for it clearly, there was little chance of her ever considering it with\r
+less perplexity. Her daughter endeavoured to convince her of what she\r
+did not believe herself, that his attentions to Jane had been merely the\r
+effect of a common and transient liking, which ceased when he saw her\r
+no more; but though the probability of the statement was admitted at\r
+the time, she had the same story to repeat every day. Mrs. Bennet's best\r
+comfort was that Mr. Bingley must be down again in the summer.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet treated the matter differently. "So, Lizzy," said he one day,\r
+"your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to\r
+being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then.\r
+It is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction\r
+among her companions. When is your turn to come? You will hardly bear to\r
+be long outdone by Jane. Now is your time. Here are officers enough in\r
+Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. Let Wickham\r
+be _your_ man. He is a pleasant fellow, and would jilt you creditably."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, sir, but a less agreeable man would satisfy me. We must not\r
+all expect Jane's good fortune."\r
+\r
+"True," said Mr. Bennet, "but it is a comfort to think that whatever of\r
+that kind may befall you, you have an affectionate mother who will make\r
+the most of it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Wickham's society was of material service in dispelling the gloom\r
+which the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn\r
+family. They saw him often, and to his other recommendations was now\r
+added that of general unreserve. The whole of what Elizabeth had already\r
+heard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him,\r
+was now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed; and everybody was\r
+pleased to know how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they\r
+had known anything of the matter.\r
+\r
+Miss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be\r
+any extenuating circumstances in the case, unknown to the society\r
+of Hertfordshire; her mild and steady candour always pleaded for\r
+allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes--but by everybody else\r
+Mr. Darcy was condemned as the worst of men.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 25\r
+\r
+\r
+After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity,\r
+Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of\r
+Saturday. The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his\r
+side, by preparations for the reception of his bride; as he had reason\r
+to hope, that shortly after his return into Hertfordshire, the day would\r
+be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his\r
+relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair\r
+cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another\r
+letter of thanks.\r
+\r
+On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving\r
+her brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas\r
+at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly\r
+superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield\r
+ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived\r
+by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so\r
+well-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger\r
+than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant\r
+woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the\r
+two eldest and herself especially, there subsisted a particular regard.\r
+They had frequently been staying with her in town.\r
+\r
+The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival was to\r
+distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was\r
+done she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen.\r
+Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They\r
+had all been very ill-used since she last saw her sister. Two of her\r
+girls had been upon the point of marriage, and after all there was\r
+nothing in it.\r
+\r
+"I do not blame Jane," she continued, "for Jane would have got Mr.\r
+Bingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard to think\r
+that she might have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time, had it not\r
+been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room,\r
+and she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have\r
+a daughter married before I have, and that the Longbourn estate is just\r
+as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed,\r
+sister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of\r
+them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted\r
+so in my own family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves\r
+before anybody else. However, your coming just at this time is the\r
+greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us, of\r
+long sleeves."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before,\r
+in the course of Jane and Elizabeth's correspondence with her, made her\r
+sister a slight answer, and, in compassion to her nieces, turned the\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+When alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. "It\r
+seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane," said she. "I am\r
+sorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such\r
+as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl\r
+for a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets\r
+her, that these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent."\r
+\r
+"An excellent consolation in its way," said Elizabeth, "but it will not\r
+do for _us_. We do not suffer by _accident_. It does not often\r
+happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of\r
+independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in\r
+love with only a few days before."\r
+\r
+"But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so\r
+doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as\r
+often applied to feelings which arise from a half-hour's acquaintance,\r
+as to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how _violent was_ Mr. Bingley's\r
+love?"\r
+\r
+"I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite\r
+inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time\r
+they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he\r
+offended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to dance; and I\r
+spoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer. Could there be\r
+finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes!--of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor\r
+Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get\r
+over it immediately. It had better have happened to _you_, Lizzy; you\r
+would have laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she\r
+would be prevailed upon to go back with us? Change of scene might be\r
+of service--and perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as\r
+anything."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded\r
+of her sister's ready acquiescence.\r
+\r
+"I hope," added Mrs. Gardiner, "that no consideration with regard to\r
+this young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of\r
+town, all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go\r
+out so little, that it is very improbable that they should meet at all,\r
+unless he really comes to see her."\r
+\r
+"And _that_ is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his\r
+friend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in such\r
+a part of London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may\r
+perhaps have _heard_ of such a place as Gracechurch Street, but he\r
+would hardly think a month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its\r
+impurities, were he once to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley\r
+never stirs without him."\r
+\r
+"So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane\r
+correspond with his sister? _She_ will not be able to help calling."\r
+\r
+"She will drop the acquaintance entirely."\r
+\r
+But in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this\r
+point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being\r
+withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which\r
+convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely\r
+hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that\r
+his affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends\r
+successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane's\r
+attractions.\r
+\r
+Miss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with pleasure; and the\r
+Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time, than as she\r
+hoped by Caroline's not living in the same house with her brother,\r
+she might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of\r
+seeing him.\r
+\r
+The Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn; and what with the Phillipses,\r
+the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its\r
+engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment\r
+of her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family\r
+dinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always\r
+made part of it--of which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and\r
+on these occasions, Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's\r
+warm commendation, narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them,\r
+from what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference\r
+of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and\r
+she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left\r
+Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such\r
+an attachment.\r
+\r
+To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure,\r
+unconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago,\r
+before her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very\r
+part of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many\r
+acquaintances in common; and though Wickham had been little there since\r
+the death of Darcy's father, it was yet in his power to give her fresher\r
+intelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of\r
+procuring.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by\r
+character perfectly well. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject\r
+of discourse. In comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute\r
+description which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of\r
+praise on the character of its late possessor, she was delighting both\r
+him and herself. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy's\r
+treatment of him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman's\r
+reputed disposition when quite a lad which might agree with it, and\r
+was confident at last that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam\r
+Darcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, ill-natured boy.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 26\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner's caution to Elizabeth was punctually and kindly given\r
+on the first favourable opportunity of speaking to her alone; after\r
+honestly telling her what she thought, she thus went on:\r
+\r
+"You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because\r
+you are warned against it; and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking\r
+openly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve\r
+yourself or endeavour to involve him in an affection which the want\r
+of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against\r
+_him_; he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he\r
+ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is, you\r
+must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all\r
+expect you to use it. Your father would depend on _your_ resolution and\r
+good conduct, I am sure. You must not disappoint your father."\r
+\r
+"My dear aunt, this is being serious indeed."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and I hope to engage you to be serious likewise."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, you need not be under any alarm. I will take care of\r
+myself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I\r
+can prevent it."\r
+\r
+"Elizabeth, you are not serious now."\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, I will try again. At present I am not in love with\r
+Mr. Wickham; no, I certainly am not. But he is, beyond all comparison,\r
+the most agreeable man I ever saw--and if he becomes really attached to\r
+me--I believe it will be better that he should not. I see the imprudence\r
+of it. Oh! _that_ abominable Mr. Darcy! My father's opinion of me does\r
+me the greatest honour, and I should be miserable to forfeit it. My\r
+father, however, is partial to Mr. Wickham. In short, my dear aunt, I\r
+should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but\r
+since we see every day that where there is affection, young people\r
+are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune from entering into\r
+engagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many\r
+of my fellow-creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it\r
+would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not\r
+to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first\r
+object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short,\r
+I will do my best."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps it will be as well if you discourage his coming here so very\r
+often. At least, you should not _remind_ your mother of inviting him."\r
+\r
+"As I did the other day," said Elizabeth with a conscious smile: "very\r
+true, it will be wise in me to refrain from _that_. But do not imagine\r
+that he is always here so often. It is on your account that he has been\r
+so frequently invited this week. You know my mother's ideas as to the\r
+necessity of constant company for her friends. But really, and upon my\r
+honour, I will try to do what I think to be the wisest; and now I hope\r
+you are satisfied."\r
+\r
+Her aunt assured her that she was, and Elizabeth having thanked her for\r
+the kindness of her hints, they parted; a wonderful instance of advice\r
+being given on such a point, without being resented.\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins returned into Hertfordshire soon after it had been quitted\r
+by the Gardiners and Jane; but as he took up his abode with the Lucases,\r
+his arrival was no great inconvenience to Mrs. Bennet. His marriage was\r
+now fast approaching, and she was at length so far resigned as to think\r
+it inevitable, and even repeatedly to say, in an ill-natured tone, that\r
+she "_wished_ they might be happy." Thursday was to be the wedding day,\r
+and on Wednesday Miss Lucas paid her farewell visit; and when she\r
+rose to take leave, Elizabeth, ashamed of her mother's ungracious and\r
+reluctant good wishes, and sincerely affected herself, accompanied her\r
+out of the room. As they went downstairs together, Charlotte said:\r
+\r
+"I shall depend on hearing from you very often, Eliza."\r
+\r
+"_That_ you certainly shall."\r
+\r
+"And I have another favour to ask you. Will you come and see me?"\r
+\r
+"We shall often meet, I hope, in Hertfordshire."\r
+\r
+"I am not likely to leave Kent for some time. Promise me, therefore, to\r
+come to Hunsford."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could not refuse, though she foresaw little pleasure in the\r
+visit.\r
+\r
+"My father and Maria are coming to me in March," added Charlotte, "and I\r
+hope you will consent to be of the party. Indeed, Eliza, you will be as\r
+welcome as either of them."\r
+\r
+The wedding took place; the bride and bridegroom set off for Kent from\r
+the church door, and everybody had as much to say, or to hear, on\r
+the subject as usual. Elizabeth soon heard from her friend; and their\r
+correspondence was as regular and frequent as it had ever been; that\r
+it should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never\r
+address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over,\r
+and though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the\r
+sake of what had been, rather than what was. Charlotte's first letters\r
+were received with a good deal of eagerness; there could not but be\r
+curiosity to know how she would speak of her new home, how she would\r
+like Lady Catherine, and how happy she would dare pronounce herself to\r
+be; though, when the letters were read, Elizabeth felt that Charlotte\r
+expressed herself on every point exactly as she might have foreseen. She\r
+wrote cheerfully, seemed surrounded with comforts, and mentioned nothing\r
+which she could not praise. The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and\r
+roads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine's behaviour was most\r
+friendly and obliging. It was Mr. Collins's picture of Hunsford and\r
+Rosings rationally softened; and Elizabeth perceived that she must wait\r
+for her own visit there to know the rest.\r
+\r
+Jane had already written a few lines to her sister to announce their\r
+safe arrival in London; and when she wrote again, Elizabeth hoped it\r
+would be in her power to say something of the Bingleys.\r
+\r
+Her impatience for this second letter was as well rewarded as impatience\r
+generally is. Jane had been a week in town without either seeing or\r
+hearing from Caroline. She accounted for it, however, by supposing that\r
+her last letter to her friend from Longbourn had by some accident been\r
+lost.\r
+\r
+"My aunt," she continued, "is going to-morrow into that part of the\r
+town, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor Street."\r
+\r
+She wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss Bingley.\r
+"I did not think Caroline in spirits," were her words, "but she was very\r
+glad to see me, and reproached me for giving her no notice of my coming\r
+to London. I was right, therefore, my last letter had never reached\r
+her. I inquired after their brother, of course. He was well, but so much\r
+engaged with Mr. Darcy that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that\r
+Miss Darcy was expected to dinner. I wish I could see her. My visit was\r
+not long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say I shall\r
+see them soon here."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth shook her head over this letter. It convinced her that\r
+accident only could discover to Mr. Bingley her sister's being in town.\r
+\r
+Four weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him. She endeavoured to\r
+persuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be\r
+blind to Miss Bingley's inattention. After waiting at home every morning\r
+for a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the\r
+visitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay, and yet more,\r
+the alteration of her manner would allow Jane to deceive herself no\r
+longer. The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will\r
+prove what she felt.\r
+\r
+"My dearest Lizzy will, I am sure, be incapable of triumphing in her\r
+better judgement, at my expense, when I confess myself to have been\r
+entirely deceived in Miss Bingley's regard for me. But, my dear sister,\r
+though the event has proved you right, do not think me obstinate if I\r
+still assert that, considering what her behaviour was, my confidence was\r
+as natural as your suspicion. I do not at all comprehend her reason for\r
+wishing to be intimate with me; but if the same circumstances were to\r
+happen again, I am sure I should be deceived again. Caroline did not\r
+return my visit till yesterday; and not a note, not a line, did I\r
+receive in the meantime. When she did come, it was very evident that\r
+she had no pleasure in it; she made a slight, formal apology, for not\r
+calling before, said not a word of wishing to see me again, and was\r
+in every respect so altered a creature, that when she went away I was\r
+perfectly resolved to continue the acquaintance no longer. I pity,\r
+though I cannot help blaming her. She was very wrong in singling me out\r
+as she did; I can safely say that every advance to intimacy began on\r
+her side. But I pity her, because she must feel that she has been acting\r
+wrong, and because I am very sure that anxiety for her brother is the\r
+cause of it. I need not explain myself farther; and though _we_ know\r
+this anxiety to be quite needless, yet if she feels it, it will easily\r
+account for her behaviour to me; and so deservedly dear as he is to\r
+his sister, whatever anxiety she must feel on his behalf is natural and\r
+amiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such fears now,\r
+because, if he had at all cared about me, we must have met, long ago.\r
+He knows of my being in town, I am certain, from something she said\r
+herself; and yet it would seem, by her manner of talking, as if she\r
+wanted to persuade herself that he is really partial to Miss Darcy. I\r
+cannot understand it. If I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should\r
+be almost tempted to say that there is a strong appearance of duplicity\r
+in all this. But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought,\r
+and think only of what will make me happy--your affection, and the\r
+invariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt. Let me hear from you very\r
+soon. Miss Bingley said something of his never returning to Netherfield\r
+again, of giving up the house, but not with any certainty. We had better\r
+not mention it. I am extremely glad that you have such pleasant accounts\r
+from our friends at Hunsford. Pray go to see them, with Sir William and\r
+Maria. I am sure you will be very comfortable there.--Yours, etc."\r
+\r
+This letter gave Elizabeth some pain; but her spirits returned as she\r
+considered that Jane would no longer be duped, by the sister at least.\r
+All expectation from the brother was now absolutely over. She would not\r
+even wish for a renewal of his attentions. His character sunk on\r
+every review of it; and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible\r
+advantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr.\r
+Darcy's sister, as by Wickham's account, she would make him abundantly\r
+regret what he had thrown away.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner about this time reminded Elizabeth of her promise\r
+concerning that gentleman, and required information; and Elizabeth\r
+had such to send as might rather give contentment to her aunt than to\r
+herself. His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over,\r
+he was the admirer of some one else. Elizabeth was watchful enough to\r
+see it all, but she could see it and write of it without material pain.\r
+Her heart had been but slightly touched, and her vanity was satisfied\r
+with believing that _she_ would have been his only choice, had fortune\r
+permitted it. The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most\r
+remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself\r
+agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than\r
+in Charlotte's, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence.\r
+Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural; and while able to\r
+suppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was\r
+ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very\r
+sincerely wish him happy.\r
+\r
+All this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner; and after relating the\r
+circumstances, she thus went on: "I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that\r
+I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure\r
+and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and\r
+wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial\r
+towards _him_; they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find\r
+out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to\r
+think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this. My\r
+watchfulness has been effectual; and though I certainly should be a more\r
+interesting object to all my acquaintances were I distractedly in love\r
+with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance.\r
+Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take\r
+his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the\r
+ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that\r
+handsome young men must have something to live on as well as the plain."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 27\r
+\r
+\r
+With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise\r
+diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and\r
+sometimes cold, did January and February pass away. March was to take\r
+Elizabeth to Hunsford. She had not at first thought very seriously of\r
+going thither; but Charlotte, she soon found, was depending on the plan\r
+and she gradually learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure\r
+as well as greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing\r
+Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There\r
+was novelty in the scheme, and as, with such a mother and such\r
+uncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change\r
+was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would moreover give her\r
+a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have\r
+been very sorry for any delay. Everything, however, went on smoothly,\r
+and was finally settled according to Charlotte's first sketch. She was\r
+to accompany Sir William and his second daughter. The improvement\r
+of spending a night in London was added in time, and the plan became\r
+perfect as plan could be.\r
+\r
+The only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly miss her,\r
+and who, when it came to the point, so little liked her going, that he\r
+told her to write to him, and almost promised to answer her letter.\r
+\r
+The farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly friendly; on\r
+his side even more. His present pursuit could not make him forget that\r
+Elizabeth had been the first to excite and to deserve his attention, the\r
+first to listen and to pity, the first to be admired; and in his manner\r
+of bidding her adieu, wishing her every enjoyment, reminding her of\r
+what she was to expect in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their\r
+opinion of her--their opinion of everybody--would always coincide, there\r
+was a solicitude, an interest which she felt must ever attach her to\r
+him with a most sincere regard; and she parted from him convinced that,\r
+whether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable\r
+and pleasing.\r
+\r
+Her fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind to make her\r
+think him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a\r
+good-humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself, had nothing to say\r
+that could be worth hearing, and were listened to with about as much\r
+delight as the rattle of the chaise. Elizabeth loved absurdities, but\r
+she had known Sir William's too long. He could tell her nothing new of\r
+the wonders of his presentation and knighthood; and his civilities were\r
+worn out, like his information.\r
+\r
+It was a journey of only twenty-four miles, and they began it so early\r
+as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's\r
+door, Jane was at a drawing-room window watching their arrival; when\r
+they entered the passage she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth,\r
+looking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and\r
+lovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls,\r
+whose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to\r
+wait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen\r
+her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and\r
+kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and\r
+shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first object was her\r
+sister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to\r
+her minute inquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her\r
+spirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however,\r
+to hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the\r
+particulars also of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch Street, and\r
+repeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and\r
+herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the\r
+acquaintance.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, and\r
+complimented her on bearing it so well.\r
+\r
+"But my dear Elizabeth," she added, "what sort of girl is Miss King? I\r
+should be sorry to think our friend mercenary."\r
+\r
+"Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs,\r
+between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end,\r
+and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me,\r
+because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get\r
+a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is\r
+mercenary."\r
+\r
+"If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know\r
+what to think."\r
+\r
+"She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her."\r
+\r
+"But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather's death\r
+made her mistress of this fortune."\r
+\r
+"No--why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain _my_\r
+affections because I had no money, what occasion could there be for\r
+making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally\r
+poor?"\r
+\r
+"But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her\r
+so soon after this event."\r
+\r
+"A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant\r
+decorums which other people may observe. If _she_ does not object to it,\r
+why should _we_?"\r
+\r
+"_Her_ not objecting does not justify _him_. It only shows her being\r
+deficient in something herself--sense or feeling."\r
+\r
+"Well," cried Elizabeth, "have it as you choose. _He_ shall be\r
+mercenary, and _she_ shall be foolish."\r
+\r
+"No, Lizzy, that is what I do _not_ choose. I should be sorry, you know,\r
+to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire."\r
+\r
+"Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in\r
+Derbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not\r
+much better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow\r
+where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has\r
+neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones\r
+worth knowing, after all."\r
+\r
+"Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment."\r
+\r
+Before they were separated by the conclusion of the play, she had the\r
+unexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in\r
+a tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in the summer.\r
+\r
+"We have not determined how far it shall carry us," said Mrs. Gardiner,\r
+"but, perhaps, to the Lakes."\r
+\r
+No scheme could have been more agreeable to Elizabeth, and her\r
+acceptance of the invitation was most ready and grateful. "Oh, my dear,\r
+dear aunt," she rapturously cried, "what delight! what felicity! You\r
+give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What\r
+are young men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport\r
+we shall spend! And when we _do_ return, it shall not be like other\r
+travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We\r
+_will_ know where we have gone--we _will_ recollect what we have seen.\r
+Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our\r
+imaginations; nor when we attempt to describe any particular scene,\r
+will we begin quarreling about its relative situation. Let _our_\r
+first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of\r
+travellers."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 28\r
+\r
+\r
+Every object in the next day's journey was new and interesting to\r
+Elizabeth; and her spirits were in a state of enjoyment; for she had\r
+seen her sister looking so well as to banish all fear for her health,\r
+and the prospect of her northern tour was a constant source of delight.\r
+\r
+When they left the high road for the lane to Hunsford, every eye was in\r
+search of the Parsonage, and every turning expected to bring it in view.\r
+The palings of Rosings Park was their boundary on one side. Elizabeth\r
+smiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants.\r
+\r
+At length the Parsonage was discernible. The garden sloping to the\r
+road, the house standing in it, the green pales, and the laurel hedge,\r
+everything declared they were arriving. Mr. Collins and Charlotte\r
+appeared at the door, and the carriage stopped at the small gate which\r
+led by a short gravel walk to the house, amidst the nods and smiles of\r
+the whole party. In a moment they were all out of the chaise, rejoicing\r
+at the sight of each other. Mrs. Collins welcomed her friend with the\r
+liveliest pleasure, and Elizabeth was more and more satisfied with\r
+coming when she found herself so affectionately received. She saw\r
+instantly that her cousin's manners were not altered by his marriage;\r
+his formal civility was just what it had been, and he detained her some\r
+minutes at the gate to hear and satisfy his inquiries after all her\r
+family. They were then, with no other delay than his pointing out the\r
+neatness of the entrance, taken into the house; and as soon as they\r
+were in the parlour, he welcomed them a second time, with ostentatious\r
+formality to his humble abode, and punctually repeated all his wife's\r
+offers of refreshment.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was prepared to see him in his glory; and she could not help\r
+in fancying that in displaying the good proportion of the room, its\r
+aspect and its furniture, he addressed himself particularly to her,\r
+as if wishing to make her feel what she had lost in refusing him. But\r
+though everything seemed neat and comfortable, she was not able to\r
+gratify him by any sigh of repentance, and rather looked with wonder at\r
+her friend that she could have so cheerful an air with such a companion.\r
+When Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be\r
+ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her\r
+eye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush; but\r
+in general Charlotte wisely did not hear. After sitting long enough to\r
+admire every article of furniture in the room, from the sideboard to\r
+the fender, to give an account of their journey, and of all that had\r
+happened in London, Mr. Collins invited them to take a stroll in the\r
+garden, which was large and well laid out, and to the cultivation of\r
+which he attended himself. To work in this garden was one of his most\r
+respectable pleasures; and Elizabeth admired the command of countenance\r
+with which Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and\r
+owned she encouraged it as much as possible. Here, leading the way\r
+through every walk and cross walk, and scarcely allowing them an\r
+interval to utter the praises he asked for, every view was pointed out\r
+with a minuteness which left beauty entirely behind. He could number the\r
+fields in every direction, and could tell how many trees there were in\r
+the most distant clump. But of all the views which his garden, or which\r
+the country or kingdom could boast, none were to be compared with the\r
+prospect of Rosings, afforded by an opening in the trees that bordered\r
+the park nearly opposite the front of his house. It was a handsome\r
+modern building, well situated on rising ground.\r
+\r
+From his garden, Mr. Collins would have led them round his two meadows;\r
+but the ladies, not having shoes to encounter the remains of a white\r
+frost, turned back; and while Sir William accompanied him, Charlotte\r
+took her sister and friend over the house, extremely well pleased,\r
+probably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband's\r
+help. It was rather small, but well built and convenient; and everything\r
+was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency of which\r
+Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit. When Mr. Collins could be\r
+forgotten, there was really an air of great comfort throughout, and by\r
+Charlotte's evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often\r
+forgotten.\r
+\r
+She had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country. It\r
+was spoken of again while they were at dinner, when Mr. Collins joining\r
+in, observed:\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine\r
+de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will\r
+be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I\r
+doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice\r
+when service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying she\r
+will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she\r
+honours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is\r
+charming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed\r
+to walk home. Her ladyship's carriage is regularly ordered for us. I\r
+_should_ say, one of her ladyship's carriages, for she has several."\r
+\r
+"Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman indeed," added\r
+Charlotte, "and a most attentive neighbour."\r
+\r
+"Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of\r
+woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference."\r
+\r
+The evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news,\r
+and telling again what had already been written; and when it closed,\r
+Elizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon\r
+Charlotte's degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding,\r
+and composure in bearing with, her husband, and to acknowledge that it\r
+was all done very well. She had also to anticipate how her visit\r
+would pass, the quiet tenor of their usual employments, the vexatious\r
+interruptions of Mr. Collins, and the gaieties of their intercourse with\r
+Rosings. A lively imagination soon settled it all.\r
+\r
+About the middle of the next day, as she was in her room getting ready\r
+for a walk, a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in\r
+confusion; and, after listening a moment, she heard somebody running\r
+up stairs in a violent hurry, and calling loudly after her. She opened\r
+the door and met Maria in the landing place, who, breathless with\r
+agitation, cried out--\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear Eliza! pray make haste and come into the dining-room, for\r
+there is such a sight to be seen! I will not tell you what it is. Make\r
+haste, and come down this moment."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth asked questions in vain; Maria would tell her nothing more,\r
+and down they ran into the dining-room, which fronted the lane, in\r
+quest of this wonder; It was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the\r
+garden gate.\r
+\r
+"And is this all?" cried Elizabeth. "I expected at least that the pigs\r
+were got into the garden, and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her\r
+daughter."\r
+\r
+"La! my dear," said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake, "it is not\r
+Lady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs. Jenkinson, who lives with them;\r
+the other is Miss de Bourgh. Only look at her. She is quite a little\r
+creature. Who would have thought that she could be so thin and small?"\r
+\r
+"She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind.\r
+Why does she not come in?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does. It is the greatest of favours\r
+when Miss de Bourgh comes in."\r
+\r
+"I like her appearance," said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas. "She\r
+looks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will\r
+make him a very proper wife."\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation\r
+with the ladies; and Sir William, to Elizabeth's high diversion, was\r
+stationed in the doorway, in earnest contemplation of the greatness\r
+before him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss de Bourgh looked that\r
+way.\r
+\r
+At length there was nothing more to be said; the ladies drove on, and\r
+the others returned into the house. Mr. Collins no sooner saw the two\r
+girls than he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which\r
+Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked\r
+to dine at Rosings the next day.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 29\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins's triumph, in consequence of this invitation, was complete.\r
+The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering\r
+visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his\r
+wife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity\r
+of doing it should be given so soon, was such an instance of Lady\r
+Catherine's condescension, as he knew not how to admire enough.\r
+\r
+"I confess," said he, "that I should not have been at all surprised by\r
+her ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at\r
+Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it\r
+would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who\r
+could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there\r
+(an invitation, moreover, including the whole party) so immediately\r
+after your arrival!"\r
+\r
+"I am the less surprised at what has happened," replied Sir William,\r
+"from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which\r
+my situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such\r
+instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon."\r
+\r
+Scarcely anything was talked of the whole day or next morning but their\r
+visit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what\r
+they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and\r
+so splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them.\r
+\r
+When the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth--\r
+\r
+"Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady\r
+Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which\r
+becomes herself and her daughter. I would advise you merely to put on\r
+whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest--there is no occasion\r
+for anything more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you\r
+for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank\r
+preserved."\r
+\r
+While they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different\r
+doors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much\r
+objected to be kept waiting for her dinner. Such formidable accounts of\r
+her ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas\r
+who had been little used to company, and she looked forward to her\r
+introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done\r
+to his presentation at St. James's.\r
+\r
+As the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a\r
+mile across the park. Every park has its beauty and its prospects; and\r
+Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such\r
+raptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but\r
+slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the\r
+house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally\r
+cost Sir Lewis de Bourgh.\r
+\r
+When they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria's alarm was every\r
+moment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm.\r
+Elizabeth's courage did not fail her. She had heard nothing of Lady\r
+Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or\r
+miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money or rank she thought\r
+she could witness without trepidation.\r
+\r
+From the entrance-hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a\r
+rapturous air, the fine proportion and the finished ornaments, they\r
+followed the servants through an ante-chamber, to the room where Lady\r
+Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her ladyship,\r
+with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had\r
+settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should\r
+be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those\r
+apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary.\r
+\r
+In spite of having been at St. James's, Sir William was so completely\r
+awed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage\r
+enough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word;\r
+and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge\r
+of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself\r
+quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her\r
+composedly. Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked\r
+features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not\r
+conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her\r
+visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by\r
+silence; but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone,\r
+as marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to\r
+Elizabeth's mind; and from the observation of the day altogether, she\r
+believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he represented.\r
+\r
+When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment\r
+she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the\r
+daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria's astonishment at her\r
+being so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any\r
+likeness between the ladies. Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly; her\r
+features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very\r
+little, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance\r
+there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening\r
+to what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before\r
+her eyes.\r
+\r
+After sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows to\r
+admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties,\r
+and Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth\r
+looking at in the summer.\r
+\r
+The dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants and\r
+all the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised; and, as he had\r
+likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her\r
+ladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish\r
+nothing greater. He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted\r
+alacrity; and every dish was commended, first by him and then by Sir\r
+William, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his son-in-law\r
+said, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear.\r
+But Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and\r
+gave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved\r
+a novelty to them. The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth\r
+was ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated\r
+between Charlotte and Miss de Bourgh--the former of whom was engaged in\r
+listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all\r
+dinner-time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little\r
+Miss de Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing\r
+she was indisposed. Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the\r
+gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire.\r
+\r
+When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, there was little to\r
+be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any\r
+intermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every\r
+subject in so decisive a manner, as proved that she was not used to\r
+have her judgement controverted. She inquired into Charlotte's domestic\r
+concerns familiarly and minutely, gave her a great deal of advice as\r
+to the management of them all; told her how everything ought to be\r
+regulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed her as to the\r
+care of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was\r
+beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an\r
+occasion of dictating to others. In the intervals of her discourse\r
+with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and\r
+Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew\r
+the least, and who she observed to Mrs. Collins was a very genteel,\r
+pretty kind of girl. She asked her, at different times, how many sisters\r
+she had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of\r
+them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they\r
+had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been\r
+her mother's maiden name? Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of\r
+her questions but answered them very composedly. Lady Catherine then\r
+observed,\r
+\r
+"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your\r
+sake," turning to Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no\r
+occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought\r
+necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss\r
+Bennet?"\r
+\r
+"A little."\r
+\r
+"Oh! then--some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our\r
+instrument is a capital one, probably superior to----You shall try it\r
+some day. Do your sisters play and sing?"\r
+\r
+"One of them does."\r
+\r
+"Why did not you all learn? You ought all to have learned. The Miss\r
+Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. Do\r
+you draw?"\r
+\r
+"No, not at all."\r
+\r
+"What, none of you?"\r
+\r
+"Not one."\r
+\r
+"That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother\r
+should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters."\r
+\r
+"My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London."\r
+\r
+"Has your governess left you?"\r
+\r
+"We never had any governess."\r
+\r
+"No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home\r
+without a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must\r
+have been quite a slave to your education."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been\r
+the case.\r
+\r
+"Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess, you\r
+must have been neglected."\r
+\r
+"Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as\r
+wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to\r
+read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be\r
+idle, certainly might."\r
+\r
+"Aye, no doubt; but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had\r
+known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage\r
+one. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady\r
+and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is\r
+wonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that\r
+way. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces\r
+of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and\r
+it was but the other day that I recommended another young person,\r
+who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite\r
+delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalf's\r
+calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. 'Lady\r
+Catherine,' said she, 'you have given me a treasure.' Are any of your\r
+younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, all."\r
+\r
+"All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The\r
+younger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters\r
+must be very young?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps _she_ is full young to be\r
+much in company. But really, ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon\r
+younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and\r
+amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to\r
+marry early. The last-born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth\r
+as the first. And to be kept back on _such_ a motive! I think it would\r
+not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word," said her ladyship, "you give your opinion very decidedly\r
+for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?"\r
+\r
+"With three younger sisters grown up," replied Elizabeth, smiling, "your\r
+ladyship can hardly expect me to own it."\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer;\r
+and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever\r
+dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.\r
+\r
+"You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, therefore you need not\r
+conceal your age."\r
+\r
+"I am not one-and-twenty."\r
+\r
+When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card-tables\r
+were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat\r
+down to quadrille; and as Miss de Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the\r
+two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her\r
+party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was\r
+uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson\r
+expressed her fears of Miss de Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or\r
+having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the\r
+other table. Lady Catherine was generally speaking--stating the mistakes\r
+of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins\r
+was employed in agreeing to everything her ladyship said, thanking her\r
+for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many.\r
+Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes\r
+and noble names.\r
+\r
+When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose,\r
+the tables were broken up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins,\r
+gratefully accepted and immediately ordered. The party then gathered\r
+round the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were\r
+to have on the morrow. From these instructions they were summoned by\r
+the arrival of the coach; and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr.\r
+Collins's side and as many bows on Sir William's they departed. As soon\r
+as they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin\r
+to give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for\r
+Charlotte's sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her\r
+commendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy\r
+Mr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her ladyship's praise\r
+into his own hands.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 30\r
+\r
+\r
+Sir William stayed only a week at Hunsford, but his visit was long\r
+enough to convince him of his daughter's being most comfortably settled,\r
+and of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not\r
+often met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his\r
+morning to driving him out in his gig, and showing him the country; but\r
+when he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments,\r
+and Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her\r
+cousin by the alteration, for the chief of the time between breakfast\r
+and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden or in\r
+reading and writing, and looking out of the window in his own book-room,\r
+which fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards.\r
+Elizabeth had at first rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer\r
+the dining-parlour for common use; it was a better sized room, and had a\r
+more pleasant aspect; but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent\r
+reason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been\r
+much less in his own apartment, had they sat in one equally lively; and\r
+she gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement.\r
+\r
+From the drawing-room they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and\r
+were indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went\r
+along, and how often especially Miss de Bourgh drove by in her phaeton,\r
+which he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened\r
+almost every day. She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and\r
+had a few minutes' conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever\r
+prevailed upon to get out.\r
+\r
+Very few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and\r
+not many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise;\r
+and till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings\r
+to be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many\r
+hours. Now and then they were honoured with a call from her ladyship,\r
+and nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during\r
+these visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work,\r
+and advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement\r
+of the furniture; or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she\r
+accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding\r
+out that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in\r
+commission of the peace of the county, she was a most active magistrate\r
+in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her\r
+by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to\r
+be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the\r
+village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold\r
+them into harmony and plenty.\r
+\r
+The entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week;\r
+and, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one\r
+card-table in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart\r
+of the first. Their other engagements were few, as the style of living\r
+in the neighbourhood in general was beyond Mr. Collins's reach. This,\r
+however, was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time\r
+comfortably enough; there were half-hours of pleasant conversation with\r
+Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year that she had\r
+often great enjoyment out of doors. Her favourite walk, and where she\r
+frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was\r
+along the open grove which edged that side of the park, where there was\r
+a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and\r
+where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine's curiosity.\r
+\r
+In this quiet way, the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away.\r
+Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an\r
+addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be\r
+important. Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival that Mr. Darcy was\r
+expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not\r
+many of her acquaintances whom she did not prefer, his coming would\r
+furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and\r
+she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley's designs on him\r
+were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently\r
+destined by Lady Catherine, who talked of his coming with the greatest\r
+satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and\r
+seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by\r
+Miss Lucas and herself.\r
+\r
+His arrival was soon known at the Parsonage; for Mr. Collins was walking\r
+the whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane,\r
+in order to have the earliest assurance of it, and after making his\r
+bow as the carriage turned into the Park, hurried home with the great\r
+intelligence. On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his\r
+respects. There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for\r
+Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of\r
+his uncle Lord ----, and, to the great surprise of all the party, when\r
+Mr. Collins returned, the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen\r
+them from her husband's room, crossing the road, and immediately running\r
+into the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding:\r
+\r
+"I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would\r
+never have come so soon to wait upon me."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment,\r
+before their approach was announced by the door-bell, and shortly\r
+afterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam,\r
+who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and\r
+address most truly the gentleman. Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been\r
+used to look in Hertfordshire--paid his compliments, with his usual\r
+reserve, to Mrs. Collins, and whatever might be his feelings toward her\r
+friend, met her with every appearance of composure. Elizabeth merely\r
+curtseyed to him without saying a word.\r
+\r
+Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly with the\r
+readiness and ease of a well-bred man, and talked very pleasantly; but\r
+his cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and\r
+garden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to anybody.\r
+At length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to inquire of\r
+Elizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual\r
+way, and after a moment's pause, added:\r
+\r
+"My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never\r
+happened to see her there?"\r
+\r
+She was perfectly sensible that he never had; but she wished to see\r
+whether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between\r
+the Bingleys and Jane, and she thought he looked a little confused as he\r
+answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The\r
+subject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went\r
+away.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 31\r
+\r
+\r
+Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners were very much admired at the Parsonage,\r
+and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasures\r
+of their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they\r
+received any invitation thither--for while there were visitors in the\r
+house, they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day,\r
+almost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by\r
+such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to\r
+come there in the evening. For the last week they had seen very little\r
+of Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the\r
+Parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had seen\r
+only at church.\r
+\r
+The invitation was accepted of course, and at a proper hour they joined\r
+the party in Lady Catherine's drawing-room. Her ladyship received\r
+them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so\r
+acceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact,\r
+almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy,\r
+much more than to any other person in the room.\r
+\r
+Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them; anything was a\r
+welcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins's pretty friend had\r
+moreover caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and\r
+talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying\r
+at home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so\r
+well entertained in that room before; and they conversed with so much\r
+spirit and flow, as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself,\r
+as well as of Mr. Darcy. _His_ eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned\r
+towards them with a look of curiosity; and that her ladyship, after a\r
+while, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not\r
+scruple to call out:\r
+\r
+"What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking\r
+of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is."\r
+\r
+"We are speaking of music, madam," said he, when no longer able to avoid\r
+a reply.\r
+\r
+"Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I\r
+must have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music.\r
+There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment\r
+of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt,\r
+I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health\r
+had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed\r
+delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to hear such a good account of her," said Lady\r
+Catherine; "and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel\r
+if she does not practice a good deal."\r
+\r
+"I assure you, madam," he replied, "that she does not need such advice.\r
+She practises very constantly."\r
+\r
+"So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write\r
+to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often\r
+tell young ladies that no excellence in music is to be acquired without\r
+constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she\r
+will never play really well unless she practises more; and though Mrs.\r
+Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told\r
+her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the pianoforte in Mrs.\r
+Jenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part\r
+of the house."\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt's ill-breeding, and made\r
+no answer.\r
+\r
+When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having\r
+promised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He\r
+drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then\r
+talked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away\r
+from her, and making with his usual deliberation towards the pianoforte\r
+stationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer's\r
+countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first\r
+convenient pause, turned to him with an arch smile, and said:\r
+\r
+"You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear\r
+me? I will not be alarmed though your sister _does_ play so well. There\r
+is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the\r
+will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"I shall not say you are mistaken," he replied, "because you could not\r
+really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have\r
+had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find\r
+great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are\r
+not your own."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to\r
+Colonel Fitzwilliam, "Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of\r
+me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky\r
+in meeting with a person so able to expose my real character, in a part\r
+of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of\r
+credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all\r
+that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire--and, give me leave to\r
+say, very impolitic too--for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such\r
+things may come out as will shock your relations to hear."\r
+\r
+"I am not afraid of you," said he, smilingly.\r
+\r
+"Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of," cried Colonel\r
+Fitzwilliam. "I should like to know how he behaves among strangers."\r
+\r
+"You shall hear then--but prepare yourself for something very dreadful.\r
+The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know,\r
+was at a ball--and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced\r
+only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain\r
+knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a\r
+partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact."\r
+\r
+"I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly\r
+beyond my own party."\r
+\r
+"True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball-room. Well, Colonel\r
+Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Darcy, "I should have judged better, had I sought an\r
+introduction; but I am ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers."\r
+\r
+"Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?" said Elizabeth, still\r
+addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. "Shall we ask him why a man of sense and\r
+education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend\r
+himself to strangers?"\r
+\r
+"I can answer your question," said Fitzwilliam, "without applying to\r
+him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble."\r
+\r
+"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy,\r
+"of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot\r
+catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their\r
+concerns, as I often see done."\r
+\r
+"My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the\r
+masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same\r
+force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I\r
+have always supposed it to be my own fault--because I will not take the\r
+trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe _my_ fingers as\r
+capable as any other woman's of superior execution."\r
+\r
+Darcy smiled and said, "You are perfectly right. You have employed your\r
+time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can\r
+think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers."\r
+\r
+Here they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know\r
+what they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again.\r
+Lady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said\r
+to Darcy:\r
+\r
+"Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss if she practised more, and\r
+could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion\r
+of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have\r
+been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his\r
+cousin's praise; but neither at that moment nor at any other could she\r
+discern any symptom of love; and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss\r
+de Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have\r
+been just as likely to marry _her_, had she been his relation.\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth's performance, mixing\r
+with them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received\r
+them with all the forbearance of civility, and, at the request of the\r
+gentlemen, remained at the instrument till her ladyship's carriage was\r
+ready to take them all home.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 32\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane\r
+while Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village,\r
+when she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a\r
+visitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to\r
+be Lady Catherine, and under that apprehension was putting away her\r
+half-finished letter that she might escape all impertinent questions,\r
+when the door opened, and, to her very great surprise, Mr. Darcy, and\r
+Mr. Darcy only, entered the room.\r
+\r
+He seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his\r
+intrusion by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies were\r
+to be within.\r
+\r
+They then sat down, and when her inquiries after Rosings were made,\r
+seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely\r
+necessary, therefore, to think of something, and in this emergence\r
+recollecting _when_ she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and\r
+feeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty\r
+departure, she observed:\r
+\r
+"How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy!\r
+It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you\r
+all after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day\r
+before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London?"\r
+\r
+"Perfectly so, I thank you."\r
+\r
+She found that she was to receive no other answer, and, after a short\r
+pause added:\r
+\r
+"I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever\r
+returning to Netherfield again?"\r
+\r
+"I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend\r
+very little of his time there in the future. He has many friends, and\r
+is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually\r
+increasing."\r
+\r
+"If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for\r
+the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we\r
+might possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did\r
+not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood as\r
+for his own, and we must expect him to keep it or quit it on the same\r
+principle."\r
+\r
+"I should not be surprised," said Darcy, "if he were to give it up as\r
+soon as any eligible purchase offers."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his\r
+friend; and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the\r
+trouble of finding a subject to him.\r
+\r
+He took the hint, and soon began with, "This seems a very comfortable\r
+house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr.\r
+Collins first came to Hunsford."\r
+\r
+"I believe she did--and I am sure she could not have bestowed her\r
+kindness on a more grateful object."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one\r
+of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made\r
+him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding--though\r
+I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the\r
+wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a\r
+prudential light it is certainly a very good match for her."\r
+\r
+"It must be very agreeable for her to be settled within so easy a\r
+distance of her own family and friends."\r
+\r
+"An easy distance, do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles."\r
+\r
+"And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's\r
+journey. Yes, I call it a _very_ easy distance."\r
+\r
+"I should never have considered the distance as one of the _advantages_\r
+of the match," cried Elizabeth. "I should never have said Mrs. Collins\r
+was settled _near_ her family."\r
+\r
+"It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond\r
+the very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far."\r
+\r
+As he spoke there was a sort of smile which Elizabeth fancied she\r
+understood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and\r
+Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered:\r
+\r
+"I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her\r
+family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many\r
+varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expenses of\r
+travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the\r
+case _here_. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not\r
+such a one as will allow of frequent journeys--and I am persuaded my\r
+friend would not call herself _near_ her family under less than _half_\r
+the present distance."\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, "_You_ cannot\r
+have a right to such very strong local attachment. _You_ cannot have\r
+been always at Longbourn."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of\r
+feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and\r
+glancing over it, said, in a colder voice:\r
+\r
+"Are you pleased with Kent?"\r
+\r
+A short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side\r
+calm and concise--and soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte\r
+and her sister, just returned from her walk. The tete-a-tete surprised\r
+them. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding\r
+on Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying\r
+much to anybody, went away.\r
+\r
+"What can be the meaning of this?" said Charlotte, as soon as he was\r
+gone. "My dear, Eliza, he must be in love with you, or he would never\r
+have called us in this familiar way."\r
+\r
+But when Elizabeth told of his silence, it did not seem very likely,\r
+even to Charlotte's wishes, to be the case; and after various\r
+conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from\r
+the difficulty of finding anything to do, which was the more probable\r
+from the time of year. All field sports were over. Within doors there\r
+was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard-table, but gentlemen cannot\r
+always be within doors; and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the\r
+pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the\r
+two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither\r
+almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes\r
+separately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their\r
+aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he\r
+had pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended\r
+him still more; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in\r
+being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her\r
+former favourite George Wickham; and though, in comparing them, she saw\r
+there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners,\r
+she believed he might have the best informed mind.\r
+\r
+But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult\r
+to understand. It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there\r
+ten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did speak,\r
+it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice--a sacrifice\r
+to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really\r
+animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel\r
+Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was\r
+generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told\r
+her; and as she would liked to have believed this change the effect\r
+of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself\r
+seriously to work to find it out. She watched him whenever they were at\r
+Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He\r
+certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that\r
+look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often\r
+doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it\r
+seemed nothing but absence of mind.\r
+\r
+She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his\r
+being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs.\r
+Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of\r
+raising expectations which might only end in disappointment; for in her\r
+opinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend's dislike would\r
+vanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power.\r
+\r
+\r
+In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying\r
+Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the most pleasant man; he\r
+certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; but,\r
+to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage\r
+in the church, and his cousin could have none at all.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 33\r
+\r
+\r
+More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park,\r
+unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the\r
+mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to\r
+prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that\r
+it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time,\r
+therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like\r
+wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was\r
+not merely a few formal inquiries and an awkward pause and then away,\r
+but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He\r
+never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking\r
+or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third\r
+rencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions--about\r
+her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her\r
+opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of\r
+Rosings and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to\r
+expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying\r
+_there_ too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel\r
+Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant anything, he must\r
+mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed\r
+her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the\r
+pales opposite the Parsonage.\r
+\r
+She was engaged one day as she walked, in perusing Jane's last letter,\r
+and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in\r
+spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw\r
+on looking up that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the\r
+letter immediately and forcing a smile, she said:\r
+\r
+"I did not know before that you ever walked this way."\r
+\r
+"I have been making the tour of the park," he replied, "as I generally\r
+do every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are\r
+you going much farther?"\r
+\r
+"No, I should have turned in a moment."\r
+\r
+And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage\r
+together.\r
+\r
+"Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?" said she.\r
+\r
+"Yes--if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He\r
+arranges the business just as he pleases."\r
+\r
+"And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least\r
+pleasure in the great power of choice. I do not know anybody who seems\r
+more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy."\r
+\r
+"He likes to have his own way very well," replied Colonel Fitzwilliam.\r
+"But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it\r
+than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak\r
+feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and\r
+dependence."\r
+\r
+"In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of\r
+either. Now seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and\r
+dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going\r
+wherever you chose, or procuring anything you had a fancy for?"\r
+\r
+"These are home questions--and perhaps I cannot say that I have\r
+experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater\r
+weight, I may suffer from want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where\r
+they like."\r
+\r
+"Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often\r
+do."\r
+\r
+"Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many\r
+in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to\r
+money."\r
+\r
+"Is this," thought Elizabeth, "meant for me?" and she coloured at the\r
+idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, "And pray, what\r
+is the usual price of an earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is\r
+very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds."\r
+\r
+He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt\r
+a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed,\r
+she soon afterwards said:\r
+\r
+"I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of\r
+having someone at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a\r
+lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps, his sister does as well\r
+for the present, and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he\r
+likes with her."\r
+\r
+"No," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, "that is an advantage which he must\r
+divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy."\r
+\r
+"Are you indeed? And pray what sort of guardians do you make? Does your\r
+charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a\r
+little difficult to manage, and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she\r
+may like to have her own way."\r
+\r
+As she spoke she observed him looking at her earnestly; and the manner\r
+in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to\r
+give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other\r
+got pretty near the truth. She directly replied:\r
+\r
+"You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare\r
+say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a\r
+very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and\r
+Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them."\r
+\r
+"I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike man--he\r
+is a great friend of Darcy's."\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes," said Elizabeth drily; "Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr.\r
+Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him."\r
+\r
+"Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy _does_ take care of him in\r
+those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in\r
+our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to\r
+him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that\r
+Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture."\r
+\r
+"What is it you mean?"\r
+\r
+"It is a circumstance which Darcy could not wish to be generally known,\r
+because if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an\r
+unpleasant thing."\r
+\r
+"You may depend upon my not mentioning it."\r
+\r
+"And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be\r
+Bingley. What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself\r
+on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most\r
+imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other\r
+particulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing\r
+him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from\r
+knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer."\r
+\r
+"Did Mr. Darcy give you reasons for this interference?"\r
+\r
+"I understood that there were some very strong objections against the\r
+lady."\r
+\r
+"And what arts did he use to separate them?"\r
+\r
+"He did not talk to me of his own arts," said Fitzwilliam, smiling. "He\r
+only told me what I have now told you."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with\r
+indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she\r
+was so thoughtful.\r
+\r
+"I am thinking of what you have been telling me," said she. "Your\r
+cousin's conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?"\r
+\r
+"You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?"\r
+\r
+"I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his\r
+friend's inclination, or why, upon his own judgement alone, he was to\r
+determine and direct in what manner his friend was to be happy.\r
+But," she continued, recollecting herself, "as we know none of the\r
+particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed\r
+that there was much affection in the case."\r
+\r
+"That is not an unnatural surmise," said Fitzwilliam, "but it is a\r
+lessening of the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly."\r
+\r
+This was spoken jestingly; but it appeared to her so just a picture\r
+of Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer, and\r
+therefore, abruptly changing the conversation talked on indifferent\r
+matters until they reached the Parsonage. There, shut into her own room,\r
+as soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption\r
+of all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other\r
+people could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There\r
+could not exist in the world _two_ men over whom Mr. Darcy could have\r
+such boundless influence. That he had been concerned in the measures\r
+taken to separate Bingley and Jane she had never doubted; but she had\r
+always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement\r
+of them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, _he_ was\r
+the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had\r
+suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while\r
+every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the\r
+world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted.\r
+\r
+"There were some very strong objections against the lady," were Colonel\r
+Fitzwilliam's words; and those strong objections probably were, her\r
+having one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in\r
+business in London.\r
+\r
+"To Jane herself," she exclaimed, "there could be no possibility of\r
+objection; all loveliness and goodness as she is!--her understanding\r
+excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating. Neither\r
+could anything be urged against my father, who, though with some\r
+peculiarities, has abilities Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and\r
+respectability which he will probably never reach." When she thought of\r
+her mother, her confidence gave way a little; but she would not allow\r
+that any objections _there_ had material weight with Mr. Darcy, whose\r
+pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of\r
+importance in his friend's connections, than from their want of sense;\r
+and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed\r
+by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr.\r
+Bingley for his sister.\r
+\r
+The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned, brought on a\r
+headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening, that, added to\r
+her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her\r
+cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins,\r
+seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go and as much\r
+as possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr. Collins\r
+could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine's being rather\r
+displeased by her staying at home.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 34\r
+\r
+\r
+When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself\r
+as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the\r
+examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her\r
+being in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any\r
+revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering.\r
+But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that\r
+cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which,\r
+proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly\r
+disposed towards everyone, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth\r
+noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an\r
+attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's\r
+shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her\r
+a keener sense of her sister's sufferings. It was some consolation\r
+to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the\r
+next--and, a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should\r
+herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of\r
+her spirits, by all that affection could do.\r
+\r
+She could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that\r
+his cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear\r
+that he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not\r
+mean to be unhappy about him.\r
+\r
+While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the\r
+door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its\r
+being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in\r
+the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her.\r
+But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently\r
+affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the\r
+room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her\r
+health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better.\r
+She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and\r
+then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but\r
+said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her\r
+in an agitated manner, and thus began:\r
+\r
+"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be\r
+repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love\r
+you."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured,\r
+doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement;\r
+and the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her,\r
+immediately followed. He spoke well; but there were feelings besides\r
+those of the heart to be detailed; and he was not more eloquent on the\r
+subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority--of\r
+its being a degradation--of the family obstacles which had always\r
+opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to\r
+the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his\r
+suit.\r
+\r
+In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to\r
+the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did\r
+not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to\r
+receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she\r
+lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to\r
+answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with\r
+representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite\r
+of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with\r
+expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of\r
+his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt\r
+of a favourable answer. He _spoke_ of apprehension and anxiety, but\r
+his countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could\r
+only exasperate farther, and, when he ceased, the colour rose into her\r
+cheeks, and she said:\r
+\r
+"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to\r
+express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however\r
+unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should\r
+be felt, and if I could _feel_ gratitude, I would now thank you. But I\r
+cannot--I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly\r
+bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to\r
+anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be\r
+of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented\r
+the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in\r
+overcoming it after this explanation."\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed\r
+on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than\r
+surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance\r
+of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the\r
+appearance of composure, and would not open his lips till he believed\r
+himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings\r
+dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said:\r
+\r
+"And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting!\r
+I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little _endeavour_ at\r
+civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance."\r
+\r
+"I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire\r
+of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me\r
+against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?\r
+Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I _was_ uncivil? But I have\r
+other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against\r
+you--had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you\r
+think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has\r
+been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most\r
+beloved sister?"\r
+\r
+As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion\r
+was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she\r
+continued:\r
+\r
+"I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can\r
+excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted _there_. You dare not,\r
+you cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means\r
+of dividing them from each other--of exposing one to the censure of the\r
+world for caprice and instability, and the other to its derision for\r
+disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest\r
+kind."\r
+\r
+She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening\r
+with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse.\r
+He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity.\r
+\r
+"Can you deny that you have done it?" she repeated.\r
+\r
+With assumed tranquillity he then replied: "I have no wish of denying\r
+that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your\r
+sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards _him_ I have been\r
+kinder than towards myself."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection,\r
+but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her.\r
+\r
+"But it is not merely this affair," she continued, "on which my dislike\r
+is founded. Long before it had taken place my opinion of you was\r
+decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received\r
+many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to\r
+say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself?\r
+or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?"\r
+\r
+"You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns," said Darcy,\r
+in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.\r
+\r
+"Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an\r
+interest in him?"\r
+\r
+"His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy contemptuously; "yes, his misfortunes\r
+have been great indeed."\r
+\r
+"And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth with energy. "You have reduced\r
+him to his present state of poverty--comparative poverty. You have\r
+withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for\r
+him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence\r
+which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this!\r
+and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and\r
+ridicule."\r
+\r
+"And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room,\r
+"is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me!\r
+I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this\r
+calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps," added he, stopping in\r
+his walk, and turning towards her, "these offenses might have been\r
+overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the\r
+scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These\r
+bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater\r
+policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of\r
+my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by\r
+reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.\r
+Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and\r
+just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your\r
+connections?--to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose\r
+condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to\r
+the utmost to speak with composure when she said:\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your\r
+declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern\r
+which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more\r
+gentlemanlike manner."\r
+\r
+She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued:\r
+\r
+"You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that\r
+would have tempted me to accept it."\r
+\r
+Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an\r
+expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on:\r
+\r
+"From the very beginning--from the first moment, I may almost say--of\r
+my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest\r
+belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of\r
+the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of\r
+disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a\r
+dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the\r
+last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."\r
+\r
+"You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your\r
+feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been.\r
+Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best\r
+wishes for your health and happiness."\r
+\r
+And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him\r
+the next moment open the front door and quit the house.\r
+\r
+The tumult of her mind, was now painfully great. She knew not how\r
+to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for\r
+half-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed,\r
+was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of\r
+marriage from Mr. Darcy! That he should have been in love with her for\r
+so many months! So much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of\r
+all the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying\r
+her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his\r
+own case--was almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired\r
+unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable\r
+pride--his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to\r
+Jane--his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could\r
+not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr.\r
+Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon\r
+overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for\r
+a moment excited. She continued in very agitated reflections till the\r
+sound of Lady Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to\r
+encounter Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 35\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations\r
+which had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the\r
+surprise of what had happened; it was impossible to think of anything\r
+else; and, totally indisposed for employment, she resolved, soon after\r
+breakfast, to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding\r
+directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy's\r
+sometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park,\r
+she turned up the lane, which led farther from the turnpike-road. The\r
+park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one\r
+of the gates into the ground.\r
+\r
+After walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was\r
+tempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and\r
+look into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had\r
+made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the\r
+verdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk,\r
+when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which\r
+edged the park; he was moving that way; and, fearful of its being Mr.\r
+Darcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced was now\r
+near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced\r
+her name. She had turned away; but on hearing herself called, though\r
+in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the\r
+gate. He had by that time reached it also, and, holding out a letter,\r
+which she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure,\r
+"I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you.\r
+Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?" And then, with a\r
+slight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight.\r
+\r
+With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity,\r
+Elizabeth opened the letter, and, to her still increasing wonder,\r
+perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter-paper, written\r
+quite through, in a very close hand. The envelope itself was likewise\r
+full. Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated\r
+from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows:--\r
+\r
+"Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension\r
+of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those\r
+offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any\r
+intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes\r
+which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the\r
+effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion,\r
+should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written\r
+and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand\r
+your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I\r
+demand it of your justice.\r
+\r
+"Two offenses of a very different nature, and by no means of equal\r
+magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was,\r
+that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley\r
+from your sister, and the other, that I had, in defiance of various\r
+claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate\r
+prosperity and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham. Wilfully and\r
+wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged\r
+favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other\r
+dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect\r
+its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young\r
+persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could\r
+bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last\r
+night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope\r
+to be in the future secured, when the following account of my actions\r
+and their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them, which\r
+is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which\r
+may be offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity\r
+must be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd.\r
+\r
+"I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with\r
+others, that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young\r
+woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance\r
+at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious\r
+attachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I\r
+had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir\r
+William Lucas's accidental information, that Bingley's attentions to\r
+your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage.\r
+He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could\r
+be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend's behaviour\r
+attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss\r
+Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also\r
+watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever,\r
+but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced\r
+from the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions\r
+with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of\r
+sentiment. If _you_ have not been mistaken here, _I_ must have been\r
+in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter\r
+probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict\r
+pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not\r
+scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and\r
+air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction\r
+that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be\r
+easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is\r
+certain--but I will venture to say that my investigation and decisions\r
+are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe\r
+her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial\r
+conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason. My objections to the\r
+marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have\r
+the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of\r
+connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But\r
+there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still\r
+existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had\r
+myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before\r
+me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your\r
+mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison to that\r
+total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by\r
+herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your\r
+father. Pardon me. It pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern\r
+for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this\r
+representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to\r
+have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure,\r
+is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your elder sister, than\r
+it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say\r
+farther that from what passed that evening, my opinion of all parties\r
+was confirmed, and every inducement heightened which could have led\r
+me before, to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy\r
+connection. He left Netherfield for London, on the day following, as\r
+you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning.\r
+\r
+"The part which I acted is now to be explained. His sisters' uneasiness\r
+had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was\r
+soon discovered, and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in\r
+detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in\r
+London. We accordingly went--and there I readily engaged in the office\r
+of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice. I\r
+described, and enforced them earnestly. But, however this remonstrance\r
+might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose\r
+that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been\r
+seconded by the assurance that I hesitated not in giving, of your\r
+sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his\r
+affection with sincere, if not with equal regard. But Bingley has great\r
+natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgement than on his\r
+own. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was\r
+no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into\r
+Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the\r
+work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There\r
+is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair on which I do not\r
+reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the\r
+measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in\r
+town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley; but her\r
+brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without\r
+ill consequence is perhaps probable; but his regard did not appear to me\r
+enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this\r
+concealment, this disguise was beneath me; it is done, however, and it\r
+was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no\r
+other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it\r
+was unknowingly done and though the motives which governed me may to\r
+you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn\r
+them.\r
+\r
+"With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured\r
+Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his\r
+connection with my family. Of what he has _particularly_ accused me I\r
+am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more\r
+than one witness of undoubted veracity.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many\r
+years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good\r
+conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to\r
+be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his\r
+kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at\r
+school, and afterwards at Cambridge--most important assistance, as his\r
+own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have\r
+been unable to give him a gentleman's education. My father was not only\r
+fond of this young man's society, whose manners were always engaging; he\r
+had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be\r
+his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is\r
+many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different\r
+manner. The vicious propensities--the want of principle, which he was\r
+careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape\r
+the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself,\r
+and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr.\r
+Darcy could not have. Here again I shall give you pain--to what degree\r
+you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham\r
+has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from\r
+unfolding his real character--it adds even another motive.\r
+\r
+"My excellent father died about five years ago; and his attachment to\r
+Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly\r
+recommended it to me, to promote his advancement in the best manner\r
+that his profession might allow--and if he took orders, desired that a\r
+valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There\r
+was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long\r
+survive mine, and within half a year from these events, Mr. Wickham\r
+wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders,\r
+he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more\r
+immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he\r
+could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying\r
+law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would\r
+be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed\r
+him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to\r
+his proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman; the\r
+business was therefore soon settled--he resigned all claim to assistance\r
+in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to\r
+receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection\r
+between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him\r
+to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town I believe he chiefly\r
+lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free\r
+from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation.\r
+For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the\r
+incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to\r
+me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured\r
+me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He\r
+had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely\r
+resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in\r
+question--of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was\r
+well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not\r
+have forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame\r
+me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every\r
+repetition to it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of\r
+his circumstances--and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me\r
+to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period every\r
+appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived I know not. But\r
+last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice.\r
+\r
+"I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself,\r
+and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold\r
+to any human being. Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your\r
+secrecy. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to\r
+the guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself.\r
+About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed\r
+for her in London; and last summer she went with the lady who presided\r
+over it, to Ramsgate; and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by\r
+design; for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him\r
+and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived; and\r
+by her connivance and aid, he so far recommended himself to Georgiana,\r
+whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to\r
+her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and\r
+to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her\r
+excuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed\r
+the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two\r
+before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the\r
+idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as\r
+a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and\r
+how I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented\r
+any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place\r
+immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr.\r
+Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which\r
+is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of\r
+revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have\r
+been complete indeed.\r
+\r
+"This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have\r
+been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as\r
+false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr.\r
+Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he\r
+had imposed on you; but his success is not perhaps to be wondered\r
+at. Ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either,\r
+detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in\r
+your inclination.\r
+\r
+"You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night; but\r
+I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to\r
+be revealed. For the truth of everything here related, I can appeal more\r
+particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our\r
+near relationship and constant intimacy, and, still more, as one of\r
+the executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted\r
+with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of _me_\r
+should make _my_ assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by\r
+the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be\r
+the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some\r
+opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the\r
+morning. I will only add, God bless you.\r
+\r
+"FITZWILLIAM DARCY"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 36\r
+\r
+\r
+If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to\r
+contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of\r
+its contents. But such as they were, it may well be supposed how eagerly\r
+she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited.\r
+Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did\r
+she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power;\r
+and steadfastly was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation\r
+to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong\r
+prejudice against everything he might say, she began his account of what\r
+had happened at Netherfield. She read with an eagerness which hardly\r
+left her power of comprehension, and from impatience of knowing what the\r
+next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of\r
+the one before her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility she\r
+instantly resolved to be false; and his account of the real, the worst\r
+objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing\r
+him justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied\r
+her; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and\r
+insolence.\r
+\r
+But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham--when\r
+she read with somewhat clearer attention a relation of events which,\r
+if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which\r
+bore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himself--her\r
+feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition.\r
+Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished\r
+to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, "This must be false!\r
+This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!"--and when she had\r
+gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing anything of the\r
+last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not\r
+regard it, that she would never look in it again.\r
+\r
+In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on\r
+nothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the letter\r
+was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she\r
+again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and\r
+commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence.\r
+The account of his connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what\r
+he had related himself; and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though\r
+she had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own\r
+words. So far each recital confirmed the other; but when she came to the\r
+will, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living\r
+was fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it was\r
+impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the\r
+other; and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did\r
+not err. But when she read and re-read with the closest attention, the\r
+particulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all pretensions\r
+to the living, of his receiving in lieu so considerable a sum as three\r
+thousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate. She put down\r
+the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be\r
+impartiality--deliberated on the probability of each statement--but with\r
+little success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read\r
+on; but every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had\r
+believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to\r
+render Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a\r
+turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole.\r
+\r
+The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at\r
+Mr. Wickham's charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could\r
+bring no proof of its injustice. She had never heard of him before his\r
+entrance into the ----shire Militia, in which he had engaged at the\r
+persuasion of the young man who, on meeting him accidentally in town,\r
+had there renewed a slight acquaintance. Of his former way of life\r
+nothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself. As\r
+to his real character, had information been in her power, she had\r
+never felt a wish of inquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner had\r
+established him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried\r
+to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of\r
+integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of\r
+Mr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those\r
+casual errors under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy\r
+had described as the idleness and vice of many years' continuance. But\r
+no such recollection befriended her. She could see him instantly before\r
+her, in every charm of air and address; but she could remember no more\r
+substantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and\r
+the regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess. After\r
+pausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to\r
+read. But, alas! the story which followed, of his designs on Miss\r
+Darcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel\r
+Fitzwilliam and herself only the morning before; and at last she was\r
+referred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam\r
+himself--from whom she had previously received the information of his\r
+near concern in all his cousin's affairs, and whose character she had no\r
+reason to question. At one time she had almost resolved on applying to\r
+him, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and\r
+at length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never\r
+have hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his\r
+cousin's corroboration.\r
+\r
+She perfectly remembered everything that had passed in conversation\r
+between Wickham and herself, in their first evening at Mr. Phillips's.\r
+Many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory. She was _now_\r
+struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and\r
+wondered it had escaped her before. She saw the indelicacy of putting\r
+himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions\r
+with his conduct. She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear\r
+of seeing Mr. Darcy--that Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that\r
+_he_ should stand his ground; yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball\r
+the very next week. She remembered also that, till the Netherfield\r
+family had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but\r
+herself; but that after their removal it had been everywhere discussed;\r
+that he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy's\r
+character, though he had assured her that respect for the father would\r
+always prevent his exposing the son.\r
+\r
+How differently did everything now appear in which he was concerned!\r
+His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and\r
+hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer\r
+the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at anything.\r
+His behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive; he had\r
+either been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying\r
+his vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most\r
+incautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter\r
+and fainter; and in farther justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not\r
+but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago\r
+asserted his blamelessness in the affair; that proud and repulsive as\r
+were his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their\r
+acquaintance--an acquaintance which had latterly brought them much\r
+together, and given her a sort of intimacy with his ways--seen anything\r
+that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust--anything that spoke him\r
+of irreligious or immoral habits; that among his own connections he was\r
+esteemed and valued--that even Wickham had allowed him merit as a\r
+brother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his\r
+sister as to prove him capable of _some_ amiable feeling; that had his\r
+actions been what Mr. Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of\r
+everything right could hardly have been concealed from the world; and\r
+that friendship between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man\r
+as Mr. Bingley, was incomprehensible.\r
+\r
+She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham\r
+could she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced,\r
+absurd.\r
+\r
+"How despicably I have acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself\r
+on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have\r
+often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified\r
+my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this\r
+discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could\r
+not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my\r
+folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect\r
+of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted\r
+prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were\r
+concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself."\r
+\r
+From herself to Jane--from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line\r
+which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation\r
+_there_ had appeared very insufficient, and she read it again. Widely\r
+different was the effect of a second perusal. How could she deny that\r
+credit to his assertions in one instance, which she had been obliged to\r
+give in the other? He declared himself to be totally unsuspicious of her\r
+sister's attachment; and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's\r
+opinion had always been. Neither could she deny the justice of his\r
+description of Jane. She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were\r
+little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air\r
+and manner not often united with great sensibility.\r
+\r
+When she came to that part of the letter in which her family were\r
+mentioned in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense\r
+of shame was severe. The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly\r
+for denial, and the circumstances to which he particularly alluded as\r
+having passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first\r
+disapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind\r
+than on hers.\r
+\r
+The compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt. It soothed,\r
+but it could not console her for the contempt which had thus been\r
+self-attracted by the rest of her family; and as she considered\r
+that Jane's disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest\r
+relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt\r
+by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond anything she\r
+had ever known before.\r
+\r
+After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every\r
+variety of thought--re-considering events, determining probabilities,\r
+and reconciling herself, as well as she could, to a change so sudden and\r
+so important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made\r
+her at length return home; and she entered the house with the wish\r
+of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such\r
+reflections as must make her unfit for conversation.\r
+\r
+She was immediately told that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each\r
+called during her absence; Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes, to take\r
+leave--but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least\r
+an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her\r
+till she could be found. Elizabeth could but just _affect_ concern\r
+in missing him; she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no\r
+longer an object; she could think only of her letter.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 37\r
+\r
+\r
+The two gentlemen left Rosings the next morning, and Mr. Collins having\r
+been in waiting near the lodges, to make them his parting obeisance, was\r
+able to bring home the pleasing intelligence, of their appearing in very\r
+good health, and in as tolerable spirits as could be expected, after the\r
+melancholy scene so lately gone through at Rosings. To Rosings he then\r
+hastened, to console Lady Catherine and her daughter; and on his return\r
+brought back, with great satisfaction, a message from her ladyship,\r
+importing that she felt herself so dull as to make her very desirous of\r
+having them all to dine with her.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could not see Lady Catherine without recollecting that, had\r
+she chosen it, she might by this time have been presented to her as\r
+her future niece; nor could she think, without a smile, of what her\r
+ladyship's indignation would have been. "What would she have said? how\r
+would she have behaved?" were questions with which she amused herself.\r
+\r
+Their first subject was the diminution of the Rosings party. "I assure\r
+you, I feel it exceedingly," said Lady Catherine; "I believe no one\r
+feels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am particularly\r
+attached to these young men, and know them to be so much attached to\r
+me! They were excessively sorry to go! But so they always are. The\r
+dear Colonel rallied his spirits tolerably till just at last; but Darcy\r
+seemed to feel it most acutely, more, I think, than last year. His\r
+attachment to Rosings certainly increases."\r
+\r
+Mr. Collins had a compliment, and an allusion to throw in here, which\r
+were kindly smiled on by the mother and daughter.\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine observed, after dinner, that Miss Bennet seemed out of\r
+spirits, and immediately accounting for it by herself, by supposing that\r
+she did not like to go home again so soon, she added:\r
+\r
+"But if that is the case, you must write to your mother and beg that\r
+you may stay a little longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your\r
+company, I am sure."\r
+\r
+"I am much obliged to your ladyship for your kind invitation," replied\r
+Elizabeth, "but it is not in my power to accept it. I must be in town\r
+next Saturday."\r
+\r
+"Why, at that rate, you will have been here only six weeks. I expected\r
+you to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so before you came. There\r
+can be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly\r
+spare you for another fortnight."\r
+\r
+"But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return."\r
+\r
+"Oh! your father of course may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters\r
+are never of so much consequence to a father. And if you will stay\r
+another _month_ complete, it will be in my power to take one of you as\r
+far as London, for I am going there early in June, for a week; and as\r
+Dawson does not object to the barouche-box, there will be very good room\r
+for one of you--and indeed, if the weather should happen to be cool, I\r
+should not object to taking you both, as you are neither of you large."\r
+\r
+"You are all kindness, madam; but I believe we must abide by our\r
+original plan."\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine seemed resigned. "Mrs. Collins, you must send a servant\r
+with them. You know I always speak my mind, and I cannot bear the idea\r
+of two young women travelling post by themselves. It is highly improper.\r
+You must contrive to send somebody. I have the greatest dislike in\r
+the world to that sort of thing. Young women should always be properly\r
+guarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my\r
+niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her\r
+having two men-servants go with her. Miss Darcy, the daughter of\r
+Mr. Darcy, of Pemberley, and Lady Anne, could not have appeared with\r
+propriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those\r
+things. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I\r
+am glad it occurred to me to mention it; for it would really be\r
+discreditable to _you_ to let them go alone."\r
+\r
+"My uncle is to send a servant for us."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Your uncle! He keeps a man-servant, does he? I am very glad you\r
+have somebody who thinks of these things. Where shall you change horses?\r
+Oh! Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be\r
+attended to."\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine had many other questions to ask respecting their journey,\r
+and as she did not answer them all herself, attention was necessary,\r
+which Elizabeth believed to be lucky for her; or, with a mind so\r
+occupied, she might have forgotten where she was. Reflection must be\r
+reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it\r
+as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary\r
+walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant\r
+recollections.\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She\r
+studied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at\r
+times widely different. When she remembered the style of his address,\r
+she was still full of indignation; but when she considered how unjustly\r
+she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against\r
+herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion.\r
+His attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect; but she\r
+could not approve him; nor could she for a moment repent her refusal,\r
+or feel the slightest inclination ever to see him again. In her own past\r
+behaviour, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; and in\r
+the unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin.\r
+They were hopeless of remedy. Her father, contented with laughing at\r
+them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his\r
+youngest daughters; and her mother, with manners so far from right\r
+herself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently\r
+united with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine\r
+and Lydia; but while they were supported by their mother's indulgence,\r
+what chance could there be of improvement? Catherine, weak-spirited,\r
+irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance, had been always\r
+affronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and careless, would\r
+scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While\r
+there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while\r
+Meryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there\r
+forever.\r
+\r
+Anxiety on Jane's behalf was another prevailing concern; and Mr. Darcy's\r
+explanation, by restoring Bingley to all her former good opinion,\r
+heightened the sense of what Jane had lost. His affection was proved\r
+to have been sincere, and his conduct cleared of all blame, unless any\r
+could attach to the implicitness of his confidence in his friend. How\r
+grievous then was the thought that, of a situation so desirable in every\r
+respect, so replete with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had\r
+been deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family!\r
+\r
+When to these recollections was added the development of Wickham's\r
+character, it may be easily believed that the happy spirits which had\r
+seldom been depressed before, were now so much affected as to make it\r
+almost impossible for her to appear tolerably cheerful.\r
+\r
+Their engagements at Rosings were as frequent during the last week of\r
+her stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent\r
+there; and her ladyship again inquired minutely into the particulars of\r
+their journey, gave them directions as to the best method of packing,\r
+and was so urgent on the necessity of placing gowns in the only right\r
+way, that Maria thought herself obliged, on her return, to undo all the\r
+work of the morning, and pack her trunk afresh.\r
+\r
+When they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished them\r
+a good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford again next year;\r
+and Miss de Bourgh exerted herself so far as to curtsey and hold out her\r
+hand to both.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 38\r
+\r
+\r
+On Saturday morning Elizabeth and Mr. Collins met for breakfast a few\r
+minutes before the others appeared; and he took the opportunity of\r
+paying the parting civilities which he deemed indispensably necessary.\r
+\r
+"I know not, Miss Elizabeth," said he, "whether Mrs. Collins has yet\r
+expressed her sense of your kindness in coming to us; but I am very\r
+certain you will not leave the house without receiving her thanks for\r
+it. The favour of your company has been much felt, I assure you. We\r
+know how little there is to tempt anyone to our humble abode. Our plain\r
+manner of living, our small rooms and few domestics, and the little we\r
+see of the world, must make Hunsford extremely dull to a young lady like\r
+yourself; but I hope you will believe us grateful for the condescension,\r
+and that we have done everything in our power to prevent your spending\r
+your time unpleasantly."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was eager with her thanks and assurances of happiness. She\r
+had spent six weeks with great enjoyment; and the pleasure of being with\r
+Charlotte, and the kind attentions she had received, must make _her_\r
+feel the obliged. Mr. Collins was gratified, and with a more smiling\r
+solemnity replied:\r
+\r
+"It gives me great pleasure to hear that you have passed your time not\r
+disagreeably. We have certainly done our best; and most fortunately\r
+having it in our power to introduce you to very superior society, and,\r
+from our connection with Rosings, the frequent means of varying the\r
+humble home scene, I think we may flatter ourselves that your Hunsford\r
+visit cannot have been entirely irksome. Our situation with regard to\r
+Lady Catherine's family is indeed the sort of extraordinary advantage\r
+and blessing which few can boast. You see on what a footing we are. You\r
+see how continually we are engaged there. In truth I must acknowledge\r
+that, with all the disadvantages of this humble parsonage, I should\r
+not think anyone abiding in it an object of compassion, while they are\r
+sharers of our intimacy at Rosings."\r
+\r
+Words were insufficient for the elevation of his feelings; and he was\r
+obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility\r
+and truth in a few short sentences.\r
+\r
+"You may, in fact, carry a very favourable report of us into\r
+Hertfordshire, my dear cousin. I flatter myself at least that you will\r
+be able to do so. Lady Catherine's great attentions to Mrs. Collins you\r
+have been a daily witness of; and altogether I trust it does not appear\r
+that your friend has drawn an unfortunate--but on this point it will be\r
+as well to be silent. Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth,\r
+that I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in\r
+marriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of\r
+thinking. There is in everything a most remarkable resemblance of\r
+character and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each\r
+other."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was\r
+the case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly believed\r
+and rejoiced in his domestic comforts. She was not sorry, however, to\r
+have the recital of them interrupted by the lady from whom they sprang.\r
+Poor Charlotte! it was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she\r
+had chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that\r
+her visitors were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her\r
+home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their\r
+dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms.\r
+\r
+At length the chaise arrived, the trunks were fastened on, the parcels\r
+placed within, and it was pronounced to be ready. After an affectionate\r
+parting between the friends, Elizabeth was attended to the carriage by\r
+Mr. Collins, and as they walked down the garden he was commissioning her\r
+with his best respects to all her family, not forgetting his thanks\r
+for the kindness he had received at Longbourn in the winter, and his\r
+compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, though unknown. He then handed her\r
+in, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed,\r
+when he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had\r
+hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies at Rosings.\r
+\r
+"But," he added, "you will of course wish to have your humble respects\r
+delivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you\r
+while you have been here."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth made no objection; the door was then allowed to be shut, and\r
+the carriage drove off.\r
+\r
+"Good gracious!" cried Maria, after a few minutes' silence, "it seems\r
+but a day or two since we first came! and yet how many things have\r
+happened!"\r
+\r
+"A great many indeed," said her companion with a sigh.\r
+\r
+"We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice!\r
+How much I shall have to tell!"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth added privately, "And how much I shall have to conceal!"\r
+\r
+Their journey was performed without much conversation, or any alarm; and\r
+within four hours of their leaving Hunsford they reached Mr. Gardiner's\r
+house, where they were to remain a few days.\r
+\r
+Jane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of studying her\r
+spirits, amidst the various engagements which the kindness of her\r
+aunt had reserved for them. But Jane was to go home with her, and at\r
+Longbourn there would be leisure enough for observation.\r
+\r
+It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for\r
+Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy's proposals. To know\r
+that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish\r
+Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own\r
+vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation\r
+to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision\r
+in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate;\r
+and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried\r
+into repeating something of Bingley which might only grieve her sister\r
+further.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 39\r
+\r
+\r
+It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out\r
+together from Gracechurch Street for the town of ----, in Hertfordshire;\r
+and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage\r
+was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's\r
+punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs.\r
+These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed\r
+in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and\r
+dressing a salad and cucumber.\r
+\r
+After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set\r
+out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming,\r
+"Is not this nice? Is not this an agreeable surprise?"\r
+\r
+"And we mean to treat you all," added Lydia, "but you must lend us the\r
+money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there." Then, showing\r
+her purchases--"Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think\r
+it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall\r
+pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any\r
+better."\r
+\r
+And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect\r
+unconcern, "Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and\r
+when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I\r
+think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what\r
+one wears this summer, after the ----shire have left Meryton, and they\r
+are going in a fortnight."\r
+\r
+"Are they indeed!" cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction.\r
+\r
+"They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to\r
+take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme;\r
+and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to\r
+go too of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall\r
+have!"\r
+\r
+"Yes," thought Elizabeth, "_that_ would be a delightful scheme indeed,\r
+and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole\r
+campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor\r
+regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!"\r
+\r
+"Now I have got some news for you," said Lydia, as they sat down at\r
+table. "What do you think? It is excellent news--capital news--and about\r
+a certain person we all like!"\r
+\r
+Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need\r
+not stay. Lydia laughed, and said:\r
+\r
+"Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the\r
+waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse\r
+things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad\r
+he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for\r
+my news; it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is it not?\r
+There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King. There's for you! She\r
+is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool: gone to stay. Wickham is safe."\r
+\r
+"And Mary King is safe!" added Elizabeth; "safe from a connection\r
+imprudent as to fortune."\r
+\r
+"She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him."\r
+\r
+"But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side," said Jane.\r
+\r
+"I am sure there is not on _his_. I will answer for it, he never cared\r
+three straws about her--who could about such a nasty little freckled\r
+thing?"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such\r
+coarseness of _expression_ herself, the coarseness of the _sentiment_\r
+was little other than her own breast had harboured and fancied liberal!\r
+\r
+As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was\r
+ordered; and after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their\r
+boxes, work-bags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty's and\r
+Lydia's purchases, were seated in it.\r
+\r
+"How nicely we are all crammed in," cried Lydia. "I am glad I bought my\r
+bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now\r
+let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way\r
+home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all\r
+since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any\r
+flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband\r
+before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare.\r
+She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not\r
+being married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Phillips wants you so to\r
+get husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr.\r
+Collins; but _I_ do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord!\r
+how I should like to be married before any of you; and then I would\r
+chaperon you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece\r
+of fun the other day at Colonel Forster's. Kitty and me were to spend\r
+the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the\r
+evening; (by the bye, Mrs. Forster and me are _such_ friends!) and so\r
+she asked the two Harringtons to come, but Harriet was ill, and so Pen\r
+was forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We\r
+dressed up Chamberlayne in woman's clothes on purpose to pass for a\r
+lady, only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs.\r
+Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow\r
+one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny,\r
+and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they\r
+did not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs.\r
+Forster. I thought I should have died. And _that_ made the men suspect\r
+something, and then they soon found out what was the matter."\r
+\r
+With such kinds of histories of their parties and good jokes, did\r
+Lydia, assisted by Kitty's hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her\r
+companions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she\r
+could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham's name.\r
+\r
+Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane\r
+in undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet\r
+say voluntarily to Elizabeth:\r
+\r
+"I am glad you are come back, Lizzy."\r
+\r
+Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases\r
+came to meet Maria and hear the news; and various were the subjects that\r
+occupied them: Lady Lucas was inquiring of Maria, after the welfare and\r
+poultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one\r
+hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat\r
+some way below her, and, on the other, retailing them all to the younger\r
+Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person's,\r
+was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who\r
+would hear her.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Mary," said she, "I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun!\r
+As we went along, Kitty and I drew up the blinds, and pretended there\r
+was nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty\r
+had not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved\r
+very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold\r
+luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have treated\r
+you too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never\r
+should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then\r
+we were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that\r
+anybody might have heard us ten miles off!"\r
+\r
+To this Mary very gravely replied, "Far be it from me, my dear sister,\r
+to depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the\r
+generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for\r
+_me_--I should infinitely prefer a book."\r
+\r
+But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to\r
+anybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all.\r
+\r
+In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk\r
+to Meryton, and to see how everybody went on; but Elizabeth steadily\r
+opposed the scheme. It should not be said that the Miss Bennets could\r
+not be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers.\r
+There was another reason too for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Mr.\r
+Wickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The\r
+comfort to _her_ of the regiment's approaching removal was indeed beyond\r
+expression. In a fortnight they were to go--and once gone, she hoped\r
+there could be nothing more to plague her on his account.\r
+\r
+She had not been many hours at home before she found that the Brighton\r
+scheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under\r
+frequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her\r
+father had not the smallest intention of yielding; but his answers were\r
+at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often\r
+disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 40\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could\r
+no longer be overcome; and at length, resolving to suppress every\r
+particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be\r
+surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene\r
+between Mr. Darcy and herself.\r
+\r
+Miss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly\r
+partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly\r
+natural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was\r
+sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so\r
+little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the\r
+unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him.\r
+\r
+"His being so sure of succeeding was wrong," said she, "and certainly\r
+ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his\r
+disappointment!"\r
+\r
+"Indeed," replied Elizabeth, "I am heartily sorry for him; but he has\r
+other feelings, which will probably soon drive away his regard for me.\r
+You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?"\r
+\r
+"Blame you! Oh, no."\r
+\r
+"But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham?"\r
+\r
+"No--I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did."\r
+\r
+"But you _will_ know it, when I tell you what happened the very next\r
+day."\r
+\r
+She then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far\r
+as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane!\r
+who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that\r
+so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here\r
+collected in one individual. Nor was Darcy's vindication, though\r
+grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery.\r
+Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and\r
+seek to clear the one without involving the other.\r
+\r
+"This will not do," said Elizabeth; "you never will be able to make both\r
+of them good for anything. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied\r
+with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just\r
+enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting\r
+about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Darcy's;\r
+but you shall do as you choose."\r
+\r
+It was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane.\r
+\r
+"I do not know when I have been more shocked," said she. "Wickham so\r
+very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only\r
+consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the\r
+knowledge of your ill opinion, too! and having to relate such a thing\r
+of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it\r
+so."\r
+\r
+"Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so\r
+full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am\r
+growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion\r
+makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will\r
+be as light as a feather."\r
+\r
+"Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his\r
+countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner!"\r
+\r
+"There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those\r
+two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the\r
+appearance of it."\r
+\r
+"I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the _appearance_ of it as you\r
+used to do."\r
+\r
+"And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike\r
+to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an\r
+opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually\r
+abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot always be laughing\r
+at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty."\r
+\r
+"Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat\r
+the matter as you do now."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough, I may say unhappy. And\r
+with no one to speak to about what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say\r
+that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I\r
+had! Oh! how I wanted you!"\r
+\r
+"How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions\r
+in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they _do_ appear wholly\r
+undeserved."\r
+\r
+"Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most\r
+natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There\r
+is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I\r
+ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintances in general understand\r
+Wickham's character."\r
+\r
+Miss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, "Surely there can be no\r
+occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your opinion?"\r
+\r
+"That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me\r
+to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular\r
+relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to\r
+myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his\r
+conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy\r
+is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in\r
+Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal\r
+to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to\r
+anyone here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out,\r
+and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At\r
+present I will say nothing about it."\r
+\r
+"You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for\r
+ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to\r
+re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate."\r
+\r
+The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had\r
+got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight,\r
+and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish\r
+to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind,\r
+of which prudence forbade the disclosure. She dared not relate the other\r
+half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she\r
+had been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one\r
+could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect\r
+understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off\r
+this last encumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very\r
+improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to\r
+tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The\r
+liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!"\r
+\r
+She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real\r
+state of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a\r
+very tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself\r
+in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment,\r
+and, from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than most first\r
+attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance,\r
+and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her\r
+attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the\r
+indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own\r
+health and their tranquillity.\r
+\r
+"Well, Lizzy," said Mrs. Bennet one day, "what is your opinion _now_ of\r
+this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak\r
+of it again to anybody. I told my sister Phillips so the other day. But\r
+I cannot find out that Jane saw anything of him in London. Well, he is\r
+a very undeserving young man--and I do not suppose there's the least\r
+chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of\r
+his coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have inquired of\r
+everybody, too, who is likely to know."\r
+\r
+"I do not believe he will ever live at Netherfield any more."\r
+\r
+"Oh well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come. Though I\r
+shall always say he used my daughter extremely ill; and if I was her, I\r
+would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will\r
+die of a broken heart; and then he will be sorry for what he has done."\r
+\r
+But as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation,\r
+she made no answer.\r
+\r
+"Well, Lizzy," continued her mother, soon afterwards, "and so the\r
+Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope\r
+it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an\r
+excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her\r
+mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in _their_\r
+housekeeping, I dare say."\r
+\r
+"No, nothing at all."\r
+\r
+"A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes, _they_ will\r
+take care not to outrun their income. _They_ will never be distressed\r
+for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often\r
+talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it as\r
+quite their own, I dare say, whenever that happens."\r
+\r
+"It was a subject which they could not mention before me."\r
+\r
+"No; it would have been strange if they had; but I make no doubt they\r
+often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an\r
+estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be\r
+ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 41\r
+\r
+\r
+The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was\r
+the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies\r
+in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost\r
+universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink,\r
+and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very\r
+frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and\r
+Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such\r
+hard-heartedness in any of the family.\r
+\r
+"Good Heaven! what is to become of us? What are we to do?" would they\r
+often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. "How can you be smiling so,\r
+Lizzy?"\r
+\r
+Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what\r
+she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years\r
+ago.\r
+\r
+"I am sure," said she, "I cried for two days together when Colonel\r
+Miller's regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I shall break _mine_," said Lydia.\r
+\r
+"If one could but go to Brighton!" observed Mrs. Bennet.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes!--if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so\r
+disagreeable."\r
+\r
+"A little sea-bathing would set me up forever."\r
+\r
+"And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do _me_ a great deal of good,"\r
+added Kitty.\r
+\r
+Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through\r
+Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense\r
+of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy's\r
+objections; and never had she been so much disposed to pardon his\r
+interference in the views of his friend.\r
+\r
+But the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away; for she\r
+received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of\r
+the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a\r
+very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour\r
+and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of\r
+their _three_ months' acquaintance they had been intimate _two_.\r
+\r
+The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster,\r
+the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely\r
+to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia\r
+flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone's\r
+congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever;\r
+whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repined at her fate\r
+in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.\r
+\r
+"I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask _me_ as well as Lydia,"\r
+said she, "Though I am _not_ her particular friend. I have just as much\r
+right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older."\r
+\r
+In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make\r
+her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from\r
+exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she\r
+considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense\r
+for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it\r
+known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her\r
+go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general\r
+behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of\r
+such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more\r
+imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must\r
+be greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said:\r
+\r
+"Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public\r
+place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so\r
+little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present\r
+circumstances."\r
+\r
+"If you were aware," said Elizabeth, "of the very great disadvantage to\r
+us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and\r
+imprudent manner--nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you\r
+would judge differently in the affair."\r
+\r
+"Already arisen?" repeated Mr. Bennet. "What, has she frightened away\r
+some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such\r
+squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity\r
+are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who\r
+have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly."\r
+\r
+"Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not\r
+of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our\r
+importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the\r
+wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark\r
+Lydia's character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear\r
+father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and\r
+of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of\r
+her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character\r
+will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt\r
+that ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt, too, in the\r
+worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond\r
+youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness\r
+of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal\r
+contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger\r
+Kitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain,\r
+ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you\r
+suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever\r
+they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the\r
+disgrace?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject, and\r
+affectionately taking her hand said in reply:\r
+\r
+"Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known\r
+you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less\r
+advantage for having a couple of--or I may say, three--very silly\r
+sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to\r
+Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will\r
+keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an\r
+object of prey to anybody. At Brighton she will be of less importance\r
+even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find\r
+women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being\r
+there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow\r
+many degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest\r
+of her life."\r
+\r
+With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion\r
+continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not\r
+in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on\r
+them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret\r
+over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her\r
+disposition.\r
+\r
+Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her\r
+father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their\r
+united volubility. In Lydia's imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised\r
+every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye\r
+of fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers.\r
+She saw herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them\r
+at present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp--its tents\r
+stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young\r
+and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view, she\r
+saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six\r
+officers at once.\r
+\r
+Had she known her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such\r
+realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have\r
+been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same.\r
+Lydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for her melancholy\r
+conviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself.\r
+\r
+But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures\r
+continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia's leaving\r
+home.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been\r
+frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty\r
+well over; the agitations of former partiality entirely so. She had even\r
+learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted\r
+her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present\r
+behaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure,\r
+for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those intentions which\r
+had marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after\r
+what had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in\r
+finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous\r
+gallantry; and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the\r
+reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever\r
+cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified,\r
+and her preference secured at any time by their renewal.\r
+\r
+On the very last day of the regiment's remaining at Meryton, he dined,\r
+with other of the officers, at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth\r
+disposed to part from him in good humour, that on his making some\r
+inquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she\r
+mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three\r
+weeks at Rosings, and asked him, if he was acquainted with the former.\r
+\r
+He looked surprised, displeased, alarmed; but with a moment's\r
+recollection and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen\r
+him often; and, after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man,\r
+asked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour.\r
+With an air of indifference he soon afterwards added:\r
+\r
+"How long did you say he was at Rosings?"\r
+\r
+"Nearly three weeks."\r
+\r
+"And you saw him frequently?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, almost every day."\r
+\r
+"His manners are very different from his cousin's."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!" cried Mr. Wickham with a look which did not escape her. "And\r
+pray, may I ask?--" But checking himself, he added, in a gayer tone, "Is\r
+it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add aught of civility\r
+to his ordinary style?--for I dare not hope," he continued in a lower\r
+and more serious tone, "that he is improved in essentials."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no!" said Elizabeth. "In essentials, I believe, he is very much\r
+what he ever was."\r
+\r
+While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to\r
+rejoice over her words, or to distrust their meaning. There was a\r
+something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive\r
+and anxious attention, while she added:\r
+\r
+"When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that\r
+his mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from\r
+knowing him better, his disposition was better understood."\r
+\r
+Wickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated\r
+look; for a few minutes he was silent, till, shaking off his\r
+embarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of\r
+accents:\r
+\r
+"You, who so well know my feeling towards Mr. Darcy, will readily\r
+comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume\r
+even the _appearance_ of what is right. His pride, in that direction,\r
+may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must only\r
+deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only\r
+fear that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been\r
+alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good\r
+opinion and judgement he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always\r
+operated, I know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be\r
+imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss de Bourgh, which I\r
+am certain he has very much at heart."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a\r
+slight inclination of the head. She saw that he wanted to engage her on\r
+the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge\r
+him. The rest of the evening passed with the _appearance_, on his\r
+side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish\r
+Elizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a\r
+mutual desire of never meeting again.\r
+\r
+When the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton,\r
+from whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation\r
+between her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the\r
+only one who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs.\r
+Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter,\r
+and impressive in her injunctions that she should not miss the\r
+opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible--advice which\r
+there was every reason to believe would be well attended to; and in\r
+the clamorous happiness of Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more\r
+gentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 42\r
+\r
+\r
+Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could\r
+not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic\r
+comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance\r
+of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a\r
+woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in\r
+their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect,\r
+esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views\r
+of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of\r
+a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own\r
+imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often\r
+console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of\r
+the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal\r
+enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as\r
+her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not\r
+the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his\r
+wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true\r
+philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her\r
+father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but\r
+respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of\r
+herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to\r
+banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation\r
+and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own\r
+children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so\r
+strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so\r
+unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising\r
+from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents, which, rightly used,\r
+might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even\r
+if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.\r
+\r
+When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure she found little\r
+other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties\r
+abroad were less varied than before, and at home she had a mother and\r
+sister whose constant repinings at the dullness of everything around\r
+them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty\r
+might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers\r
+of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition\r
+greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all\r
+her folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a\r
+watering-place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what\r
+has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had been\r
+looking with impatient desire did not, in taking place, bring all the\r
+satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to\r
+name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity--to have\r
+some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by\r
+again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the\r
+present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes\r
+was now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation\r
+for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother\r
+and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the\r
+scheme, every part of it would have been perfect.\r
+\r
+"But it is fortunate," thought she, "that I have something to wish for.\r
+Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain.\r
+But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my\r
+sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of\r
+pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can\r
+never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by\r
+the defence of some little peculiar vexation."\r
+\r
+When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely\r
+to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and\r
+always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that\r
+they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers\r
+had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as\r
+made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which\r
+she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a\r
+violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going off to\r
+the camp; and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still\r
+less to be learnt--for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were\r
+much too full of lines under the words to be made public.\r
+\r
+After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good\r
+humour, and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn. Everything wore\r
+a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came\r
+back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet\r
+was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and, by the middle of\r
+June, Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without\r
+tears; an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by\r
+the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to\r
+mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious\r
+arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in\r
+Meryton.\r
+\r
+The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast\r
+approaching, and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter\r
+arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and\r
+curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from\r
+setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again\r
+within a month, and as that left too short a period for them to go so\r
+far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with\r
+the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up\r
+the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour, and, according to the\r
+present plan, were to go no farther northwards than Derbyshire. In that\r
+county there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three\r
+weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The\r
+town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where\r
+they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of\r
+her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth,\r
+Dovedale, or the Peak.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was excessively disappointed; she had set her heart on seeing\r
+the Lakes, and still thought there might have been time enough. But it\r
+was her business to be satisfied--and certainly her temper to be happy;\r
+and all was soon right again.\r
+\r
+With the mention of Derbyshire there were many ideas connected. It was\r
+impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its\r
+owner. "But surely," said she, "I may enter his county with impunity,\r
+and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me."\r
+\r
+The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away\r
+before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr.\r
+and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at\r
+Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two\r
+younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their\r
+cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and\r
+sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every\r
+way--teaching them, playing with them, and loving them.\r
+\r
+The Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the\r
+next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement.\r
+One enjoyment was certain--that of suitableness of companions;\r
+a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear\r
+inconveniences--cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure--and affection\r
+and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were\r
+disappointments abroad.\r
+\r
+It is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire,\r
+nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither\r
+lay; Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, Birmingham, etc. are\r
+sufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present\r
+concern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner's\r
+former residence, and where she had lately learned some acquaintance\r
+still remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the\r
+principal wonders of the country; and within five miles of Lambton,\r
+Elizabeth found from her aunt that Pemberley was situated. It was not\r
+in their direct road, nor more than a mile or two out of it. In\r
+talking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed\r
+an inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his\r
+willingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation.\r
+\r
+"My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard\r
+so much?" said her aunt; "a place, too, with which so many of your\r
+acquaintances are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at\r
+Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it. She\r
+must own that she was tired of seeing great houses; after going over so\r
+many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. "If it were merely a fine house\r
+richly furnished," said she, "I should not care about it myself; but\r
+the grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the\r
+country."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth said no more--but her mind could not acquiesce. The\r
+possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly\r
+occurred. It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea, and\r
+thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt than to run such\r
+a risk. But against this there were objections; and she finally resolved\r
+that it could be the last resource, if her private inquiries to the\r
+absence of the family were unfavourably answered.\r
+\r
+Accordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid\r
+whether Pemberley were not a very fine place? what was the name of its\r
+proprietor? and, with no little alarm, whether the family were down for\r
+the summer? A most welcome negative followed the last question--and her\r
+alarms now being removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of\r
+curiosity to see the house herself; and when the subject was revived the\r
+next morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and\r
+with a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike\r
+to the scheme. To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 43\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of\r
+Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned\r
+in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter.\r
+\r
+The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They\r
+entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through\r
+a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired\r
+every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for\r
+half-a-mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable\r
+eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by\r
+Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which\r
+the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone\r
+building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of\r
+high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was\r
+swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks\r
+were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She\r
+had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural\r
+beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were\r
+all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that\r
+to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!\r
+\r
+They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and,\r
+while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of\r
+meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been\r
+mistaken. On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the\r
+hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to\r
+wonder at her being where she was.\r
+\r
+The housekeeper came; a respectable-looking elderly woman, much less\r
+fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They\r
+followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well proportioned\r
+room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went\r
+to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, which\r
+they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance,\r
+was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and\r
+she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its\r
+banks and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it,\r
+with delight. As they passed into other rooms these objects were taking\r
+different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be\r
+seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to\r
+the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of\r
+his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of\r
+splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.\r
+\r
+"And of this place," thought she, "I might have been mistress! With\r
+these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of\r
+viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and\r
+welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But no,"--recollecting\r
+herself--"that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to\r
+me; I should not have been allowed to invite them."\r
+\r
+This was a lucky recollection--it saved her from something very like\r
+regret.\r
+\r
+She longed to inquire of the housekeeper whether her master was really\r
+absent, but had not the courage for it. At length however, the question\r
+was asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs.\r
+Reynolds replied that he was, adding, "But we expect him to-morrow, with\r
+a large party of friends." How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own\r
+journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day!\r
+\r
+Her aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached and saw the\r
+likeness of Mr. Wickham, suspended, amongst several other miniatures,\r
+over the mantelpiece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it.\r
+The housekeeper came forward, and told them it was a picture of a young\r
+gentleman, the son of her late master's steward, who had been brought\r
+up by him at his own expense. "He is now gone into the army," she added;\r
+"but I am afraid he has turned out very wild."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not\r
+return it.\r
+\r
+"And that," said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures,\r
+"is my master--and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the\r
+other--about eight years ago."\r
+\r
+"I have heard much of your master's fine person," said Mrs. Gardiner,\r
+looking at the picture; "it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell\r
+us whether it is like or not."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reynolds respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this\r
+intimation of her knowing her master.\r
+\r
+"Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy?"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth coloured, and said: "A little."\r
+\r
+"And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, ma'am?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very handsome."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I know none so handsome; but in the gallery up stairs you\r
+will see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late\r
+master's favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to\r
+be then. He was very fond of them."\r
+\r
+This accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham's being among them.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn\r
+when she was only eight years old.\r
+\r
+"And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?" said Mrs. Gardiner.\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes--the handsomest young lady that ever was seen; and so\r
+accomplished!--She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is\r
+a new instrument just come down for her--a present from my master; she\r
+comes here to-morrow with him."\r
+\r
+Mr. Gardiner, whose manners were very easy and pleasant, encouraged her\r
+communicativeness by his questions and remarks; Mrs. Reynolds, either\r
+by pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her\r
+master and his sister.\r
+\r
+"Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?"\r
+\r
+"Not so much as I could wish, sir; but I dare say he may spend half his\r
+time here; and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months."\r
+\r
+"Except," thought Elizabeth, "when she goes to Ramsgate."\r
+\r
+"If your master would marry, you might see more of him."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; but I do not know when _that_ will be. I do not know who is\r
+good enough for him."\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, "It is\r
+very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so."\r
+\r
+"I say no more than the truth, and everybody will say that knows him,"\r
+replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she\r
+listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, "I have\r
+never known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever\r
+since he was four years old."\r
+\r
+This was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her\r
+ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man had been her firmest opinion.\r
+Her keenest attention was awakened; she longed to hear more, and was\r
+grateful to her uncle for saying:\r
+\r
+"There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in\r
+having such a master."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could\r
+not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are\r
+good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and\r
+he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the\r
+world."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth almost stared at her. "Can this be Mr. Darcy?" thought she.\r
+\r
+"His father was an excellent man," said Mrs. Gardiner.\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed; and his son will be just like him--just\r
+as affable to the poor."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs.\r
+Reynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subjects\r
+of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the\r
+furniture, in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family\r
+prejudice to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her\r
+master, soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his\r
+many merits as they proceeded together up the great staircase.\r
+\r
+"He is the best landlord, and the best master," said she, "that ever\r
+lived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but\r
+themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but will give\r
+him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw\r
+anything of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away\r
+like other young men."\r
+\r
+"In what an amiable light does this place him!" thought Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"This fine account of him," whispered her aunt as they walked, "is not\r
+quite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps we might be deceived."\r
+\r
+"That is not very likely; our authority was too good."\r
+\r
+On reaching the spacious lobby above they were shown into a very pretty\r
+sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than\r
+the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to\r
+give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room when\r
+last at Pemberley.\r
+\r
+"He is certainly a good brother," said Elizabeth, as she walked towards\r
+one of the windows.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy's delight, when she should enter\r
+the room. "And this is always the way with him," she added. "Whatever\r
+can give his sister any pleasure is sure to be done in a moment. There\r
+is nothing he would not do for her."\r
+\r
+The picture-gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were\r
+all that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings;\r
+but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already\r
+visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss\r
+Darcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and\r
+also more intelligible.\r
+\r
+In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have\r
+little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked in quest of\r
+the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested\r
+her--and she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy, with such a\r
+smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he\r
+looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest\r
+contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery.\r
+Mrs. Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father's\r
+lifetime.\r
+\r
+There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle\r
+sensation towards the original than she had ever felt at the height of\r
+their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds\r
+was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise\r
+of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she\r
+considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship!--how\r
+much of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow!--how much of\r
+good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought\r
+forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she\r
+stood before the canvas on which he was represented, and fixed his\r
+eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of\r
+gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and\r
+softened its impropriety of expression.\r
+\r
+When all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen,\r
+they returned downstairs, and, taking leave of the housekeeper, were\r
+consigned over to the gardener, who met them at the hall-door.\r
+\r
+As they walked across the hall towards the river, Elizabeth turned back\r
+to look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former\r
+was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself\r
+suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables.\r
+\r
+They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his\r
+appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes\r
+instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest\r
+blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immovable from\r
+surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party,\r
+and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least\r
+of perfect civility.\r
+\r
+She had instinctively turned away; but stopping on his approach,\r
+received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be\r
+overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture\r
+they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two\r
+that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on\r
+beholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little\r
+aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused,\r
+scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer\r
+she returned to his civil inquiries after her family. Amazed at the\r
+alteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that\r
+he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the\r
+impropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few\r
+minutes in which they continued were some of the most uncomfortable in\r
+her life. Nor did he seem much more at ease; when he spoke, his accent\r
+had none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his inquiries as\r
+to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her having stayed in\r
+Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the\r
+distraction of his thoughts.\r
+\r
+At length every idea seemed to fail him; and, after standing a few\r
+moments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took\r
+leave.\r
+\r
+The others then joined her, and expressed admiration of his figure; but\r
+Elizabeth heard not a word, and wholly engrossed by her own feelings,\r
+followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her\r
+coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the\r
+world! How strange it must appear to him! In what a disgraceful light\r
+might it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely\r
+thrown herself in his way again! Oh! why did she come? Or, why did he\r
+thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes\r
+sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination;\r
+for it was plain that he was that moment arrived--that moment alighted\r
+from his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over\r
+the perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly\r
+altered--what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was\r
+amazing!--but to speak with such civility, to inquire after her family!\r
+Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never\r
+had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. What\r
+a contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosings Park, when he put\r
+his letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, or how to account\r
+for it.\r
+\r
+They had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and\r
+every step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer\r
+reach of the woods to which they were approaching; but it was some time\r
+before Elizabeth was sensible of any of it; and, though she answered\r
+mechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and\r
+seemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she\r
+distinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that\r
+one spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then\r
+was. She longed to know what at the moment was passing in his mind--in\r
+what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of everything,\r
+she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil only because he\r
+felt himself at ease; yet there had been _that_ in his voice which was\r
+not like ease. Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in\r
+seeing her she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with\r
+composure.\r
+\r
+At length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind\r
+aroused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself.\r
+\r
+They entered the woods, and bidding adieu to the river for a while,\r
+ascended some of the higher grounds; when, in spots where the opening of\r
+the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the\r
+valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading\r
+many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish\r
+of going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk.\r
+With a triumphant smile they were told that it was ten miles round.\r
+It settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which\r
+brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods,\r
+to the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed\r
+it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene;\r
+it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the\r
+valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream,\r
+and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it.\r
+Elizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the\r
+bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner,\r
+who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only\r
+of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was,\r
+therefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house\r
+on the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction; but their\r
+progress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the\r
+taste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the\r
+occasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the\r
+man about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this\r
+slow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth's astonishment\r
+was quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy\r
+approaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here\r
+less sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before\r
+they met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared\r
+for an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with\r
+calmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed,\r
+she felt that he would probably strike into some other path. The idea\r
+lasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view; the\r
+turning past, he was immediately before them. With a glance, she saw\r
+that he had lost none of his recent civility; and, to imitate his\r
+politeness, she began, as they met, to admire the beauty of the place;\r
+but she had not got beyond the words "delightful," and "charming," when\r
+some unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of\r
+Pemberley from her might be mischievously construed. Her colour changed,\r
+and she said no more.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind; and on her pausing, he asked\r
+her if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends.\r
+This was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared;\r
+and she could hardly suppress a smile at his being now seeking the\r
+acquaintance of some of those very people against whom his pride had\r
+revolted in his offer to herself. "What will be his surprise," thought\r
+she, "when he knows who they are? He takes them now for people of\r
+fashion."\r
+\r
+The introduction, however, was immediately made; and as she named their\r
+relationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore\r
+it, and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he\r
+could from such disgraceful companions. That he was _surprised_ by the\r
+connection was evident; he sustained it, however, with fortitude, and\r
+so far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into\r
+conversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased,\r
+could not but triumph. It was consoling that he should know she had\r
+some relations for whom there was no need to blush. She listened most\r
+attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every\r
+expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence,\r
+his taste, or his good manners.\r
+\r
+The conversation soon turned upon fishing; and she heard Mr. Darcy\r
+invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he\r
+chose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time\r
+to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of\r
+the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was\r
+walking arm-in-arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of wonder.\r
+Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment\r
+must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme, and\r
+continually was she repeating, "Why is he so altered? From what can\r
+it proceed? It cannot be for _me_--it cannot be for _my_ sake that his\r
+manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a\r
+change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me."\r
+\r
+After walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two\r
+gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to\r
+the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious\r
+water-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated\r
+in Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found\r
+Elizabeth's arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred\r
+her husband's. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on\r
+together. After a short silence, the lady first spoke. She wished him\r
+to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the\r
+place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been\r
+very unexpected--"for your housekeeper," she added, "informed us that\r
+you would certainly not be here till to-morrow; and indeed, before we\r
+left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected\r
+in the country." He acknowledged the truth of it all, and said that\r
+business with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours\r
+before the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. "They\r
+will join me early to-morrow," he continued, "and among them are some\r
+who will claim an acquaintance with you--Mr. Bingley and his sisters."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly\r
+driven back to the time when Mr. Bingley's name had been the last\r
+mentioned between them; and, if she might judge by his complexion, _his_\r
+mind was not very differently engaged.\r
+\r
+"There is also one other person in the party," he continued after a\r
+pause, "who more particularly wishes to be known to you. Will you allow\r
+me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance\r
+during your stay at Lambton?"\r
+\r
+The surprise of such an application was great indeed; it was too great\r
+for her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt\r
+that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her\r
+must be the work of her brother, and, without looking farther, it was\r
+satisfactory; it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made\r
+him think really ill of her.\r
+\r
+They now walked on in silence, each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth\r
+was not comfortable; that was impossible; but she was flattered and\r
+pleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her was a compliment of\r
+the highest kind. They soon outstripped the others, and when they had\r
+reached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a\r
+mile behind.\r
+\r
+He then asked her to walk into the house--but she declared herself not\r
+tired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time much might\r
+have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but\r
+there seemed to be an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected\r
+that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dove Dale\r
+with great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowly--and her\r
+patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tete-a-tete was\r
+over. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's coming up they were all pressed to go\r
+into the house and take some refreshment; but this was declined, and\r
+they parted on each side with utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the\r
+ladies into the carriage; and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him\r
+walking slowly towards the house.\r
+\r
+The observations of her uncle and aunt now began; and each of them\r
+pronounced him to be infinitely superior to anything they had expected.\r
+"He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming," said her uncle.\r
+\r
+"There _is_ something a little stately in him, to be sure," replied her\r
+aunt, "but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now\r
+say with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, I\r
+have seen nothing of it."\r
+\r
+"I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more\r
+than civil; it was really attentive; and there was no necessity for such\r
+attention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, Lizzy," said her aunt, "he is not so handsome as Wickham;\r
+or, rather, he has not Wickham's countenance, for his features\r
+are perfectly good. But how came you to tell me that he was so\r
+disagreeable?"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth excused herself as well as she could; said that she had liked\r
+him better when they had met in Kent than before, and that she had never\r
+seen him so pleasant as this morning.\r
+\r
+"But perhaps he may be a little whimsical in his civilities," replied\r
+her uncle. "Your great men often are; and therefore I shall not take him\r
+at his word, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off\r
+his grounds."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth felt that they had entirely misunderstood his character, but\r
+said nothing.\r
+\r
+"From what we have seen of him," continued Mrs. Gardiner, "I really\r
+should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by\r
+anybody as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an ill-natured look.\r
+On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he\r
+speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance that would\r
+not give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But, to be sure, the\r
+good lady who showed us his house did give him a most flaming character!\r
+I could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal\r
+master, I suppose, and _that_ in the eye of a servant comprehends every\r
+virtue."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of\r
+his behaviour to Wickham; and therefore gave them to understand, in\r
+as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from\r
+his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different\r
+construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor\r
+Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In\r
+confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary\r
+transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming\r
+her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned; but as they were now\r
+approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to\r
+the charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out\r
+to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs to think of\r
+anything else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk they\r
+had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former\r
+acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of a\r
+intercourse renewed after many years' discontinuance.\r
+\r
+The occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth\r
+much attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing\r
+but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and, above\r
+all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 44\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit\r
+her the very day after her reaching Pemberley; and was consequently\r
+resolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning.\r
+But her conclusion was false; for on the very morning after their\r
+arrival at Lambton, these visitors came. They had been walking about the\r
+place with some of their new friends, and were just returning to the inn\r
+to dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a\r
+carriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and a lady in\r
+a curricle driving up the street. Elizabeth immediately recognizing\r
+the livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of her\r
+surprise to her relations by acquainting them with the honour which she\r
+expected. Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment\r
+of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many\r
+of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on\r
+the business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they felt that\r
+there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a\r
+quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these\r
+newly-born notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of\r
+Elizabeth's feelings was at every moment increasing. She was quite\r
+amazed at her own discomposure; but amongst other causes of disquiet,\r
+she dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much\r
+in her favour; and, more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally\r
+suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her.\r
+\r
+She retreated from the window, fearful of being seen; and as she walked\r
+up and down the room, endeavouring to compose herself, saw such looks of\r
+inquiring surprise in her uncle and aunt as made everything worse.\r
+\r
+Miss Darcy and her brother appeared, and this formidable introduction\r
+took place. With astonishment did Elizabeth see that her new\r
+acquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself. Since her\r
+being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud;\r
+but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was\r
+only exceedingly shy. She found it difficult to obtain even a word from\r
+her beyond a monosyllable.\r
+\r
+Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though\r
+little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance\r
+womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother; but there\r
+was sense and good humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly\r
+unassuming and gentle. Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as\r
+acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much\r
+relieved by discerning such different feelings.\r
+\r
+They had not long been together before Mr. Darcy told her that Bingley\r
+was also coming to wait on her; and she had barely time to express her\r
+satisfaction, and prepare for such a visitor, when Bingley's quick\r
+step was heard on the stairs, and in a moment he entered the room. All\r
+Elizabeth's anger against him had been long done away; but had she still\r
+felt any, it could hardly have stood its ground against the unaffected\r
+cordiality with which he expressed himself on seeing her again. He\r
+inquired in a friendly, though general way, after her family, and looked\r
+and spoke with the same good-humoured ease that he had ever done.\r
+\r
+To Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage\r
+than to herself. They had long wished to see him. The whole party before\r
+them, indeed, excited a lively attention. The suspicions which had just\r
+arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece directed their observation towards\r
+each with an earnest though guarded inquiry; and they soon drew from\r
+those inquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew\r
+what it was to love. Of the lady's sensations they remained a little\r
+in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was\r
+evident enough.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, on her side, had much to do. She wanted to ascertain the\r
+feelings of each of her visitors; she wanted to compose her own, and\r
+to make herself agreeable to all; and in the latter object, where she\r
+feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she\r
+endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour. Bingley\r
+was ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased.\r
+\r
+In seeing Bingley, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister; and, oh!\r
+how ardently did she long to know whether any of his were directed in\r
+a like manner. Sometimes she could fancy that he talked less than on\r
+former occasions, and once or twice pleased herself with the notion\r
+that, as he looked at her, he was trying to trace a resemblance. But,\r
+though this might be imaginary, she could not be deceived as to his\r
+behaviour to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane. No look\r
+appeared on either side that spoke particular regard. Nothing occurred\r
+between them that could justify the hopes of his sister. On this point\r
+she was soon satisfied; and two or three little circumstances occurred\r
+ere they parted, which, in her anxious interpretation, denoted a\r
+recollection of Jane not untinctured by tenderness, and a wish of saying\r
+more that might lead to the mention of her, had he dared. He observed\r
+to her, at a moment when the others were talking together, and in a tone\r
+which had something of real regret, that it "was a very long time since\r
+he had had the pleasure of seeing her;" and, before she could reply,\r
+he added, "It is above eight months. We have not met since the 26th of\r
+November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was pleased to find his memory so exact; and he afterwards\r
+took occasion to ask her, when unattended to by any of the rest, whether\r
+_all_ her sisters were at Longbourn. There was not much in the question,\r
+nor in the preceding remark; but there was a look and a manner which\r
+gave them meaning.\r
+\r
+It was not often that she could turn her eyes on Mr. Darcy himself;\r
+but, whenever she did catch a glimpse, she saw an expression of general\r
+complaisance, and in all that he said she heard an accent so removed\r
+from _hauteur_ or disdain of his companions, as convinced her that\r
+the improvement of manners which she had yesterday witnessed however\r
+temporary its existence might prove, had at least outlived one day. When\r
+she saw him thus seeking the acquaintance and courting the good opinion\r
+of people with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a\r
+disgrace--when she saw him thus civil, not only to herself, but to the\r
+very relations whom he had openly disdained, and recollected their last\r
+lively scene in Hunsford Parsonage--the difference, the change was\r
+so great, and struck so forcibly on her mind, that she could hardly\r
+restrain her astonishment from being visible. Never, even in the company\r
+of his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations\r
+at Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from\r
+self-consequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance\r
+could result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the\r
+acquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed would draw\r
+down the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and\r
+Rosings.\r
+\r
+Their visitors stayed with them above half-an-hour; and when they arose\r
+to depart, Mr. Darcy called on his sister to join him in expressing\r
+their wish of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Miss Bennet, to dinner\r
+at Pemberley, before they left the country. Miss Darcy, though with a\r
+diffidence which marked her little in the habit of giving invitations,\r
+readily obeyed. Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece, desirous of knowing\r
+how _she_, whom the invitation most concerned, felt disposed as to its\r
+acceptance, but Elizabeth had turned away her head. Presuming however,\r
+that this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than\r
+any dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of\r
+society, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for\r
+her attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on.\r
+\r
+Bingley expressed great pleasure in the certainty of seeing Elizabeth\r
+again, having still a great deal to say to her, and many inquiries to\r
+make after all their Hertfordshire friends. Elizabeth, construing all\r
+this into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased, and on\r
+this account, as well as some others, found herself, when their\r
+visitors left them, capable of considering the last half-hour with some\r
+satisfaction, though while it was passing, the enjoyment of it had been\r
+little. Eager to be alone, and fearful of inquiries or hints from her\r
+uncle and aunt, she stayed with them only long enough to hear their\r
+favourable opinion of Bingley, and then hurried away to dress.\r
+\r
+But she had no reason to fear Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's curiosity; it was\r
+not their wish to force her communication. It was evident that she was\r
+much better acquainted with Mr. Darcy than they had before any idea of;\r
+it was evident that he was very much in love with her. They saw much to\r
+interest, but nothing to justify inquiry.\r
+\r
+Of Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well; and, as far\r
+as their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find. They could\r
+not be untouched by his politeness; and had they drawn his character\r
+from their own feelings and his servant's report, without any reference\r
+to any other account, the circle in Hertfordshire to which he was known\r
+would not have recognized it for Mr. Darcy. There was now an interest,\r
+however, in believing the housekeeper; and they soon became sensible\r
+that the authority of a servant who had known him since he was four\r
+years old, and whose own manners indicated respectability, was not to be\r
+hastily rejected. Neither had anything occurred in the intelligence of\r
+their Lambton friends that could materially lessen its weight. They had\r
+nothing to accuse him of but pride; pride he probably had, and if not,\r
+it would certainly be imputed by the inhabitants of a small market-town\r
+where the family did not visit. It was acknowledged, however, that he\r
+was a liberal man, and did much good among the poor.\r
+\r
+With respect to Wickham, the travellers soon found that he was not held\r
+there in much estimation; for though the chief of his concerns with the\r
+son of his patron were imperfectly understood, it was yet a well-known\r
+fact that, on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind\r
+him, which Mr. Darcy afterwards discharged.\r
+\r
+As for Elizabeth, her thoughts were at Pemberley this evening more than\r
+the last; and the evening, though as it passed it seemed long, was not\r
+long enough to determine her feelings towards _one_ in that mansion;\r
+and she lay awake two whole hours endeavouring to make them out. She\r
+certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she\r
+had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him,\r
+that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his\r
+valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some\r
+time ceased to be repugnant to her feeling; and it was now heightened\r
+into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in\r
+his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light,\r
+which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem,\r
+there was a motive within her of goodwill which could not be overlooked.\r
+It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her,\r
+but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and\r
+acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations\r
+accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid\r
+her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most\r
+eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display\r
+of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only\r
+were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent\r
+on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much\r
+pride exciting not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent\r
+love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a\r
+sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be\r
+exactly defined. She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him,\r
+she felt a real interest in his welfare; and she only wanted to know how\r
+far she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would\r
+be for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her\r
+fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on her the renewal of\r
+his addresses.\r
+\r
+It had been settled in the evening between the aunt and the niece, that\r
+such a striking civility as Miss Darcy's in coming to see them on the\r
+very day of her arrival at Pemberley, for she had reached it only to a\r
+late breakfast, ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled,\r
+by some exertion of politeness on their side; and, consequently, that\r
+it would be highly expedient to wait on her at Pemberley the following\r
+morning. They were, therefore, to go. Elizabeth was pleased; though when\r
+she asked herself the reason, she had very little to say in reply.\r
+\r
+Mr. Gardiner left them soon after breakfast. The fishing scheme had been\r
+renewed the day before, and a positive engagement made of his meeting\r
+some of the gentlemen at Pemberley before noon.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 45\r
+\r
+\r
+Convinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley's dislike of her had\r
+originated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how unwelcome her\r
+appearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how\r
+much civility on that lady's side the acquaintance would now be renewed.\r
+\r
+On reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon,\r
+whose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows\r
+opening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody\r
+hills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts\r
+which were scattered over the intermediate lawn.\r
+\r
+In this house they were received by Miss Darcy, who was sitting there\r
+with Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and the lady with whom she lived in\r
+London. Georgiana's reception of them was very civil, but attended with\r
+all the embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear\r
+of doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior\r
+the belief of her being proud and reserved. Mrs. Gardiner and her niece,\r
+however, did her justice, and pitied her.\r
+\r
+By Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley they were noticed only by a curtsey; and,\r
+on their being seated, a pause, awkward as such pauses must always be,\r
+succeeded for a few moments. It was first broken by Mrs. Annesley, a\r
+genteel, agreeable-looking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind\r
+of discourse proved her to be more truly well-bred than either of the\r
+others; and between her and Mrs. Gardiner, with occasional help from\r
+Elizabeth, the conversation was carried on. Miss Darcy looked as if she\r
+wished for courage enough to join in it; and sometimes did venture a\r
+short sentence when there was least danger of its being heard.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley,\r
+and that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without\r
+calling her attention. This observation would not have prevented her\r
+from trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an\r
+inconvenient distance; but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity\r
+of saying much. Her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every\r
+moment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room. She wished, she\r
+feared that the master of the house might be amongst them; and whether\r
+she wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine. After\r
+sitting in this manner a quarter of an hour without hearing Miss\r
+Bingley's voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold\r
+inquiry after the health of her family. She answered with equal\r
+indifference and brevity, and the other said no more.\r
+\r
+The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the\r
+entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the\r
+finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many\r
+a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been\r
+given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole\r
+party--for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the\r
+beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected\r
+them round the table.\r
+\r
+While thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether\r
+she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the\r
+feelings which prevailed on his entering the room; and then, though but\r
+a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to\r
+regret that he came.\r
+\r
+He had been some time with Mr. Gardiner, who, with two or three other\r
+gentlemen from the house, was engaged by the river, and had left him\r
+only on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to\r
+Georgiana that morning. No sooner did he appear than Elizabeth wisely\r
+resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed; a resolution the more\r
+necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she\r
+saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them,\r
+and that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour\r
+when he first came into the room. In no countenance was attentive\r
+curiosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley's, in spite of the\r
+smiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its\r
+objects; for jealousy had not yet made her desperate, and her attentions\r
+to Mr. Darcy were by no means over. Miss Darcy, on her brother's\r
+entrance, exerted herself much more to talk, and Elizabeth saw that he\r
+was anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted, and forwarded\r
+as much as possible, every attempt at conversation on either side. Miss\r
+Bingley saw all this likewise; and, in the imprudence of anger, took the\r
+first opportunity of saying, with sneering civility:\r
+\r
+"Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the ----shire Militia removed from Meryton?\r
+They must be a great loss to _your_ family."\r
+\r
+In Darcy's presence she dared not mention Wickham's name; but Elizabeth\r
+instantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts; and the\r
+various recollections connected with him gave her a moment's distress;\r
+but exerting herself vigorously to repel the ill-natured attack, she\r
+presently answered the question in a tolerably detached tone. While\r
+she spoke, an involuntary glance showed her Darcy, with a heightened\r
+complexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with\r
+confusion, and unable to lift up her eyes. Had Miss Bingley known what\r
+pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would\r
+have refrained from the hint; but she had merely intended to discompose\r
+Elizabeth by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed\r
+her partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in\r
+Darcy's opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies\r
+and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected\r
+with that corps. Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's\r
+meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy\r
+was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley's connections\r
+her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from the very\r
+wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming\r
+hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan, and without\r
+meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss\r
+Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern\r
+for the welfare of his friend.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion; and\r
+as Miss Bingley, vexed and disappointed, dared not approach nearer to\r
+Wickham, Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able\r
+to speak any more. Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet, scarcely\r
+recollected her interest in the affair, and the very circumstance which\r
+had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth seemed to have\r
+fixed them on her more and more cheerfully.\r
+\r
+Their visit did not continue long after the question and answer above\r
+mentioned; and while Mr. Darcy was attending them to their carriage Miss\r
+Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth's person,\r
+behaviour, and dress. But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother's\r
+recommendation was enough to ensure her favour; his judgement could not\r
+err. And he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth as to leave Georgiana\r
+without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable. When\r
+Darcy returned to the saloon, Miss Bingley could not help repeating to\r
+him some part of what she had been saying to his sister.\r
+\r
+"How very ill Miss Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy," she\r
+cried; "I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since\r
+the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing\r
+that we should not have known her again."\r
+\r
+However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented\r
+himself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than\r
+her being rather tanned, no miraculous consequence of travelling in the\r
+summer.\r
+\r
+"For my own part," she rejoined, "I must confess that I never could\r
+see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no\r
+brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose\r
+wants character--there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are\r
+tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes,\r
+which have sometimes been called so fine, I could never see anything\r
+extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do\r
+not like at all; and in her air altogether there is a self-sufficiency\r
+without fashion, which is intolerable."\r
+\r
+Persuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not\r
+the best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always\r
+wise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the\r
+success she expected. He was resolutely silent, however, and, from a\r
+determination of making him speak, she continued:\r
+\r
+"I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all\r
+were to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect\r
+your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, '_She_\r
+a beauty!--I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she\r
+seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at\r
+one time."\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but _that_\r
+was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have\r
+considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance."\r
+\r
+He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of\r
+having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their\r
+visit, as they returned, except what had particularly interested them\r
+both. The look and behaviour of everybody they had seen were discussed,\r
+except of the person who had mostly engaged their attention. They talked\r
+of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit--of everything but\r
+himself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of\r
+him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece's\r
+beginning the subject.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 46\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from\r
+Jane on their first arrival at Lambton; and this disappointment had been\r
+renewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there; but\r
+on the third her repining was over, and her sister justified, by the\r
+receipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that\r
+it had been missent elsewhere. Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as\r
+Jane had written the direction remarkably ill.\r
+\r
+They had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in; and\r
+her uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by\r
+themselves. The one missent must first be attended to; it had been\r
+written five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their\r
+little parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded;\r
+but the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident\r
+agitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect:\r
+\r
+"Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a\r
+most unexpected and serious nature; but I am afraid of alarming you--be\r
+assured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia.\r
+An express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed,\r
+from Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland\r
+with one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our\r
+surprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am\r
+very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! But I am willing\r
+to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood.\r
+Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step\r
+(and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is\r
+disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing.\r
+Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How\r
+thankful am I that we never let them know what has been said against\r
+him; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about\r
+twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at\r
+eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have\r
+passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect\r
+him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of\r
+their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor\r
+mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly\r
+know what I have written."\r
+\r
+Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing\r
+what she felt, Elizabeth on finishing this letter instantly seized the\r
+other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows: it\r
+had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first.\r
+\r
+"By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I\r
+wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my\r
+head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest\r
+Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you,\r
+and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as the marriage between Mr. Wickham\r
+and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has\r
+taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone\r
+to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the\r
+day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short\r
+letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna\r
+Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W.\r
+never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was\r
+repeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B.\r
+intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham,\r
+but no further; for on entering that place, they removed into a hackney\r
+coach, and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that\r
+is known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road.\r
+I know not what to think. After making every possible inquiry on that\r
+side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing\r
+them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but\r
+without any success--no such people had been seen to pass through. With\r
+the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions\r
+to us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved\r
+for him and Mrs. F., but no one can throw any blame on them. Our\r
+distress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the\r
+worst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make\r
+it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue\r
+their first plan; and even if _he_ could form such a design against a\r
+young woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose\r
+her so lost to everything? Impossible! I grieve to find, however, that\r
+Colonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage; he shook his\r
+head when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to\r
+be trusted. My poor mother is really ill, and keeps her room. Could she\r
+exert herself, it would be better; but this is not to be expected. And\r
+as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has\r
+anger for having concealed their attachment; but as it was a matter of\r
+confidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you\r
+have been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now, as the\r
+first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not\r
+so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu! I\r
+take up my pen again to do what I have just told you I would not; but\r
+circumstances are such that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to\r
+come here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well,\r
+that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something\r
+more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel\r
+Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do I am sure\r
+I know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any\r
+measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to\r
+be at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence, my\r
+uncle's advice and assistance would be everything in the world; he will\r
+immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness."\r
+\r
+"Oh! where, where is my uncle?" cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat\r
+as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing\r
+a moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door it was\r
+opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous\r
+manner made him start, and before he could recover himself to speak,\r
+she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation,\r
+hastily exclaimed, "I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find\r
+Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not\r
+an instant to lose."\r
+\r
+"Good God! what is the matter?" cried he, with more feeling than\r
+politeness; then recollecting himself, "I will not detain you a minute;\r
+but let me, or let the servant go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are\r
+not well enough; you cannot go yourself."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her and she felt how\r
+little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back\r
+the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless\r
+an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and\r
+mistress home instantly.\r
+\r
+On his quitting the room she sat down, unable to support herself, and\r
+looking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her,\r
+or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration,\r
+"Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take to give you\r
+present relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one? You are very ill."\r
+\r
+"No, I thank you," she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. "There\r
+is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well; I am only distressed by\r
+some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn."\r
+\r
+She burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could\r
+not speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say\r
+something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate\r
+silence. At length she spoke again. "I have just had a letter from Jane,\r
+with such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from anyone. My younger\r
+sister has left all her friends--has eloped; has thrown herself into\r
+the power of--of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton.\r
+_You_ know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no\r
+connections, nothing that can tempt him to--she is lost for ever."\r
+\r
+Darcy was fixed in astonishment. "When I consider," she added in a yet\r
+more agitated voice, "that I might have prevented it! I, who knew what\r
+he was. Had I but explained some part of it only--some part of what I\r
+learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not\r
+have happened. But it is all--all too late now."\r
+\r
+"I am grieved indeed," cried Darcy; "grieved--shocked. But is it\r
+certain--absolutely certain?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes! They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced\r
+almost to London, but not beyond; they are certainly not gone to\r
+Scotland."\r
+\r
+"And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?"\r
+\r
+"My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle's\r
+immediate assistance; and we shall be off, I hope, in half-an-hour. But\r
+nothing can be done--I know very well that nothing can be done. How is\r
+such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have\r
+not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible!"\r
+\r
+Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence.\r
+\r
+"When _my_ eyes were opened to his real character--Oh! had I known what\r
+I ought, what I dared to do! But I knew not--I was afraid of doing too\r
+much. Wretched, wretched mistake!"\r
+\r
+Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking\r
+up and down the room in earnest meditation, his brow contracted, his air\r
+gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her\r
+power was sinking; everything _must_ sink under such a proof of family\r
+weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither\r
+wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing\r
+consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It\r
+was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own\r
+wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved\r
+him, as now, when all love must be vain.\r
+\r
+But self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydia--the\r
+humiliation, the misery she was bringing on them all, soon swallowed\r
+up every private care; and covering her face with her handkerchief,\r
+Elizabeth was soon lost to everything else; and, after a pause of\r
+several minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by\r
+the voice of her companion, who, in a manner which, though it spoke\r
+compassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, "I am afraid you have been\r
+long desiring my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my\r
+stay, but real, though unavailing concern. Would to Heaven that anything\r
+could be either said or done on my part that might offer consolation to\r
+such distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may\r
+seem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I\r
+fear, prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley\r
+to-day."\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes. Be so kind as to apologise for us to Miss Darcy. Say that\r
+urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as\r
+long as it is possible, I know it cannot be long."\r
+\r
+He readily assured her of his secrecy; again expressed his sorrow for\r
+her distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present\r
+reason to hope, and leaving his compliments for her relations, with only\r
+one serious, parting look, went away.\r
+\r
+As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they\r
+should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as\r
+had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a\r
+retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full\r
+of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those\r
+feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would\r
+formerly have rejoiced in its termination.\r
+\r
+If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's\r
+change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if\r
+otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or\r
+unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on\r
+a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been\r
+exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given\r
+somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham,\r
+and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other\r
+less interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him\r
+go with regret; and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must\r
+produce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched\r
+business. Never, since reading Jane's second letter, had she entertained\r
+a hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her. No one but Jane, she thought,\r
+could flatter herself with such an expectation. Surprise was the least\r
+of her feelings on this development. While the contents of the first\r
+letter remained in her mind, she was all surprise--all astonishment that\r
+Wickham should marry a girl whom it was impossible he could marry\r
+for money; and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared\r
+incomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment\r
+as this she might have sufficient charms; and though she did not suppose\r
+Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement without the intention\r
+of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue\r
+nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey.\r
+\r
+She had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that\r
+Lydia had any partiality for him; but she was convinced that Lydia\r
+wanted only encouragement to attach herself to anybody. Sometimes one\r
+officer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions\r
+raised them in her opinion. Her affections had continually been\r
+fluctuating but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and\r
+mistaken indulgence towards such a girl--oh! how acutely did she now\r
+feel it!\r
+\r
+She was wild to be at home--to hear, to see, to be upon the spot to\r
+share with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a\r
+family so deranged, a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and\r
+requiring constant attendance; and though almost persuaded that nothing\r
+could be done for Lydia, her uncle's interference seemed of the utmost\r
+importance, and till he entered the room her impatience was severe. Mr.\r
+and Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing by the servant's\r
+account that their niece was taken suddenly ill; but satisfying them\r
+instantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their\r
+summons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript\r
+of the last with trembling energy.--Though Lydia had never been a\r
+favourite with them, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply\r
+afflicted. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it; and after the\r
+first exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner promised every\r
+assistance in his power. Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked\r
+him with tears of gratitude; and all three being actuated by one spirit,\r
+everything relating to their journey was speedily settled. They were to\r
+be off as soon as possible. "But what is to be done about Pemberley?"\r
+cried Mrs. Gardiner. "John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for\r
+us; was it so?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement.\r
+_That_ is all settled."\r
+\r
+"What is all settled?" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to\r
+prepare. "And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real\r
+truth? Oh, that I knew how it was!"\r
+\r
+But wishes were vain, or at least could only serve to amuse her in the\r
+hurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure\r
+to be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was\r
+impossible to one so wretched as herself; but she had her share of\r
+business as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to\r
+be written to all their friends at Lambton, with false excuses for their\r
+sudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed; and Mr.\r
+Gardiner meanwhile having settled his account at the inn, nothing\r
+remained to be done but to go; and Elizabeth, after all the misery of\r
+the morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could\r
+have supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 47\r
+\r
+\r
+"I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth," said her uncle, as they\r
+drove from the town; "and really, upon serious consideration, I am much\r
+more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does on the\r
+matter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should\r
+form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or\r
+friendless, and who was actually staying in his colonel's family, that I\r
+am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends\r
+would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the\r
+regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is\r
+not adequate to the risk!"\r
+\r
+"Do you really think so?" cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment.\r
+\r
+"Upon my word," said Mrs. Gardiner, "I begin to be of your uncle's\r
+opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and\r
+interest, for him to be guilty of. I cannot think so very ill of\r
+Wickham. Can you yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe\r
+him capable of it?"\r
+\r
+"Not, perhaps, of neglecting his own interest; but of every other\r
+neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I\r
+dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland if that had been\r
+the case?"\r
+\r
+"In the first place," replied Mr. Gardiner, "there is no absolute proof\r
+that they are not gone to Scotland."\r
+\r
+"Oh! but their removing from the chaise into a hackney coach is such\r
+a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the\r
+Barnet road."\r
+\r
+"Well, then--supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though\r
+for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptional purpose. It is\r
+not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it\r
+might strike them that they could be more economically, though less\r
+expeditiously, married in London than in Scotland."\r
+\r
+"But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their\r
+marriage be private? Oh, no, no--this is not likely. His most particular\r
+friend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending\r
+to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He\r
+cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia--what attraction has she\r
+beyond youth, health, and good humour that could make him, for her sake,\r
+forego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what\r
+restraint the apprehensions of disgrace in the corps might throw on a\r
+dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know\r
+nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your\r
+other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has\r
+no brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father's\r
+behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever\r
+seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that _he_ would\r
+do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in\r
+such a matter."\r
+\r
+"But can you think that Lydia is so lost to everything but love of him\r
+as to consent to live with him on any terms other than marriage?"\r
+\r
+"It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed," replied Elizabeth, with\r
+tears in her eyes, "that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such\r
+a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say.\r
+Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never\r
+been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half-year,\r
+nay, for a twelvemonth--she has been given up to nothing but amusement\r
+and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle\r
+and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way.\r
+Since the ----shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love,\r
+flirtation, and officers have been in her head. She has been doing\r
+everything in her power by thinking and talking on the subject, to give\r
+greater--what shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings; which are\r
+naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of\r
+person and address that can captivate a woman."\r
+\r
+"But you see that Jane," said her aunt, "does not think so very ill of\r
+Wickham as to believe him capable of the attempt."\r
+\r
+"Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be\r
+their former conduct, that she would think capable of such an attempt,\r
+till it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what\r
+Wickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every\r
+sense of the word; that he has neither integrity nor honour; that he is\r
+as false and deceitful as he is insinuating."\r
+\r
+"And do you really know all this?" cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity\r
+as to the mode of her intelligence was all alive.\r
+\r
+"I do indeed," replied Elizabeth, colouring. "I told you, the other day,\r
+of his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy; and you yourself, when last at\r
+Longbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man who had behaved\r
+with such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other\r
+circumstances which I am not at liberty--which it is not worth while to\r
+relate; but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From\r
+what he said of Miss Darcy I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud,\r
+reserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He\r
+must know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"But does Lydia know nothing of this? can she be ignorant of what you\r
+and Jane seem so well to understand?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes!--that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw\r
+so much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was\r
+ignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home, the ----shire\r
+was to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight's time. As that was the\r
+case, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it\r
+necessary to make our knowledge public; for of what use could\r
+it apparently be to any one, that the good opinion which all the\r
+neighbourhood had of him should then be overthrown? And even when it was\r
+settled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening\r
+her eyes to his character never occurred to me. That _she_ could be\r
+in any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a\r
+consequence as _this_ could ensue, you may easily believe, was far\r
+enough from my thoughts."\r
+\r
+"When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I\r
+suppose, to believe them fond of each other?"\r
+\r
+"Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either\r
+side; and had anything of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware\r
+that ours is not a family on which it could be thrown away. When first\r
+he entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him; but so we all\r
+were. Every girl in or near Meryton was out of her senses about him for\r
+the first two months; but he never distinguished _her_ by any particular\r
+attention; and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and\r
+wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment,\r
+who treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites."\r
+\r
+ * * * * *\r
+\r
+It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added\r
+to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by\r
+its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during\r
+the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent.\r
+Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find\r
+no interval of ease or forgetfulness.\r
+\r
+They travelled as expeditiously as possible, and, sleeping one night\r
+on the road, reached Longbourn by dinner time the next day. It was a\r
+comfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied\r
+by long expectations.\r
+\r
+The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing\r
+on the steps of the house as they entered the paddock; and, when the\r
+carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their\r
+faces, and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of\r
+capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth jumped out; and, after giving each of them a hasty kiss,\r
+hurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down from her\r
+mother's apartment, immediately met her.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the\r
+eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether anything had been\r
+heard of the fugitives.\r
+\r
+"Not yet," replied Jane. "But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope\r
+everything will be well."\r
+\r
+"Is my father in town?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, he went on Tuesday, as I wrote you word."\r
+\r
+"And have you heard from him often?"\r
+\r
+"We have heard only twice. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday to say\r
+that he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I\r
+particularly begged him to do. He merely added that he should not write\r
+again till he had something of importance to mention."\r
+\r
+"And my mother--how is she? How are you all?"\r
+\r
+"My mother is tolerably well, I trust; though her spirits are greatly\r
+shaken. She is up stairs and will have great satisfaction in seeing you\r
+all. She does not yet leave her dressing-room. Mary and Kitty, thank\r
+Heaven, are quite well."\r
+\r
+"But you--how are you?" cried Elizabeth. "You look pale. How much you\r
+must have gone through!"\r
+\r
+Her sister, however, assured her of her being perfectly well; and their\r
+conversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were\r
+engaged with their children, was now put an end to by the approach\r
+of the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and\r
+thanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears.\r
+\r
+When they were all in the drawing-room, the questions which Elizabeth\r
+had already asked were of course repeated by the others, and they soon\r
+found that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of\r
+good, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested had not yet\r
+deserted her; she still expected that it would all end well, and that\r
+every morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father,\r
+to explain their proceedings, and, perhaps, announce their marriage.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes'\r
+conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with\r
+tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villainous\r
+conduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and ill-usage;\r
+blaming everybody but the person to whose ill-judging indulgence the\r
+errors of her daughter must principally be owing.\r
+\r
+"If I had been able," said she, "to carry my point in going to Brighton,\r
+with all my family, _this_ would not have happened; but poor dear Lydia\r
+had nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out\r
+of their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their\r
+side, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing if she had been\r
+well looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the\r
+charge of her; but I was overruled, as I always am. Poor dear child!\r
+And now here's Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham,\r
+wherever he meets him and then he will be killed, and what is to become\r
+of us all? The Collinses will turn us out before he is cold in his\r
+grave, and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we\r
+shall do."\r
+\r
+They all exclaimed against such terrific ideas; and Mr. Gardiner, after\r
+general assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her\r
+that he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr.\r
+Bennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia.\r
+\r
+"Do not give way to useless alarm," added he; "though it is right to be\r
+prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.\r
+It is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more we\r
+may gain some news of them; and till we know that they are not married,\r
+and have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as\r
+lost. As soon as I get to town I shall go to my brother, and make\r
+him come home with me to Gracechurch Street; and then we may consult\r
+together as to what is to be done."\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear brother," replied Mrs. Bennet, "that is exactly what I\r
+could most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out,\r
+wherever they may be; and if they are not married already, _make_ them\r
+marry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but\r
+tell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chooses to buy them,\r
+after they are married. And, above all, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting.\r
+Tell him what a dreadful state I am in, that I am frighted out of my\r
+wits--and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me--such\r
+spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that\r
+I can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia not to\r
+give any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does\r
+not know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I\r
+know you will contrive it all."\r
+\r
+But Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours\r
+in the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well\r
+in her hopes as her fear; and after talking with her in this manner till\r
+dinner was on the table, they all left her to vent all her feelings on\r
+the housekeeper, who attended in the absence of her daughters.\r
+\r
+Though her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real\r
+occasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to\r
+oppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her\r
+tongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it\r
+better that _one_ only of the household, and the one whom they could\r
+most trust should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the\r
+subject.\r
+\r
+In the dining-room they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been\r
+too busily engaged in their separate apartments to make their appearance\r
+before. One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The\r
+faces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible\r
+in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger\r
+which she had herself incurred in this business, had given more of\r
+fretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty. As for Mary, she was\r
+mistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth, with a countenance\r
+of grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table:\r
+\r
+"This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of.\r
+But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of\r
+each other the balm of sisterly consolation."\r
+\r
+Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added,\r
+"Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful\r
+lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one\r
+false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less\r
+brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in\r
+her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed\r
+to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such\r
+kind of moral extractions from the evil before them.\r
+\r
+In the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for\r
+half-an-hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of\r
+the opportunity of making any inquiries, which Jane was equally eager to\r
+satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel\r
+of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss\r
+Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible, the former continued\r
+the subject, by saying, "But tell me all and everything about it which\r
+I have not already heard. Give me further particulars. What did Colonel\r
+Forster say? Had they no apprehension of anything before the elopement\r
+took place? They must have seen them together for ever."\r
+\r
+"Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality,\r
+especially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so\r
+grieved for him! His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He\r
+_was_ coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had\r
+any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension\r
+first got abroad, it hastened his journey."\r
+\r
+"And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of\r
+their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; but, when questioned by _him_, Denny denied knowing anything of\r
+their plans, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not\r
+repeat his persuasion of their not marrying--and from _that_, I am\r
+inclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before."\r
+\r
+"And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a\r
+doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?"\r
+\r
+"How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains? I felt\r
+a little uneasy--a little fearful of my sister's happiness with him\r
+in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite\r
+right. My father and mother knew nothing of that; they only felt how\r
+imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural\r
+triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter\r
+she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their\r
+being in love with each other, many weeks."\r
+\r
+"But not before they went to Brighton?"\r
+\r
+"No, I believe not."\r
+\r
+"And did Colonel Forster appear to think well of Wickham himself? Does\r
+he know his real character?"\r
+\r
+"I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly\r
+did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad\r
+affair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt;\r
+but I hope this may be false."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him,\r
+this could not have happened!"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps it would have been better," replied her sister. "But to expose\r
+the former faults of any person without knowing what their present\r
+feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions."\r
+\r
+"Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his\r
+wife?"\r
+\r
+"He brought it with him for us to see."\r
+\r
+Jane then took it from her pocket-book, and gave it to Elizabeth. These\r
+were the contents:\r
+\r
+"MY DEAR HARRIET,\r
+\r
+"You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help\r
+laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am\r
+missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who,\r
+I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I\r
+love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think\r
+it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my\r
+going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater,\r
+when I write to them and sign my name 'Lydia Wickham.' What a good joke\r
+it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to\r
+Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night.\r
+Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all; and tell him I will\r
+dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall\r
+send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell\r
+Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are\r
+packed up. Good-bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will\r
+drink to our good journey.\r
+\r
+"Your affectionate friend,\r
+\r
+"LYDIA BENNET."\r
+\r
+"Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!" cried Elizabeth when she had\r
+finished it. "What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment!\r
+But at least it shows that _she_ was serious on the subject of their\r
+journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her\r
+side a _scheme_ of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!"\r
+\r
+"I never saw anyone so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten\r
+minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in\r
+such confusion!"\r
+\r
+"Oh! Jane," cried Elizabeth, "was there a servant belonging to it who\r
+did not know the whole story before the end of the day?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know. I hope there was. But to be guarded at such a time is\r
+very difficult. My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to\r
+give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so\r
+much as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen\r
+almost took from me my faculties."\r
+\r
+"Your attendance upon her has been too much for you. You do not look\r
+well. Oh that I had been with you! you have had every care and anxiety\r
+upon yourself alone."\r
+\r
+"Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every\r
+fatigue, I am sure; but I did not think it right for either of them.\r
+Kitty is slight and delicate; and Mary studies so much, that her hours\r
+of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Phillips came to Longbourn\r
+on Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till\r
+Thursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all. And\r
+Lady Lucas has been very kind; she walked here on Wednesday morning to\r
+condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters', if\r
+they should be of use to us."\r
+\r
+"She had better have stayed at home," cried Elizabeth; "perhaps she\r
+_meant_ well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see\r
+too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence\r
+insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied."\r
+\r
+She then proceeded to inquire into the measures which her father had\r
+intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter.\r
+\r
+"He meant I believe," replied Jane, "to go to Epsom, the place where\r
+they last changed horses, see the postilions and try if anything could\r
+be made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the\r
+number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come\r
+with a fare from London; and as he thought that the circumstance of a\r
+gentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another might\r
+be remarked he meant to make inquiries at Clapham. If he could anyhow\r
+discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he\r
+determined to make inquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible\r
+to find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any\r
+other designs that he had formed; but he was in such a hurry to be gone,\r
+and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding\r
+out even so much as this."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 48\r
+\r
+\r
+The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next\r
+morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him.\r
+His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and\r
+dilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion.\r
+They were forced to conclude that he had no pleasing intelligence to\r
+send; but even of _that_ they would have been glad to be certain. Mr.\r
+Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off.\r
+\r
+When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant\r
+information of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting,\r
+to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn, as soon as he could,\r
+to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only\r
+security for her husband's not being killed in a duel.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few\r
+days longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable\r
+to her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a\r
+great comfort to them in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also\r
+visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of\r
+cheering and heartening them up--though, as she never came without\r
+reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity,\r
+she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found\r
+them.\r
+\r
+All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months\r
+before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt\r
+to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with\r
+the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family.\r
+Everybody declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world;\r
+and everybody began to find out that they had always distrusted the\r
+appearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above\r
+half of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of\r
+her sister's ruin more certain; and even Jane, who believed still less\r
+of it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come\r
+when, if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely\r
+despaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday; on Tuesday his wife received a\r
+letter from him; it told them that, on his arrival, he had immediately\r
+found out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street;\r
+that Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival,\r
+but without gaining any satisfactory information; and that he was now\r
+determined to inquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet\r
+thought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first\r
+coming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself\r
+did not expect any success from this measure, but as his brother was\r
+eager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added that Mr.\r
+Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London and promised\r
+to write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect:\r
+\r
+"I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if\r
+possible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment,\r
+whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to\r
+know in what part of town he has now concealed himself. If there were\r
+anyone that one could apply to with a probability of gaining such a\r
+clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have\r
+nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do everything in\r
+his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps,\r
+Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living, better than any\r
+other person."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference to her\r
+authority proceeded; but it was not in her power to give any information\r
+of so satisfactory a nature as the compliment deserved. She had never\r
+heard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both\r
+of whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of\r
+his companions in the ----shire might be able to give more information;\r
+and though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application\r
+was a something to look forward to.\r
+\r
+Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious\r
+part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters\r
+was the grand object of every morning's impatience. Through letters,\r
+whatever of good or bad was to be told would be communicated, and every\r
+succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance.\r
+\r
+But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for\r
+their father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins; which, as Jane\r
+had received directions to open all that came for him in his absence,\r
+she accordingly read; and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his\r
+letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as\r
+follows:\r
+\r
+"MY DEAR SIR,\r
+\r
+"I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation\r
+in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now\r
+suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from\r
+Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself\r
+sincerely sympathise with you and all your respectable family, in\r
+your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because\r
+proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be\r
+wanting on my part that can alleviate so severe a misfortune--or that\r
+may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others the\r
+most afflicting to a parent's mind. The death of your daughter would\r
+have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to\r
+be lamented, because there is reason to suppose as my dear Charlotte\r
+informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has\r
+proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though, at the same time,\r
+for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think\r
+that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be\r
+guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be,\r
+you are grievously to be pitied; in which opinion I am not only joined\r
+by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to\r
+whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that\r
+this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of\r
+all the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says,\r
+will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads\r
+me moreover to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event\r
+of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved\r
+in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, dear sir, to\r
+console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child\r
+from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her\r
+own heinous offense.\r
+\r
+"I am, dear sir, etc., etc."\r
+\r
+Mr. Gardiner did not write again till he had received an answer from\r
+Colonel Forster; and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send.\r
+It was not known that Wickham had a single relationship with whom he\r
+kept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one\r
+living. His former acquaintances had been numerous; but since he\r
+had been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of\r
+particular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore,\r
+who could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the\r
+wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for\r
+secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia's relations, for\r
+it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a\r
+very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a\r
+thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton.\r
+He owed a good deal in town, but his debts of honour were still more\r
+formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars\r
+from the Longbourn family. Jane heard them with horror. "A gamester!"\r
+she cried. "This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Gardiner added in his letter, that they might expect to see their\r
+father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered\r
+spiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded\r
+to his brother-in-law's entreaty that he would return to his family, and\r
+leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable\r
+for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did\r
+not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering\r
+what her anxiety for his life had been before.\r
+\r
+"What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?" she cried. "Sure he\r
+will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham,\r
+and make him marry her, if he comes away?"\r
+\r
+As Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she\r
+and the children should go to London, at the same time that Mr. Bennet\r
+came from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their\r
+journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her\r
+Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His\r
+name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and\r
+the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their\r
+being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had\r
+received none since her return that could come from Pemberley.\r
+\r
+The present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for\r
+the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be\r
+fairly conjectured from _that_, though Elizabeth, who was by this time\r
+tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware\r
+that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of\r
+Lydia's infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought,\r
+one sleepless night out of two.\r
+\r
+When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual\r
+philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the\r
+habit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him\r
+away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of\r
+it.\r
+\r
+It was not till the afternoon, when he had joined them at tea, that\r
+Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly\r
+expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, "Say\r
+nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing,\r
+and I ought to feel it."\r
+\r
+"You must not be too severe upon yourself," replied Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone\r
+to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have\r
+been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression.\r
+It will pass away soon enough."\r
+\r
+"Do you suppose them to be in London?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; where else can they be so well concealed?"\r
+\r
+"And Lydia used to want to go to London," added Kitty.\r
+\r
+"She is happy then," said her father drily; "and her residence there\r
+will probably be of some duration."\r
+\r
+Then after a short silence he continued:\r
+\r
+"Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me\r
+last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind."\r
+\r
+They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's\r
+tea.\r
+\r
+"This is a parade," he cried, "which does one good; it gives such an\r
+elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my\r
+library, in my nightcap and powdering gown, and give as much trouble as\r
+I can; or, perhaps, I may defer it till Kitty runs away."\r
+\r
+"I am not going to run away, papa," said Kitty fretfully. "If I should\r
+ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia."\r
+\r
+"_You_ go to Brighton. I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne\r
+for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and\r
+you will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter into\r
+my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be\r
+absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters.\r
+And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have\r
+spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner."\r
+\r
+Kitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good\r
+girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of\r
+them."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 49\r
+\r
+\r
+Two days after Mr. Bennet's return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking\r
+together in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper\r
+coming towards them, and, concluding that she came to call them to their\r
+mother, went forward to meet her; but, instead of the expected summons,\r
+when they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, "I beg your pardon,\r
+madam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some\r
+good news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town."\r
+\r
+"Dear madam," cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, "don't you know\r
+there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here\r
+this half-hour, and master has had a letter."\r
+\r
+Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They\r
+ran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from thence to the\r
+library; their father was in neither; and they were on the point of\r
+seeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the\r
+butler, who said:\r
+\r
+"If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking towards the\r
+little copse."\r
+\r
+Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once\r
+more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately\r
+pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock.\r
+\r
+Jane, who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as\r
+Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath,\r
+came up with him, and eagerly cried out:\r
+\r
+"Oh, papa, what news--what news? Have you heard from my uncle?"\r
+\r
+"Yes I have had a letter from him by express."\r
+\r
+"Well, and what news does it bring--good or bad?"\r
+\r
+"What is there of good to be expected?" said he, taking the letter from\r
+his pocket. "But perhaps you would like to read it."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up.\r
+\r
+"Read it aloud," said their father, "for I hardly know myself what it is\r
+about."\r
+\r
+"Gracechurch Street, Monday, August 2.\r
+\r
+"MY DEAR BROTHER,\r
+\r
+"At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as,\r
+upon the whole, I hope it will give you satisfaction. Soon after you\r
+left me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of\r
+London they were. The particulars I reserve till we meet; it is enough\r
+to know they are discovered. I have seen them both--"\r
+\r
+"Then it is as I always hoped," cried Jane; "they are married!"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth read on:\r
+\r
+"I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there\r
+was any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the\r
+engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will\r
+not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure\r
+to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand\r
+pounds secured among your children after the decease of yourself and\r
+my sister; and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her,\r
+during your life, one hundred pounds per annum. These are conditions\r
+which, considering everything, I had no hesitation in complying with,\r
+as far as I thought myself privileged, for you. I shall send this by\r
+express, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You\r
+will easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham's\r
+circumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be.\r
+The world has been deceived in that respect; and I am happy to say there\r
+will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to\r
+settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude\r
+will be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name throughout\r
+the whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to\r
+Haggerston for preparing a proper settlement. There will not be the\r
+smallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore stay quiet at\r
+Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care. Send back your answer as\r
+fast as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it\r
+best that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope\r
+you will approve. She comes to us to-day. I shall write again as soon as\r
+anything more is determined on. Yours, etc.,\r
+\r
+"EDW. GARDINER."\r
+\r
+"Is it possible?" cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. "Can it be\r
+possible that he will marry her?"\r
+\r
+"Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we thought him," said her\r
+sister. "My dear father, I congratulate you."\r
+\r
+"And have you answered the letter?" cried Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"No; but it must be done soon."\r
+\r
+Most earnestly did she then entreat him to lose no more time before he\r
+wrote.\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear father," she cried, "come back and write immediately.\r
+Consider how important every moment is in such a case."\r
+\r
+"Let me write for you," said Jane, "if you dislike the trouble\r
+yourself."\r
+\r
+"I dislike it very much," he replied; "but it must be done."\r
+\r
+And so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house.\r
+\r
+"And may I ask--" said Elizabeth; "but the terms, I suppose, must be\r
+complied with."\r
+\r
+"Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little."\r
+\r
+"And they _must_ marry! Yet he is _such_ a man!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there\r
+are two things that I want very much to know; one is, how much money\r
+your uncle has laid down to bring it about; and the other, how am I ever\r
+to pay him."\r
+\r
+"Money! My uncle!" cried Jane, "what do you mean, sir?"\r
+\r
+"I mean, that no man in his senses would marry Lydia on so slight a\r
+temptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am\r
+gone."\r
+\r
+"That is very true," said Elizabeth; "though it had not occurred to me\r
+before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh!\r
+it must be my uncle's doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has\r
+distressed himself. A small sum could not do all this."\r
+\r
+"No," said her father; "Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing\r
+less than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him,\r
+in the very beginning of our relationship."\r
+\r
+"Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be\r
+repaid?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet made no answer, and each of them, deep in thought, continued\r
+silent till they reached the house. Their father then went on to the\r
+library to write, and the girls walked into the breakfast-room.\r
+\r
+"And they are really to be married!" cried Elizabeth, as soon as they\r
+were by themselves. "How strange this is! And for _this_ we are to be\r
+thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness,\r
+and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice. Oh, Lydia!"\r
+\r
+"I comfort myself with thinking," replied Jane, "that he certainly would\r
+not marry Lydia if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind\r
+uncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten\r
+thousand pounds, or anything like it, has been advanced. He has children\r
+of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand\r
+pounds?"\r
+\r
+"If he were ever able to learn what Wickham's debts have been," said\r
+Elizabeth, "and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall\r
+exactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has\r
+not sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never\r
+be requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal\r
+protection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage as\r
+years of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is\r
+actually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now,\r
+she will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she\r
+first sees my aunt!"\r
+\r
+"We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side," said\r
+Jane: "I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to\r
+marry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of\r
+thinking. Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself\r
+they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in\r
+time make their past imprudence forgotten."\r
+\r
+"Their conduct has been such," replied Elizabeth, "as neither you, nor\r
+I, nor anybody can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it."\r
+\r
+It now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood\r
+perfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library,\r
+therefore, and asked their father whether he would not wish them to make\r
+it known to her. He was writing and, without raising his head, coolly\r
+replied:\r
+\r
+"Just as you please."\r
+\r
+"May we take my uncle's letter to read to her?"\r
+\r
+"Take whatever you like, and get away."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth took the letter from his writing-table, and they went up stairs\r
+together. Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet: one communication\r
+would, therefore, do for all. After a slight preparation for good news,\r
+the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As\r
+soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon\r
+married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its\r
+exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she\r
+had ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter\r
+would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her\r
+felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct.\r
+\r
+"My dear, dear Lydia!" she cried. "This is delightful indeed! She will\r
+be married! I shall see her again! She will be married at sixteen!\r
+My good, kind brother! I knew how it would be. I knew he would manage\r
+everything! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the\r
+clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about\r
+them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him\r
+how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell,\r
+Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear\r
+Lydia! How merry we shall be together when we meet!"\r
+\r
+Her eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of\r
+these transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr.\r
+Gardiner's behaviour laid them all under.\r
+\r
+"For we must attribute this happy conclusion," she added, "in a great\r
+measure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to\r
+assist Mr. Wickham with money."\r
+\r
+"Well," cried her mother, "it is all very right; who should do it but\r
+her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children\r
+must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have\r
+ever had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy!\r
+In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well\r
+it sounds! And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in\r
+such a flutter, that I am sure I can't write; so I will dictate, and\r
+you write for me. We will settle with your father about the money\r
+afterwards; but the things should be ordered immediately."\r
+\r
+She was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and\r
+cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had\r
+not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her\r
+father was at leisure to be consulted. One day's delay, she observed,\r
+would be of small importance; and her mother was too happy to be quite\r
+so obstinate as usual. Other schemes, too, came into her head.\r
+\r
+"I will go to Meryton," said she, "as soon as I am dressed, and tell the\r
+good, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call\r
+on Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage.\r
+An airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do\r
+anything for you in Meryton? Oh! Here comes Hill! My dear Hill, have you\r
+heard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married; and you shall\r
+all have a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her\r
+congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took\r
+refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom.\r
+\r
+Poor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was\r
+no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and though, in\r
+looking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity could\r
+be justly expected for her sister, in looking back to what they had\r
+feared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had\r
+gained.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 50\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that,\r
+instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for\r
+the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived\r
+him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that\r
+respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever\r
+of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of\r
+prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be\r
+her husband might then have rested in its proper place.\r
+\r
+He was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to anyone\r
+should be forwarded at the sole expense of his brother-in-law, and he\r
+was determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance,\r
+and to discharge the obligation as soon as he could.\r
+\r
+When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly\r
+useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join\r
+in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow\r
+and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters\r
+successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs.\r
+Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he\r
+would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then\r
+too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her\r
+husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their\r
+income.\r
+\r
+Five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and\r
+the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the\r
+latter depended on the will of the parents. This was one point, with\r
+regard to Lydia, at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet\r
+could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him. In\r
+terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother,\r
+though expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect\r
+approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the\r
+engagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed\r
+that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would\r
+be done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present\r
+arrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a year the loser by the\r
+hundred that was to be paid them; for, what with her board and pocket\r
+allowance, and the continual presents in money which passed to her\r
+through her mother's hands, Lydia's expenses had been very little within\r
+that sum.\r
+\r
+That it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was\r
+another very welcome surprise; for his wish at present was to have as\r
+little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports\r
+of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he\r
+naturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon\r
+dispatched; for, though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick\r
+in its execution. He begged to know further particulars of what he\r
+was indebted to his brother, but was too angry with Lydia to send any\r
+message to her.\r
+\r
+The good news spread quickly through the house, and with proportionate\r
+speed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent\r
+philosophy. To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage\r
+of conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the\r
+happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant\r
+farmhouse. But there was much to be talked of in marrying her; and the\r
+good-natured wishes for her well-doing which had proceeded before from\r
+all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton lost but a little of their spirit\r
+in this change of circumstances, because with such an husband her misery\r
+was considered certain.\r
+\r
+It was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been downstairs; but on this\r
+happy day she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in\r
+spirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her\r
+triumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object\r
+of her wishes since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of\r
+accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those\r
+attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and\r
+servants. She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a\r
+proper situation for her daughter, and, without knowing or considering\r
+what their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and\r
+importance.\r
+\r
+"Haye Park might do," said she, "if the Gouldings could quit it--or the\r
+great house at Stoke, if the drawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is\r
+too far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for\r
+Pulvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful."\r
+\r
+Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption while the\r
+servants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her: "Mrs.\r
+Bennet, before you take any or all of these houses for your son and\r
+daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into _one_ house in this\r
+neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the\r
+impudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn."\r
+\r
+A long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm. It\r
+soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror,\r
+that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his\r
+daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of\r
+affection whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend\r
+it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable\r
+resentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege without which her\r
+marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all she could believe\r
+possible. She was more alive to the disgrace which her want of new\r
+clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of\r
+shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they\r
+took place.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of\r
+the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for\r
+her sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the\r
+proper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its\r
+unfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the\r
+spot.\r
+\r
+She had no fear of its spreading farther through his means. There were\r
+few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended;\r
+but, at the same time, there was no one whose knowledge of a sister's\r
+frailty would have mortified her so much--not, however, from any fear\r
+of disadvantage from it individually to herself, for, at any rate,\r
+there seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia's marriage been\r
+concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that\r
+Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family where, to every other\r
+objection, would now be added an alliance and relationship of the\r
+nearest kind with a man whom he so justly scorned.\r
+\r
+From such a connection she could not wonder that he would shrink. The\r
+wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his\r
+feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a\r
+blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she\r
+hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no\r
+longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there\r
+seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that\r
+she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they\r
+should meet.\r
+\r
+What a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the\r
+proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now\r
+have been most gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she\r
+doubted not, as the most generous of his sex; but while he was mortal,\r
+there must be a triumph.\r
+\r
+She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in\r
+disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and\r
+temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It\r
+was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease\r
+and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved;\r
+and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she\r
+must have received benefit of greater importance.\r
+\r
+But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what\r
+connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and\r
+precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their\r
+family.\r
+\r
+How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence,\r
+she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could\r
+belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions\r
+were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.\r
+\r
+ * * * * *\r
+\r
+Mr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother. To Mr. Bennet's\r
+acknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurance of his eagerness to\r
+promote the welfare of any of his family; and concluded with entreaties\r
+that the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal\r
+purport of his letter was to inform them that Mr. Wickham had resolved\r
+on quitting the militia.\r
+\r
+"It was greatly my wish that he should do so," he added, "as soon as\r
+his marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in\r
+considering the removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on\r
+his account and my niece's. It is Mr. Wickham's intention to go into\r
+the regulars; and among his former friends, there are still some who\r
+are able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an\r
+ensigncy in General ----'s regiment, now quartered in the North. It\r
+is an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom. He\r
+promises fairly; and I hope among different people, where they may each\r
+have a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have\r
+written to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements,\r
+and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham\r
+in and near Brighton, with assurances of speedy payment, for which I\r
+have pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carrying\r
+similar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin\r
+a list according to his information? He has given in all his debts; I\r
+hope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions,\r
+and all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment,\r
+unless they are first invited to Longbourn; and I understand from Mrs.\r
+Gardiner, that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she\r
+leaves the South. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to\r
+you and her mother.--Yours, etc.,\r
+\r
+"E. GARDINER."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham's removal\r
+from the ----shire as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet\r
+was not so well pleased with it. Lydia's being settled in the North,\r
+just when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company,\r
+for she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in\r
+Hertfordshire, was a severe disappointment; and, besides, it was such a\r
+pity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted\r
+with everybody, and had so many favourites.\r
+\r
+"She is so fond of Mrs. Forster," said she, "it will be quite shocking\r
+to send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she\r
+likes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General ----'s\r
+regiment."\r
+\r
+His daughter's request, for such it might be considered, of being\r
+admitted into her family again before she set off for the North,\r
+received at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth,\r
+who agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister's feelings and\r
+consequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents,\r
+urged him so earnestly yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her\r
+and her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was\r
+prevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their\r
+mother had the satisfaction of knowing that she would be able to show\r
+her married daughter in the neighbourhood before she was banished to the\r
+North. When Mr. Bennet wrote again to his brother, therefore, he sent\r
+his permission for them to come; and it was settled, that as soon as\r
+the ceremony was over, they should proceed to Longbourn. Elizabeth was\r
+surprised, however, that Wickham should consent to such a scheme, and\r
+had she consulted only her own inclination, any meeting with him would\r
+have been the last object of her wishes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 51\r
+\r
+\r
+Their sister's wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her\r
+probably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to\r
+meet them at ----, and they were to return in it by dinner-time. Their\r
+arrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets, and Jane more especially,\r
+who gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had she\r
+been the culprit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sister\r
+must endure.\r
+\r
+They came. The family were assembled in the breakfast room to receive\r
+them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet as the carriage drove up to\r
+the door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed,\r
+anxious, uneasy.\r
+\r
+Lydia's voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and\r
+she ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and\r
+welcomed her with rapture; gave her hand, with an affectionate smile,\r
+to Wickham, who followed his lady; and wished them both joy with an\r
+alacrity which shewed no doubt of their happiness.\r
+\r
+Their reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite\r
+so cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity; and he scarcely\r
+opened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was\r
+enough to provoke him. Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet\r
+was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy,\r
+and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their\r
+congratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly\r
+round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and\r
+observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been\r
+there.\r
+\r
+Wickham was not at all more distressed than herself, but his manners\r
+were always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been\r
+exactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he\r
+claimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had\r
+not before believed him quite equal to such assurance; but she sat down,\r
+resolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence\r
+of an impudent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the\r
+two who caused their confusion suffered no variation of colour.\r
+\r
+There was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither\r
+of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near\r
+Elizabeth, began inquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood,\r
+with a good humoured ease which she felt very unable to equal in her\r
+replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the\r
+world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led\r
+voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for\r
+the world.\r
+\r
+"Only think of its being three months," she cried, "since I went away;\r
+it seems but a fortnight I declare; and yet there have been things\r
+enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure\r
+I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I\r
+thought it would be very good fun if I was."\r
+\r
+Her father lifted up his eyes. Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked\r
+expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw anything of\r
+which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, "Oh! mamma, do the\r
+people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not;\r
+and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he\r
+should know it, and so I let down the side-glass next to him, and took\r
+off my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that\r
+he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like anything."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room;\r
+and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to\r
+the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with\r
+anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say\r
+to her eldest sister, "Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go\r
+lower, because I am a married woman."\r
+\r
+It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment\r
+from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good\r
+spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Phillips, the Lucases, and\r
+all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called "Mrs. Wickham"\r
+by each of them; and in the mean time, she went after dinner to show her\r
+ring, and boast of being married, to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids.\r
+\r
+"Well, mamma," said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast\r
+room, "and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I\r
+am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half\r
+my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get\r
+husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go."\r
+\r
+"Very true; and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Lydia, I don't\r
+at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, lord! yes;--there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all\r
+things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We\r
+shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some\r
+balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all."\r
+\r
+"I should like it beyond anything!" said her mother.\r
+\r
+"And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters\r
+behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the\r
+winter is over."\r
+\r
+"I thank you for my share of the favour," said Elizabeth; "but I do not\r
+particularly like your way of getting husbands."\r
+\r
+Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham\r
+had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join\r
+his regiment at the end of a fortnight.\r
+\r
+No one but Mrs. Bennet regretted that their stay would be so short; and\r
+she made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter, and\r
+having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to\r
+all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did\r
+think, than such as did not.\r
+\r
+Wickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected\r
+to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her\r
+present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that\r
+their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather\r
+than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring\r
+for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain\r
+that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and\r
+if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity\r
+of having a companion.\r
+\r
+Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every\r
+occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every\r
+thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on\r
+the first of September, than any body else in the country.\r
+\r
+One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two\r
+elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth:\r
+\r
+"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You\r
+were not by, when I told mamma and the others all about it. Are not you\r
+curious to hear how it was managed?"\r
+\r
+"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said\r
+on the subject."\r
+\r
+"La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were\r
+married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in\r
+that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven\r
+o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others\r
+were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in\r
+such a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that something would happen to\r
+put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was\r
+my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as\r
+if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in\r
+ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed\r
+to know whether he would be married in his blue coat."\r
+\r
+"Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never\r
+be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt\r
+were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe\r
+me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a\r
+fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or anything. To be sure London was\r
+rather thin, but, however, the Little Theatre was open. Well, and so\r
+just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon\r
+business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once\r
+they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I\r
+did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we\r
+were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he\r
+came back again in ten minutes' time, and then we all set out. However,\r
+I recollected afterwards that if he had been prevented going, the\r
+wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Darcy!" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes!--he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious\r
+me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised\r
+them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!"\r
+\r
+"If it was to be secret," said Jane, "say not another word on the\r
+subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further."\r
+\r
+"Oh! certainly," said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; "we will\r
+ask you no questions."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Lydia, "for if you did, I should certainly tell you\r
+all, and then Wickham would be angry."\r
+\r
+On such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her\r
+power, by running away.\r
+\r
+But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least\r
+it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at\r
+her sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people,\r
+where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go.\r
+Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her\r
+brain; but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as\r
+placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She\r
+could not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper,\r
+wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what\r
+Lydia had dropt, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been\r
+intended.\r
+\r
+"You may readily comprehend," she added, "what my curiosity must be\r
+to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively\r
+speaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such\r
+a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it--unless it is,\r
+for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems\r
+to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with\r
+ignorance."\r
+\r
+"Not that I _shall_, though," she added to herself, as she finished\r
+the letter; "and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable\r
+manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it\r
+out."\r
+\r
+Jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to\r
+Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad\r
+of it;--till it appeared whether her inquiries would receive any\r
+satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 52\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as\r
+soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it\r
+than, hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to\r
+be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches and prepared to\r
+be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not\r
+contain a denial.\r
+\r
+"Gracechurch street, Sept. 6.\r
+\r
+"MY DEAR NIECE,\r
+\r
+"I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning\r
+to answering it, as I foresee that a _little_ writing will not comprise\r
+what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your\r
+application; I did not expect it from _you_. Don't think me angry,\r
+however, for I only mean to let you know that I had not imagined such\r
+inquiries to be necessary on _your_ side. If you do not choose to\r
+understand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised\r
+as I am--and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned\r
+would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really\r
+innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit.\r
+\r
+"On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most\r
+unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several\r
+hours. It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so\r
+dreadfully racked as _yours_ seems to have been. He came to tell Mr.\r
+Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were,\r
+and that he had seen and talked with them both; Wickham repeatedly,\r
+Lydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day\r
+after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for\r
+them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to\r
+himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known as to\r
+make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide\r
+in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and\r
+confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private\r
+actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He\r
+called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy\r
+an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he _had another_\r
+motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days\r
+in town, before he was able to discover them; but he had something to\r
+direct his search, which was more than _we_ had; and the consciousness\r
+of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us.\r
+\r
+"There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago\r
+governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause\r
+of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large\r
+house in Edward-street, and has since maintained herself by letting\r
+lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with\r
+Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him as soon as he got to\r
+town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he\r
+wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and\r
+corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found.\r
+Wickham indeed had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had\r
+she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up\r
+their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the\r
+wished-for direction. They were in ---- street. He saw Wickham, and\r
+afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he\r
+acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful\r
+situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed\r
+on to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But\r
+he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared\r
+for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear\r
+of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or\r
+other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings,\r
+it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which,\r
+in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never\r
+been _his_ design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment,\r
+on account of some debts of honour, which were very pressing; and\r
+scrupled not to lay all the ill-consequences of Lydia's flight on her\r
+own folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as\r
+to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He\r
+must go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have\r
+nothing to live on.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Darcy asked him why he had not married your sister at once. Though\r
+Mr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able\r
+to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by\r
+marriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still\r
+cherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage in\r
+some other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely\r
+to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief.\r
+\r
+"They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham of\r
+course wanted more than he could get; but at length was reduced to be\r
+reasonable.\r
+\r
+"Every thing being settled between _them_, Mr. Darcy's next step was to\r
+make your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch\r
+street the evening before I came home. But Mr. Gardiner could not be\r
+seen, and Mr. Darcy found, on further inquiry, that your father was\r
+still with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge\r
+your father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your\r
+uncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him till after the\r
+departure of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next\r
+day it was only known that a gentleman had called on business.\r
+\r
+"On Saturday he came again. Your father was gone, your uncle at home,\r
+and, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together.\r
+\r
+"They met again on Sunday, and then _I_ saw him too. It was not all\r
+settled before Monday: as soon as it was, the express was sent off to\r
+Longbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that\r
+obstinacy is the real defect of his character, after all. He has been\r
+accused of many faults at different times, but _this_ is the true one.\r
+Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself; though I am sure (and\r
+I do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it), your\r
+uncle would most readily have settled the whole.\r
+\r
+"They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either\r
+the gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle\r
+was forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his\r
+niece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it,\r
+which went sorely against the grain; and I really believe your letter\r
+this morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation\r
+that would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where\r
+it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no farther than yourself, or Jane\r
+at most.\r
+\r
+"You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young\r
+people. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably\r
+more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own\r
+settled upon _her_, and his commission purchased. The reason why all\r
+this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It\r
+was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that\r
+Wickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he\r
+had been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth\r
+in _this_; though I doubt whether _his_ reserve, or _anybody's_ reserve,\r
+can be answerable for the event. But in spite of all this fine talking,\r
+my dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would\r
+never have yielded, if we had not given him credit for _another\r
+interest_ in the affair.\r
+\r
+"When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who\r
+were still staying at Pemberley; but it was agreed that he should be in\r
+London once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were\r
+then to receive the last finish.\r
+\r
+"I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which\r
+you tell me is to give you great surprise; I hope at least it will not\r
+afford you any displeasure. Lydia came to us; and Wickham had constant\r
+admission to the house. _He_ was exactly what he had been, when I\r
+knew him in Hertfordshire; but I would not tell you how little I was\r
+satisfied with her behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not\r
+perceived, by Jane's letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming\r
+home was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell\r
+you can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most\r
+serious manner, representing to her all the wickedness of what she had\r
+done, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she\r
+heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was\r
+sometimes quite provoked, but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and\r
+Jane, and for their sakes had patience with her.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and as Lydia informed you,\r
+attended the wedding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave\r
+town again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my\r
+dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold\r
+enough to say before) how much I like him. His behaviour to us has,\r
+in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His\r
+understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little\r
+more liveliness, and _that_, if he marry _prudently_, his wife may teach\r
+him. I thought him very sly;--he hardly ever mentioned your name. But\r
+slyness seems the fashion.\r
+\r
+"Pray forgive me if I have been very presuming, or at least do not\r
+punish me so far as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy\r
+till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice little\r
+pair of ponies, would be the very thing.\r
+\r
+"But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half\r
+hour.\r
+\r
+"Yours, very sincerely,\r
+\r
+"M. GARDINER."\r
+\r
+The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits,\r
+in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the\r
+greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had\r
+produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's\r
+match, which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too\r
+great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the\r
+pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true!\r
+He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all\r
+the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research; in which\r
+supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and\r
+despise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason\r
+with, persuade, and finally bribe, the man whom he always most wished to\r
+avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had\r
+done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her\r
+heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly\r
+checked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity\r
+was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her--for\r
+a woman who had already refused him--as able to overcome a sentiment so\r
+natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law\r
+of Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had,\r
+to be sure, done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had\r
+given a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary\r
+stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been\r
+wrong; he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it; and\r
+though she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she\r
+could, perhaps, believe that remaining partiality for her might assist\r
+his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially\r
+concerned. It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were\r
+under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They\r
+owed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing, to him. Oh!\r
+how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever\r
+encouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For\r
+herself she was humbled; but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause\r
+of compassion and honour, he had been able to get the better of himself.\r
+She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It\r
+was hardly enough; but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some\r
+pleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she\r
+and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted\r
+between Mr. Darcy and herself.\r
+\r
+She was roused from her seat, and her reflections, by some one's\r
+approach; and before she could strike into another path, she was\r
+overtaken by Wickham.\r
+\r
+"I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister?" said he,\r
+as he joined her.\r
+\r
+"You certainly do," she replied with a smile; "but it does not follow\r
+that the interruption must be unwelcome."\r
+\r
+"I should be sorry indeed, if it were. We were always good friends; and\r
+now we are better."\r
+\r
+"True. Are the others coming out?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to\r
+Meryton. And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt, that\r
+you have actually seen Pemberley."\r
+\r
+She replied in the affirmative.\r
+\r
+"I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much\r
+for me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the\r
+old housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of\r
+me. But of course she did not mention my name to you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, she did."\r
+\r
+"And what did she say?"\r
+\r
+"That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid had--not turned\r
+out well. At such a distance as _that_, you know, things are strangely\r
+misrepresented."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," he replied, biting his lips. Elizabeth hoped she had\r
+silenced him; but he soon afterwards said:\r
+\r
+"I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other\r
+several times. I wonder what he can be doing there."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss de Bourgh," said\r
+Elizabeth. "It must be something particular, to take him there at this\r
+time of year."\r
+\r
+"Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I\r
+understood from the Gardiners that you had."\r
+\r
+"Yes; he introduced us to his sister."\r
+\r
+"And do you like her?"\r
+\r
+"Very much."\r
+\r
+"I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year\r
+or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad\r
+you liked her. I hope she will turn out well."\r
+\r
+"I dare say she will; she has got over the most trying age."\r
+\r
+"Did you go by the village of Kympton?"\r
+\r
+"I do not recollect that we did."\r
+\r
+"I mention it, because it is the living which I ought to have had. A\r
+most delightful place!--Excellent Parsonage House! It would have suited\r
+me in every respect."\r
+\r
+"How should you have liked making sermons?"\r
+\r
+"Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty,\r
+and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to\r
+repine;--but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The\r
+quiet, the retirement of such a life would have answered all my ideas\r
+of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the\r
+circumstance, when you were in Kent?"\r
+\r
+"I have heard from authority, which I thought _as good_, that it was\r
+left you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron."\r
+\r
+"You have. Yes, there was something in _that_; I told you so from the\r
+first, you may remember."\r
+\r
+"I _did_ hear, too, that there was a time, when sermon-making was not\r
+so palatable to you as it seems to be at present; that you actually\r
+declared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business\r
+had been compromised accordingly."\r
+\r
+"You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember\r
+what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it."\r
+\r
+They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast\r
+to get rid of him; and unwilling, for her sister's sake, to provoke him,\r
+she only said in reply, with a good-humoured smile:\r
+\r
+"Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let\r
+us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one\r
+mind."\r
+\r
+She held out her hand; he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though\r
+he hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 53\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation that he\r
+never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth,\r
+by introducing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she\r
+had said enough to keep him quiet.\r
+\r
+The day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was\r
+forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means\r
+entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to\r
+continue at least a twelvemonth.\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear Lydia," she cried, "when shall we meet again?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years, perhaps."\r
+\r
+"Write to me very often, my dear."\r
+\r
+"As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for\r
+writing. My sisters may write to _me_. They will have nothing else to\r
+do."\r
+\r
+Mr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's. He\r
+smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things.\r
+\r
+"He is as fine a fellow," said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of\r
+the house, "as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to\r
+us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas\r
+himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law."\r
+\r
+The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days.\r
+\r
+"I often think," said she, "that there is nothing so bad as parting with\r
+one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them."\r
+\r
+"This is the consequence, you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter," said\r
+Elizabeth. "It must make you better satisfied that your other four are\r
+single."\r
+\r
+"It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married,\r
+but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If\r
+that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon."\r
+\r
+But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly\r
+relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an\r
+article of news which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper\r
+at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her\r
+master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several\r
+weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and\r
+smiled and shook her head by turns.\r
+\r
+"Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister," (for Mrs.\r
+Phillips first brought her the news). "Well, so much the better. Not\r
+that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am\r
+sure _I_ never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome\r
+to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what _may_ happen?\r
+But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to\r
+mention a word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming?"\r
+\r
+"You may depend on it," replied the other, "for Mrs. Nicholls was in\r
+Meryton last night; I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose\r
+to know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certain true. He\r
+comes down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was\r
+going to the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on\r
+Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed."\r
+\r
+Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing\r
+colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to\r
+Elizabeth; but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said:\r
+\r
+"I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present\r
+report; and I know I appeared distressed. But don't imagine it was from\r
+any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that\r
+I _should_ be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect\r
+me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes\r
+alone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of\r
+_myself_, but I dread other people's remarks."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in\r
+Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no\r
+other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial\r
+to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming\r
+there _with_ his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come\r
+without it.\r
+\r
+"Yet it is hard," she sometimes thought, "that this poor man cannot\r
+come to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this\r
+speculation! I _will_ leave him to himself."\r
+\r
+In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her\r
+feelings in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily\r
+perceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed,\r
+more unequal, than she had often seen them.\r
+\r
+The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents,\r
+about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again.\r
+\r
+"As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "you\r
+will wait on him of course."\r
+\r
+"No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I\r
+went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in\r
+nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again."\r
+\r
+His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention\r
+would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to\r
+Netherfield.\r
+\r
+"'Tis an etiquette I despise," said he. "If he wants our society,\r
+let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours\r
+in running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back\r
+again."\r
+\r
+"Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait\r
+on him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I\r
+am determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will\r
+make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for\r
+him."\r
+\r
+Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her\r
+husband's incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her\r
+neighbours might all see Mr. Bingley, in consequence of it, before\r
+_they_ did. As the day of his arrival drew near,--\r
+\r
+"I begin to be sorry that he comes at all," said Jane to her sister. "It\r
+would be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can\r
+hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well;\r
+but she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she\r
+says. Happy shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over!"\r
+\r
+"I wish I could say anything to comfort you," replied Elizabeth; "but it\r
+is wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction\r
+of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have\r
+always so much."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants,\r
+contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety\r
+and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted\r
+the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent;\r
+hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his\r
+arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him, from her dressing-room window,\r
+enter the paddock and ride towards the house.\r
+\r
+Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely\r
+kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went\r
+to the window--she looked,--she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down\r
+again by her sister.\r
+\r
+"There is a gentleman with him, mamma," said Kitty; "who can it be?"\r
+\r
+"Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"La!" replied Kitty, "it looks just like that man that used to be with\r
+him before. Mr. what's-his-name. That tall, proud man."\r
+\r
+"Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!--and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of\r
+Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure; but else I must\r
+say that I hate the very sight of him."\r
+\r
+Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little\r
+of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness\r
+which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time\r
+after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable\r
+enough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves; and their\r
+mother talked on, of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be\r
+civil to him only as Mr. Bingley's friend, without being heard by either\r
+of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be\r
+suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to shew Mrs.\r
+Gardiner's letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him.\r
+To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused,\r
+and whose merit she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive\r
+information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted\r
+for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an\r
+interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just as\r
+what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming--at his\r
+coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again,\r
+was almost equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered\r
+behaviour in Derbyshire.\r
+\r
+The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a\r
+minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to\r
+her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and\r
+wishes must still be unshaken. But she would not be secure.\r
+\r
+"Let me first see how he behaves," said she; "it will then be early\r
+enough for expectation."\r
+\r
+She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to\r
+lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of\r
+her sister as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little\r
+paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the\r
+gentlemen's appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with\r
+tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any\r
+symptom of resentment or any unnecessary complaisance.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down\r
+again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She\r
+had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious, as usual; and,\r
+she thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as\r
+she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps he could not in her mother's\r
+presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but\r
+not an improbable, conjecture.\r
+\r
+Bingley, she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period\r
+saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs.\r
+Bennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed,\r
+especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of\r
+her curtsey and address to his friend.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter\r
+the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy,\r
+was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill\r
+applied.\r
+\r
+Darcy, after inquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question\r
+which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely anything. He\r
+was not seated by her; perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but\r
+it had not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends,\r
+when he could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed without\r
+bringing the sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist\r
+the impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often\r
+found him looking at Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but\r
+the ground. More thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when\r
+they last met, were plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry\r
+with herself for being so.\r
+\r
+"Could I expect it to be otherwise!" said she. "Yet why did he come?"\r
+\r
+She was in no humour for conversation with anyone but himself; and to\r
+him she had hardly courage to speak.\r
+\r
+She inquired after his sister, but could do no more.\r
+\r
+"It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away," said Mrs. Bennet.\r
+\r
+He readily agreed to it.\r
+\r
+"I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People _did_ say\r
+you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope\r
+it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood,\r
+since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my\r
+own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have\r
+seen it in the papers. It was in The Times and The Courier, I know;\r
+though it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately,\r
+George Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a\r
+syllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or anything.\r
+It was my brother Gardiner's drawing up too, and I wonder how he came to\r
+make such an awkward business of it. Did you see it?"\r
+\r
+Bingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth\r
+dared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could\r
+not tell.\r
+\r
+"It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married,"\r
+continued her mother, "but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very\r
+hard to have her taken such a way from me. They are gone down to\r
+Newcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay\r
+I do not know how long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have\r
+heard of his leaving the ----shire, and of his being gone into the\r
+regulars. Thank Heaven! he has _some_ friends, though perhaps not so\r
+many as he deserves."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such\r
+misery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her,\r
+however, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually\r
+done before; and she asked Bingley whether he meant to make any stay in\r
+the country at present. A few weeks, he believed.\r
+\r
+"When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley," said her mother,\r
+"I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please on Mr.\r
+Bennet's manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and\r
+will save all the best of the covies for you."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious\r
+attention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present as had\r
+flattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be\r
+hastening to the same vexatious conclusion. At that instant, she felt\r
+that years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends for\r
+moments of such painful confusion.\r
+\r
+"The first wish of my heart," said she to herself, "is never more to\r
+be in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure\r
+that will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either\r
+one or the other again!"\r
+\r
+Yet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no\r
+compensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing\r
+how much the beauty of her sister re-kindled the admiration of her\r
+former lover. When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little;\r
+but every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He\r
+found her as handsome as she had been last year; as good natured, and\r
+as unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no\r
+difference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded\r
+that she talked as much as ever. But her mind was so busily engaged,\r
+that she did not always know when she was silent.\r
+\r
+When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her\r
+intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at\r
+Longbourn in a few days time.\r
+\r
+"You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley," she added, "for when\r
+you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with\r
+us, as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure\r
+you, I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep\r
+your engagement."\r
+\r
+Bingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of\r
+his concern at having been prevented by business. They then went away.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine\r
+there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did\r
+not think anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man\r
+on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride\r
+of one who had ten thousand a year.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 54\r
+\r
+\r
+As soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to recover her spirits;\r
+or in other words, to dwell without interruption on those subjects that\r
+must deaden them more. Mr. Darcy's behaviour astonished and vexed her.\r
+\r
+"Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and indifferent," said she,\r
+"did he come at all?"\r
+\r
+She could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure.\r
+\r
+"He could be still amiable, still pleasing, to my uncle and aunt, when\r
+he was in town; and why not to me? If he fears me, why come hither? If\r
+he no longer cares for me, why silent? Teasing, teasing, man! I will\r
+think no more about him."\r
+\r
+Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach\r
+of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look, which showed her\r
+better satisfied with their visitors, than Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"Now," said she, "that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly\r
+easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by\r
+his coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly\r
+seen that, on both sides, we meet only as common and indifferent\r
+acquaintance."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very indifferent indeed," said Elizabeth, laughingly. "Oh, Jane,\r
+take care."\r
+\r
+"My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak, as to be in danger now?"\r
+\r
+"I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with\r
+you as ever."\r
+\r
+ * * * * *\r
+\r
+They did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday; and Mrs. Bennet, in\r
+the meanwhile, was giving way to all the happy schemes, which the good\r
+humour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour's visit, had\r
+revived.\r
+\r
+On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the two\r
+who were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality\r
+as sportsmen, were in very good time. When they repaired to the\r
+dining-room, Elizabeth eagerly watched to see whether Bingley would take\r
+the place, which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by\r
+her sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore\r
+to invite him to sit by herself. On entering the room, he seemed to\r
+hesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile: it was\r
+decided. He placed himself by her.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friend.\r
+He bore it with noble indifference, and she would have imagined that\r
+Bingley had received his sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes\r
+likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy, with an expression of half-laughing\r
+alarm.\r
+\r
+His behaviour to her sister was such, during dinner time, as showed an\r
+admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded\r
+Elizabeth, that if left wholly to himself, Jane's happiness, and his\r
+own, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the\r
+consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour. It\r
+gave her all the animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in\r
+no cheerful humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table\r
+could divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little\r
+such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to\r
+advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse, but\r
+she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and\r
+cold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother's ungraciousness,\r
+made the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth's mind;\r
+and she would, at times, have given anything to be privileged to tell\r
+him that his kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the\r
+family.\r
+\r
+She was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of\r
+bringing them together; that the whole of the visit would not pass away\r
+without enabling them to enter into something more of conversation than\r
+the mere ceremonious salutation attending his entrance. Anxious\r
+and uneasy, the period which passed in the drawing-room, before the\r
+gentlemen came, was wearisome and dull to a degree that almost made her\r
+uncivil. She looked forward to their entrance as the point on which all\r
+her chance of pleasure for the evening must depend.\r
+\r
+"If he does not come to me, _then_," said she, "I shall give him up for\r
+ever."\r
+\r
+The gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as if he would have\r
+answered her hopes; but, alas! the ladies had crowded round the table,\r
+where Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee,\r
+in so close a confederacy that there was not a single vacancy near her\r
+which would admit of a chair. And on the gentlemen's approaching, one of\r
+the girls moved closer to her than ever, and said, in a whisper:\r
+\r
+"The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them;\r
+do we?"\r
+\r
+Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with\r
+her eyes, envied everyone to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough\r
+to help anybody to coffee; and then was enraged against herself for\r
+being so silly!\r
+\r
+"A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to\r
+expect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex, who would not\r
+protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman?\r
+There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!"\r
+\r
+She was a little revived, however, by his bringing back his coffee cup\r
+himself; and she seized the opportunity of saying:\r
+\r
+"Is your sister at Pemberley still?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, she will remain there till Christmas."\r
+\r
+"And quite alone? Have all her friends left her?"\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarborough,\r
+these three weeks."\r
+\r
+She could think of nothing more to say; but if he wished to converse\r
+with her, he might have better success. He stood by her, however, for\r
+some minutes, in silence; and, at last, on the young lady's whispering\r
+to Elizabeth again, he walked away.\r
+\r
+When the tea-things were removed, and the card-tables placed, the ladies\r
+all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to be soon joined by him,\r
+when all her views were overthrown by seeing him fall a victim to her\r
+mother's rapacity for whist players, and in a few moments after seated\r
+with the rest of the party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure.\r
+They were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had\r
+nothing to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side\r
+of the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to\r
+supper; but their carriage was unluckily ordered before any of the\r
+others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them.\r
+\r
+"Well girls," said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, "What\r
+say you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well,\r
+I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The\r
+venison was roasted to a turn--and everybody said they never saw so\r
+fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the\r
+Lucases' last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges\r
+were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French\r
+cooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater\r
+beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And\r
+what do you think she said besides? 'Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her\r
+at Netherfield at last.' She did indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good\r
+a creature as ever lived--and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls,\r
+and not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits; she had seen enough of\r
+Bingley's behaviour to Jane, to be convinced that she would get him at\r
+last; and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy\r
+humour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at\r
+not seeing him there again the next day, to make his proposals.\r
+\r
+"It has been a very agreeable day," said Miss Bennet to Elizabeth. "The\r
+party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we\r
+may often meet again."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth smiled.\r
+\r
+"Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me.\r
+I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an\r
+agreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am\r
+perfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had\r
+any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed\r
+with greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally\r
+pleasing, than any other man."\r
+\r
+"You are very cruel," said her sister, "you will not let me smile, and\r
+are provoking me to it every moment."\r
+\r
+"How hard it is in some cases to be believed!"\r
+\r
+"And how impossible in others!"\r
+\r
+"But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I\r
+acknowledge?"\r
+\r
+"That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to\r
+instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive\r
+me; and if you persist in indifference, do not make me your confidante."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 55\r
+\r
+\r
+A few days after this visit, Mr. Bingley called again, and alone. His\r
+friend had left him that morning for London, but was to return home in\r
+ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably\r
+good spirits. Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them; but, with many\r
+expressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere.\r
+\r
+"Next time you call," said she, "I hope we shall be more lucky."\r
+\r
+He should be particularly happy at any time, etc. etc.; and if she would\r
+give him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them.\r
+\r
+"Can you come to-morrow?"\r
+\r
+Yes, he had no engagement at all for to-morrow; and her invitation was\r
+accepted with alacrity.\r
+\r
+He came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them\r
+dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter's room, in her dressing\r
+gown, and with her hair half finished, crying out:\r
+\r
+"My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come--Mr. Bingley is\r
+come. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss\r
+Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss\r
+Lizzy's hair."\r
+\r
+"We will be down as soon as we can," said Jane; "but I dare say Kitty is\r
+forwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago."\r
+\r
+"Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick!\r
+Where is your sash, my dear?"\r
+\r
+But when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down\r
+without one of her sisters.\r
+\r
+The same anxiety to get them by themselves was visible again in the\r
+evening. After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his\r
+custom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of\r
+the five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at\r
+Elizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any\r
+impression on them. Elizabeth would not observe her; and when at last\r
+Kitty did, she very innocently said, "What is the matter mamma? What do\r
+you keep winking at me for? What am I to do?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing child, nothing. I did not wink at you." She then sat still\r
+five minutes longer; but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she\r
+suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty, "Come here, my love, I want to\r
+speak to you," took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look\r
+at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her\r
+entreaty that _she_ would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs.\r
+Bennet half-opened the door and called out:\r
+\r
+"Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was forced to go.\r
+\r
+"We may as well leave them by themselves you know;" said her mother, as\r
+soon as she was in the hall. "Kitty and I are going up stairs to sit in\r
+my dressing-room."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained\r
+quietly in the hall, till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned\r
+into the drawing-room.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet's schemes for this day were ineffectual. Bingley was every\r
+thing that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter. His\r
+ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their\r
+evening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the\r
+mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command\r
+of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter.\r
+\r
+He scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper; and before he went\r
+away, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs.\r
+Bennet's means, for his coming next morning to shoot with her husband.\r
+\r
+After this day, Jane said no more of her indifference. Not a word passed\r
+between the sisters concerning Bingley; but Elizabeth went to bed in\r
+the happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy\r
+returned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably\r
+persuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman's\r
+concurrence.\r
+\r
+Bingley was punctual to his appointment; and he and Mr. Bennet spent\r
+the morning together, as had been agreed on. The latter was much more\r
+agreeable than his companion expected. There was nothing of presumption\r
+or folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into\r
+silence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the\r
+other had ever seen him. Bingley of course returned with him to dinner;\r
+and in the evening Mrs. Bennet's invention was again at work to get\r
+every body away from him and her daughter. Elizabeth, who had a letter\r
+to write, went into the breakfast room for that purpose soon after tea;\r
+for as the others were all going to sit down to cards, she could not be\r
+wanted to counteract her mother's schemes.\r
+\r
+But on returning to the drawing-room, when her letter was finished, she\r
+saw, to her infinite surprise, there was reason to fear that her mother\r
+had been too ingenious for her. On opening the door, she perceived her\r
+sister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in\r
+earnest conversation; and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of\r
+both, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would\r
+have told it all. Their situation was awkward enough; but _hers_ she\r
+thought was still worse. Not a syllable was uttered by either; and\r
+Elizabeth was on the point of going away again, when Bingley, who as\r
+well as the other had sat down, suddenly rose, and whispering a few\r
+words to her sister, ran out of the room.\r
+\r
+Jane could have no reserves from Elizabeth, where confidence would give\r
+pleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged, with the liveliest\r
+emotion, that she was the happiest creature in the world.\r
+\r
+"'Tis too much!" she added, "by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh!\r
+why is not everybody as happy?"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth,\r
+a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of\r
+kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not\r
+allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be\r
+said for the present.\r
+\r
+"I must go instantly to my mother;" she cried. "I would not on any\r
+account trifle with her affectionate solicitude; or allow her to hear it\r
+from anyone but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh! Lizzy, to\r
+know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear\r
+family! how shall I bear so much happiness!"\r
+\r
+She then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the\r
+card party, and was sitting up stairs with Kitty.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease\r
+with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many\r
+previous months of suspense and vexation.\r
+\r
+"And this," said she, "is the end of all his friend's anxious\r
+circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! the\r
+happiest, wisest, most reasonable end!"\r
+\r
+In a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her\r
+father had been short and to the purpose.\r
+\r
+"Where is your sister?" said he hastily, as he opened the door.\r
+\r
+"With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say."\r
+\r
+He then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes\r
+and affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed\r
+her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with\r
+great cordiality; and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen\r
+to all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane's perfections;\r
+and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his\r
+expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for\r
+basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of\r
+Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+It was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of\r
+Miss Bennet's mind gave a glow of such sweet animation to her face, as\r
+made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped\r
+her turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent or\r
+speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings,\r
+though she talked to Bingley of nothing else for half an hour; and when\r
+Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed\r
+how really happy he was.\r
+\r
+Not a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their\r
+visitor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he\r
+turned to his daughter, and said:\r
+\r
+"Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman."\r
+\r
+Jane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his\r
+goodness.\r
+\r
+"You are a good girl;" he replied, "and I have great pleasure in\r
+thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your\r
+doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are\r
+each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so\r
+easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will\r
+always exceed your income."\r
+\r
+"I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be\r
+unpardonable in me."\r
+\r
+"Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet," cried his wife, "what are you\r
+talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and very likely\r
+more." Then addressing her daughter, "Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so\r
+happy! I am sure I shan't get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it\r
+would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not\r
+be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when\r
+he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was\r
+that you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that\r
+ever was seen!"\r
+\r
+Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her\r
+favourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger\r
+sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness\r
+which she might in future be able to dispense.\r
+\r
+Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty\r
+begged very hard for a few balls there every winter.\r
+\r
+Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn;\r
+coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after\r
+supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough\r
+detested, had given him an invitation to dinner which he thought himself\r
+obliged to accept.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for\r
+while he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on anyone else;\r
+but she found herself considerably useful to both of them in those hours\r
+of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he\r
+always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of\r
+her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of\r
+relief.\r
+\r
+"He has made me so happy," said she, one evening, "by telling me that he\r
+was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed\r
+it possible."\r
+\r
+"I suspected as much," replied Elizabeth. "But how did he account for\r
+it?"\r
+\r
+"It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to\r
+his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have\r
+chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see,\r
+as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will\r
+learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we\r
+can never be what we once were to each other."\r
+\r
+"That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever\r
+heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again\r
+the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."\r
+\r
+"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November,\r
+he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being\r
+indifferent would have prevented his coming down again!"\r
+\r
+"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his\r
+modesty."\r
+\r
+This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and\r
+the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased\r
+to find that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for,\r
+though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she\r
+knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him.\r
+\r
+"I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried\r
+Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed\r
+above them all! If I could but see _you_ as happy! If there _were_ but\r
+such another man for you!"\r
+\r
+"If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as\r
+you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your\r
+happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very\r
+good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time."\r
+\r
+The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a\r
+secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Phillips,\r
+and she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her\r
+neighbours in Meryton.\r
+\r
+The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the\r
+world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away,\r
+they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 56\r
+\r
+\r
+One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been\r
+formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the\r
+dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the\r
+sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up\r
+the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the\r
+equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses\r
+were post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who\r
+preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that\r
+somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid\r
+the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the\r
+shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three\r
+continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown\r
+open and their visitor entered. It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh.\r
+\r
+They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their\r
+astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs.\r
+Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even\r
+inferior to what Elizabeth felt.\r
+\r
+She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no\r
+other reply to Elizabeth's salutation than a slight inclination of the\r
+head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her\r
+name to her mother on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of\r
+introduction had been made.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such\r
+high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting\r
+for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth,\r
+\r
+"I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your\r
+mother."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was.\r
+\r
+"And _that_ I suppose is one of your sisters."\r
+\r
+"Yes, madam," said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to Lady Catherine.\r
+"She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married,\r
+and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man\r
+who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family."\r
+\r
+"You have a very small park here," returned Lady Catherine after a short\r
+silence.\r
+\r
+"It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I\r
+assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's."\r
+\r
+"This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in\r
+summer; the windows are full west."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then\r
+added:\r
+\r
+"May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Collins well."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from\r
+Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no\r
+letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some\r
+refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely,\r
+declined eating anything; and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth,\r
+\r
+"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness\r
+on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you\r
+will favour me with your company."\r
+\r
+"Go, my dear," cried her mother, "and show her ladyship about the\r
+different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol,\r
+attended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the\r
+hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and\r
+drawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent\r
+looking rooms, walked on.\r
+\r
+Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her\r
+waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk\r
+that led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for\r
+conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and\r
+disagreeable.\r
+\r
+"How could I ever think her like her nephew?" said she, as she looked in\r
+her face.\r
+\r
+As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following\r
+manner:--\r
+\r
+"You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my\r
+journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I\r
+come."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment.\r
+\r
+"Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account\r
+for the honour of seeing you here."\r
+\r
+"Miss Bennet," replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, "you ought to\r
+know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere _you_ may\r
+choose to be, you shall not find _me_ so. My character has ever been\r
+celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such\r
+moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most\r
+alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your\r
+sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that\r
+you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon\r
+afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I\r
+_know_ it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him\r
+so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved\r
+on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"If you believed it impossible to be true," said Elizabeth, colouring\r
+with astonishment and disdain, "I wonder you took the trouble of coming\r
+so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?"\r
+\r
+"At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted."\r
+\r
+"Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family," said Elizabeth\r
+coolly, "will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report\r
+is in existence."\r
+\r
+"If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been\r
+industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a\r
+report is spread abroad?"\r
+\r
+"I never heard that it was."\r
+\r
+"And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?"\r
+\r
+"I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may\r
+ask questions which I shall not choose to answer."\r
+\r
+"This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has\r
+he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?"\r
+\r
+"Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible."\r
+\r
+"It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his\r
+reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation,\r
+have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You\r
+may have drawn him in."\r
+\r
+"If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it."\r
+\r
+"Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such\r
+language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world,\r
+and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns."\r
+\r
+"But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this,\r
+ever induce me to be explicit."\r
+\r
+"Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the\r
+presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is\r
+engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?"\r
+\r
+"Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will\r
+make an offer to me."\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied:\r
+\r
+"The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy,\r
+they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of\r
+_his_ mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned\r
+the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would\r
+be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of\r
+inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to\r
+the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his\r
+tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of\r
+propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest\r
+hours he was destined for his cousin?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is\r
+no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not\r
+be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to\r
+marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the\r
+marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither\r
+by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make\r
+another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?"\r
+\r
+"Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes,\r
+Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or\r
+friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will\r
+be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him.\r
+Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned\r
+by any of us."\r
+\r
+"These are heavy misfortunes," replied Elizabeth. "But the wife of Mr.\r
+Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily\r
+attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause\r
+to repine."\r
+\r
+"Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude\r
+for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that\r
+score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came\r
+here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will\r
+I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's\r
+whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment."\r
+\r
+"_That_ will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable;\r
+but it will have no effect on me."\r
+\r
+"I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my\r
+nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal\r
+side, from the same noble line; and, on the father's, from respectable,\r
+honourable, and ancient--though untitled--families. Their fortune on\r
+both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of\r
+every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them?\r
+The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections,\r
+or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you\r
+were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in\r
+which you have been brought up."\r
+\r
+"In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that\r
+sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are\r
+equal."\r
+\r
+"True. You _are_ a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother?\r
+Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their\r
+condition."\r
+\r
+"Whatever my connections may be," said Elizabeth, "if your nephew does\r
+not object to them, they can be nothing to _you_."\r
+\r
+"Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?"\r
+\r
+Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady\r
+Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a\r
+moment's deliberation:\r
+\r
+"I am not."\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine seemed pleased.\r
+\r
+"And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?"\r
+\r
+"I will make no promise of the kind."\r
+\r
+"Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more\r
+reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that\r
+I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the\r
+assurance I require."\r
+\r
+"And I certainly _never_ shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into\r
+anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry\r
+your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their\r
+marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would\r
+my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin?\r
+Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have\r
+supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the\r
+application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if\r
+you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your\r
+nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell;\r
+but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg,\r
+therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject."\r
+\r
+"Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the\r
+objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am\r
+no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous\r
+elopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her was a\r
+patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is\r
+such a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, is the son of his\r
+late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!--of what are\r
+you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?"\r
+\r
+"You can now have nothing further to say," she resentfully answered.\r
+"You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to\r
+the house."\r
+\r
+And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned\r
+back. Her ladyship was highly incensed.\r
+\r
+"You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew!\r
+Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you\r
+must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?"\r
+\r
+"Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments."\r
+\r
+"You are then resolved to have him?"\r
+\r
+"I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner,\r
+which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without\r
+reference to _you_, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me."\r
+\r
+"It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the\r
+claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in\r
+the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world."\r
+\r
+"Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude," replied Elizabeth, "have any\r
+possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either\r
+would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the\r
+resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former\r
+_were_ excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's\r
+concern--and the world in general would have too much sense to join in\r
+the scorn."\r
+\r
+"And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well.\r
+I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your\r
+ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you\r
+reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point."\r
+\r
+In this manner Lady Catherine talked on, till they were at the door of\r
+the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added, "I take no leave\r
+of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve\r
+no such attention. I am most seriously displeased."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her\r
+ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She\r
+heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Her mother\r
+impatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Lady\r
+Catherine would not come in again and rest herself.\r
+\r
+"She did not choose it," said her daughter, "she would go."\r
+\r
+"She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously\r
+civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were\r
+well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so, passing through\r
+Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had\r
+nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy?"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to\r
+acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 57\r
+\r
+\r
+The discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw\r
+Elizabeth into, could not be easily overcome; nor could she, for many\r
+hours, learn to think of it less than incessantly. Lady Catherine, it\r
+appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings,\r
+for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr.\r
+Darcy. It was a rational scheme, to be sure! but from what the report\r
+of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine;\r
+till she recollected that _his_ being the intimate friend of Bingley,\r
+and _her_ being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the\r
+expectation of one wedding made everybody eager for another, to supply\r
+the idea. She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her\r
+sister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours\r
+at Lucas Lodge, therefore (for through their communication with the\r
+Collinses, the report, she concluded, had reached Lady Catherine), had\r
+only set that down as almost certain and immediate, which she had looked\r
+forward to as possible at some future time.\r
+\r
+In revolving Lady Catherine's expressions, however, she could not help\r
+feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting\r
+in this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to\r
+prevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate\r
+an application to her nephew; and how _he_ might take a similar\r
+representation of the evils attached to a connection with her, she dared\r
+not pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his\r
+aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose\r
+that he thought much higher of her ladyship than _she_ could do; and it\r
+was certain that, in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with _one_,\r
+whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would\r
+address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would\r
+probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak\r
+and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning.\r
+\r
+If he had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often\r
+seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might\r
+settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity\r
+unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady\r
+Catherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to\r
+Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way.\r
+\r
+"If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his\r
+friend within a few days," she added, "I shall know how to understand\r
+it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his\r
+constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might\r
+have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him\r
+at all."\r
+\r
+ * * * * *\r
+\r
+The surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had\r
+been, was very great; but they obligingly satisfied it, with the same\r
+kind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Bennet's curiosity; and\r
+Elizabeth was spared from much teasing on the subject.\r
+\r
+The next morning, as she was going downstairs, she was met by her\r
+father, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand.\r
+\r
+"Lizzy," said he, "I was going to look for you; come into my room."\r
+\r
+She followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to\r
+tell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner\r
+connected with the letter he held. It suddenly struck her that it\r
+might be from Lady Catherine; and she anticipated with dismay all the\r
+consequent explanations.\r
+\r
+She followed her father to the fire place, and they both sat down. He\r
+then said,\r
+\r
+"I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me\r
+exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its\r
+contents. I did not know before, that I had two daughters on the brink\r
+of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest."\r
+\r
+The colour now rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous\r
+conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt;\r
+and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained\r
+himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to\r
+herself; when her father continued:\r
+\r
+"You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters\r
+as these; but I think I may defy even _your_ sagacity, to discover the\r
+name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins."\r
+\r
+"From Mr. Collins! and what can _he_ have to say?"\r
+\r
+"Something very much to the purpose of course. He begins with\r
+congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of\r
+which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping\r
+Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience, by reading what he says\r
+on that point. What relates to yourself, is as follows: 'Having thus\r
+offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on\r
+this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another;\r
+of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter\r
+Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after\r
+her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may\r
+be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in\r
+this land.'\r
+\r
+"Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this? 'This young\r
+gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of\r
+mortal can most desire,--splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive\r
+patronage. Yet in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin\r
+Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate\r
+closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be\r
+inclined to take immediate advantage of.'\r
+\r
+"Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out:\r
+\r
+"'My motive for cautioning you is as follows. We have reason to imagine\r
+that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with\r
+a friendly eye.'\r
+\r
+"_Mr. Darcy_, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I _have_\r
+surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man within\r
+the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie\r
+more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any\r
+woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his\r
+life! It is admirable!"\r
+\r
+Elizabeth tried to join in her father's pleasantry, but could only force\r
+one most reluctant smile. Never had his wit been directed in a manner so\r
+little agreeable to her.\r
+\r
+"Are you not diverted?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes. Pray read on."\r
+\r
+"'After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last\r
+night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she\r
+felt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some\r
+family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her\r
+consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty\r
+to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and\r
+her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run\r
+hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.' Mr.\r
+Collins moreover adds, 'I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia's sad\r
+business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their\r
+living together before the marriage took place should be so generally\r
+known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain\r
+from declaring my amazement at hearing that you received the young\r
+couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an\r
+encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should\r
+very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them,\r
+as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their\r
+names to be mentioned in your hearing.' That is his notion of Christian\r
+forgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's\r
+situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. But, Lizzy, you\r
+look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be _missish_,\r
+I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we\r
+live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our\r
+turn?"\r
+\r
+"Oh!" cried Elizabeth, "I am excessively diverted. But it is so\r
+strange!"\r
+\r
+"Yes--_that_ is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man\r
+it would have been nothing; but _his_ perfect indifference, and _your_\r
+pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate\r
+writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any\r
+consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving\r
+him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and\r
+hypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine\r
+about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?"\r
+\r
+To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had\r
+been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by\r
+his repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her\r
+feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she\r
+would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by\r
+what he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference, and she could do nothing but\r
+wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that perhaps, instead of\r
+his seeing too little, she might have fancied too much.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 58\r
+\r
+\r
+Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as\r
+Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy\r
+with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's\r
+visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time\r
+to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat\r
+in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed\r
+their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the\r
+habit of walking; Mary could never spare time; but the remaining five\r
+set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others\r
+to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy\r
+were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty\r
+was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a\r
+desperate resolution; and perhaps he might be doing the same.\r
+\r
+They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon\r
+Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern,\r
+when Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the\r
+moment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was\r
+high, she immediately said:\r
+\r
+"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving\r
+relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I\r
+can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my\r
+poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to\r
+acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest\r
+of my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express."\r
+\r
+"I am sorry, exceedingly sorry," replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise\r
+and emotion, "that you have ever been informed of what may, in a\r
+mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner\r
+was so little to be trusted."\r
+\r
+"You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to\r
+me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could\r
+not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again,\r
+in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced\r
+you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the\r
+sake of discovering them."\r
+\r
+"If you _will_ thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone.\r
+That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other\r
+inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your\r
+_family_ owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought\r
+only of _you_."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause,\r
+her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your\r
+feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. _My_\r
+affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence\r
+me on this subject for ever."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of\r
+his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not\r
+very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone\r
+so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make\r
+her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The\r
+happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never\r
+felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as\r
+warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth\r
+been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the\r
+expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him;\r
+but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of\r
+feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his\r
+affection every moment more valuable.\r
+\r
+They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to\r
+be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She\r
+soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding\r
+to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through\r
+London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the\r
+substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on\r
+every expression of the latter which, in her ladyship's apprehension,\r
+peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance; in the belief that\r
+such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise\r
+from her nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her\r
+ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise.\r
+\r
+"It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself\r
+to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain that,\r
+had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have\r
+acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, "Yes, you know enough\r
+of my frankness to believe me capable of _that_. After abusing you so\r
+abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all\r
+your relations."\r
+\r
+"What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your\r
+accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my\r
+behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was\r
+unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence."\r
+\r
+"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that\r
+evening," said Elizabeth. "The conduct of neither, if strictly examined,\r
+will be irreproachable; but since then, we have both, I hope, improved\r
+in civility."\r
+\r
+"I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I\r
+then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of\r
+it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your\r
+reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'had you behaved in a\r
+more gentlemanlike manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can\r
+scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;--though it was some time,\r
+I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice."\r
+\r
+"I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an\r
+impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such\r
+a way."\r
+\r
+"I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper\r
+feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never\r
+forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible\r
+way that would induce you to accept me."\r
+\r
+"Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at\r
+all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it."\r
+\r
+Darcy mentioned his letter. "Did it," said he, "did it soon make you\r
+think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its\r
+contents?"\r
+\r
+She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her\r
+former prejudices had been removed.\r
+\r
+"I knew," said he, "that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was\r
+necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part\r
+especially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the\r
+power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might\r
+justly make you hate me."\r
+\r
+"The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the\r
+preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my\r
+opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily\r
+changed as that implies."\r
+\r
+"When I wrote that letter," replied Darcy, "I believed myself perfectly\r
+calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a\r
+dreadful bitterness of spirit."\r
+\r
+"The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The\r
+adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings\r
+of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now\r
+so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant\r
+circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some\r
+of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you\r
+pleasure."\r
+\r
+"I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your\r
+retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment\r
+arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of\r
+innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude\r
+which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish\r
+being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I\r
+was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I\r
+was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.\r
+Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt\r
+by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all\r
+that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught\r
+me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family\r
+circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least\r
+to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I\r
+was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been\r
+but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You\r
+taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you,\r
+I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception.\r
+You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman\r
+worthy of being pleased."\r
+\r
+"Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?"\r
+\r
+"Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be\r
+wishing, expecting my addresses."\r
+\r
+"My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure\r
+you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me\r
+wrong. How you must have hated me after _that_ evening?"\r
+\r
+"Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take\r
+a proper direction."\r
+\r
+"I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at\r
+Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?"\r
+\r
+"No indeed; I felt nothing but surprise."\r
+\r
+"Your surprise could not be greater than _mine_ in being noticed by you.\r
+My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I\r
+confess that I did not expect to receive _more_ than my due."\r
+\r
+"My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in\r
+my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to\r
+obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you\r
+see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes\r
+introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an\r
+hour after I had seen you."\r
+\r
+He then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her\r
+disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to\r
+the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of\r
+following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed\r
+before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness\r
+there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must\r
+comprehend.\r
+\r
+She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to\r
+each, to be dwelt on farther.\r
+\r
+After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know\r
+anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that\r
+it was time to be at home.\r
+\r
+"What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!" was a wonder which\r
+introduced the discussion of their affairs. Darcy was delighted with\r
+their engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"I must ask whether you were surprised?" said Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+"Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen."\r
+\r
+"That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much." And\r
+though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much\r
+the case.\r
+\r
+"On the evening before my going to London," said he, "I made a\r
+confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I\r
+told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his\r
+affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had\r
+the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself\r
+mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent\r
+to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was\r
+unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his\r
+friend.\r
+\r
+"Did you speak from your own observation," said she, "when you told him\r
+that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?"\r
+\r
+"From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits\r
+which I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection."\r
+\r
+"And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had\r
+prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but\r
+his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess\r
+one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not\r
+allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months\r
+last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was\r
+angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained\r
+in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me\r
+now."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful\r
+friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked\r
+herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at,\r
+and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness\r
+of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he\r
+continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they\r
+parted.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 59\r
+\r
+\r
+"My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?" was a question\r
+which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room,\r
+and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to\r
+say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own\r
+knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything\r
+else, awakened a suspicion of the truth.\r
+\r
+The evening passed quietly, unmarked by anything extraordinary. The\r
+acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent.\r
+Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth;\r
+and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather _knew_ that she was happy\r
+than _felt_ herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment,\r
+there were other evils before her. She anticipated what would be felt\r
+in the family when her situation became known; she was aware that no\r
+one liked him but Jane; and even feared that with the others it was a\r
+dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away.\r
+\r
+At night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far\r
+from Miss Bennet's general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here.\r
+\r
+"You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be!--engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no,\r
+you shall not deceive me. I know it to be impossible."\r
+\r
+"This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and\r
+I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am\r
+in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are\r
+engaged."\r
+\r
+Jane looked at her doubtingly. "Oh, Lizzy! it cannot be. I know how much\r
+you dislike him."\r
+\r
+"You know nothing of the matter. _That_ is all to be forgot. Perhaps I\r
+did not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as\r
+these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever\r
+remember it myself."\r
+\r
+Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more\r
+seriously assured her of its truth.\r
+\r
+"Good Heaven! can it be really so! Yet now I must believe you," cried\r
+Jane. "My dear, dear Lizzy, I would--I do congratulate you--but are you\r
+certain? forgive the question--are you quite certain that you can be\r
+happy with him?"\r
+\r
+"There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already, that\r
+we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased,\r
+Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?"\r
+\r
+"Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more\r
+delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you\r
+really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than\r
+marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought\r
+to do?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes! You will only think I feel _more_ than I ought to do, when I\r
+tell you all."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"Why, I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am\r
+afraid you will be angry."\r
+\r
+"My dearest sister, now _be_ serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let\r
+me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me\r
+how long you have loved him?"\r
+\r
+"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began.\r
+But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds\r
+at Pemberley."\r
+\r
+Another entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the\r
+desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances\r
+of attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing\r
+further to wish.\r
+\r
+"Now I am quite happy," said she, "for you will be as happy as myself.\r
+I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you,\r
+I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your\r
+husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But\r
+Lizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you\r
+tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know\r
+of it to another, not to you."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling\r
+to mention Bingley; and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made\r
+her equally avoid the name of his friend. But now she would no longer\r
+conceal from her his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged,\r
+and half the night spent in conversation.\r
+\r
+ * * * * *\r
+\r
+"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next\r
+morning, "if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with\r
+our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always\r
+coming here? I had no notion but he would go a-shooting, or something or\r
+other, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him?\r
+Lizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's\r
+way."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet\r
+was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an\r
+epithet.\r
+\r
+As soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and\r
+shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information;\r
+and he soon afterwards said aloud, "Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes\r
+hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?"\r
+\r
+"I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty," said Mrs. Bennet, "to walk\r
+to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has\r
+never seen the view."\r
+\r
+"It may do very well for the others," replied Mr. Bingley; "but I am\r
+sure it will be too much for Kitty. Won't it, Kitty?" Kitty owned that\r
+she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see\r
+the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went\r
+up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying:\r
+\r
+"I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that\r
+disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it: it is\r
+all for Jane's sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking\r
+to him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to\r
+inconvenience."\r
+\r
+During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be\r
+asked in the course of the evening. Elizabeth reserved to herself the\r
+application for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother\r
+would take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur\r
+would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man. But whether she\r
+were violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it\r
+was certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit\r
+to her sense; and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear\r
+the first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her\r
+disapprobation.\r
+\r
+ * * * * *\r
+\r
+In the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw\r
+Mr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was\r
+extreme. She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to\r
+be made unhappy; and that it should be through her means--that _she_,\r
+his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be\r
+filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her--was a wretched\r
+reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when,\r
+looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes\r
+he approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty; and, while\r
+pretending to admire her work said in a whisper, "Go to your father, he\r
+wants you in the library." She was gone directly.\r
+\r
+Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious.\r
+"Lizzy," said he, "what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be\r
+accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?"\r
+\r
+How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more\r
+reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from\r
+explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give;\r
+but they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion,\r
+of her attachment to Mr. Darcy.\r
+\r
+"Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be\r
+sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane.\r
+But will they make you happy?"\r
+\r
+"Have you any other objection," said Elizabeth, "than your belief of my\r
+indifference?"\r
+\r
+"None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but\r
+this would be nothing if you really liked him."\r
+\r
+"I do, I do like him," she replied, with tears in her eyes, "I love him.\r
+Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not\r
+know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in\r
+such terms."\r
+\r
+"Lizzy," said her father, "I have given him my consent. He is the kind\r
+of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse anything, which he\r
+condescended to ask. I now give it to _you_, if you are resolved on\r
+having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know\r
+your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor\r
+respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked\r
+up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the\r
+greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape\r
+discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing\r
+_you_ unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are\r
+about."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and\r
+at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object\r
+of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of\r
+him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection\r
+was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months'\r
+suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did\r
+conquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more to\r
+say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with\r
+you, my Lizzy, to anyone less worthy."\r
+\r
+To complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy\r
+had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment.\r
+\r
+"This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing;\r
+made up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow's debts, and got him\r
+his commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble\r
+and economy. Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and _would_ have\r
+paid him; but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own\r
+way. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about\r
+his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter."\r
+\r
+He then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading\r
+Mr. Collins's letter; and after laughing at her some time, allowed her\r
+at last to go--saying, as she quitted the room, "If any young men come\r
+for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure."\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight; and, after\r
+half an hour's quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join\r
+the others with tolerable composure. Every thing was too recent for\r
+gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer\r
+anything material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity\r
+would come in time.\r
+\r
+When her mother went up to her dressing-room at night, she followed her,\r
+and made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary;\r
+for on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to\r
+utter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes that she could\r
+comprehend what she heard; though not in general backward to credit\r
+what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a\r
+lover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in\r
+her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself.\r
+\r
+"Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would\r
+have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich\r
+and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages\r
+you will have! Jane's is nothing to it--nothing at all. I am so\r
+pleased--so happy. Such a charming man!--so handsome! so tall!--Oh, my\r
+dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I\r
+hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing\r
+that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh,\r
+Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted."\r
+\r
+This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted: and\r
+Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself,\r
+soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room,\r
+her mother followed her.\r
+\r
+"My dearest child," she cried, "I can think of nothing else! Ten\r
+thousand a year, and very likely more! 'Tis as good as a Lord! And a\r
+special licence. You must and shall be married by a special licence. But\r
+my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of,\r
+that I may have it to-morrow."\r
+\r
+This was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman\r
+himself might be; and Elizabeth found that, though in the certain\r
+possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations'\r
+consent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow\r
+passed off much better than she expected; for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood\r
+in such awe of her intended son-in-law that she ventured not to speak to\r
+him, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her\r
+deference for his opinion.\r
+\r
+Elizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get\r
+acquainted with him; and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising\r
+every hour in his esteem.\r
+\r
+"I admire all my three sons-in-law highly," said he. "Wickham, perhaps,\r
+is my favourite; but I think I shall like _your_ husband quite as well\r
+as Jane's."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 60\r
+\r
+\r
+Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr.\r
+Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. "How could\r
+you begin?" said she. "I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when\r
+you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first\r
+place?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which\r
+laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I\r
+knew that I _had_ begun."\r
+\r
+"My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners--my behaviour\r
+to _you_ was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke\r
+to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere;\r
+did you admire me for my impertinence?"\r
+\r
+"For the liveliness of your mind, I did."\r
+\r
+"You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very little less.\r
+The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious\r
+attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking,\r
+and looking, and thinking for _your_ approbation alone. I roused, and\r
+interested you, because I was so unlike _them_. Had you not been really\r
+amiable, you would have hated me for it; but in spite of the pains you\r
+took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and\r
+in your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously\r
+courted you. There--I have saved you the trouble of accounting for\r
+it; and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly\r
+reasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of me--but nobody thinks\r
+of _that_ when they fall in love."\r
+\r
+"Was there no good in your affectionate behaviour to Jane while she was\r
+ill at Netherfield?"\r
+\r
+"Dearest Jane! who could have done less for her? But make a virtue of it\r
+by all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are\r
+to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me\r
+to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may\r
+be; and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling\r
+to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first\r
+called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did\r
+you look as if you did not care about me?"\r
+\r
+"Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement."\r
+\r
+"But I was embarrassed."\r
+\r
+"And so was I."\r
+\r
+"You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner."\r
+\r
+"A man who had felt less, might."\r
+\r
+"How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that\r
+I should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you\r
+_would_ have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when\r
+you _would_ have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of\r
+thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect.\r
+_Too much_, I am afraid; for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort\r
+springs from a breach of promise? for I ought not to have mentioned the\r
+subject. This will never do."\r
+\r
+"You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady\r
+Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of\r
+removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to\r
+your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour\r
+to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me\r
+hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing."\r
+\r
+"Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy,\r
+for she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to\r
+Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed?\r
+or had you intended any more serious consequence?"\r
+\r
+"My real purpose was to see _you_, and to judge, if I could, whether I\r
+might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to\r
+myself, was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley,\r
+and if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made."\r
+\r
+"Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to\r
+befall her?"\r
+\r
+"I am more likely to want more time than courage, Elizabeth. But it\r
+ought to be done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper, it shall be\r
+done directly."\r
+\r
+"And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and\r
+admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But\r
+I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected."\r
+\r
+From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy\r
+had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's\r
+long letter; but now, having _that_ to communicate which she knew would\r
+be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and\r
+aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as\r
+follows:\r
+\r
+"I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done,\r
+for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars; but to say the\r
+truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed.\r
+But _now_ suppose as much as you choose; give a loose rein to your\r
+fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the\r
+subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you\r
+cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a\r
+great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again and again,\r
+for not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it! Your\r
+idea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the Park every day. I\r
+am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so\r
+before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she\r
+only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that\r
+he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas.\r
+Yours, etc."\r
+\r
+Mr. Darcy's letter to Lady Catherine was in a different style; and still\r
+different from either was what Mr. Bennet sent to Mr. Collins, in reply\r
+to his last.\r
+\r
+"DEAR SIR,\r
+\r
+"I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon\r
+be the wife of Mr. Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can.\r
+But, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give.\r
+\r
+"Yours sincerely, etc."\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching\r
+marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere. She wrote even\r
+to Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her\r
+former professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was\r
+affected; and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing\r
+her a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved.\r
+\r
+The joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information,\r
+was as sincere as her brother's in sending it. Four sides of paper were\r
+insufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of\r
+being loved by her sister.\r
+\r
+Before any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations\r
+to Elizabeth from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the\r
+Collinses were come themselves to Lucas Lodge. The reason of this\r
+sudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered\r
+so exceedingly angry by the contents of her nephew's letter, that\r
+Charlotte, really rejoicing in the match, was anxious to get away till\r
+the storm was blown over. At such a moment, the arrival of her friend\r
+was a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their\r
+meetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she\r
+saw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of\r
+her husband. He bore it, however, with admirable calmness. He could even\r
+listen to Sir William Lucas, when he complimented him on carrying away\r
+the brightest jewel of the country, and expressed his hopes of their all\r
+meeting frequently at St. James's, with very decent composure. If he did\r
+shrug his shoulders, it was not till Sir William was out of sight.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Phillips's vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his\r
+forbearance; and though Mrs. Phillips, as well as her sister, stood in\r
+too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley's good\r
+humour encouraged, yet, whenever she _did_ speak, she must be vulgar.\r
+Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all\r
+likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield\r
+him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep\r
+him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse\r
+without mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising\r
+from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it\r
+added to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to\r
+the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing\r
+to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at\r
+Pemberley.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter 61\r
+\r
+\r
+Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got\r
+rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride\r
+she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may\r
+be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the\r
+accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many\r
+of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible,\r
+amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it\r
+was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity\r
+in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and\r
+invariably silly.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her\r
+drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in\r
+going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near\r
+a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to\r
+_his_ easy temper, or _her_ affectionate heart. The darling wish of his\r
+sisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighbouring county\r
+to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source\r
+of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other.\r
+\r
+Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with\r
+her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally\r
+known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a\r
+temper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia's example,\r
+she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less\r
+ignorant, and less insipid. From the further disadvantage of Lydia's\r
+society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham\r
+frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of\r
+balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going.\r
+\r
+Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily\r
+drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite\r
+unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but\r
+she could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no\r
+longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own,\r
+it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without\r
+much reluctance.\r
+\r
+As for Wickham and Lydia, their characters suffered no revolution from\r
+the marriage of her sisters. He bore with philosophy the conviction that\r
+Elizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude\r
+and falsehood had before been unknown to her; and in spite of every\r
+thing, was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on\r
+to make his fortune. The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received\r
+from Lydia on her marriage, explained to her that, by his wife at least,\r
+if not by himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this\r
+effect:\r
+\r
+"MY DEAR LIZZY,\r
+\r
+"I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear\r
+Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so\r
+rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us.\r
+I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not\r
+think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help.\r
+Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however,\r
+do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not.\r
+\r
+"Yours, etc."\r
+\r
+As it happened that Elizabeth had _much_ rather not, she endeavoured in\r
+her answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind.\r
+Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice\r
+of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she\r
+frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an\r
+income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in\r
+their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to\r
+their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or\r
+herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance\r
+towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the\r
+restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the\r
+extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap\r
+situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for\r
+her soon sunk into indifference; hers lasted a little longer; and\r
+in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to\r
+reputation which her marriage had given her.\r
+\r
+Though Darcy could never receive _him_ at Pemberley, yet, for\r
+Elizabeth's sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was\r
+occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself\r
+in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently\r
+staid so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he\r
+proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone.\r
+\r
+Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but as she\r
+thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she\r
+dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as\r
+attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility\r
+to Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+Pemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters\r
+was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each\r
+other even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion\r
+in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with\r
+an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive, manner of\r
+talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect\r
+which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open\r
+pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen\r
+in her way. By Elizabeth's instructions, she began to comprehend that\r
+a woman may take liberties with her husband which a brother will not\r
+always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself.\r
+\r
+Lady Catherine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew;\r
+and as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character in\r
+her reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him\r
+language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time\r
+all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth's persuasion,\r
+he was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation;\r
+and, after a little further resistance on the part of his aunt, her\r
+resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity\r
+to see how his wife conducted herself; and she condescended to wait\r
+on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had\r
+received, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the\r
+visits of her uncle and aunt from the city.\r
+\r
+With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms.\r
+Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever\r
+sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing\r
+her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.\r
+\r
--- /dev/null
+\r
+MANSFIELD PARK\r
+\r
+(1814)\r
+\r
+\r
+By Jane Austen\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven\r
+thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of\r
+Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised\r
+to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences\r
+of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the\r
+greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her\r
+to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it.\r
+She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation; and such of their\r
+acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as\r
+Miss Maria, did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal\r
+advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in\r
+the world as there are pretty women to deserve them. Miss Ward, at the\r
+end of half a dozen years, found herself obliged to be attached to\r
+the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any\r
+private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse. Miss Ward's match,\r
+indeed, when it came to the point, was not contemptible: Sir Thomas\r
+being happily able to give his friend an income in the living of\r
+Mansfield; and Mr. and Mrs. Norris began their career of conjugal\r
+felicity with very little less than a thousand a year. But Miss Frances\r
+married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on\r
+a lieutenant of marines, without education, fortune, or connexions, did\r
+it very thoroughly. She could hardly have made a more untoward choice.\r
+Sir Thomas Bertram had interest, which, from principle as well as\r
+pride--from a general wish of doing right, and a desire of seeing all\r
+that were connected with him in situations of respectability, he would\r
+have been glad to exert for the advantage of Lady Bertram's sister; but\r
+her husband's profession was such as no interest could reach; and before\r
+he had time to devise any other method of assisting them, an absolute\r
+breach between the sisters had taken place. It was the natural result of\r
+the conduct of each party, and such as a very imprudent marriage almost\r
+always produces. To save herself from useless remonstrance, Mrs. Price\r
+never wrote to her family on the subject till actually married. Lady\r
+Bertram, who was a woman of very tranquil feelings, and a temper\r
+remarkably easy and indolent, would have contented herself with merely\r
+giving up her sister, and thinking no more of the matter; but Mrs.\r
+Norris had a spirit of activity, which could not be satisfied till she\r
+had written a long and angry letter to Fanny, to point out the folly of\r
+her conduct, and threaten her with all its possible ill consequences.\r
+Mrs. Price, in her turn, was injured and angry; and an answer, which\r
+comprehended each sister in its bitterness, and bestowed such very\r
+disrespectful reflections on the pride of Sir Thomas as Mrs. Norris\r
+could not possibly keep to herself, put an end to all intercourse\r
+between them for a considerable period.\r
+\r
+Their homes were so distant, and the circles in which they moved so\r
+distinct, as almost to preclude the means of ever hearing of each\r
+other's existence during the eleven following years, or, at least, to\r
+make it very wonderful to Sir Thomas that Mrs. Norris should ever have\r
+it in her power to tell them, as she now and then did, in an angry\r
+voice, that Fanny had got another child. By the end of eleven years,\r
+however, Mrs. Price could no longer afford to cherish pride or\r
+resentment, or to lose one connexion that might possibly assist her.\r
+A large and still increasing family, an husband disabled for active\r
+service, but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a very\r
+small income to supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends\r
+she had so carelessly sacrificed; and she addressed Lady Bertram in\r
+a letter which spoke so much contrition and despondence, such a\r
+superfluity of children, and such a want of almost everything else, as\r
+could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation. She was preparing\r
+for her ninth lying-in; and after bewailing the circumstance, and\r
+imploring their countenance as sponsors to the expected child, she\r
+could not conceal how important she felt they might be to the future\r
+maintenance of the eight already in being. Her eldest was a boy of ten\r
+years old, a fine spirited fellow, who longed to be out in the world;\r
+but what could she do? Was there any chance of his being hereafter\r
+useful to Sir Thomas in the concerns of his West Indian property?\r
+No situation would be beneath him; or what did Sir Thomas think of\r
+Woolwich? or how could a boy be sent out to the East?\r
+\r
+The letter was not unproductive. It re-established peace and kindness.\r
+Sir Thomas sent friendly advice and professions, Lady Bertram dispatched\r
+money and baby-linen, and Mrs. Norris wrote the letters.\r
+\r
+Such were its immediate effects, and within a twelvemonth a more\r
+important advantage to Mrs. Price resulted from it. Mrs. Norris was\r
+often observing to the others that she could not get her poor sister and\r
+her family out of her head, and that, much as they had all done for her,\r
+she seemed to be wanting to do more; and at length she could not but\r
+own it to be her wish that poor Mrs. Price should be relieved from the\r
+charge and expense of one child entirely out of her great number. "What\r
+if they were among them to undertake the care of her eldest daughter,\r
+a girl now nine years old, of an age to require more attention than her\r
+poor mother could possibly give? The trouble and expense of it to them\r
+would be nothing, compared with the benevolence of the action." Lady\r
+Bertram agreed with her instantly. "I think we cannot do better," said\r
+she; "let us send for the child."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas could not give so instantaneous and unqualified a consent. He\r
+debated and hesitated;--it was a serious charge;--a girl so brought up\r
+must be adequately provided for, or there would be cruelty instead\r
+of kindness in taking her from her family. He thought of his own four\r
+children, of his two sons, of cousins in love, etc.;--but no sooner\r
+had he deliberately begun to state his objections, than Mrs. Norris\r
+interrupted him with a reply to them all, whether stated or not.\r
+\r
+"My dear Sir Thomas, I perfectly comprehend you, and do justice to the\r
+generosity and delicacy of your notions, which indeed are quite of a\r
+piece with your general conduct; and I entirely agree with you in\r
+the main as to the propriety of doing everything one could by way of\r
+providing for a child one had in a manner taken into one's own hands;\r
+and I am sure I should be the last person in the world to withhold my\r
+mite upon such an occasion. Having no children of my own, who should I\r
+look to in any little matter I may ever have to bestow, but the children\r
+of my sisters?--and I am sure Mr. Norris is too just--but you know I am\r
+a woman of few words and professions. Do not let us be frightened from\r
+a good deed by a trifle. Give a girl an education, and introduce\r
+her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of\r
+settling well, without farther expense to anybody. A niece of ours, Sir\r
+Thomas, I may say, or at least of _yours_, would not grow up in this\r
+neighbourhood without many advantages. I don't say she would be so\r
+handsome as her cousins. I dare say she would not; but she would be\r
+introduced into the society of this country under such very favourable\r
+circumstances as, in all human probability, would get her a creditable\r
+establishment. You are thinking of your sons--but do not you know that,\r
+of all things upon earth, _that_ is the least likely to happen, brought\r
+up as they would be, always together like brothers and sisters? It is\r
+morally impossible. I never knew an instance of it. It is, in fact, the\r
+only sure way of providing against the connexion. Suppose her a pretty\r
+girl, and seen by Tom or Edmund for the first time seven years hence,\r
+and I dare say there would be mischief. The very idea of her having been\r
+suffered to grow up at a distance from us all in poverty and neglect,\r
+would be enough to make either of the dear, sweet-tempered boys in love\r
+with her. But breed her up with them from this time, and suppose her\r
+even to have the beauty of an angel, and she will never be more to\r
+either than a sister."\r
+\r
+"There is a great deal of truth in what you say," replied Sir Thomas,\r
+"and far be it from me to throw any fanciful impediment in the way of a\r
+plan which would be so consistent with the relative situations of each.\r
+I only meant to observe that it ought not to be lightly engaged in,\r
+and that to make it really serviceable to Mrs. Price, and creditable to\r
+ourselves, we must secure to the child, or consider ourselves engaged to\r
+secure to her hereafter, as circumstances may arise, the provision of\r
+a gentlewoman, if no such establishment should offer as you are so\r
+sanguine in expecting."\r
+\r
+"I thoroughly understand you," cried Mrs. Norris, "you are everything\r
+that is generous and considerate, and I am sure we shall never disagree\r
+on this point. Whatever I can do, as you well know, I am always ready\r
+enough to do for the good of those I love; and, though I could never\r
+feel for this little girl the hundredth part of the regard I bear your\r
+own dear children, nor consider her, in any respect, so much my own,\r
+I should hate myself if I were capable of neglecting her. Is not she a\r
+sister's child? and could I bear to see her want while I had a bit of\r
+bread to give her? My dear Sir Thomas, with all my faults I have a warm\r
+heart; and, poor as I am, would rather deny myself the necessaries of\r
+life than do an ungenerous thing. So, if you are not against it, I will\r
+write to my poor sister tomorrow, and make the proposal; and, as soon\r
+as matters are settled, _I_ will engage to get the child to Mansfield;\r
+_you_ shall have no trouble about it. My own trouble, you know, I never\r
+regard. I will send Nanny to London on purpose, and she may have a bed\r
+at her cousin the saddler's, and the child be appointed to meet her\r
+there. They may easily get her from Portsmouth to town by the coach,\r
+under the care of any creditable person that may chance to be going. I\r
+dare say there is always some reputable tradesman's wife or other going\r
+up."\r
+\r
+Except to the attack on Nanny's cousin, Sir Thomas no longer made any\r
+objection, and a more respectable, though less economical rendezvous\r
+being accordingly substituted, everything was considered as settled,\r
+and the pleasures of so benevolent a scheme were already enjoyed. The\r
+division of gratifying sensations ought not, in strict justice, to\r
+have been equal; for Sir Thomas was fully resolved to be the real and\r
+consistent patron of the selected child, and Mrs. Norris had not the\r
+least intention of being at any expense whatever in her maintenance.\r
+As far as walking, talking, and contriving reached, she was thoroughly\r
+benevolent, and nobody knew better how to dictate liberality to others;\r
+but her love of money was equal to her love of directing, and she knew\r
+quite as well how to save her own as to spend that of her friends.\r
+Having married on a narrower income than she had been used to look\r
+forward to, she had, from the first, fancied a very strict line of\r
+economy necessary; and what was begun as a matter of prudence, soon grew\r
+into a matter of choice, as an object of that needful solicitude which\r
+there were no children to supply. Had there been a family to provide\r
+for, Mrs. Norris might never have saved her money; but having no care\r
+of that kind, there was nothing to impede her frugality, or lessen the\r
+comfort of making a yearly addition to an income which they had never\r
+lived up to. Under this infatuating principle, counteracted by no real\r
+affection for her sister, it was impossible for her to aim at more than\r
+the credit of projecting and arranging so expensive a charity; though\r
+perhaps she might so little know herself as to walk home to the\r
+Parsonage, after this conversation, in the happy belief of being the\r
+most liberal-minded sister and aunt in the world.\r
+\r
+When the subject was brought forward again, her views were more fully\r
+explained; and, in reply to Lady Bertram's calm inquiry of "Where shall\r
+the child come to first, sister, to you or to us?" Sir Thomas heard with\r
+some surprise that it would be totally out of Mrs. Norris's power to\r
+take any share in the personal charge of her. He had been considering\r
+her as a particularly welcome addition at the Parsonage, as a desirable\r
+companion to an aunt who had no children of her own; but he found\r
+himself wholly mistaken. Mrs. Norris was sorry to say that the little\r
+girl's staying with them, at least as things then were, was quite out of\r
+the question. Poor Mr. Norris's indifferent state of health made it an\r
+impossibility: he could no more bear the noise of a child than he could\r
+fly; if, indeed, he should ever get well of his gouty complaints, it\r
+would be a different matter: she should then be glad to take her turn,\r
+and think nothing of the inconvenience; but just now, poor Mr. Norris\r
+took up every moment of her time, and the very mention of such a thing\r
+she was sure would distract him.\r
+\r
+"Then she had better come to us," said Lady Bertram, with the utmost\r
+composure. After a short pause Sir Thomas added with dignity, "Yes, let\r
+her home be in this house. We will endeavour to do our duty by her, and\r
+she will, at least, have the advantage of companions of her own age, and\r
+of a regular instructress."\r
+\r
+"Very true," cried Mrs. Norris, "which are both very important\r
+considerations; and it will be just the same to Miss Lee whether she has\r
+three girls to teach, or only two--there can be no difference. I only\r
+wish I could be more useful; but you see I do all in my power. I am not\r
+one of those that spare their own trouble; and Nanny shall fetch her,\r
+however it may put me to inconvenience to have my chief counsellor away\r
+for three days. I suppose, sister, you will put the child in the little\r
+white attic, near the old nurseries. It will be much the best place\r
+for her, so near Miss Lee, and not far from the girls, and close by the\r
+housemaids, who could either of them help to dress her, you know, and\r
+take care of her clothes, for I suppose you would not think it fair to\r
+expect Ellis to wait on her as well as the others. Indeed, I do not see\r
+that you could possibly place her anywhere else."\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram made no opposition.\r
+\r
+"I hope she will prove a well-disposed girl," continued Mrs. Norris,\r
+"and be sensible of her uncommon good fortune in having such friends."\r
+\r
+"Should her disposition be really bad," said Sir Thomas, "we must not,\r
+for our own children's sake, continue her in the family; but there is\r
+no reason to expect so great an evil. We shall probably see much to wish\r
+altered in her, and must prepare ourselves for gross ignorance, some\r
+meanness of opinions, and very distressing vulgarity of manner; but\r
+these are not incurable faults; nor, I trust, can they be dangerous for\r
+her associates. Had my daughters been _younger_ than herself, I should\r
+have considered the introduction of such a companion as a matter of very\r
+serious moment; but, as it is, I hope there can be nothing to fear for\r
+_them_, and everything to hope for _her_, from the association."\r
+\r
+"That is exactly what I think," cried Mrs. Norris, "and what I was\r
+saying to my husband this morning. It will be an education for the\r
+child, said I, only being with her cousins; if Miss Lee taught her\r
+nothing, she would learn to be good and clever from _them_."\r
+\r
+"I hope she will not tease my poor pug," said Lady Bertram; "I have but\r
+just got Julia to leave it alone."\r
+\r
+"There will be some difficulty in our way, Mrs. Norris," observed Sir\r
+Thomas, "as to the distinction proper to be made between the girls\r
+as they grow up: how to preserve in the minds of my _daughters_ the\r
+consciousness of what they are, without making them think too lowly of\r
+their cousin; and how, without depressing her spirits too far, to make\r
+her remember that she is not a _Miss Bertram_. I should wish to see them\r
+very good friends, and would, on no account, authorise in my girls the\r
+smallest degree of arrogance towards their relation; but still they\r
+cannot be equals. Their rank, fortune, rights, and expectations will\r
+always be different. It is a point of great delicacy, and you must\r
+assist us in our endeavours to choose exactly the right line of\r
+conduct."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris was quite at his service; and though she perfectly agreed\r
+with him as to its being a most difficult thing, encouraged him to hope\r
+that between them it would be easily managed.\r
+\r
+It will be readily believed that Mrs. Norris did not write to her sister\r
+in vain. Mrs. Price seemed rather surprised that a girl should be\r
+fixed on, when she had so many fine boys, but accepted the offer most\r
+thankfully, assuring them of her daughter's being a very well-disposed,\r
+good-humoured girl, and trusting they would never have cause to throw\r
+her off. She spoke of her farther as somewhat delicate and puny, but was\r
+sanguine in the hope of her being materially better for change of air.\r
+Poor woman! she probably thought change of air might agree with many of\r
+her children.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+The little girl performed her long journey in safety; and at Northampton\r
+was met by Mrs. Norris, who thus regaled in the credit of being foremost\r
+to welcome her, and in the importance of leading her in to the others,\r
+and recommending her to their kindness.\r
+\r
+Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and though there might\r
+not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least,\r
+nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow\r
+of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy,\r
+and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar,\r
+her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir\r
+Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas,\r
+seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was\r
+conciliating: but he had to work against a most untoward gravity of\r
+deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, or\r
+speaking one word where he spoke ten, by the mere aid of a good-humoured\r
+smile, became immediately the less awful character of the two.\r
+\r
+The young people were all at home, and sustained their share in the\r
+introduction very well, with much good humour, and no embarrassment, at\r
+least on the part of the sons, who, at seventeen and sixteen, and tall\r
+of their age, had all the grandeur of men in the eyes of their little\r
+cousin. The two girls were more at a loss from being younger and in\r
+greater awe of their father, who addressed them on the occasion with\r
+rather an injudicious particularity. But they were too much used to\r
+company and praise to have anything like natural shyness; and their\r
+confidence increasing from their cousin's total want of it, they were\r
+soon able to take a full survey of her face and her frock in easy\r
+indifference.\r
+\r
+They were a remarkably fine family, the sons very well-looking, the\r
+daughters decidedly handsome, and all of them well-grown and forward of\r
+their age, which produced as striking a difference between the cousins\r
+in person, as education had given to their address; and no one would\r
+have supposed the girls so nearly of an age as they really were. There\r
+were in fact but two years between the youngest and Fanny. Julia\r
+Bertram was only twelve, and Maria but a year older. The little visitor\r
+meanwhile was as unhappy as possible. Afraid of everybody, ashamed of\r
+herself, and longing for the home she had left, she knew not how to look\r
+up, and could scarcely speak to be heard, or without crying. Mrs. Norris\r
+had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful\r
+good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good\r
+behaviour which it ought to produce, and her consciousness of misery was\r
+therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her\r
+not to be happy. The fatigue, too, of so long a journey, became soon no\r
+trifling evil. In vain were the well-meant condescensions of Sir Thomas,\r
+and all the officious prognostications of Mrs. Norris that she would be\r
+a good girl; in vain did Lady Bertram smile and make her sit on the sofa\r
+with herself and pug, and vain was even the sight of a gooseberry tart\r
+towards giving her comfort; she could scarcely swallow two mouthfuls\r
+before tears interrupted her, and sleep seeming to be her likeliest\r
+friend, she was taken to finish her sorrows in bed.\r
+\r
+"This is not a very promising beginning," said Mrs. Norris, when Fanny\r
+had left the room. "After all that I said to her as we came along, I\r
+thought she would have behaved better; I told her how much might depend\r
+upon her acquitting herself well at first. I wish there may not be a\r
+little sulkiness of temper--her poor mother had a good deal; but we must\r
+make allowances for such a child--and I do not know that her being sorry\r
+to leave her home is really against her, for, with all its faults,\r
+it _was_ her home, and she cannot as yet understand how much she has\r
+changed for the better; but then there is moderation in all things."\r
+\r
+It required a longer time, however, than Mrs. Norris was inclined to\r
+allow, to reconcile Fanny to the novelty of Mansfield Park, and the\r
+separation from everybody she had been used to. Her feelings were very\r
+acute, and too little understood to be properly attended to. Nobody\r
+meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure\r
+her comfort.\r
+\r
+The holiday allowed to the Miss Bertrams the next day, on purpose to\r
+afford leisure for getting acquainted with, and entertaining their young\r
+cousin, produced little union. They could not but hold her cheap on\r
+finding that she had but two sashes, and had never learned French; and\r
+when they perceived her to be little struck with the duet they were so\r
+good as to play, they could do no more than make her a generous present\r
+of some of their least valued toys, and leave her to herself, while\r
+they adjourned to whatever might be the favourite holiday sport of the\r
+moment, making artificial flowers or wasting gold paper.\r
+\r
+Fanny, whether near or from her cousins, whether in the schoolroom, the\r
+drawing-room, or the shrubbery, was equally forlorn, finding something\r
+to fear in every person and place. She was disheartened by Lady\r
+Bertram's silence, awed by Sir Thomas's grave looks, and quite overcome\r
+by Mrs. Norris's admonitions. Her elder cousins mortified her by\r
+reflections on her size, and abashed her by noticing her shyness: Miss\r
+Lee wondered at her ignorance, and the maid-servants sneered at her\r
+clothes; and when to these sorrows was added the idea of the brothers\r
+and sisters among whom she had always been important as playfellow,\r
+instructress, and nurse, the despondence that sunk her little heart was\r
+severe.\r
+\r
+The grandeur of the house astonished, but could not console her. The\r
+rooms were too large for her to move in with ease: whatever she touched\r
+she expected to injure, and she crept about in constant terror of\r
+something or other; often retreating towards her own chamber to cry; and\r
+the little girl who was spoken of in the drawing-room when she left it\r
+at night as seeming so desirably sensible of her peculiar good fortune,\r
+ended every day's sorrows by sobbing herself to sleep. A week had\r
+passed in this way, and no suspicion of it conveyed by her quiet\r
+passive manner, when she was found one morning by her cousin Edmund, the\r
+youngest of the sons, sitting crying on the attic stairs.\r
+\r
+"My dear little cousin," said he, with all the gentleness of an\r
+excellent nature, "what can be the matter?" And sitting down by her,\r
+he was at great pains to overcome her shame in being so surprised, and\r
+persuade her to speak openly. Was she ill? or was anybody angry with\r
+her? or had she quarrelled with Maria and Julia? or was she puzzled\r
+about anything in her lesson that he could explain? Did she, in short,\r
+want anything he could possibly get her, or do for her? For a long while\r
+no answer could be obtained beyond a "no, no--not at all--no, thank\r
+you"; but he still persevered; and no sooner had he begun to revert\r
+to her own home, than her increased sobs explained to him where the\r
+grievance lay. He tried to console her.\r
+\r
+"You are sorry to leave Mama, my dear little Fanny," said he, "which\r
+shows you to be a very good girl; but you must remember that you are\r
+with relations and friends, who all love you, and wish to make you\r
+happy. Let us walk out in the park, and you shall tell me all about your\r
+brothers and sisters."\r
+\r
+On pursuing the subject, he found that, dear as all these brothers and\r
+sisters generally were, there was one among them who ran more in her\r
+thoughts than the rest. It was William whom she talked of most, and\r
+wanted most to see. William, the eldest, a year older than herself, her\r
+constant companion and friend; her advocate with her mother (of whom\r
+he was the darling) in every distress. "William did not like she should\r
+come away; he had told her he should miss her very much indeed." "But\r
+William will write to you, I dare say." "Yes, he had promised he would,\r
+but he had told _her_ to write first." "And when shall you do it?" She\r
+hung her head and answered hesitatingly, "she did not know; she had not\r
+any paper."\r
+\r
+"If that be all your difficulty, I will furnish you with paper and every\r
+other material, and you may write your letter whenever you choose. Would\r
+it make you happy to write to William?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very."\r
+\r
+"Then let it be done now. Come with me into the breakfast-room, we shall\r
+find everything there, and be sure of having the room to ourselves."\r
+\r
+"But, cousin, will it go to the post?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, depend upon me it shall: it shall go with the other letters; and,\r
+as your uncle will frank it, it will cost William nothing."\r
+\r
+"My uncle!" repeated Fanny, with a frightened look.\r
+\r
+"Yes, when you have written the letter, I will take it to my father to\r
+frank."\r
+\r
+Fanny thought it a bold measure, but offered no further resistance; and\r
+they went together into the breakfast-room, where Edmund prepared her\r
+paper, and ruled her lines with all the goodwill that her brother\r
+could himself have felt, and probably with somewhat more exactness. He\r
+continued with her the whole time of her writing, to assist her with his\r
+penknife or his orthography, as either were wanted; and added to these\r
+attentions, which she felt very much, a kindness to her brother which\r
+delighted her beyond all the rest. He wrote with his own hand his\r
+love to his cousin William, and sent him half a guinea under the seal.\r
+Fanny's feelings on the occasion were such as she believed herself\r
+incapable of expressing; but her countenance and a few artless words\r
+fully conveyed all their gratitude and delight, and her cousin began\r
+to find her an interesting object. He talked to her more, and, from all\r
+that she said, was convinced of her having an affectionate heart, and\r
+a strong desire of doing right; and he could perceive her to be farther\r
+entitled to attention by great sensibility of her situation, and great\r
+timidity. He had never knowingly given her pain, but he now felt that\r
+she required more positive kindness; and with that view endeavoured,\r
+in the first place, to lessen her fears of them all, and gave her\r
+especially a great deal of good advice as to playing with Maria and\r
+Julia, and being as merry as possible.\r
+\r
+From this day Fanny grew more comfortable. She felt that she had a\r
+friend, and the kindness of her cousin Edmund gave her better spirits\r
+with everybody else. The place became less strange, and the people less\r
+formidable; and if there were some amongst them whom she could not cease\r
+to fear, she began at least to know their ways, and to catch the best\r
+manner of conforming to them. The little rusticities and awkwardnesses\r
+which had at first made grievous inroads on the tranquillity of all,\r
+and not least of herself, necessarily wore away, and she was no longer\r
+materially afraid to appear before her uncle, nor did her aunt Norris's\r
+voice make her start very much. To her cousins she became occasionally\r
+an acceptable companion. Though unworthy, from inferiority of age and\r
+strength, to be their constant associate, their pleasures and schemes\r
+were sometimes of a nature to make a third very useful, especially when\r
+that third was of an obliging, yielding temper; and they could not but\r
+own, when their aunt inquired into her faults, or their brother Edmund\r
+urged her claims to their kindness, that "Fanny was good-natured\r
+enough."\r
+\r
+Edmund was uniformly kind himself; and she had nothing worse to endure\r
+on the part of Tom than that sort of merriment which a young man of\r
+seventeen will always think fair with a child of ten. He was just\r
+entering into life, full of spirits, and with all the liberal\r
+dispositions of an eldest son, who feels born only for expense and\r
+enjoyment. His kindness to his little cousin was consistent with his\r
+situation and rights: he made her some very pretty presents, and laughed\r
+at her.\r
+\r
+As her appearance and spirits improved, Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris\r
+thought with greater satisfaction of their benevolent plan; and it\r
+was pretty soon decided between them that, though far from clever, she\r
+showed a tractable disposition, and seemed likely to give them little\r
+trouble. A mean opinion of her abilities was not confined to _them_.\r
+Fanny could read, work, and write, but she had been taught nothing more;\r
+and as her cousins found her ignorant of many things with which they had\r
+been long familiar, they thought her prodigiously stupid, and for the\r
+first two or three weeks were continually bringing some fresh report of\r
+it into the drawing-room. "Dear mama, only think, my cousin cannot\r
+put the map of Europe together--or my cousin cannot tell the principal\r
+rivers in Russia--or, she never heard of Asia Minor--or she does\r
+not know the difference between water-colours and crayons!--How\r
+strange!--Did you ever hear anything so stupid?"\r
+\r
+"My dear," their considerate aunt would reply, "it is very bad, but\r
+you must not expect everybody to be as forward and quick at learning as\r
+yourself."\r
+\r
+"But, aunt, she is really so very ignorant!--Do you know, we asked her\r
+last night which way she would go to get to Ireland; and she said, she\r
+should cross to the Isle of Wight. She thinks of nothing but the Isle of\r
+Wight, and she calls it _the_ _Island_, as if there were no other island\r
+in the world. I am sure I should have been ashamed of myself, if I had\r
+not known better long before I was so old as she is. I cannot remember\r
+the time when I did not know a great deal that she has not the least\r
+notion of yet. How long ago it is, aunt, since we used to repeat the\r
+chronological order of the kings of England, with the dates of their\r
+accession, and most of the principal events of their reigns!"\r
+\r
+"Yes," added the other; "and of the Roman emperors as low as Severus;\r
+besides a great deal of the heathen mythology, and all the metals,\r
+semi-metals, planets, and distinguished philosophers."\r
+\r
+"Very true indeed, my dears, but you are blessed with wonderful\r
+memories, and your poor cousin has probably none at all. There is a\r
+vast deal of difference in memories, as well as in everything else,\r
+and therefore you must make allowance for your cousin, and pity her\r
+deficiency. And remember that, if you are ever so forward and clever\r
+yourselves, you should always be modest; for, much as you know already,\r
+there is a great deal more for you to learn."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know there is, till I am seventeen. But I must tell you another\r
+thing of Fanny, so odd and so stupid. Do you know, she says she does not\r
+want to learn either music or drawing."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, my dear, that is very stupid indeed, and shows a great\r
+want of genius and emulation. But, all things considered, I do not know\r
+whether it is not as well that it should be so, for, though you know\r
+(owing to me) your papa and mama are so good as to bring her up with\r
+you, it is not at all necessary that she should be as accomplished as\r
+you are;--on the contrary, it is much more desirable that there should\r
+be a difference."\r
+\r
+Such were the counsels by which Mrs. Norris assisted to form her nieces'\r
+minds; and it is not very wonderful that, with all their promising\r
+talents and early information, they should be entirely deficient in the\r
+less common acquirements of self-knowledge, generosity and humility. In\r
+everything but disposition they were admirably taught. Sir Thomas did\r
+not know what was wanting, because, though a truly anxious father, he\r
+was not outwardly affectionate, and the reserve of his manner repressed\r
+all the flow of their spirits before him.\r
+\r
+To the education of her daughters Lady Bertram paid not the smallest\r
+attention. She had not time for such cares. She was a woman who spent\r
+her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing some long piece of\r
+needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than\r
+her children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put\r
+herself to inconvenience, guided in everything important by Sir Thomas,\r
+and in smaller concerns by her sister. Had she possessed greater leisure\r
+for the service of her girls, she would probably have supposed it\r
+unnecessary, for they were under the care of a governess, with proper\r
+masters, and could want nothing more. As for Fanny's being stupid at\r
+learning, "she could only say it was very unlucky, but some people\r
+_were_ stupid, and Fanny must take more pains: she did not know what\r
+else was to be done; and, except her being so dull, she must add she saw\r
+no harm in the poor little thing, and always found her very handy and\r
+quick in carrying messages, and fetching what she wanted."\r
+\r
+Fanny, with all her faults of ignorance and timidity, was fixed at\r
+Mansfield Park, and learning to transfer in its favour much of her\r
+attachment to her former home, grew up there not unhappily among her\r
+cousins. There was no positive ill-nature in Maria or Julia; and though\r
+Fanny was often mortified by their treatment of her, she thought too\r
+lowly of her own claims to feel injured by it.\r
+\r
+From about the time of her entering the family, Lady Bertram, in\r
+consequence of a little ill-health, and a great deal of indolence, gave\r
+up the house in town, which she had been used to occupy every spring,\r
+and remained wholly in the country, leaving Sir Thomas to attend his\r
+duty in Parliament, with whatever increase or diminution of comfort\r
+might arise from her absence. In the country, therefore, the Miss\r
+Bertrams continued to exercise their memories, practise their duets,\r
+and grow tall and womanly: and their father saw them becoming in person,\r
+manner, and accomplishments, everything that could satisfy his anxiety.\r
+His eldest son was careless and extravagant, and had already given him\r
+much uneasiness; but his other children promised him nothing but good.\r
+His daughters, he felt, while they retained the name of Bertram, must\r
+be giving it new grace, and in quitting it, he trusted, would extend\r
+its respectable alliances; and the character of Edmund, his strong good\r
+sense and uprightness of mind, bid most fairly for utility, honour, and\r
+happiness to himself and all his connexions. He was to be a clergyman.\r
+\r
+Amid the cares and the complacency which his own children suggested,\r
+Sir Thomas did not forget to do what he could for the children of Mrs.\r
+Price: he assisted her liberally in the education and disposal of her\r
+sons as they became old enough for a determinate pursuit; and Fanny,\r
+though almost totally separated from her family, was sensible of the\r
+truest satisfaction in hearing of any kindness towards them, or of\r
+anything at all promising in their situation or conduct. Once, and once\r
+only, in the course of many years, had she the happiness of being with\r
+William. Of the rest she saw nothing: nobody seemed to think of her ever\r
+going amongst them again, even for a visit, nobody at home seemed to\r
+want her; but William determining, soon after her removal, to be a\r
+sailor, was invited to spend a week with his sister in Northamptonshire\r
+before he went to sea. Their eager affection in meeting, their exquisite\r
+delight in being together, their hours of happy mirth, and moments of\r
+serious conference, may be imagined; as well as the sanguine views and\r
+spirits of the boy even to the last, and the misery of the girl when he\r
+left her. Luckily the visit happened in the Christmas holidays, when she\r
+could directly look for comfort to her cousin Edmund; and he told her\r
+such charming things of what William was to do, and be hereafter, in\r
+consequence of his profession, as made her gradually admit that the\r
+separation might have some use. Edmund's friendship never failed her:\r
+his leaving Eton for Oxford made no change in his kind dispositions, and\r
+only afforded more frequent opportunities of proving them. Without any\r
+display of doing more than the rest, or any fear of doing too much,\r
+he was always true to her interests, and considerate of her feelings,\r
+trying to make her good qualities understood, and to conquer the\r
+diffidence which prevented their being more apparent; giving her advice,\r
+consolation, and encouragement.\r
+\r
+Kept back as she was by everybody else, his single support could not\r
+bring her forward; but his attentions were otherwise of the highest\r
+importance in assisting the improvement of her mind, and extending its\r
+pleasures. He knew her to be clever, to have a quick apprehension\r
+as well as good sense, and a fondness for reading, which, properly\r
+directed, must be an education in itself. Miss Lee taught her French,\r
+and heard her read the daily portion of history; but he recommended\r
+the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and\r
+corrected her judgment: he made reading useful by talking to her of what\r
+she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise. In return\r
+for such services she loved him better than anybody in the world except\r
+William: her heart was divided between the two.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+The first event of any importance in the family was the death of Mr.\r
+Norris, which happened when Fanny was about fifteen, and necessarily\r
+introduced alterations and novelties. Mrs. Norris, on quitting the\r
+Parsonage, removed first to the Park, and afterwards to a small house\r
+of Sir Thomas's in the village, and consoled herself for the loss of her\r
+husband by considering that she could do very well without him; and for\r
+her reduction of income by the evident necessity of stricter economy.\r
+\r
+The living was hereafter for Edmund; and, had his uncle died a few years\r
+sooner, it would have been duly given to some friend to hold till he\r
+were old enough for orders. But Tom's extravagance had, previous to\r
+that event, been so great as to render a different disposal of the next\r
+presentation necessary, and the younger brother must help to pay for the\r
+pleasures of the elder. There was another family living actually held\r
+for Edmund; but though this circumstance had made the arrangement\r
+somewhat easier to Sir Thomas's conscience, he could not but feel it to\r
+be an act of injustice, and he earnestly tried to impress his eldest son\r
+with the same conviction, in the hope of its producing a better effect\r
+than anything he had yet been able to say or do.\r
+\r
+"I blush for you, Tom," said he, in his most dignified manner; "I blush\r
+for the expedient which I am driven on, and I trust I may pity your\r
+feelings as a brother on the occasion. You have robbed Edmund for ten,\r
+twenty, thirty years, perhaps for life, of more than half the income\r
+which ought to be his. It may hereafter be in my power, or in yours\r
+(I hope it will), to procure him better preferment; but it must not\r
+be forgotten that no benefit of that sort would have been beyond his\r
+natural claims on us, and that nothing can, in fact, be an equivalent\r
+for the certain advantage which he is now obliged to forego through the\r
+urgency of your debts."\r
+\r
+Tom listened with some shame and some sorrow; but escaping as quickly as\r
+possible, could soon with cheerful selfishness reflect, firstly, that he\r
+had not been half so much in debt as some of his friends; secondly, that\r
+his father had made a most tiresome piece of work of it; and,\r
+thirdly, that the future incumbent, whoever he might be, would, in all\r
+probability, die very soon.\r
+\r
+On Mr. Norris's death the presentation became the right of a Dr. Grant,\r
+who came consequently to reside at Mansfield; and on proving to be a\r
+hearty man of forty-five, seemed likely to disappoint Mr. Bertram's\r
+calculations. But "no, he was a short-necked, apoplectic sort of fellow,\r
+and, plied well with good things, would soon pop off."\r
+\r
+He had a wife about fifteen years his junior, but no children; and\r
+they entered the neighbourhood with the usual fair report of being very\r
+respectable, agreeable people.\r
+\r
+The time was now come when Sir Thomas expected his sister-in-law to\r
+claim her share in their niece, the change in Mrs. Norris's situation,\r
+and the improvement in Fanny's age, seeming not merely to do away any\r
+former objection to their living together, but even to give it the most\r
+decided eligibility; and as his own circumstances were rendered less\r
+fair than heretofore, by some recent losses on his West India estate, in\r
+addition to his eldest son's extravagance, it became not undesirable\r
+to himself to be relieved from the expense of her support, and the\r
+obligation of her future provision. In the fullness of his belief that\r
+such a thing must be, he mentioned its probability to his wife; and the\r
+first time of the subject's occurring to her again happening to be when\r
+Fanny was present, she calmly observed to her, "So, Fanny, you are going\r
+to leave us, and live with my sister. How shall you like it?"\r
+\r
+Fanny was too much surprised to do more than repeat her aunt's words,\r
+"Going to leave you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear; why should you be astonished? You have been five years\r
+with us, and my sister always meant to take you when Mr. Norris died.\r
+But you must come up and tack on my patterns all the same."\r
+\r
+The news was as disagreeable to Fanny as it had been unexpected. She had\r
+never received kindness from her aunt Norris, and could not love her.\r
+\r
+"I shall be very sorry to go away," said she, with a faltering voice.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I dare say you will; _that's_ natural enough. I suppose you have\r
+had as little to vex you since you came into this house as any creature\r
+in the world."\r
+\r
+"I hope I am not ungrateful, aunt," said Fanny modestly.\r
+\r
+"No, my dear; I hope not. I have always found you a very good girl."\r
+\r
+"And am I never to live here again?"\r
+\r
+"Never, my dear; but you are sure of a comfortable home. It can make\r
+very little difference to you, whether you are in one house or the\r
+other."\r
+\r
+Fanny left the room with a very sorrowful heart; she could not feel the\r
+difference to be so small, she could not think of living with her aunt\r
+with anything like satisfaction. As soon as she met with Edmund she told\r
+him her distress.\r
+\r
+"Cousin," said she, "something is going to happen which I do not like\r
+at all; and though you have often persuaded me into being reconciled to\r
+things that I disliked at first, you will not be able to do it now. I am\r
+going to live entirely with my aunt Norris."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!"\r
+\r
+"Yes; my aunt Bertram has just told me so. It is quite settled. I am to\r
+leave Mansfield Park, and go to the White House, I suppose, as soon as\r
+she is removed there."\r
+\r
+"Well, Fanny, and if the plan were not unpleasant to you, I should call\r
+it an excellent one."\r
+\r
+"Oh, cousin!"\r
+\r
+"It has everything else in its favour. My aunt is acting like a sensible\r
+woman in wishing for you. She is choosing a friend and companion exactly\r
+where she ought, and I am glad her love of money does not interfere.\r
+You will be what you ought to be to her. I hope it does not distress you\r
+very much, Fanny?"\r
+\r
+"Indeed it does: I cannot like it. I love this house and everything in\r
+it: I shall love nothing there. You know how uncomfortable I feel with\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"I can say nothing for her manner to you as a child; but it was the\r
+same with us all, or nearly so. She never knew how to be pleasant to\r
+children. But you are now of an age to be treated better; I think she is\r
+behaving better already; and when you are her only companion, you _must_\r
+be important to her."\r
+\r
+"I can never be important to any one."\r
+\r
+"What is to prevent you?"\r
+\r
+"Everything. My situation, my foolishness and awkwardness."\r
+\r
+"As to your foolishness and awkwardness, my dear Fanny, believe me, you\r
+never have a shadow of either, but in using the words so improperly.\r
+There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where\r
+you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure\r
+you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without\r
+wishing to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a\r
+friend and companion."\r
+\r
+"You are too kind," said Fanny, colouring at such praise; "how shall I\r
+ever thank you as I ought, for thinking so well of me. Oh! cousin, if I\r
+am to go away, I shall remember your goodness to the last moment of my\r
+life."\r
+\r
+"Why, indeed, Fanny, I should hope to be remembered at such a distance\r
+as the White House. You speak as if you were going two hundred miles\r
+off instead of only across the park; but you will belong to us almost\r
+as much as ever. The two families will be meeting every day in the\r
+year. The only difference will be that, living with your aunt, you will\r
+necessarily be brought forward as you ought to be. _Here_ there are\r
+too many whom you can hide behind; but with _her_ you will be forced to\r
+speak for yourself."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I do not say so."\r
+\r
+"I must say it, and say it with pleasure. Mrs. Norris is much better\r
+fitted than my mother for having the charge of you now. She is of a\r
+temper to do a great deal for anybody she really interests herself\r
+about, and she will force you to do justice to your natural powers."\r
+\r
+Fanny sighed, and said, "I cannot see things as you do; but I ought to\r
+believe you to be right rather than myself, and I am very much obliged\r
+to you for trying to reconcile me to what must be. If I could suppose\r
+my aunt really to care for me, it would be delightful to feel myself of\r
+consequence to anybody. _Here_, I know, I am of none, and yet I love the\r
+place so well."\r
+\r
+"The place, Fanny, is what you will not quit, though you quit the house.\r
+You will have as free a command of the park and gardens as ever. Even\r
+_your_ constant little heart need not take fright at such a nominal\r
+change. You will have the same walks to frequent, the same library to\r
+choose from, the same people to look at, the same horse to ride."\r
+\r
+"Very true. Yes, dear old grey pony! Ah! cousin, when I remember how\r
+much I used to dread riding, what terrors it gave me to hear it talked\r
+of as likely to do me good (oh! how I have trembled at my uncle's\r
+opening his lips if horses were talked of), and then think of the kind\r
+pains you took to reason and persuade me out of my fears, and convince\r
+me that I should like it after a little while, and feel how right you\r
+proved to be, I am inclined to hope you may always prophesy as well."\r
+\r
+"And I am quite convinced that your being with Mrs. Norris will be as\r
+good for your mind as riding has been for your health, and as much for\r
+your ultimate happiness too."\r
+\r
+So ended their discourse, which, for any very appropriate service it\r
+could render Fanny, might as well have been spared, for Mrs. Norris had\r
+not the smallest intention of taking her. It had never occurred to her,\r
+on the present occasion, but as a thing to be carefully avoided. To\r
+prevent its being expected, she had fixed on the smallest habitation\r
+which could rank as genteel among the buildings of Mansfield parish,\r
+the White House being only just large enough to receive herself and her\r
+servants, and allow a spare room for a friend, of which she made a\r
+very particular point. The spare rooms at the Parsonage had never been\r
+wanted, but the absolute necessity of a spare room for a friend was now\r
+never forgotten. Not all her precautions, however, could save her from\r
+being suspected of something better; or, perhaps, her very display of\r
+the importance of a spare room might have misled Sir Thomas to suppose\r
+it really intended for Fanny. Lady Bertram soon brought the matter to a\r
+certainty by carelessly observing to Mrs. Norris--\r
+\r
+"I think, sister, we need not keep Miss Lee any longer, when Fanny goes\r
+to live with you."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris almost started. "Live with me, dear Lady Bertram! what do\r
+you mean?"\r
+\r
+"Is she not to live with you? I thought you had settled it with Sir\r
+Thomas."\r
+\r
+"Me! never. I never spoke a syllable about it to Sir Thomas, nor he to\r
+me. Fanny live with me! the last thing in the world for me to think\r
+of, or for anybody to wish that really knows us both. Good heaven! what\r
+could I do with Fanny? Me! a poor, helpless, forlorn widow, unfit for\r
+anything, my spirits quite broke down; what could I do with a girl at\r
+her time of life? A girl of fifteen! the very age of all others to need\r
+most attention and care, and put the cheerfullest spirits to the test!\r
+Sure Sir Thomas could not seriously expect such a thing! Sir Thomas is\r
+too much my friend. Nobody that wishes me well, I am sure, would propose\r
+it. How came Sir Thomas to speak to you about it?"\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I do not know. I suppose he thought it best."\r
+\r
+"But what did he say? He could not say he _wished_ me to take Fanny. I\r
+am sure in his heart he could not wish me to do it."\r
+\r
+"No; he only said he thought it very likely; and I thought so too. We\r
+both thought it would be a comfort to you. But if you do not like it,\r
+there is no more to be said. She is no encumbrance here."\r
+\r
+"Dear sister, if you consider my unhappy state, how can she be any\r
+comfort to me? Here am I, a poor desolate widow, deprived of the best of\r
+husbands, my health gone in attending and nursing him, my spirits still\r
+worse, all my peace in this world destroyed, with hardly enough to\r
+support me in the rank of a gentlewoman, and enable me to live so as not\r
+to disgrace the memory of the dear departed--what possible comfort could\r
+I have in taking such a charge upon me as Fanny? If I could wish it for\r
+my own sake, I would not do so unjust a thing by the poor girl. She\r
+is in good hands, and sure of doing well. I must struggle through my\r
+sorrows and difficulties as I can."\r
+\r
+"Then you will not mind living by yourself quite alone?"\r
+\r
+"Lady Bertram, I do not complain. I know I cannot live as I have done,\r
+but I must retrench where I can, and learn to be a better manager. I\r
+_have_ _been_ a liberal housekeeper enough, but I shall not be ashamed\r
+to practise economy now. My situation is as much altered as my income.\r
+A great many things were due from poor Mr. Norris, as clergyman of the\r
+parish, that cannot be expected from me. It is unknown how much was\r
+consumed in our kitchen by odd comers and goers. At the White House,\r
+matters must be better looked after. I _must_ live within my income, or\r
+I shall be miserable; and I own it would give me great satisfaction to\r
+be able to do rather more, to lay by a little at the end of the year."\r
+\r
+"I dare say you will. You always do, don't you?"\r
+\r
+"My object, Lady Bertram, is to be of use to those that come after me.\r
+It is for your children's good that I wish to be richer. I have nobody\r
+else to care for, but I should be very glad to think I could leave a\r
+little trifle among them worth their having."\r
+\r
+"You are very good, but do not trouble yourself about them. They are\r
+sure of being well provided for. Sir Thomas will take care of that."\r
+\r
+"Why, you know, Sir Thomas's means will be rather straitened if the\r
+Antigua estate is to make such poor returns."\r
+\r
+"Oh! _that_ will soon be settled. Sir Thomas has been writing about it,\r
+I know."\r
+\r
+"Well, Lady Bertram," said Mrs. Norris, moving to go, "I can only say\r
+that my sole desire is to be of use to your family: and so, if Sir\r
+Thomas should ever speak again about my taking Fanny, you will be able\r
+to say that my health and spirits put it quite out of the question;\r
+besides that, I really should not have a bed to give her, for I must\r
+keep a spare room for a friend."\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram repeated enough of this conversation to her husband to\r
+convince him how much he had mistaken his sister-in-law's views; and\r
+she was from that moment perfectly safe from all expectation, or the\r
+slightest allusion to it from him. He could not but wonder at her\r
+refusing to do anything for a niece whom she had been so forward to\r
+adopt; but, as she took early care to make him, as well as Lady Bertram,\r
+understand that whatever she possessed was designed for their family,\r
+he soon grew reconciled to a distinction which, at the same time that it\r
+was advantageous and complimentary to them, would enable him better to\r
+provide for Fanny himself.\r
+\r
+Fanny soon learnt how unnecessary had been her fears of a removal;\r
+and her spontaneous, untaught felicity on the discovery, conveyed some\r
+consolation to Edmund for his disappointment in what he had expected to\r
+be so essentially serviceable to her. Mrs. Norris took possession of the\r
+White House, the Grants arrived at the Parsonage, and these events over,\r
+everything at Mansfield went on for some time as usual.\r
+\r
+The Grants showing a disposition to be friendly and sociable, gave great\r
+satisfaction in the main among their new acquaintance. They had their\r
+faults, and Mrs. Norris soon found them out. The Doctor was very fond of\r
+eating, and would have a good dinner every day; and Mrs. Grant, instead\r
+of contriving to gratify him at little expense, gave her cook as high\r
+wages as they did at Mansfield Park, and was scarcely ever seen in her\r
+offices. Mrs. Norris could not speak with any temper of such grievances,\r
+nor of the quantity of butter and eggs that were regularly consumed\r
+in the house. "Nobody loved plenty and hospitality more than herself;\r
+nobody more hated pitiful doings; the Parsonage, she believed, had never\r
+been wanting in comforts of any sort, had never borne a bad character\r
+in _her_ _time_, but this was a way of going on that she could not\r
+understand. A fine lady in a country parsonage was quite out of place.\r
+_Her_ store-room, she thought, might have been good enough for Mrs.\r
+Grant to go into. Inquire where she would, she could not find out that\r
+Mrs. Grant had ever had more than five thousand pounds."\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram listened without much interest to this sort of invective.\r
+She could not enter into the wrongs of an economist, but she felt all\r
+the injuries of beauty in Mrs. Grant's being so well settled in life\r
+without being handsome, and expressed her astonishment on that point\r
+almost as often, though not so diffusely, as Mrs. Norris discussed the\r
+other.\r
+\r
+These opinions had been hardly canvassed a year before another event\r
+arose of such importance in the family, as might fairly claim some place\r
+in the thoughts and conversation of the ladies. Sir Thomas found it\r
+expedient to go to Antigua himself, for the better arrangement of his\r
+affairs, and he took his eldest son with him, in the hope of detaching\r
+him from some bad connexions at home. They left England with the\r
+probability of being nearly a twelvemonth absent.\r
+\r
+The necessity of the measure in a pecuniary light, and the hope of its\r
+utility to his son, reconciled Sir Thomas to the effort of quitting the\r
+rest of his family, and of leaving his daughters to the direction of\r
+others at their present most interesting time of life. He could not\r
+think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather,\r
+to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris's watchful\r
+attention, and in Edmund's judgment, he had sufficient confidence to\r
+make him go without fears for their conduct.\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she\r
+was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety, or solicitude for his\r
+comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous,\r
+or difficult, or fatiguing to anybody but themselves.\r
+\r
+The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion: not for their\r
+sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was no object of love to\r
+them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence\r
+was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from all restraint;\r
+and without aiming at one gratification that would probably have been\r
+forbidden by Sir Thomas, they felt themselves immediately at their\r
+own disposal, and to have every indulgence within their reach. Fanny's\r
+relief, and her consciousness of it, were quite equal to her cousins';\r
+but a more tender nature suggested that her feelings were ungrateful,\r
+and she really grieved because she could not grieve. "Sir Thomas, who\r
+had done so much for her and her brothers, and who was gone perhaps\r
+never to return! that she should see him go without a tear! it was a\r
+shameful insensibility." He had said to her, moreover, on the very last\r
+morning, that he hoped she might see William again in the course of the\r
+ensuing winter, and had charged her to write and invite him to Mansfield\r
+as soon as the squadron to which he belonged should be known to be\r
+in England. "This was so thoughtful and kind!" and would he only have\r
+smiled upon her, and called her "my dear Fanny," while he said it, every\r
+former frown or cold address might have been forgotten. But he had ended\r
+his speech in a way to sink her in sad mortification, by adding, "If\r
+William does come to Mansfield, I hope you may be able to convince him\r
+that the many years which have passed since you parted have not been\r
+spent on your side entirely without improvement; though, I fear, he must\r
+find his sister at sixteen in some respects too much like his sister at\r
+ten." She cried bitterly over this reflection when her uncle was\r
+gone; and her cousins, on seeing her with red eyes, set her down as a\r
+hypocrite.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Tom Bertram had of late spent so little of his time at home that he\r
+could be only nominally missed; and Lady Bertram was soon astonished\r
+to find how very well they did even without his father, how well Edmund\r
+could supply his place in carving, talking to the steward, writing to\r
+the attorney, settling with the servants, and equally saving her\r
+from all possible fatigue or exertion in every particular but that of\r
+directing her letters.\r
+\r
+The earliest intelligence of the travellers' safe arrival at Antigua,\r
+after a favourable voyage, was received; though not before Mrs. Norris\r
+had been indulging in very dreadful fears, and trying to make Edmund\r
+participate them whenever she could get him alone; and as she depended\r
+on being the first person made acquainted with any fatal catastrophe,\r
+she had already arranged the manner of breaking it to all the others,\r
+when Sir Thomas's assurances of their both being alive and well made it\r
+necessary to lay by her agitation and affectionate preparatory speeches\r
+for a while.\r
+\r
+The winter came and passed without their being called for; the accounts\r
+continued perfectly good; and Mrs. Norris, in promoting gaieties for her\r
+nieces, assisting their toilets, displaying their accomplishments,\r
+and looking about for their future husbands, had so much to do as, in\r
+addition to all her own household cares, some interference in those of\r
+her sister, and Mrs. Grant's wasteful doings to overlook, left her very\r
+little occasion to be occupied in fears for the absent.\r
+\r
+The Miss Bertrams were now fully established among the belles of the\r
+neighbourhood; and as they joined to beauty and brilliant acquirements\r
+a manner naturally easy, and carefully formed to general civility and\r
+obligingness, they possessed its favour as well as its admiration. Their\r
+vanity was in such good order that they seemed to be quite free from it,\r
+and gave themselves no airs; while the praises attending such behaviour,\r
+secured and brought round by their aunt, served to strengthen them in\r
+believing they had no faults.\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram did not go into public with her daughters. She was too\r
+indolent even to accept a mother's gratification in witnessing their\r
+success and enjoyment at the expense of any personal trouble, and the\r
+charge was made over to her sister, who desired nothing better than a\r
+post of such honourable representation, and very thoroughly relished\r
+the means it afforded her of mixing in society without having horses to\r
+hire.\r
+\r
+Fanny had no share in the festivities of the season; but she enjoyed\r
+being avowedly useful as her aunt's companion when they called away the\r
+rest of the family; and, as Miss Lee had left Mansfield, she naturally\r
+became everything to Lady Bertram during the night of a ball or a party.\r
+She talked to her, listened to her, read to her; and the tranquillity\r
+of such evenings, her perfect security in such a _tete-a-tete_ from any\r
+sound of unkindness, was unspeakably welcome to a mind which had seldom\r
+known a pause in its alarms or embarrassments. As to her cousins'\r
+gaieties, she loved to hear an account of them, especially of the\r
+balls, and whom Edmund had danced with; but thought too lowly of her\r
+own situation to imagine she should ever be admitted to the same, and\r
+listened, therefore, without an idea of any nearer concern in them. Upon\r
+the whole, it was a comfortable winter to her; for though it brought\r
+no William to England, the never-failing hope of his arrival was worth\r
+much.\r
+\r
+The ensuing spring deprived her of her valued friend, the old grey pony;\r
+and for some time she was in danger of feeling the loss in her health as\r
+well as in her affections; for in spite of the acknowledged importance\r
+of her riding on horse-back, no measures were taken for mounting her\r
+again, "because," as it was observed by her aunts, "she might ride one\r
+of her cousin's horses at any time when they did not want them," and as\r
+the Miss Bertrams regularly wanted their horses every fine day, and had\r
+no idea of carrying their obliging manners to the sacrifice of any real\r
+pleasure, that time, of course, never came. They took their cheerful\r
+rides in the fine mornings of April and May; and Fanny either sat at\r
+home the whole day with one aunt, or walked beyond her strength at\r
+the instigation of the other: Lady Bertram holding exercise to be as\r
+unnecessary for everybody as it was unpleasant to herself; and Mrs.\r
+Norris, who was walking all day, thinking everybody ought to walk\r
+as much. Edmund was absent at this time, or the evil would have\r
+been earlier remedied. When he returned, to understand how Fanny was\r
+situated, and perceived its ill effects, there seemed with him but one\r
+thing to be done; and that "Fanny must have a horse" was the resolute\r
+declaration with which he opposed whatever could be urged by the\r
+supineness of his mother, or the economy of his aunt, to make it appear\r
+unimportant. Mrs. Norris could not help thinking that some steady old\r
+thing might be found among the numbers belonging to the Park that would\r
+do vastly well; or that one might be borrowed of the steward; or that\r
+perhaps Dr. Grant might now and then lend them the pony he sent to the\r
+post. She could not but consider it as absolutely unnecessary, and even\r
+improper, that Fanny should have a regular lady's horse of her own, in\r
+the style of her cousins. She was sure Sir Thomas had never intended it:\r
+and she must say that, to be making such a purchase in his absence, and\r
+adding to the great expenses of his stable, at a time when a large part\r
+of his income was unsettled, seemed to her very unjustifiable. "Fanny\r
+must have a horse," was Edmund's only reply. Mrs. Norris could not see\r
+it in the same light. Lady Bertram did: she entirely agreed with her son\r
+as to the necessity of it, and as to its being considered necessary by\r
+his father; she only pleaded against there being any hurry; she only\r
+wanted him to wait till Sir Thomas's return, and then Sir Thomas might\r
+settle it all himself. He would be at home in September, and where would\r
+be the harm of only waiting till September?\r
+\r
+Though Edmund was much more displeased with his aunt than with his\r
+mother, as evincing least regard for her niece, he could not help paying\r
+more attention to what she said; and at length determined on a method of\r
+proceeding which would obviate the risk of his father's thinking he\r
+had done too much, and at the same time procure for Fanny the immediate\r
+means of exercise, which he could not bear she should be without. He had\r
+three horses of his own, but not one that would carry a woman. Two\r
+of them were hunters; the third, a useful road-horse: this third he\r
+resolved to exchange for one that his cousin might ride; he knew where\r
+such a one was to be met with; and having once made up his mind, the\r
+whole business was soon completed. The new mare proved a treasure; with\r
+a very little trouble she became exactly calculated for the purpose,\r
+and Fanny was then put in almost full possession of her. She had not\r
+supposed before that anything could ever suit her like the old grey\r
+pony; but her delight in Edmund's mare was far beyond any former\r
+pleasure of the sort; and the addition it was ever receiving in the\r
+consideration of that kindness from which her pleasure sprung, was\r
+beyond all her words to express. She regarded her cousin as an example\r
+of everything good and great, as possessing worth which no one but\r
+herself could ever appreciate, and as entitled to such gratitude from\r
+her as no feelings could be strong enough to pay. Her sentiments towards\r
+him were compounded of all that was respectful, grateful, confiding, and\r
+tender.\r
+\r
+As the horse continued in name, as well as fact, the property of Edmund,\r
+Mrs. Norris could tolerate its being for Fanny's use; and had Lady\r
+Bertram ever thought about her own objection again, he might have\r
+been excused in her eyes for not waiting till Sir Thomas's return in\r
+September, for when September came Sir Thomas was still abroad, and\r
+without any near prospect of finishing his business. Unfavourable\r
+circumstances had suddenly arisen at a moment when he was beginning to\r
+turn all his thoughts towards England; and the very great uncertainty\r
+in which everything was then involved determined him on sending home his\r
+son, and waiting the final arrangement by himself. Tom arrived safely,\r
+bringing an excellent account of his father's health; but to very little\r
+purpose, as far as Mrs. Norris was concerned. Sir Thomas's sending away\r
+his son seemed to her so like a parent's care, under the influence of a\r
+foreboding of evil to himself, that she could not help feeling dreadful\r
+presentiments; and as the long evenings of autumn came on, was so\r
+terribly haunted by these ideas, in the sad solitariness of her cottage,\r
+as to be obliged to take daily refuge in the dining-room of the Park.\r
+The return of winter engagements, however, was not without its effect;\r
+and in the course of their progress, her mind became so pleasantly\r
+occupied in superintending the fortunes of her eldest niece, as\r
+tolerably to quiet her nerves. "If poor Sir Thomas were fated never to\r
+return, it would be peculiarly consoling to see their dear Maria well\r
+married," she very often thought; always when they were in the company\r
+of men of fortune, and particularly on the introduction of a young man\r
+who had recently succeeded to one of the largest estates and finest\r
+places in the country.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rushworth was from the first struck with the beauty of Miss Bertram,\r
+and, being inclined to marry, soon fancied himself in love. He was\r
+a heavy young man, with not more than common sense; but as there was\r
+nothing disagreeable in his figure or address, the young lady was well\r
+pleased with her conquest. Being now in her twenty-first year, Maria\r
+Bertram was beginning to think matrimony a duty; and as a marriage with\r
+Mr. Rushworth would give her the enjoyment of a larger income than her\r
+father's, as well as ensure her the house in town, which was now a prime\r
+object, it became, by the same rule of moral obligation, her evident\r
+duty to marry Mr. Rushworth if she could. Mrs. Norris was most zealous\r
+in promoting the match, by every suggestion and contrivance likely to\r
+enhance its desirableness to either party; and, among other means, by\r
+seeking an intimacy with the gentleman's mother, who at present lived\r
+with him, and to whom she even forced Lady Bertram to go through ten\r
+miles of indifferent road to pay a morning visit. It was not long before\r
+a good understanding took place between this lady and herself. Mrs.\r
+Rushworth acknowledged herself very desirous that her son should marry,\r
+and declared that of all the young ladies she had ever seen, Miss\r
+Bertram seemed, by her amiable qualities and accomplishments, the best\r
+adapted to make him happy. Mrs. Norris accepted the compliment,\r
+and admired the nice discernment of character which could so well\r
+distinguish merit. Maria was indeed the pride and delight of them\r
+all--perfectly faultless--an angel; and, of course, so surrounded by\r
+admirers, must be difficult in her choice: but yet, as far as Mrs.\r
+Norris could allow herself to decide on so short an acquaintance, Mr.\r
+Rushworth appeared precisely the young man to deserve and attach her.\r
+\r
+After dancing with each other at a proper number of balls, the young\r
+people justified these opinions, and an engagement, with a due reference\r
+to the absent Sir Thomas, was entered into, much to the satisfaction\r
+of their respective families, and of the general lookers-on of the\r
+neighbourhood, who had, for many weeks past, felt the expediency of Mr.\r
+Rushworth's marrying Miss Bertram.\r
+\r
+It was some months before Sir Thomas's consent could be received; but,\r
+in the meanwhile, as no one felt a doubt of his most cordial pleasure\r
+in the connexion, the intercourse of the two families was carried\r
+on without restraint, and no other attempt made at secrecy than Mrs.\r
+Norris's talking of it everywhere as a matter not to be talked of at\r
+present.\r
+\r
+Edmund was the only one of the family who could see a fault in the\r
+business; but no representation of his aunt's could induce him to find\r
+Mr. Rushworth a desirable companion. He could allow his sister to be\r
+the best judge of her own happiness, but he was not pleased that her\r
+happiness should centre in a large income; nor could he refrain from\r
+often saying to himself, in Mr. Rushworth's company--"If this man had\r
+not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas, however, was truly happy in the prospect of an alliance\r
+so unquestionably advantageous, and of which he heard nothing but the\r
+perfectly good and agreeable. It was a connexion exactly of the right\r
+sort--in the same county, and the same interest--and his most hearty\r
+concurrence was conveyed as soon as possible. He only conditioned that\r
+the marriage should not take place before his return, which he was again\r
+looking eagerly forward to. He wrote in April, and had strong hopes\r
+of settling everything to his entire satisfaction, and leaving Antigua\r
+before the end of the summer.\r
+\r
+Such was the state of affairs in the month of July; and Fanny had just\r
+reached her eighteenth year, when the society of the village received\r
+an addition in the brother and sister of Mrs. Grant, a Mr. and Miss\r
+Crawford, the children of her mother by a second marriage. They were\r
+young people of fortune. The son had a good estate in Norfolk, the\r
+daughter twenty thousand pounds. As children, their sister had been\r
+always very fond of them; but, as her own marriage had been soon\r
+followed by the death of their common parent, which left them to the\r
+care of a brother of their father, of whom Mrs. Grant knew nothing, she\r
+had scarcely seen them since. In their uncle's house they had found a\r
+kind home. Admiral and Mrs. Crawford, though agreeing in nothing else,\r
+were united in affection for these children, or, at least, were no\r
+farther adverse in their feelings than that each had their favourite, to\r
+whom they showed the greatest fondness of the two. The Admiral delighted\r
+in the boy, Mrs. Crawford doted on the girl; and it was the lady's death\r
+which now obliged her _protegee_, after some months' further trial at\r
+her uncle's house, to find another home. Admiral Crawford was a man of\r
+vicious conduct, who chose, instead of retaining his niece, to bring his\r
+mistress under his own roof; and to this Mrs. Grant was indebted for her\r
+sister's proposal of coming to her, a measure quite as welcome on one\r
+side as it could be expedient on the other; for Mrs. Grant, having by\r
+this time run through the usual resources of ladies residing in the\r
+country without a family of children--having more than filled her\r
+favourite sitting-room with pretty furniture, and made a choice\r
+collection of plants and poultry--was very much in want of some variety\r
+at home. The arrival, therefore, of a sister whom she had always loved,\r
+and now hoped to retain with her as long as she remained single, was\r
+highly agreeable; and her chief anxiety was lest Mansfield should not\r
+satisfy the habits of a young woman who had been mostly used to London.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford was not entirely free from similar apprehensions, though\r
+they arose principally from doubts of her sister's style of living and\r
+tone of society; and it was not till after she had tried in vain to\r
+persuade her brother to settle with her at his own country house,\r
+that she could resolve to hazard herself among her other relations. To\r
+anything like a permanence of abode, or limitation of society, Henry\r
+Crawford had, unluckily, a great dislike: he could not accommodate his\r
+sister in an article of such importance; but he escorted her, with the\r
+utmost kindness, into Northamptonshire, and as readily engaged to fetch\r
+her away again, at half an hour's notice, whenever she were weary of the\r
+place.\r
+\r
+The meeting was very satisfactory on each side. Miss Crawford found a\r
+sister without preciseness or rusticity, a sister's husband who looked\r
+the gentleman, and a house commodious and well fitted up; and Mrs. Grant\r
+received in those whom she hoped to love better than ever a young man\r
+and woman of very prepossessing appearance. Mary Crawford was remarkably\r
+pretty; Henry, though not handsome, had air and countenance; the manners\r
+of both were lively and pleasant, and Mrs. Grant immediately gave them\r
+credit for everything else. She was delighted with each, but Mary was\r
+her dearest object; and having never been able to glory in beauty of her\r
+own, she thoroughly enjoyed the power of being proud of her sister's.\r
+She had not waited her arrival to look out for a suitable match for her:\r
+she had fixed on Tom Bertram; the eldest son of a baronet was not too\r
+good for a girl of twenty thousand pounds, with all the elegance\r
+and accomplishments which Mrs. Grant foresaw in her; and being a\r
+warm-hearted, unreserved woman, Mary had not been three hours in the\r
+house before she told her what she had planned.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford was glad to find a family of such consequence so very near\r
+them, and not at all displeased either at her sister's early care, or\r
+the choice it had fallen on. Matrimony was her object, provided she\r
+could marry well: and having seen Mr. Bertram in town, she knew that\r
+objection could no more be made to his person than to his situation in\r
+life. While she treated it as a joke, therefore, she did not forget to\r
+think of it seriously. The scheme was soon repeated to Henry.\r
+\r
+"And now," added Mrs. Grant, "I have thought of something to make it\r
+complete. I should dearly love to settle you both in this country; and\r
+therefore, Henry, you shall marry the youngest Miss Bertram, a nice,\r
+handsome, good-humoured, accomplished girl, who will make you very\r
+happy."\r
+\r
+Henry bowed and thanked her.\r
+\r
+"My dear sister," said Mary, "if you can persuade him into anything\r
+of the sort, it will be a fresh matter of delight to me to find myself\r
+allied to anybody so clever, and I shall only regret that you have\r
+not half a dozen daughters to dispose of. If you can persuade Henry\r
+to marry, you must have the address of a Frenchwoman. All that English\r
+abilities can do has been tried already. I have three very particular\r
+friends who have been all dying for him in their turn; and the pains\r
+which they, their mothers (very clever women), as well as my dear aunt\r
+and myself, have taken to reason, coax, or trick him into marrying, is\r
+inconceivable! He is the most horrible flirt that can be imagined. If\r
+your Miss Bertrams do not like to have their hearts broke, let them\r
+avoid Henry."\r
+\r
+"My dear brother, I will not believe this of you."\r
+\r
+"No, I am sure you are too good. You will be kinder than Mary. You\r
+will allow for the doubts of youth and inexperience. I am of a cautious\r
+temper, and unwilling to risk my happiness in a hurry. Nobody can\r
+think more highly of the matrimonial state than myself. I consider the\r
+blessing of a wife as most justly described in those discreet lines of\r
+the poet--'Heaven's _last_ best gift.'"\r
+\r
+"There, Mrs. Grant, you see how he dwells on one word, and only look\r
+at his smile. I assure you he is very detestable; the Admiral's lessons\r
+have quite spoiled him."\r
+\r
+"I pay very little regard," said Mrs. Grant, "to what any young person\r
+says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for\r
+it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person."\r
+\r
+Dr. Grant laughingly congratulated Miss Crawford on feeling no\r
+disinclination to the state herself.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! I am not at all ashamed of it. I would have everybody marry if\r
+they can do it properly: I do not like to have people throw themselves\r
+away; but everybody should marry as soon as they can do it to\r
+advantage."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+The young people were pleased with each other from the first. On each\r
+side there was much to attract, and their acquaintance soon promised as\r
+early an intimacy as good manners would warrant. Miss Crawford's beauty\r
+did her no disservice with the Miss Bertrams. They were too handsome\r
+themselves to dislike any woman for being so too, and were almost as\r
+much charmed as their brothers with her lively dark eye, clear brown\r
+complexion, and general prettiness. Had she been tall, full formed, and\r
+fair, it might have been more of a trial: but as it was, there could be\r
+no comparison; and she was most allowably a sweet, pretty girl, while\r
+they were the finest young women in the country.\r
+\r
+Her brother was not handsome: no, when they first saw him he was\r
+absolutely plain, black and plain; but still he was the gentleman, with\r
+a pleasing address. The second meeting proved him not so very plain:\r
+he was plain, to be sure, but then he had so much countenance, and his\r
+teeth were so good, and he was so well made, that one soon forgot he was\r
+plain; and after a third interview, after dining in company with him at\r
+the Parsonage, he was no longer allowed to be called so by anybody. He\r
+was, in fact, the most agreeable young man the sisters had ever known,\r
+and they were equally delighted with him. Miss Bertram's engagement made\r
+him in equity the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware; and\r
+before he had been at Mansfield a week, she was quite ready to be fallen\r
+in love with.\r
+\r
+Maria's notions on the subject were more confused and indistinct. She\r
+did not want to see or understand. "There could be no harm in her liking\r
+an agreeable man--everybody knew her situation--Mr. Crawford must take\r
+care of himself." Mr. Crawford did not mean to be in any danger! the\r
+Miss Bertrams were worth pleasing, and were ready to be pleased; and he\r
+began with no object but of making them like him. He did not want them\r
+to die of love; but with sense and temper which ought to have made him\r
+judge and feel better, he allowed himself great latitude on such points.\r
+\r
+"I like your Miss Bertrams exceedingly, sister," said he, as he returned\r
+from attending them to their carriage after the said dinner visit; "they\r
+are very elegant, agreeable girls."\r
+\r
+"So they are indeed, and I am delighted to hear you say it. But you like\r
+Julia best."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! I like Julia best."\r
+\r
+"But do you really? for Miss Bertram is in general thought the\r
+handsomest."\r
+\r
+"So I should suppose. She has the advantage in every feature, and I\r
+prefer her countenance; but I like Julia best; Miss Bertram is certainly\r
+the handsomest, and I have found her the most agreeable, but I shall\r
+always like Julia best, because you order me."\r
+\r
+"I shall not talk to you, Henry, but I know you _will_ like her best at\r
+last."\r
+\r
+"Do not I tell you that I like her best _at_ _first_?"\r
+\r
+"And besides, Miss Bertram is engaged. Remember that, my dear brother.\r
+Her choice is made."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and I like her the better for it. An engaged woman is always more\r
+agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares\r
+are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing\r
+without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be\r
+done."\r
+\r
+"Why, as to that, Mr. Rushworth is a very good sort of young man, and it\r
+is a great match for her."\r
+\r
+"But Miss Bertram does not care three straws for him; _that_ is your\r
+opinion of your intimate friend. _I_ do not subscribe to it. I am sure\r
+Miss Bertram is very much attached to Mr. Rushworth. I could see it in\r
+her eyes, when he was mentioned. I think too well of Miss Bertram to\r
+suppose she would ever give her hand without her heart."\r
+\r
+"Mary, how shall we manage him?"\r
+\r
+"We must leave him to himself, I believe. Talking does no good. He will\r
+be taken in at last."\r
+\r
+"But I would not have him _taken_ _in_; I would not have him duped; I\r
+would have it all fair and honourable."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear! let him stand his chance and be taken in. It will do just as\r
+well. Everybody is taken in at some period or other."\r
+\r
+"Not always in marriage, dear Mary."\r
+\r
+"In marriage especially. With all due respect to such of the present\r
+company as chance to be married, my dear Mrs. Grant, there is not one in\r
+a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry. Look where\r
+I will, I see that it _is_ so; and I feel that it _must_ be so, when I\r
+consider that it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect\r
+most from others, and are least honest themselves."\r
+\r
+"Ah! You have been in a bad school for matrimony, in Hill Street."\r
+\r
+"My poor aunt had certainly little cause to love the state; but,\r
+however, speaking from my own observation, it is a manoeuvring business.\r
+I know so many who have married in the full expectation and confidence\r
+of some one particular advantage in the connexion, or accomplishment, or\r
+good quality in the person, who have found themselves entirely deceived,\r
+and been obliged to put up with exactly the reverse. What is this but a\r
+take in?"\r
+\r
+"My dear child, there must be a little imagination here. I beg your\r
+pardon, but I cannot quite believe you. Depend upon it, you see but\r
+half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will\r
+be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to\r
+expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human\r
+nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make\r
+a second better: we find comfort somewhere--and those evil-minded\r
+observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in\r
+and deceived than the parties themselves."\r
+\r
+"Well done, sister! I honour your _esprit_ _du_ _corps_. When I am a\r
+wife, I mean to be just as staunch myself; and I wish my friends in\r
+general would be so too. It would save me many a heartache."\r
+\r
+"You are as bad as your brother, Mary; but we will cure you both.\r
+Mansfield shall cure you both, and without any taking in. Stay with us,\r
+and we will cure you."\r
+\r
+The Crawfords, without wanting to be cured, were very willing to stay.\r
+Mary was satisfied with the Parsonage as a present home, and Henry\r
+equally ready to lengthen his visit. He had come, intending to spend\r
+only a few days with them; but Mansfield promised well, and there was\r
+nothing to call him elsewhere. It delighted Mrs. Grant to keep them both\r
+with her, and Dr. Grant was exceedingly well contented to have it so: a\r
+talking pretty young woman like Miss Crawford is always pleasant society\r
+to an indolent, stay-at-home man; and Mr. Crawford's being his guest was\r
+an excuse for drinking claret every day.\r
+\r
+The Miss Bertrams' admiration of Mr. Crawford was more rapturous than\r
+anything which Miss Crawford's habits made her likely to feel. She\r
+acknowledged, however, that the Mr. Bertrams were very fine young men,\r
+that two such young men were not often seen together even in London, and\r
+that their manners, particularly those of the eldest, were very good.\r
+_He_ had been much in London, and had more liveliness and gallantry than\r
+Edmund, and must, therefore, be preferred; and, indeed, his being the\r
+eldest was another strong claim. She had felt an early presentiment that\r
+she _should_ like the eldest best. She knew it was her way.\r
+\r
+Tom Bertram must have been thought pleasant, indeed, at any rate; he was\r
+the sort of young man to be generally liked, his agreeableness was of\r
+the kind to be oftener found agreeable than some endowments of a higher\r
+stamp, for he had easy manners, excellent spirits, a large acquaintance,\r
+and a great deal to say; and the reversion of Mansfield Park, and a\r
+baronetcy, did no harm to all this. Miss Crawford soon felt that he and\r
+his situation might do. She looked about her with due consideration, and\r
+found almost everything in his favour: a park, a real park, five miles\r
+round, a spacious modern-built house, so well placed and well screened\r
+as to deserve to be in any collection of engravings of gentlemen's\r
+seats in the kingdom, and wanting only to be completely new\r
+furnished--pleasant sisters, a quiet mother, and an agreeable man\r
+himself--with the advantage of being tied up from much gaming at present\r
+by a promise to his father, and of being Sir Thomas hereafter. It\r
+might do very well; she believed she should accept him; and she began\r
+accordingly to interest herself a little about the horse which he had to\r
+run at the B---- races.\r
+\r
+These races were to call him away not long after their acquaintance\r
+began; and as it appeared that the family did not, from his usual goings\r
+on, expect him back again for many weeks, it would bring his passion to\r
+an early proof. Much was said on his side to induce her to attend the\r
+races, and schemes were made for a large party to them, with all the\r
+eagerness of inclination, but it would only do to be talked of.\r
+\r
+And Fanny, what was _she_ doing and thinking all this while? and what\r
+was _her_ opinion of the newcomers? Few young ladies of eighteen could\r
+be less called on to speak their opinion than Fanny. In a quiet way,\r
+very little attended to, she paid her tribute of admiration to Miss\r
+Crawford's beauty; but as she still continued to think Mr. Crawford\r
+very plain, in spite of her two cousins having repeatedly proved the\r
+contrary, she never mentioned _him_. The notice, which she excited\r
+herself, was to this effect. "I begin now to understand you all,\r
+except Miss Price," said Miss Crawford, as she was walking with the Mr.\r
+Bertrams. "Pray, is she out, or is she not? I am puzzled. She dined at\r
+the Parsonage, with the rest of you, which seemed like being _out_; and\r
+yet she says so little, that I can hardly suppose she _is_."\r
+\r
+Edmund, to whom this was chiefly addressed, replied, "I believe I know\r
+what you mean, but I will not undertake to answer the question. My\r
+cousin is grown up. She has the age and sense of a woman, but the outs\r
+and not outs are beyond me."\r
+\r
+"And yet, in general, nothing can be more easily ascertained. The\r
+distinction is so broad. Manners as well as appearance are, generally\r
+speaking, so totally different. Till now, I could not have supposed it\r
+possible to be mistaken as to a girl's being out or not. A girl not out\r
+has always the same sort of dress: a close bonnet, for instance; looks\r
+very demure, and never says a word. You may smile, but it is so, I\r
+assure you; and except that it is sometimes carried a little too far,\r
+it is all very proper. Girls should be quiet and modest. The most\r
+objectionable part is, that the alteration of manners on being\r
+introduced into company is frequently too sudden. They sometimes pass in\r
+such very little time from reserve to quite the opposite--to confidence!\r
+_That_ is the faulty part of the present system. One does not like to\r
+see a girl of eighteen or nineteen so immediately up to every thing--and\r
+perhaps when one has seen her hardly able to speak the year before. Mr.\r
+Bertram, I dare say _you_ have sometimes met with such changes."\r
+\r
+"I believe I have, but this is hardly fair; I see what you are at. You\r
+are quizzing me and Miss Anderson."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed. Miss Anderson! I do not know who or what you mean. I am\r
+quite in the dark. But I _will_ quiz you with a great deal of pleasure,\r
+if you will tell me what about."\r
+\r
+"Ah! you carry it off very well, but I cannot be quite so far imposed\r
+on. You must have had Miss Anderson in your eye, in describing an\r
+altered young lady. You paint too accurately for mistake. It was exactly\r
+so. The Andersons of Baker Street. We were speaking of them the other\r
+day, you know. Edmund, you have heard me mention Charles Anderson.\r
+The circumstance was precisely as this lady has represented it. When\r
+Anderson first introduced me to his family, about two years ago, his\r
+sister was not _out_, and I could not get her to speak to me. I sat\r
+there an hour one morning waiting for Anderson, with only her and a\r
+little girl or two in the room, the governess being sick or run away,\r
+and the mother in and out every moment with letters of business, and I\r
+could hardly get a word or a look from the young lady--nothing like a\r
+civil answer--she screwed up her mouth, and turned from me with such an\r
+air! I did not see her again for a twelvemonth. She was then _out_. I\r
+met her at Mrs. Holford's, and did not recollect her. She came up to me,\r
+claimed me as an acquaintance, stared me out of countenance; and talked\r
+and laughed till I did not know which way to look. I felt that I must\r
+be the jest of the room at the time, and Miss Crawford, it is plain, has\r
+heard the story."\r
+\r
+"And a very pretty story it is, and with more truth in it, I dare say,\r
+than does credit to Miss Anderson. It is too common a fault. Mothers\r
+certainly have not yet got quite the right way of managing their\r
+daughters. I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set\r
+people right, but I do see that they are often wrong."\r
+\r
+"Those who are showing the world what female manners _should_ be," said\r
+Mr. Bertram gallantly, "are doing a great deal to set them right."\r
+\r
+"The error is plain enough," said the less courteous Edmund; "such girls\r
+are ill brought up. They are given wrong notions from the beginning.\r
+They are always acting upon motives of vanity, and there is no more\r
+real modesty in their behaviour _before_ they appear in public than\r
+afterwards."\r
+\r
+"I do not know," replied Miss Crawford hesitatingly. "Yes, I cannot\r
+agree with you there. It is certainly the modestest part of the\r
+business. It is much worse to have girls not out give themselves the\r
+same airs and take the same liberties as if they were, which I have seen\r
+done. That is worse than anything--quite disgusting!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, _that_ is very inconvenient indeed," said Mr. Bertram. "It leads\r
+one astray; one does not know what to do. The close bonnet and demure\r
+air you describe so well (and nothing was ever juster), tell one what\r
+is expected; but I got into a dreadful scrape last year from the want of\r
+them. I went down to Ramsgate for a week with a friend last September,\r
+just after my return from the West Indies. My friend Sneyd--you have\r
+heard me speak of Sneyd, Edmund--his father, and mother, and sisters,\r
+were there, all new to me. When we reached Albion Place they were out;\r
+we went after them, and found them on the pier: Mrs. and the two Miss\r
+Sneyds, with others of their acquaintance. I made my bow in form; and\r
+as Mrs. Sneyd was surrounded by men, attached myself to one of her\r
+daughters, walked by her side all the way home, and made myself as\r
+agreeable as I could; the young lady perfectly easy in her manners, and\r
+as ready to talk as to listen. I had not a suspicion that I could be\r
+doing anything wrong. They looked just the same: both well-dressed, with\r
+veils and parasols like other girls; but I afterwards found that I had\r
+been giving all my attention to the youngest, who was not _out_, and\r
+had most excessively offended the eldest. Miss Augusta ought not to have\r
+been noticed for the next six months; and Miss Sneyd, I believe, has\r
+never forgiven me."\r
+\r
+"That was bad indeed. Poor Miss Sneyd. Though I have no younger\r
+sister, I feel for her. To be neglected before one's time must be very\r
+vexatious; but it was entirely the mother's fault. Miss Augusta should\r
+have been with her governess. Such half-and-half doings never prosper.\r
+But now I must be satisfied about Miss Price. Does she go to balls? Does\r
+she dine out every where, as well as at my sister's?"\r
+\r
+"No," replied Edmund; "I do not think she has ever been to a ball. My\r
+mother seldom goes into company herself, and dines nowhere but with Mrs.\r
+Grant, and Fanny stays at home with _her_."\r
+\r
+"Oh! then the point is clear. Miss Price is not out."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Mr. Bertram set off for--------, and Miss Crawford was prepared to\r
+find a great chasm in their society, and to miss him decidedly in the\r
+meetings which were now becoming almost daily between the families;\r
+and on their all dining together at the Park soon after his going, she\r
+retook her chosen place near the bottom of the table, fully expecting to\r
+feel a most melancholy difference in the change of masters. It would\r
+be a very flat business, she was sure. In comparison with his brother,\r
+Edmund would have nothing to say. The soup would be sent round in a most\r
+spiritless manner, wine drank without any smiles or agreeable trifling,\r
+and the venison cut up without supplying one pleasant anecdote of any\r
+former haunch, or a single entertaining story, about "my friend such a\r
+one." She must try to find amusement in what was passing at the upper\r
+end of the table, and in observing Mr. Rushworth, who was now making his\r
+appearance at Mansfield for the first time since the Crawfords' arrival.\r
+He had been visiting a friend in the neighbouring county, and that\r
+friend having recently had his grounds laid out by an improver, Mr.\r
+Rushworth was returned with his head full of the subject, and very eager\r
+to be improving his own place in the same way; and though not saying\r
+much to the purpose, could talk of nothing else. The subject had\r
+been already handled in the drawing-room; it was revived in the\r
+dining-parlour. Miss Bertram's attention and opinion was evidently his\r
+chief aim; and though her deportment showed rather conscious superiority\r
+than any solicitude to oblige him, the mention of Sotherton Court,\r
+and the ideas attached to it, gave her a feeling of complacency, which\r
+prevented her from being very ungracious.\r
+\r
+"I wish you could see Compton," said he; "it is the most complete thing!\r
+I never saw a place so altered in my life. I told Smith I did not know\r
+where I was. The approach _now_, is one of the finest things in the\r
+country: you see the house in the most surprising manner. I declare,\r
+when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison--quite a\r
+dismal old prison."\r
+\r
+"Oh, for shame!" cried Mrs. Norris. "A prison indeed? Sotherton Court is\r
+the noblest old place in the world."\r
+\r
+"It wants improvement, ma'am, beyond anything. I never saw a place that\r
+wanted so much improvement in my life; and it is so forlorn that I do\r
+not know what can be done with it."\r
+\r
+"No wonder that Mr. Rushworth should think so at present," said Mrs.\r
+Grant to Mrs. Norris, with a smile; "but depend upon it, Sotherton will\r
+have _every_ improvement in time which his heart can desire."\r
+\r
+"I must try to do something with it," said Mr. Rushworth, "but I do not\r
+know what. I hope I shall have some good friend to help me."\r
+\r
+"Your best friend upon such an occasion," said Miss Bertram calmly,\r
+"would be Mr. Repton, I imagine."\r
+\r
+"That is what I was thinking of. As he has done so well by Smith, I\r
+think I had better have him at once. His terms are five guineas a day."\r
+\r
+"Well, and if they were _ten_," cried Mrs. Norris, "I am sure _you_ need\r
+not regard it. The expense need not be any impediment. If I were you,\r
+I should not think of the expense. I would have everything done in the\r
+best style, and made as nice as possible. Such a place as Sotherton\r
+Court deserves everything that taste and money can do. You have space to\r
+work upon there, and grounds that will well reward you. For my own part,\r
+if I had anything within the fiftieth part of the size of Sotherton, I\r
+should be always planting and improving, for naturally I am excessively\r
+fond of it. It would be too ridiculous for me to attempt anything where\r
+I am now, with my little half acre. It would be quite a burlesque. But\r
+if I had more room, I should take a prodigious delight in improving and\r
+planting. We did a vast deal in that way at the Parsonage: we made it\r
+quite a different place from what it was when we first had it. You young\r
+ones do not remember much about it, perhaps; but if dear Sir Thomas were\r
+here, he could tell you what improvements we made: and a great deal more\r
+would have been done, but for poor Mr. Norris's sad state of health.\r
+He could hardly ever get out, poor man, to enjoy anything, and _that_\r
+disheartened me from doing several things that Sir Thomas and I used to\r
+talk of. If it had not been for _that_, we should have carried on the\r
+garden wall, and made the plantation to shut out the churchyard, just\r
+as Dr. Grant has done. We were always doing something as it was. It was\r
+only the spring twelvemonth before Mr. Norris's death that we put in the\r
+apricot against the stable wall, which is now grown such a noble tree,\r
+and getting to such perfection, sir," addressing herself then to Dr.\r
+Grant.\r
+\r
+"The tree thrives well, beyond a doubt, madam," replied Dr. Grant. "The\r
+soil is good; and I never pass it without regretting that the fruit\r
+should be so little worth the trouble of gathering."\r
+\r
+"Sir, it is a Moor Park, we bought it as a Moor Park, and it cost\r
+us--that is, it was a present from Sir Thomas, but I saw the bill--and I\r
+know it cost seven shillings, and was charged as a Moor Park."\r
+\r
+"You were imposed on, ma'am," replied Dr. Grant: "these potatoes have as\r
+much the flavour of a Moor Park apricot as the fruit from that tree. It\r
+is an insipid fruit at the best; but a good apricot is eatable, which\r
+none from my garden are."\r
+\r
+"The truth is, ma'am," said Mrs. Grant, pretending to whisper across\r
+the table to Mrs. Norris, "that Dr. Grant hardly knows what the natural\r
+taste of our apricot is: he is scarcely ever indulged with one, for it\r
+is so valuable a fruit; with a little assistance, and ours is such a\r
+remarkably large, fair sort, that what with early tarts and preserves,\r
+my cook contrives to get them all."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris, who had begun to redden, was appeased; and, for a little\r
+while, other subjects took place of the improvements of Sotherton. Dr.\r
+Grant and Mrs. Norris were seldom good friends; their acquaintance had\r
+begun in dilapidations, and their habits were totally dissimilar.\r
+\r
+After a short interruption Mr. Rushworth began again. "Smith's place\r
+is the admiration of all the country; and it was a mere nothing before\r
+Repton took it in hand. I think I shall have Repton."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rushworth," said Lady Bertram, "if I were you, I would have a\r
+very pretty shrubbery. One likes to get out into a shrubbery in fine\r
+weather."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rushworth was eager to assure her ladyship of his acquiescence, and\r
+tried to make out something complimentary; but, between his submission\r
+to _her_ taste, and his having always intended the same himself, with\r
+the superadded objects of professing attention to the comfort of ladies\r
+in general, and of insinuating that there was one only whom he was\r
+anxious to please, he grew puzzled, and Edmund was glad to put an end\r
+to his speech by a proposal of wine. Mr. Rushworth, however, though not\r
+usually a great talker, had still more to say on the subject next his\r
+heart. "Smith has not much above a hundred acres altogether in his\r
+grounds, which is little enough, and makes it more surprising that the\r
+place can have been so improved. Now, at Sotherton we have a good seven\r
+hundred, without reckoning the water meadows; so that I think, if so\r
+much could be done at Compton, we need not despair. There have been two\r
+or three fine old trees cut down, that grew too near the house, and\r
+it opens the prospect amazingly, which makes me think that Repton, or\r
+anybody of that sort, would certainly have the avenue at Sotherton down:\r
+the avenue that leads from the west front to the top of the hill,\r
+you know," turning to Miss Bertram particularly as he spoke. But Miss\r
+Bertram thought it most becoming to reply--\r
+\r
+"The avenue! Oh! I do not recollect it. I really know very little of\r
+Sotherton."\r
+\r
+Fanny, who was sitting on the other side of Edmund, exactly opposite\r
+Miss Crawford, and who had been attentively listening, now looked at\r
+him, and said in a low voice--\r
+\r
+"Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does it not make you think of Cowper?\r
+'Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.'"\r
+\r
+He smiled as he answered, "I am afraid the avenue stands a bad chance,\r
+Fanny."\r
+\r
+"I should like to see Sotherton before it is cut down, to see the place\r
+as it is now, in its old state; but I do not suppose I shall."\r
+\r
+"Have you never been there? No, you never can; and, unluckily, it is out\r
+of distance for a ride. I wish we could contrive it."\r
+\r
+"Oh! it does not signify. Whenever I do see it, you will tell me how it\r
+has been altered."\r
+\r
+"I collect," said Miss Crawford, "that Sotherton is an old place, and a\r
+place of some grandeur. In any particular style of building?"\r
+\r
+"The house was built in Elizabeth's time, and is a large, regular, brick\r
+building; heavy, but respectable looking, and has many good rooms. It\r
+is ill placed. It stands in one of the lowest spots of the park; in that\r
+respect, unfavourable for improvement. But the woods are fine, and\r
+there is a stream, which, I dare say, might be made a good deal of. Mr.\r
+Rushworth is quite right, I think, in meaning to give it a modern dress,\r
+and I have no doubt that it will be all done extremely well."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford listened with submission, and said to herself, "He is a\r
+well-bred man; he makes the best of it."\r
+\r
+"I do not wish to influence Mr. Rushworth," he continued; "but, had I\r
+a place to new fashion, I should not put myself into the hands of an\r
+improver. I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own\r
+choice, and acquired progressively. I would rather abide by my own\r
+blunders than by his."\r
+\r
+"_You_ would know what you were about, of course; but that would not\r
+suit _me_. I have no eye or ingenuity for such matters, but as they are\r
+before me; and had I a place of my own in the country, I should be most\r
+thankful to any Mr. Repton who would undertake it, and give me as much\r
+beauty as he could for my money; and I should never look at it till it\r
+was complete."\r
+\r
+"It would be delightful to _me_ to see the progress of it all," said\r
+Fanny.\r
+\r
+"Ay, you have been brought up to it. It was no part of my education; and\r
+the only dose I ever had, being administered by not the first favourite\r
+in the world, has made me consider improvements _in_ _hand_ as the\r
+greatest of nuisances. Three years ago the Admiral, my honoured uncle,\r
+bought a cottage at Twickenham for us all to spend our summers in;\r
+and my aunt and I went down to it quite in raptures; but it being\r
+excessively pretty, it was soon found necessary to be improved, and for\r
+three months we were all dirt and confusion, without a gravel walk to\r
+step on, or a bench fit for use. I would have everything as complete\r
+as possible in the country, shrubberies and flower-gardens, and rustic\r
+seats innumerable: but it must all be done without my care. Henry is\r
+different; he loves to be doing."\r
+\r
+Edmund was sorry to hear Miss Crawford, whom he was much disposed to\r
+admire, speak so freely of her uncle. It did not suit his sense of\r
+propriety, and he was silenced, till induced by further smiles and\r
+liveliness to put the matter by for the present.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Bertram," said she, "I have tidings of my harp at last. I am\r
+assured that it is safe at Northampton; and there it has probably been\r
+these ten days, in spite of the solemn assurances we have so often\r
+received to the contrary." Edmund expressed his pleasure and surprise.\r
+"The truth is, that our inquiries were too direct; we sent a servant,\r
+we went ourselves: this will not do seventy miles from London; but this\r
+morning we heard of it in the right way. It was seen by some farmer, and\r
+he told the miller, and the miller told the butcher, and the butcher's\r
+son-in-law left word at the shop."\r
+\r
+"I am very glad that you have heard of it, by whatever means, and hope\r
+there will be no further delay."\r
+\r
+"I am to have it to-morrow; but how do you think it is to be conveyed?\r
+Not by a wagon or cart: oh no! nothing of that kind could be hired in\r
+the village. I might as well have asked for porters and a handbarrow."\r
+\r
+"You would find it difficult, I dare say, just now, in the middle of a\r
+very late hay harvest, to hire a horse and cart?"\r
+\r
+"I was astonished to find what a piece of work was made of it! To want\r
+a horse and cart in the country seemed impossible, so I told my maid to\r
+speak for one directly; and as I cannot look out of my dressing-closet\r
+without seeing one farmyard, nor walk in the shrubbery without passing\r
+another, I thought it would be only ask and have, and was rather grieved\r
+that I could not give the advantage to all. Guess my surprise, when\r
+I found that I had been asking the most unreasonable, most impossible\r
+thing in the world; had offended all the farmers, all the labourers,\r
+all the hay in the parish! As for Dr. Grant's bailiff, I believe I had\r
+better keep out of _his_ way; and my brother-in-law himself, who is all\r
+kindness in general, looked rather black upon me when he found what I\r
+had been at."\r
+\r
+"You could not be expected to have thought on the subject before; but\r
+when you _do_ think of it, you must see the importance of getting in\r
+the grass. The hire of a cart at any time might not be so easy as you\r
+suppose: our farmers are not in the habit of letting them out; but, in\r
+harvest, it must be quite out of their power to spare a horse."\r
+\r
+"I shall understand all your ways in time; but, coming down with the\r
+true London maxim, that everything is to be got with money, I was a\r
+little embarrassed at first by the sturdy independence of your country\r
+customs. However, I am to have my harp fetched to-morrow. Henry, who is\r
+good-nature itself, has offered to fetch it in his barouche. Will it not\r
+be honourably conveyed?"\r
+\r
+Edmund spoke of the harp as his favourite instrument, and hoped to be\r
+soon allowed to hear her. Fanny had never heard the harp at all, and\r
+wished for it very much.\r
+\r
+"I shall be most happy to play to you both," said Miss Crawford; "at\r
+least as long as you can like to listen: probably much longer, for\r
+I dearly love music myself, and where the natural taste is equal the\r
+player must always be best off, for she is gratified in more ways than\r
+one. Now, Mr. Bertram, if you write to your brother, I entreat you to\r
+tell him that my harp is come: he heard so much of my misery about it.\r
+And you may say, if you please, that I shall prepare my most plaintive\r
+airs against his return, in compassion to his feelings, as I know his\r
+horse will lose."\r
+\r
+"If I write, I will say whatever you wish me; but I do not, at present,\r
+foresee any occasion for writing."\r
+\r
+"No, I dare say, nor if he were to be gone a twelvemonth, would you ever\r
+write to him, nor he to you, if it could be helped. The occasion would\r
+never be foreseen. What strange creatures brothers are! You would not\r
+write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world; and\r
+when obliged to take up the pen to say that such a horse is ill, or such\r
+a relation dead, it is done in the fewest possible words. You have but\r
+one style among you. I know it perfectly. Henry, who is in every other\r
+respect exactly what a brother should be, who loves me, consults me,\r
+confides in me, and will talk to me by the hour together, has never\r
+yet turned the page in a letter; and very often it is nothing more\r
+than--'Dear Mary, I am just arrived. Bath seems full, and everything\r
+as usual. Yours sincerely.' That is the true manly style; that is a\r
+complete brother's letter."\r
+\r
+"When they are at a distance from all their family," said Fanny,\r
+colouring for William's sake, "they can write long letters."\r
+\r
+"Miss Price has a brother at sea," said Edmund, "whose excellence as a\r
+correspondent makes her think you too severe upon us."\r
+\r
+"At sea, has she? In the king's service, of course?"\r
+\r
+Fanny would rather have had Edmund tell the story, but his determined\r
+silence obliged her to relate her brother's situation: her voice was\r
+animated in speaking of his profession, and the foreign stations he had\r
+been on; but she could not mention the number of years that he had been\r
+absent without tears in her eyes. Miss Crawford civilly wished him an\r
+early promotion.\r
+\r
+"Do you know anything of my cousin's captain?" said Edmund; "Captain\r
+Marshall? You have a large acquaintance in the navy, I conclude?"\r
+\r
+"Among admirals, large enough; but," with an air of grandeur, "we know\r
+very little of the inferior ranks. Post-captains may be very good sort\r
+of men, but they do not belong to _us_. Of various admirals I could tell\r
+you a great deal: of them and their flags, and the gradation of their\r
+pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. But, in general, I can assure\r
+you that they are all passed over, and all very ill used. Certainly, my\r
+home at my uncle's brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of\r
+_Rears_ and _Vices_ I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun,\r
+I entreat."\r
+\r
+Edmund again felt grave, and only replied, "It is a noble profession."\r
+\r
+"Yes, the profession is well enough under two circumstances: if it make\r
+the fortune, and there be discretion in spending it; but, in short, it\r
+is not a favourite profession of mine. It has never worn an amiable form\r
+to _me_."\r
+\r
+Edmund reverted to the harp, and was again very happy in the prospect of\r
+hearing her play.\r
+\r
+The subject of improving grounds, meanwhile, was still under\r
+consideration among the others; and Mrs. Grant could not help addressing\r
+her brother, though it was calling his attention from Miss Julia\r
+Bertram.\r
+\r
+"My dear Henry, have _you_ nothing to say? You have been an improver\r
+yourself, and from what I hear of Everingham, it may vie with any place\r
+in England. Its natural beauties, I am sure, are great. Everingham,\r
+as it _used_ to be, was perfect in my estimation: such a happy fall of\r
+ground, and such timber! What would I not give to see it again?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing could be so gratifying to me as to hear your opinion of it,"\r
+was his answer; "but I fear there would be some disappointment: you\r
+would not find it equal to your present ideas. In extent, it is a mere\r
+nothing; you would be surprised at its insignificance; and, as for\r
+improvement, there was very little for me to do--too little: I should\r
+like to have been busy much longer."\r
+\r
+"You are fond of the sort of thing?" said Julia.\r
+\r
+"Excessively; but what with the natural advantages of the ground, which\r
+pointed out, even to a very young eye, what little remained to be done,\r
+and my own consequent resolutions, I had not been of age three\r
+months before Everingham was all that it is now. My plan was laid\r
+at Westminster, a little altered, perhaps, at Cambridge, and at\r
+one-and-twenty executed. I am inclined to envy Mr. Rushworth for having\r
+so much happiness yet before him. I have been a devourer of my own."\r
+\r
+"Those who see quickly, will resolve quickly, and act quickly,"\r
+said Julia. "_You_ can never want employment. Instead of envying Mr.\r
+Rushworth, you should assist him with your opinion."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Grant, hearing the latter part of this speech, enforced it warmly,\r
+persuaded that no judgment could be equal to her brother's; and as\r
+Miss Bertram caught at the idea likewise, and gave it her full support,\r
+declaring that, in her opinion, it was infinitely better to consult\r
+with friends and disinterested advisers, than immediately to throw the\r
+business into the hands of a professional man, Mr. Rushworth was very\r
+ready to request the favour of Mr. Crawford's assistance; and Mr.\r
+Crawford, after properly depreciating his own abilities, was quite at\r
+his service in any way that could be useful. Mr. Rushworth then began to\r
+propose Mr. Crawford's doing him the honour of coming over to Sotherton,\r
+and taking a bed there; when Mrs. Norris, as if reading in her two\r
+nieces' minds their little approbation of a plan which was to take Mr.\r
+Crawford away, interposed with an amendment.\r
+\r
+"There can be no doubt of Mr. Crawford's willingness; but why should not\r
+more of us go? Why should not we make a little party? Here are many that\r
+would be interested in your improvements, my dear Mr. Rushworth, and\r
+that would like to hear Mr. Crawford's opinion on the spot, and that\r
+might be of some small use to you with _their_ opinions; and, for my\r
+own part, I have been long wishing to wait upon your good mother again;\r
+nothing but having no horses of my own could have made me so remiss; but\r
+now I could go and sit a few hours with Mrs. Rushworth, while the rest\r
+of you walked about and settled things, and then we could all return\r
+to a late dinner here, or dine at Sotherton, just as might be most\r
+agreeable to your mother, and have a pleasant drive home by moonlight.\r
+I dare say Mr. Crawford would take my two nieces and me in his barouche,\r
+and Edmund can go on horseback, you know, sister, and Fanny will stay at\r
+home with you."\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram made no objection; and every one concerned in the going\r
+was forward in expressing their ready concurrence, excepting Edmund, who\r
+heard it all and said nothing.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+"Well, Fanny, and how do you like Miss Crawford _now_?" said Edmund the\r
+next day, after thinking some time on the subject himself. "How did you\r
+like her yesterday?"\r
+\r
+"Very well--very much. I like to hear her talk. She entertains me; and\r
+she is so extremely pretty, that I have great pleasure in looking at\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"It is her countenance that is so attractive. She has a wonderful play\r
+of feature! But was there nothing in her conversation that struck you,\r
+Fanny, as not quite right?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! she ought not to have spoken of her uncle as she did. I was\r
+quite astonished. An uncle with whom she has been living so many years,\r
+and who, whatever his faults may be, is so very fond of her brother,\r
+treating him, they say, quite like a son. I could not have believed it!"\r
+\r
+"I thought you would be struck. It was very wrong; very indecorous."\r
+\r
+"And very ungrateful, I think."\r
+\r
+"Ungrateful is a strong word. I do not know that her uncle has any claim\r
+to her _gratitude_; his wife certainly had; and it is the warmth of her\r
+respect for her aunt's memory which misleads her here. She is awkwardly\r
+circumstanced. With such warm feelings and lively spirits it must be\r
+difficult to do justice to her affection for Mrs. Crawford, without\r
+throwing a shade on the Admiral. I do not pretend to know which was most\r
+to blame in their disagreements, though the Admiral's present conduct\r
+might incline one to the side of his wife; but it is natural and amiable\r
+that Miss Crawford should acquit her aunt entirely. I do not censure her\r
+_opinions_; but there certainly _is_ impropriety in making them public."\r
+\r
+"Do not you think," said Fanny, after a little consideration, "that this\r
+impropriety is a reflection itself upon Mrs. Crawford, as her niece has\r
+been entirely brought up by her? She cannot have given her right notions\r
+of what was due to the Admiral."\r
+\r
+"That is a fair remark. Yes, we must suppose the faults of the niece\r
+to have been those of the aunt; and it makes one more sensible of the\r
+disadvantages she has been under. But I think her present home must\r
+do her good. Mrs. Grant's manners are just what they ought to be. She\r
+speaks of her brother with a very pleasing affection."\r
+\r
+"Yes, except as to his writing her such short letters. She made me\r
+almost laugh; but I cannot rate so very highly the love or good-nature\r
+of a brother who will not give himself the trouble of writing anything\r
+worth reading to his sisters, when they are separated. I am sure William\r
+would never have used _me_ so, under any circumstances. And what right\r
+had she to suppose that _you_ would not write long letters when you were\r
+absent?"\r
+\r
+"The right of a lively mind, Fanny, seizing whatever may contribute\r
+to its own amusement or that of others; perfectly allowable, when\r
+untinctured by ill-humour or roughness; and there is not a shadow of\r
+either in the countenance or manner of Miss Crawford: nothing sharp, or\r
+loud, or coarse. She is perfectly feminine, except in the instances we\r
+have been speaking of. There she cannot be justified. I am glad you saw\r
+it all as I did."\r
+\r
+Having formed her mind and gained her affections, he had a good chance\r
+of her thinking like him; though at this period, and on this subject,\r
+there began now to be some danger of dissimilarity, for he was in a line\r
+of admiration of Miss Crawford, which might lead him where Fanny\r
+could not follow. Miss Crawford's attractions did not lessen. The harp\r
+arrived, and rather added to her beauty, wit, and good-humour; for she\r
+played with the greatest obligingness, with an expression and taste\r
+which were peculiarly becoming, and there was something clever to be\r
+said at the close of every air. Edmund was at the Parsonage every day,\r
+to be indulged with his favourite instrument: one morning secured an\r
+invitation for the next; for the lady could not be unwilling to have a\r
+listener, and every thing was soon in a fair train.\r
+\r
+A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as elegant as herself, and\r
+both placed near a window, cut down to the ground, and opening on a\r
+little lawn, surrounded by shrubs in the rich foliage of summer, was\r
+enough to catch any man's heart. The season, the scene, the air, were\r
+all favourable to tenderness and sentiment. Mrs. Grant and her tambour\r
+frame were not without their use: it was all in harmony; and as\r
+everything will turn to account when love is once set going, even the\r
+sandwich tray, and Dr. Grant doing the honours of it, were worth looking\r
+at. Without studying the business, however, or knowing what he was\r
+about, Edmund was beginning, at the end of a week of such intercourse,\r
+to be a good deal in love; and to the credit of the lady it may be added\r
+that, without his being a man of the world or an elder brother, without\r
+any of the arts of flattery or the gaieties of small talk, he began to\r
+be agreeable to her. She felt it to be so, though she had not foreseen,\r
+and could hardly understand it; for he was not pleasant by any common\r
+rule: he talked no nonsense; he paid no compliments; his opinions\r
+were unbending, his attentions tranquil and simple. There was a charm,\r
+perhaps, in his sincerity, his steadiness, his integrity, which Miss\r
+Crawford might be equal to feel, though not equal to discuss with\r
+herself. She did not think very much about it, however: he pleased her\r
+for the present; she liked to have him near her; it was enough.\r
+\r
+Fanny could not wonder that Edmund was at the Parsonage every morning;\r
+she would gladly have been there too, might she have gone in uninvited\r
+and unnoticed, to hear the harp; neither could she wonder that, when the\r
+evening stroll was over, and the two families parted again, he should\r
+think it right to attend Mrs. Grant and her sister to their home, while\r
+Mr. Crawford was devoted to the ladies of the Park; but she thought it\r
+a very bad exchange; and if Edmund were not there to mix the wine and\r
+water for her, would rather go without it than not. She was a little\r
+surprised that he could spend so many hours with Miss Crawford, and\r
+not see more of the sort of fault which he had already observed, and of\r
+which _she_ was almost always reminded by a something of the same nature\r
+whenever she was in her company; but so it was. Edmund was fond of\r
+speaking to her of Miss Crawford, but he seemed to think it enough that\r
+the Admiral had since been spared; and she scrupled to point out her own\r
+remarks to him, lest it should appear like ill-nature. The first actual\r
+pain which Miss Crawford occasioned her was the consequence of an\r
+inclination to learn to ride, which the former caught, soon after her\r
+being settled at Mansfield, from the example of the young ladies at the\r
+Park, and which, when Edmund's acquaintance with her increased, led to\r
+his encouraging the wish, and the offer of his own quiet mare for the\r
+purpose of her first attempts, as the best fitted for a beginner that\r
+either stable could furnish. No pain, no injury, however, was designed\r
+by him to his cousin in this offer: _she_ was not to lose a day's\r
+exercise by it. The mare was only to be taken down to the Parsonage half\r
+an hour before her ride were to begin; and Fanny, on its being first\r
+proposed, so far from feeling slighted, was almost over-powered with\r
+gratitude that he should be asking her leave for it.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford made her first essay with great credit to herself, and no\r
+inconvenience to Fanny. Edmund, who had taken down the mare and presided\r
+at the whole, returned with it in excellent time, before either Fanny or\r
+the steady old coachman, who always attended her when she rode without\r
+her cousins, were ready to set forward. The second day's trial was not\r
+so guiltless. Miss Crawford's enjoyment of riding was such that she did\r
+not know how to leave off. Active and fearless, and though rather small,\r
+strongly made, she seemed formed for a horsewoman; and to the pure\r
+genuine pleasure of the exercise, something was probably added in\r
+Edmund's attendance and instructions, and something more in the\r
+conviction of very much surpassing her sex in general by her early\r
+progress, to make her unwilling to dismount. Fanny was ready and\r
+waiting, and Mrs. Norris was beginning to scold her for not being gone,\r
+and still no horse was announced, no Edmund appeared. To avoid her aunt,\r
+and look for him, she went out.\r
+\r
+The houses, though scarcely half a mile apart, were not within sight of\r
+each other; but, by walking fifty yards from the hall door, she could\r
+look down the park, and command a view of the Parsonage and all its\r
+demesnes, gently rising beyond the village road; and in Dr. Grant's\r
+meadow she immediately saw the group--Edmund and Miss Crawford both on\r
+horse-back, riding side by side, Dr. and Mrs. Grant, and Mr. Crawford,\r
+with two or three grooms, standing about and looking on. A happy party\r
+it appeared to her, all interested in one object: cheerful beyond a\r
+doubt, for the sound of merriment ascended even to her. It was a sound\r
+which did not make _her_ cheerful; she wondered that Edmund should\r
+forget her, and felt a pang. She could not turn her eyes from the\r
+meadow; she could not help watching all that passed. At first Miss\r
+Crawford and her companion made the circuit of the field, which was not\r
+small, at a foot's pace; then, at _her_ apparent suggestion, they rose\r
+into a canter; and to Fanny's timid nature it was most astonishing to\r
+see how well she sat. After a few minutes they stopped entirely. Edmund\r
+was close to her; he was speaking to her; he was evidently directing her\r
+management of the bridle; he had hold of her hand; she saw it, or the\r
+imagination supplied what the eye could not reach. She must not wonder\r
+at all this; what could be more natural than that Edmund should be\r
+making himself useful, and proving his good-nature by any one? She could\r
+not but think, indeed, that Mr. Crawford might as well have saved him\r
+the trouble; that it would have been particularly proper and becoming\r
+in a brother to have done it himself; but Mr. Crawford, with all his\r
+boasted good-nature, and all his coachmanship, probably knew nothing\r
+of the matter, and had no active kindness in comparison of Edmund. She\r
+began to think it rather hard upon the mare to have such double duty; if\r
+she were forgotten, the poor mare should be remembered.\r
+\r
+Her feelings for one and the other were soon a little tranquillised\r
+by seeing the party in the meadow disperse, and Miss Crawford still on\r
+horseback, but attended by Edmund on foot, pass through a gate into the\r
+lane, and so into the park, and make towards the spot where she stood.\r
+She began then to be afraid of appearing rude and impatient; and walked\r
+to meet them with a great anxiety to avoid the suspicion.\r
+\r
+"My dear Miss Price," said Miss Crawford, as soon as she was at all\r
+within hearing, "I am come to make my own apologies for keeping you\r
+waiting; but I have nothing in the world to say for myself--I knew it\r
+was very late, and that I was behaving extremely ill; and therefore, if\r
+you please, you must forgive me. Selfishness must always be forgiven,\r
+you know, because there is no hope of a cure."\r
+\r
+Fanny's answer was extremely civil, and Edmund added his conviction that\r
+she could be in no hurry. "For there is more than time enough for my\r
+cousin to ride twice as far as she ever goes," said he, "and you have\r
+been promoting her comfort by preventing her from setting off half an\r
+hour sooner: clouds are now coming up, and she will not suffer from the\r
+heat as she would have done then. I wish _you_ may not be fatigued by so\r
+much exercise. I wish you had saved yourself this walk home."\r
+\r
+"No part of it fatigues me but getting off this horse, I assure you,"\r
+said she, as she sprang down with his help; "I am very strong. Nothing\r
+ever fatigues me but doing what I do not like. Miss Price, I give way to\r
+you with a very bad grace; but I sincerely hope you will have a pleasant\r
+ride, and that I may have nothing but good to hear of this dear,\r
+delightful, beautiful animal."\r
+\r
+The old coachman, who had been waiting about with his own horse, now\r
+joining them, Fanny was lifted on hers, and they set off across another\r
+part of the park; her feelings of discomfort not lightened by seeing, as\r
+she looked back, that the others were walking down the hill together to\r
+the village; nor did her attendant do her much good by his comments on\r
+Miss Crawford's great cleverness as a horse-woman, which he had been\r
+watching with an interest almost equal to her own.\r
+\r
+"It is a pleasure to see a lady with such a good heart for riding!"\r
+said he. "I never see one sit a horse better. She did not seem to have\r
+a thought of fear. Very different from you, miss, when you first began,\r
+six years ago come next Easter. Lord bless you! how you did tremble when\r
+Sir Thomas first had you put on!"\r
+\r
+In the drawing-room Miss Crawford was also celebrated. Her merit in\r
+being gifted by Nature with strength and courage was fully appreciated\r
+by the Miss Bertrams; her delight in riding was like their own; her\r
+early excellence in it was like their own, and they had great pleasure\r
+in praising it.\r
+\r
+"I was sure she would ride well," said Julia; "she has the make for it.\r
+Her figure is as neat as her brother's."\r
+\r
+"Yes," added Maria, "and her spirits are as good, and she has the same\r
+energy of character. I cannot but think that good horsemanship has a\r
+great deal to do with the mind."\r
+\r
+When they parted at night Edmund asked Fanny whether she meant to ride\r
+the next day.\r
+\r
+"No, I do not know--not if you want the mare," was her answer.\r
+\r
+"I do not want her at all for myself," said he; "but whenever you are\r
+next inclined to stay at home, I think Miss Crawford would be glad to\r
+have her a longer time--for a whole morning, in short. She has a great\r
+desire to get as far as Mansfield Common: Mrs. Grant has been telling\r
+her of its fine views, and I have no doubt of her being perfectly equal\r
+to it. But any morning will do for this. She would be extremely sorry to\r
+interfere with you. It would be very wrong if she did. _She_ rides only\r
+for pleasure; _you_ for health."\r
+\r
+"I shall not ride to-morrow, certainly," said Fanny; "I have been out\r
+very often lately, and would rather stay at home. You know I am strong\r
+enough now to walk very well."\r
+\r
+Edmund looked pleased, which must be Fanny's comfort, and the ride to\r
+Mansfield Common took place the next morning: the party included all the\r
+young people but herself, and was much enjoyed at the time, and doubly\r
+enjoyed again in the evening discussion. A successful scheme of this\r
+sort generally brings on another; and the having been to Mansfield\r
+Common disposed them all for going somewhere else the day after. There\r
+were many other views to be shewn; and though the weather was hot, there\r
+were shady lanes wherever they wanted to go. A young party is always\r
+provided with a shady lane. Four fine mornings successively were spent\r
+in this manner, in shewing the Crawfords the country, and doing the\r
+honours of its finest spots. Everything answered; it was all gaiety and\r
+good-humour, the heat only supplying inconvenience enough to be talked\r
+of with pleasure--till the fourth day, when the happiness of one of\r
+the party was exceedingly clouded. Miss Bertram was the one. Edmund and\r
+Julia were invited to dine at the Parsonage, and _she_ was excluded.\r
+It was meant and done by Mrs. Grant, with perfect good-humour, on Mr.\r
+Rushworth's account, who was partly expected at the Park that day;\r
+but it was felt as a very grievous injury, and her good manners were\r
+severely taxed to conceal her vexation and anger till she reached home.\r
+As Mr. Rushworth did _not_ come, the injury was increased, and she had\r
+not even the relief of shewing her power over him; she could only be\r
+sullen to her mother, aunt, and cousin, and throw as great a gloom as\r
+possible over their dinner and dessert.\r
+\r
+Between ten and eleven Edmund and Julia walked into the drawing-room,\r
+fresh with the evening air, glowing and cheerful, the very reverse\r
+of what they found in the three ladies sitting there, for Maria would\r
+scarcely raise her eyes from her book, and Lady Bertram was half-asleep;\r
+and even Mrs. Norris, discomposed by her niece's ill-humour, and having\r
+asked one or two questions about the dinner, which were not immediately\r
+attended to, seemed almost determined to say no more. For a few minutes\r
+the brother and sister were too eager in their praise of the night and\r
+their remarks on the stars, to think beyond themselves; but when the\r
+first pause came, Edmund, looking around, said, "But where is Fanny? Is\r
+she gone to bed?"\r
+\r
+"No, not that I know of," replied Mrs. Norris; "she was here a moment\r
+ago."\r
+\r
+Her own gentle voice speaking from the other end of the room, which was\r
+a very long one, told them that she was on the sofa. Mrs. Norris began\r
+scolding.\r
+\r
+"That is a very foolish trick, Fanny, to be idling away all the evening\r
+upon a sofa. Why cannot you come and sit here, and employ yourself as\r
+_we_ do? If you have no work of your own, I can supply you from the\r
+poor basket. There is all the new calico, that was bought last week,\r
+not touched yet. I am sure I almost broke my back by cutting it out. You\r
+should learn to think of other people; and, take my word for it, it is a\r
+shocking trick for a young person to be always lolling upon a sofa."\r
+\r
+Before half this was said, Fanny was returned to her seat at the table,\r
+and had taken up her work again; and Julia, who was in high good-humour,\r
+from the pleasures of the day, did her the justice of exclaiming, "I\r
+must say, ma'am, that Fanny is as little upon the sofa as anybody in the\r
+house."\r
+\r
+"Fanny," said Edmund, after looking at her attentively, "I am sure you\r
+have the headache."\r
+\r
+She could not deny it, but said it was not very bad.\r
+\r
+"I can hardly believe you," he replied; "I know your looks too well. How\r
+long have you had it?"\r
+\r
+"Since a little before dinner. It is nothing but the heat."\r
+\r
+"Did you go out in the heat?"\r
+\r
+"Go out! to be sure she did," said Mrs. Norris: "would you have her stay\r
+within such a fine day as this? Were not we _all_ out? Even your mother\r
+was out to-day for above an hour."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, Edmund," added her ladyship, who had been thoroughly\r
+awakened by Mrs. Norris's sharp reprimand to Fanny; "I was out above an\r
+hour. I sat three-quarters of an hour in the flower-garden, while Fanny\r
+cut the roses; and very pleasant it was, I assure you, but very hot. It\r
+was shady enough in the alcove, but I declare I quite dreaded the coming\r
+home again."\r
+\r
+"Fanny has been cutting roses, has she?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and I am afraid they will be the last this year. Poor thing! _She_\r
+found it hot enough; but they were so full-blown that one could not\r
+wait."\r
+\r
+"There was no help for it, certainly," rejoined Mrs. Norris, in a rather\r
+softened voice; "but I question whether her headache might not be caught\r
+_then_, sister. There is nothing so likely to give it as standing and\r
+stooping in a hot sun; but I dare say it will be well to-morrow. Suppose\r
+you let her have your aromatic vinegar; I always forget to have mine\r
+filled."\r
+\r
+"She has got it," said Lady Bertram; "she has had it ever since she came\r
+back from your house the second time."\r
+\r
+"What!" cried Edmund; "has she been walking as well as cutting roses;\r
+walking across the hot park to your house, and doing it twice, ma'am? No\r
+wonder her head aches."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris was talking to Julia, and did not hear.\r
+\r
+"I was afraid it would be too much for her," said Lady Bertram; "but\r
+when the roses were gathered, your aunt wished to have them, and then\r
+you know they must be taken home."\r
+\r
+"But were there roses enough to oblige her to go twice?"\r
+\r
+"No; but they were to be put into the spare room to dry; and, unluckily,\r
+Fanny forgot to lock the door of the room and bring away the key, so she\r
+was obliged to go again."\r
+\r
+Edmund got up and walked about the room, saying, "And could nobody be\r
+employed on such an errand but Fanny? Upon my word, ma'am, it has been a\r
+very ill-managed business."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I do not know how it was to have been done better," cried\r
+Mrs. Norris, unable to be longer deaf; "unless I had gone myself,\r
+indeed; but I cannot be in two places at once; and I was talking to Mr.\r
+Green at that very time about your mother's dairymaid, by _her_ desire,\r
+and had promised John Groom to write to Mrs. Jefferies about his son,\r
+and the poor fellow was waiting for me half an hour. I think nobody\r
+can justly accuse me of sparing myself upon any occasion, but really I\r
+cannot do everything at once. And as for Fanny's just stepping down\r
+to my house for me--it is not much above a quarter of a mile--I cannot\r
+think I was unreasonable to ask it. How often do I pace it three times a\r
+day, early and late, ay, and in all weathers too, and say nothing about\r
+it?"\r
+\r
+"I wish Fanny had half your strength, ma'am."\r
+\r
+"If Fanny would be more regular in her exercise, she would not be\r
+knocked up so soon. She has not been out on horseback now this long\r
+while, and I am persuaded that, when she does not ride, she ought to\r
+walk. If she had been riding before, I should not have asked it of her.\r
+But I thought it would rather do her good after being stooping among the\r
+roses; for there is nothing so refreshing as a walk after a fatigue\r
+of that kind; and though the sun was strong, it was not so very hot.\r
+Between ourselves, Edmund," nodding significantly at his mother, "it was\r
+cutting the roses, and dawdling about in the flower-garden, that did the\r
+mischief."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid it was, indeed," said the more candid Lady Bertram, who had\r
+overheard her; "I am very much afraid she caught the headache there,\r
+for the heat was enough to kill anybody. It was as much as I could bear\r
+myself. Sitting and calling to Pug, and trying to keep him from the\r
+flower-beds, was almost too much for me."\r
+\r
+Edmund said no more to either lady; but going quietly to another table,\r
+on which the supper-tray yet remained, brought a glass of Madeira to\r
+Fanny, and obliged her to drink the greater part. She wished to be able\r
+to decline it; but the tears, which a variety of feelings created, made\r
+it easier to swallow than to speak.\r
+\r
+Vexed as Edmund was with his mother and aunt, he was still more angry\r
+with himself. His own forgetfulness of her was worse than anything which\r
+they had done. Nothing of this would have happened had she been properly\r
+considered; but she had been left four days together without any choice\r
+of companions or exercise, and without any excuse for avoiding whatever\r
+her unreasonable aunts might require. He was ashamed to think that\r
+for four days together she had not had the power of riding, and very\r
+seriously resolved, however unwilling he must be to check a pleasure of\r
+Miss Crawford's, that it should never happen again.\r
+\r
+Fanny went to bed with her heart as full as on the first evening of her\r
+arrival at the Park. The state of her spirits had probably had its\r
+share in her indisposition; for she had been feeling neglected, and been\r
+struggling against discontent and envy for some days past. As she leant\r
+on the sofa, to which she had retreated that she might not be seen, the\r
+pain of her mind had been much beyond that in her head; and the sudden\r
+change which Edmund's kindness had then occasioned, made her hardly know\r
+how to support herself.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+Fanny's rides recommenced the very next day; and as it was a pleasant\r
+fresh-feeling morning, less hot than the weather had lately been, Edmund\r
+trusted that her losses, both of health and pleasure, would be soon made\r
+good. While she was gone Mr. Rushworth arrived, escorting his mother,\r
+who came to be civil and to shew her civility especially, in urging the\r
+execution of the plan for visiting Sotherton, which had been started a\r
+fortnight before, and which, in consequence of her subsequent absence\r
+from home, had since lain dormant. Mrs. Norris and her nieces were all\r
+well pleased with its revival, and an early day was named and agreed\r
+to, provided Mr. Crawford should be disengaged: the young ladies did\r
+not forget that stipulation, and though Mrs. Norris would willingly have\r
+answered for his being so, they would neither authorise the liberty nor\r
+run the risk; and at last, on a hint from Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth\r
+discovered that the properest thing to be done was for him to walk down\r
+to the Parsonage directly, and call on Mr. Crawford, and inquire whether\r
+Wednesday would suit him or not.\r
+\r
+Before his return Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford came in. Having been out\r
+some time, and taken a different route to the house, they had not met\r
+him. Comfortable hopes, however, were given that he would find Mr.\r
+Crawford at home. The Sotherton scheme was mentioned of course. It was\r
+hardly possible, indeed, that anything else should be talked of,\r
+for Mrs. Norris was in high spirits about it; and Mrs. Rushworth, a\r
+well-meaning, civil, prosing, pompous woman, who thought nothing of\r
+consequence, but as it related to her own and her son's concerns,\r
+had not yet given over pressing Lady Bertram to be of the party. Lady\r
+Bertram constantly declined it; but her placid manner of refusal made\r
+Mrs. Rushworth still think she wished to come, till Mrs. Norris's more\r
+numerous words and louder tone convinced her of the truth.\r
+\r
+"The fatigue would be too much for my sister, a great deal too much, I\r
+assure you, my dear Mrs. Rushworth. Ten miles there, and ten back, you\r
+know. You must excuse my sister on this occasion, and accept of our\r
+two dear girls and myself without her. Sotherton is the only place that\r
+could give her a _wish_ to go so far, but it cannot be, indeed. She will\r
+have a companion in Fanny Price, you know, so it will all do very well;\r
+and as for Edmund, as he is not here to speak for himself, I will answer\r
+for his being most happy to join the party. He can go on horseback, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth being obliged to yield to Lady Bertram's staying at home,\r
+could only be sorry. "The loss of her ladyship's company would be a\r
+great drawback, and she should have been extremely happy to have seen\r
+the young lady too, Miss Price, who had never been at Sotherton yet, and\r
+it was a pity she should not see the place."\r
+\r
+"You are very kind, you are all kindness, my dear madam," cried Mrs.\r
+Norris; "but as to Fanny, she will have opportunities in plenty of\r
+seeing Sotherton. She has time enough before her; and her going now is\r
+quite out of the question. Lady Bertram could not possibly spare her."\r
+\r
+"Oh no! I cannot do without Fanny."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth proceeded next, under the conviction that everybody must\r
+be wanting to see Sotherton, to include Miss Crawford in the invitation;\r
+and though Mrs. Grant, who had not been at the trouble of visiting Mrs.\r
+Rushworth, on her coming into the neighbourhood, civilly declined it on\r
+her own account, she was glad to secure any pleasure for her sister;\r
+and Mary, properly pressed and persuaded, was not long in accepting\r
+her share of the civility. Mr. Rushworth came back from the Parsonage\r
+successful; and Edmund made his appearance just in time to learn\r
+what had been settled for Wednesday, to attend Mrs. Rushworth to her\r
+carriage, and walk half-way down the park with the two other ladies.\r
+\r
+On his return to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs. Norris trying to\r
+make up her mind as to whether Miss Crawford's being of the party were\r
+desirable or not, or whether her brother's barouche would not be full\r
+without her. The Miss Bertrams laughed at the idea, assuring her that\r
+the barouche would hold four perfectly well, independent of the box, on\r
+which _one_ might go with him.\r
+\r
+"But why is it necessary," said Edmund, "that Crawford's carriage, or\r
+his _only_, should be employed? Why is no use to be made of my mother's\r
+chaise? I could not, when the scheme was first mentioned the other\r
+day, understand why a visit from the family were not to be made in the\r
+carriage of the family."\r
+\r
+"What!" cried Julia: "go boxed up three in a postchaise in this weather,\r
+when we may have seats in a barouche! No, my dear Edmund, that will not\r
+quite do."\r
+\r
+"Besides," said Maria, "I know that Mr. Crawford depends upon taking us.\r
+After what passed at first, he would claim it as a promise."\r
+\r
+"And, my dear Edmund," added Mrs. Norris, "taking out _two_ carriages\r
+when _one_ will do, would be trouble for nothing; and, between\r
+ourselves, coachman is not very fond of the roads between this and\r
+Sotherton: he always complains bitterly of the narrow lanes scratching\r
+his carriage, and you know one should not like to have dear Sir Thomas,\r
+when he comes home, find all the varnish scratched off."\r
+\r
+"That would not be a very handsome reason for using Mr. Crawford's,"\r
+said Maria; "but the truth is, that Wilcox is a stupid old fellow, and\r
+does not know how to drive. I will answer for it that we shall find no\r
+inconvenience from narrow roads on Wednesday."\r
+\r
+"There is no hardship, I suppose, nothing unpleasant," said Edmund, "in\r
+going on the barouche box."\r
+\r
+"Unpleasant!" cried Maria: "oh dear! I believe it would be generally\r
+thought the favourite seat. There can be no comparison as to one's view\r
+of the country. Probably Miss Crawford will choose the barouche-box\r
+herself."\r
+\r
+"There can be no objection, then, to Fanny's going with you; there can\r
+be no doubt of your having room for her."\r
+\r
+"Fanny!" repeated Mrs. Norris; "my dear Edmund, there is no idea of her\r
+going with us. She stays with her aunt. I told Mrs. Rushworth so. She is\r
+not expected."\r
+\r
+"You can have no reason, I imagine, madam," said he, addressing his\r
+mother, "for wishing Fanny _not_ to be of the party, but as it relates\r
+to yourself, to your own comfort. If you could do without her, you would\r
+not wish to keep her at home?"\r
+\r
+"To be sure not, but I _cannot_ do without her."\r
+\r
+"You can, if I stay at home with you, as I mean to do."\r
+\r
+There was a general cry out at this. "Yes," he continued, "there is no\r
+necessity for my going, and I mean to stay at home. Fanny has a great\r
+desire to see Sotherton. I know she wishes it very much. She has not\r
+often a gratification of the kind, and I am sure, ma'am, you would be\r
+glad to give her the pleasure now?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! very glad, if your aunt sees no objection."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris was very ready with the only objection which could\r
+remain--their having positively assured Mrs. Rushworth that Fanny could\r
+not go, and the very strange appearance there would consequently be in\r
+taking her, which seemed to her a difficulty quite impossible to be got\r
+over. It must have the strangest appearance! It would be something so\r
+very unceremonious, so bordering on disrespect for Mrs. Rushworth, whose\r
+own manners were such a pattern of good-breeding and attention, that she\r
+really did not feel equal to it. Mrs. Norris had no affection for Fanny,\r
+and no wish of procuring her pleasure at any time; but her opposition to\r
+Edmund _now_, arose more from partiality for her own scheme, because it\r
+_was_ her own, than from anything else. She felt that she had arranged\r
+everything extremely well, and that any alteration must be for the\r
+worse. When Edmund, therefore, told her in reply, as he did when she\r
+would give him the hearing, that she need not distress herself on Mrs.\r
+Rushworth's account, because he had taken the opportunity, as he walked\r
+with her through the hall, of mentioning Miss Price as one who would\r
+probably be of the party, and had directly received a very sufficient\r
+invitation for his cousin, Mrs. Norris was too much vexed to submit with\r
+a very good grace, and would only say, "Very well, very well, just as\r
+you chuse, settle it your own way, I am sure I do not care about it."\r
+\r
+"It seems very odd," said Maria, "that you should be staying at home\r
+instead of Fanny."\r
+\r
+"I am sure she ought to be very much obliged to you," added Julia,\r
+hastily leaving the room as she spoke, from a consciousness that she\r
+ought to offer to stay at home herself.\r
+\r
+"Fanny will feel quite as grateful as the occasion requires," was\r
+Edmund's only reply, and the subject dropt.\r
+\r
+Fanny's gratitude, when she heard the plan, was, in fact, much greater\r
+than her pleasure. She felt Edmund's kindness with all, and more than\r
+all, the sensibility which he, unsuspicious of her fond attachment,\r
+could be aware of; but that he should forego any enjoyment on her\r
+account gave her pain, and her own satisfaction in seeing Sotherton\r
+would be nothing without him.\r
+\r
+The next meeting of the two Mansfield families produced another\r
+alteration in the plan, and one that was admitted with general\r
+approbation. Mrs. Grant offered herself as companion for the day to Lady\r
+Bertram in lieu of her son, and Dr. Grant was to join them at dinner.\r
+Lady Bertram was very well pleased to have it so, and the young ladies\r
+were in spirits again. Even Edmund was very thankful for an arrangement\r
+which restored him to his share of the party; and Mrs. Norris thought it\r
+an excellent plan, and had it at her tongue's end, and was on the point\r
+of proposing it, when Mrs. Grant spoke.\r
+\r
+Wednesday was fine, and soon after breakfast the barouche arrived, Mr.\r
+Crawford driving his sisters; and as everybody was ready, there was\r
+nothing to be done but for Mrs. Grant to alight and the others to take\r
+their places. The place of all places, the envied seat, the post of\r
+honour, was unappropriated. To whose happy lot was it to fall? While\r
+each of the Miss Bertrams were meditating how best, and with the most\r
+appearance of obliging the others, to secure it, the matter was settled\r
+by Mrs. Grant's saying, as she stepped from the carriage, "As there are\r
+five of you, it will be better that one should sit with Henry; and as\r
+you were saying lately that you wished you could drive, Julia, I think\r
+this will be a good opportunity for you to take a lesson."\r
+\r
+Happy Julia! Unhappy Maria! The former was on the barouche-box in a\r
+moment, the latter took her seat within, in gloom and mortification; and\r
+the carriage drove off amid the good wishes of the two remaining ladies,\r
+and the barking of Pug in his mistress's arms.\r
+\r
+Their road was through a pleasant country; and Fanny, whose rides had\r
+never been extensive, was soon beyond her knowledge, and was very happy\r
+in observing all that was new, and admiring all that was pretty. She was\r
+not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did\r
+she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her\r
+best companions; and, in observing the appearance of the country, the\r
+bearings of the roads, the difference of soil, the state of the harvest,\r
+the cottages, the cattle, the children, she found entertainment that\r
+could only have been heightened by having Edmund to speak to of what she\r
+felt. That was the only point of resemblance between her and the lady\r
+who sat by her: in everything but a value for Edmund, Miss Crawford was\r
+very unlike her. She had none of Fanny's delicacy of taste, of mind, of\r
+feeling; she saw Nature, inanimate Nature, with little observation;\r
+her attention was all for men and women, her talents for the light\r
+and lively. In looking back after Edmund, however, when there was any\r
+stretch of road behind them, or when he gained on them in ascending a\r
+considerable hill, they were united, and a "there he is" broke at the\r
+same moment from them both, more than once.\r
+\r
+For the first seven miles Miss Bertram had very little real comfort:\r
+her prospect always ended in Mr. Crawford and her sister sitting side by\r
+side, full of conversation and merriment; and to see only his expressive\r
+profile as he turned with a smile to Julia, or to catch the laugh of\r
+the other, was a perpetual source of irritation, which her own sense\r
+of propriety could but just smooth over. When Julia looked back, it was\r
+with a countenance of delight, and whenever she spoke to them, it was in\r
+the highest spirits: "her view of the country was charming, she wished\r
+they could all see it," etc.; but her only offer of exchange was\r
+addressed to Miss Crawford, as they gained the summit of a long hill,\r
+and was not more inviting than this: "Here is a fine burst of country. I\r
+wish you had my seat, but I dare say you will not take it, let me press\r
+you ever so much;" and Miss Crawford could hardly answer before they\r
+were moving again at a good pace.\r
+\r
+When they came within the influence of Sotherton associations, it was\r
+better for Miss Bertram, who might be said to have two strings to her\r
+bow. She had Rushworth feelings, and Crawford feelings, and in\r
+the vicinity of Sotherton the former had considerable effect. Mr.\r
+Rushworth's consequence was hers. She could not tell Miss Crawford that\r
+"those woods belonged to Sotherton," she could not carelessly observe\r
+that "she believed that it was now all Mr. Rushworth's property on each\r
+side of the road," without elation of heart; and it was a pleasure\r
+to increase with their approach to the capital freehold mansion,\r
+and ancient manorial residence of the family, with all its rights of\r
+court-leet and court-baron.\r
+\r
+"Now we shall have no more rough road, Miss Crawford; our difficulties\r
+are over. The rest of the way is such as it ought to be. Mr. Rushworth\r
+has made it since he succeeded to the estate. Here begins the village.\r
+Those cottages are really a disgrace. The church spire is reckoned\r
+remarkably handsome. I am glad the church is not so close to the great\r
+house as often happens in old places. The annoyance of the bells must be\r
+terrible. There is the parsonage: a tidy-looking house, and I understand\r
+the clergyman and his wife are very decent people. Those are almshouses,\r
+built by some of the family. To the right is the steward's house; he\r
+is a very respectable man. Now we are coming to the lodge-gates; but we\r
+have nearly a mile through the park still. It is not ugly, you see, at\r
+this end; there is some fine timber, but the situation of the house is\r
+dreadful. We go down hill to it for half a mile, and it is a pity, for\r
+it would not be an ill-looking place if it had a better approach."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford was not slow to admire; she pretty well guessed Miss\r
+Bertram's feelings, and made it a point of honour to promote her\r
+enjoyment to the utmost. Mrs. Norris was all delight and volubility; and\r
+even Fanny had something to say in admiration, and might be heard with\r
+complacency. Her eye was eagerly taking in everything within her reach;\r
+and after being at some pains to get a view of the house, and observing\r
+that "it was a sort of building which she could not look at but with\r
+respect," she added, "Now, where is the avenue? The house fronts the\r
+east, I perceive. The avenue, therefore, must be at the back of it. Mr.\r
+Rushworth talked of the west front."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it is exactly behind the house; begins at a little distance, and\r
+ascends for half a mile to the extremity of the grounds. You may see\r
+something of it here--something of the more distant trees. It is oak\r
+entirely."\r
+\r
+Miss Bertram could now speak with decided information of what she had\r
+known nothing about when Mr. Rushworth had asked her opinion; and her\r
+spirits were in as happy a flutter as vanity and pride could furnish,\r
+when they drove up to the spacious stone steps before the principal\r
+entrance.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Mr. Rushworth was at the door to receive his fair lady; and the whole\r
+party were welcomed by him with due attention. In the drawing-room they\r
+were met with equal cordiality by the mother, and Miss Bertram had all\r
+the distinction with each that she could wish. After the business of\r
+arriving was over, it was first necessary to eat, and the doors were\r
+thrown open to admit them through one or two intermediate rooms into the\r
+appointed dining-parlour, where a collation was prepared with abundance\r
+and elegance. Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well. The\r
+particular object of the day was then considered. How would Mr. Crawford\r
+like, in what manner would he chuse, to take a survey of the grounds?\r
+Mr. Rushworth mentioned his curricle. Mr. Crawford suggested the greater\r
+desirableness of some carriage which might convey more than two. "To be\r
+depriving themselves of the advantage of other eyes and other judgments,\r
+might be an evil even beyond the loss of present pleasure."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth proposed that the chaise should be taken also; but this\r
+was scarcely received as an amendment: the young ladies neither smiled\r
+nor spoke. Her next proposition, of shewing the house to such of them\r
+as had not been there before, was more acceptable, for Miss Bertram\r
+was pleased to have its size displayed, and all were glad to be doing\r
+something.\r
+\r
+The whole party rose accordingly, and under Mrs. Rushworth's guidance\r
+were shewn through a number of rooms, all lofty, and many large, and\r
+amply furnished in the taste of fifty years back, with shining floors,\r
+solid mahogany, rich damask, marble, gilding, and carving, each handsome\r
+in its way. Of pictures there were abundance, and some few good, but\r
+the larger part were family portraits, no longer anything to anybody\r
+but Mrs. Rushworth, who had been at great pains to learn all that the\r
+housekeeper could teach, and was now almost equally well qualified to\r
+shew the house. On the present occasion she addressed herself chiefly to\r
+Miss Crawford and Fanny, but there was no comparison in the willingness\r
+of their attention; for Miss Crawford, who had seen scores of great\r
+houses, and cared for none of them, had only the appearance of civilly\r
+listening, while Fanny, to whom everything was almost as interesting\r
+as it was new, attended with unaffected earnestness to all that Mrs.\r
+Rushworth could relate of the family in former times, its rise and\r
+grandeur, regal visits and loyal efforts, delighted to connect anything\r
+with history already known, or warm her imagination with scenes of the\r
+past.\r
+\r
+The situation of the house excluded the possibility of much prospect\r
+from any of the rooms; and while Fanny and some of the others were\r
+attending Mrs. Rushworth, Henry Crawford was looking grave and shaking\r
+his head at the windows. Every room on the west front looked across\r
+a lawn to the beginning of the avenue immediately beyond tall iron\r
+palisades and gates.\r
+\r
+Having visited many more rooms than could be supposed to be of any\r
+other use than to contribute to the window-tax, and find employment for\r
+housemaids, "Now," said Mrs. Rushworth, "we are coming to the chapel,\r
+which properly we ought to enter from above, and look down upon; but\r
+as we are quite among friends, I will take you in this way, if you will\r
+excuse me."\r
+\r
+They entered. Fanny's imagination had prepared her for something\r
+grander than a mere spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of\r
+devotion: with nothing more striking or more solemn than the profusion\r
+of mahogany, and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge of\r
+the family gallery above. "I am disappointed," said she, in a low voice,\r
+to Edmund. "This is not my idea of a chapel. There is nothing awful\r
+here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand. Here are no aisles, no arches,\r
+no inscriptions, no banners. No banners, cousin, to be 'blown by the\r
+night wind of heaven.' No signs that a 'Scottish monarch sleeps below.'"\r
+\r
+"You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and for how\r
+confined a purpose, compared with the old chapels of castles and\r
+monasteries. It was only for the private use of the family. They have\r
+been buried, I suppose, in the parish church. _There_ you must look for\r
+the banners and the achievements."\r
+\r
+"It was foolish of me not to think of all that; but I am disappointed."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth began her relation. "This chapel was fitted up as you see\r
+it, in James the Second's time. Before that period, as I understand,\r
+the pews were only wainscot; and there is some reason to think that\r
+the linings and cushions of the pulpit and family seat were only purple\r
+cloth; but this is not quite certain. It is a handsome chapel, and was\r
+formerly in constant use both morning and evening. Prayers were always\r
+read in it by the domestic chaplain, within the memory of many; but the\r
+late Mr. Rushworth left it off."\r
+\r
+"Every generation has its improvements," said Miss Crawford, with a\r
+smile, to Edmund.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth was gone to repeat her lesson to Mr. Crawford; and\r
+Edmund, Fanny, and Miss Crawford remained in a cluster together.\r
+\r
+"It is a pity," cried Fanny, "that the custom should have been\r
+discontinued. It was a valuable part of former times. There is something\r
+in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house,\r
+with one's ideas of what such a household should be! A whole family\r
+assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!"\r
+\r
+"Very fine indeed," said Miss Crawford, laughing. "It must do the heads\r
+of the family a great deal of good to force all the poor housemaids and\r
+footmen to leave business and pleasure, and say their prayers here twice\r
+a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying away."\r
+\r
+"_That_ is hardly Fanny's idea of a family assembling," said Edmund. "If\r
+the master and mistress do _not_ attend themselves, there must be more\r
+harm than good in the custom."\r
+\r
+"At any rate, it is safer to leave people to their own devices on such\r
+subjects. Everybody likes to go their own way--to chuse their own time\r
+and manner of devotion. The obligation of attendance, the formality, the\r
+restraint, the length of time--altogether it is a formidable thing, and\r
+what nobody likes; and if the good people who used to kneel and gape in\r
+that gallery could have foreseen that the time would ever come when men\r
+and women might lie another ten minutes in bed, when they woke with a\r
+headache, without danger of reprobation, because chapel was missed,\r
+they would have jumped with joy and envy. Cannot you imagine with what\r
+unwilling feelings the former belles of the house of Rushworth did\r
+many a time repair to this chapel? The young Mrs. Eleanors and Mrs.\r
+Bridgets--starched up into seeming piety, but with heads full of\r
+something very different--especially if the poor chaplain were not worth\r
+looking at--and, in those days, I fancy parsons were very inferior even\r
+to what they are now."\r
+\r
+For a few moments she was unanswered. Fanny coloured and looked\r
+at Edmund, but felt too angry for speech; and he needed a little\r
+recollection before he could say, "Your lively mind can hardly be\r
+serious even on serious subjects. You have given us an amusing sketch,\r
+and human nature cannot say it was not so. We must all feel _at_ _times_\r
+the difficulty of fixing our thoughts as we could wish; but if you are\r
+supposing it a frequent thing, that is to say, a weakness grown into a\r
+habit from neglect, what could be expected from the _private_ devotions\r
+of such persons? Do you think the minds which are suffered, which\r
+are indulged in wanderings in a chapel, would be more collected in a\r
+closet?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very likely. They would have two chances at least in their favour.\r
+There would be less to distract the attention from without, and it would\r
+not be tried so long."\r
+\r
+"The mind which does not struggle against itself under _one_\r
+circumstance, would find objects to distract it in the _other_, I\r
+believe; and the influence of the place and of example may often rouse\r
+better feelings than are begun with. The greater length of the service,\r
+however, I admit to be sometimes too hard a stretch upon the mind. One\r
+wishes it were not so; but I have not yet left Oxford long enough to\r
+forget what chapel prayers are."\r
+\r
+While this was passing, the rest of the party being scattered about the\r
+chapel, Julia called Mr. Crawford's attention to her sister, by saying,\r
+"Do look at Mr. Rushworth and Maria, standing side by side, exactly as\r
+if the ceremony were going to be performed. Have not they completely the\r
+air of it?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford smiled his acquiescence, and stepping forward to Maria,\r
+said, in a voice which she only could hear, "I do not like to see Miss\r
+Bertram so near the altar."\r
+\r
+Starting, the lady instinctively moved a step or two, but recovering\r
+herself in a moment, affected to laugh, and asked him, in a tone not\r
+much louder, "If he would give her away?"\r
+\r
+"I am afraid I should do it very awkwardly," was his reply, with a look\r
+of meaning.\r
+\r
+Julia, joining them at the moment, carried on the joke.\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, it is really a pity that it should not take place\r
+directly, if we had but a proper licence, for here we are altogether,\r
+and nothing in the world could be more snug and pleasant." And she\r
+talked and laughed about it with so little caution as to catch the\r
+comprehension of Mr. Rushworth and his mother, and expose her sister to\r
+the whispered gallantries of her lover, while Mrs. Rushworth spoke\r
+with proper smiles and dignity of its being a most happy event to her\r
+whenever it took place.\r
+\r
+"If Edmund were but in orders!" cried Julia, and running to where he\r
+stood with Miss Crawford and Fanny: "My dear Edmund, if you were but in\r
+orders now, you might perform the ceremony directly. How unlucky that\r
+you are not ordained; Mr. Rushworth and Maria are quite ready."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford's countenance, as Julia spoke, might have amused a\r
+disinterested observer. She looked almost aghast under the new idea she\r
+was receiving. Fanny pitied her. "How distressed she will be at what she\r
+said just now," passed across her mind.\r
+\r
+"Ordained!" said Miss Crawford; "what, are you to be a clergyman?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; I shall take orders soon after my father's return--probably at\r
+Christmas."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford, rallying her spirits, and recovering her complexion,\r
+replied only, "If I had known this before, I would have spoken of the\r
+cloth with more respect," and turned the subject.\r
+\r
+The chapel was soon afterwards left to the silence and stillness\r
+which reigned in it, with few interruptions, throughout the year. Miss\r
+Bertram, displeased with her sister, led the way, and all seemed to feel\r
+that they had been there long enough.\r
+\r
+The lower part of the house had been now entirely shewn, and Mrs.\r
+Rushworth, never weary in the cause, would have proceeded towards the\r
+principal staircase, and taken them through all the rooms above, if her\r
+son had not interposed with a doubt of there being time enough. "For\r
+if," said he, with the sort of self-evident proposition which many a\r
+clearer head does not always avoid, "we are _too_ long going over the\r
+house, we shall not have time for what is to be done out of doors. It is\r
+past two, and we are to dine at five."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth submitted; and the question of surveying the grounds,\r
+with the who and the how, was likely to be more fully agitated, and Mrs.\r
+Norris was beginning to arrange by what junction of carriages and horses\r
+most could be done, when the young people, meeting with an outward door,\r
+temptingly open on a flight of steps which led immediately to turf and\r
+shrubs, and all the sweets of pleasure-grounds, as by one impulse, one\r
+wish for air and liberty, all walked out.\r
+\r
+"Suppose we turn down here for the present," said Mrs. Rushworth,\r
+civilly taking the hint and following them. "Here are the greatest\r
+number of our plants, and here are the curious pheasants."\r
+\r
+"Query," said Mr. Crawford, looking round him, "whether we may not find\r
+something to employ us here before we go farther? I see walls of great\r
+promise. Mr. Rushworth, shall we summon a council on this lawn?"\r
+\r
+"James," said Mrs. Rushworth to her son, "I believe the wilderness\r
+will be new to all the party. The Miss Bertrams have never seen the\r
+wilderness yet."\r
+\r
+No objection was made, but for some time there seemed no inclination to\r
+move in any plan, or to any distance. All were attracted at first by the\r
+plants or the pheasants, and all dispersed about in happy independence.\r
+Mr. Crawford was the first to move forward to examine the capabilities\r
+of that end of the house. The lawn, bounded on each side by a high wall,\r
+contained beyond the first planted area a bowling-green, and beyond\r
+the bowling-green a long terrace walk, backed by iron palisades, and\r
+commanding a view over them into the tops of the trees of the wilderness\r
+immediately adjoining. It was a good spot for fault-finding. Mr.\r
+Crawford was soon followed by Miss Bertram and Mr. Rushworth; and when,\r
+after a little time, the others began to form into parties, these three\r
+were found in busy consultation on the terrace by Edmund, Miss Crawford,\r
+and Fanny, who seemed as naturally to unite, and who, after a short\r
+participation of their regrets and difficulties, left them and walked\r
+on. The remaining three, Mrs. Rushworth, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, were\r
+still far behind; for Julia, whose happy star no longer prevailed,\r
+was obliged to keep by the side of Mrs. Rushworth, and restrain her\r
+impatient feet to that lady's slow pace, while her aunt, having fallen\r
+in with the housekeeper, who was come out to feed the pheasants, was\r
+lingering behind in gossip with her. Poor Julia, the only one out of\r
+the nine not tolerably satisfied with their lot, was now in a state of\r
+complete penance, and as different from the Julia of the barouche-box as\r
+could well be imagined. The politeness which she had been brought up to\r
+practise as a duty made it impossible for her to escape; while the\r
+want of that higher species of self-command, that just consideration of\r
+others, that knowledge of her own heart, that principle of right, which\r
+had not formed any essential part of her education, made her miserable\r
+under it.\r
+\r
+"This is insufferably hot," said Miss Crawford, when they had taken one\r
+turn on the terrace, and were drawing a second time to the door in the\r
+middle which opened to the wilderness. "Shall any of us object to being\r
+comfortable? Here is a nice little wood, if one can but get into it.\r
+What happiness if the door should not be locked! but of course it is;\r
+for in these great places the gardeners are the only people who can go\r
+where they like."\r
+\r
+The door, however, proved not to be locked, and they were all agreed in\r
+turning joyfully through it, and leaving the unmitigated glare of day\r
+behind. A considerable flight of steps landed them in the wilderness,\r
+which was a planted wood of about two acres, and though chiefly of\r
+larch and laurel, and beech cut down, and though laid out with too much\r
+regularity, was darkness and shade, and natural beauty, compared with\r
+the bowling-green and the terrace. They all felt the refreshment of it,\r
+and for some time could only walk and admire. At length, after a short\r
+pause, Miss Crawford began with, "So you are to be a clergyman, Mr.\r
+Bertram. This is rather a surprise to me."\r
+\r
+"Why should it surprise you? You must suppose me designed for some\r
+profession, and might perceive that I am neither a lawyer, nor a\r
+soldier, nor a sailor."\r
+\r
+"Very true; but, in short, it had not occurred to me. And you know there\r
+is generally an uncle or a grandfather to leave a fortune to the second\r
+son."\r
+\r
+"A very praiseworthy practice," said Edmund, "but not quite universal.\r
+I am one of the exceptions, and _being_ one, must do something for\r
+myself."\r
+\r
+"But why are you to be a clergyman? I thought _that_ was always the lot\r
+of the youngest, where there were many to chuse before him."\r
+\r
+"Do you think the church itself never chosen, then?"\r
+\r
+"_Never_ is a black word. But yes, in the _never_ of conversation, which\r
+means _not_ _very_ _often_, I do think it. For what is to be done in the\r
+church? Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the other\r
+lines distinction may be gained, but not in the church. A clergyman is\r
+nothing."\r
+\r
+"The _nothing_ of conversation has its gradations, I hope, as well as\r
+the _never_. A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must\r
+not head mobs, or set the ton in dress. But I cannot call that situation\r
+nothing which has the charge of all that is of the first importance\r
+to mankind, individually or collectively considered, temporally and\r
+eternally, which has the guardianship of religion and morals, and\r
+consequently of the manners which result from their influence. No one\r
+here can call the _office_ nothing. If the man who holds it is so, it\r
+is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its just importance, and\r
+stepping out of his place to appear what he ought not to appear."\r
+\r
+"_You_ assign greater consequence to the clergyman than one has been\r
+used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see\r
+much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be\r
+acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? How can two sermons a\r
+week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have\r
+the sense to prefer Blair's to his own, do all that you speak of? govern\r
+the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the rest\r
+of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit."\r
+\r
+"_You_ are speaking of London, _I_ am speaking of the nation at large."\r
+\r
+"The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest."\r
+\r
+"Not, I should hope, of the proportion of virtue to vice throughout the\r
+kingdom. We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not\r
+there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and\r
+it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most\r
+felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in fine\r
+preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish and\r
+his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size\r
+capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general\r
+conduct, which in London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost\r
+there in the crowds of their parishioners. They are known to the largest\r
+part only as preachers. And with regard to their influencing public\r
+manners, Miss Crawford must not misunderstand me, or suppose I mean to\r
+call them the arbiters of good-breeding, the regulators of refinement\r
+and courtesy, the masters of the ceremonies of life. The _manners_ I\r
+speak of might rather be called _conduct_, perhaps, the result of good\r
+principles; the effect, in short, of those doctrines which it is their\r
+duty to teach and recommend; and it will, I believe, be everywhere\r
+found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are\r
+the rest of the nation."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," said Fanny, with gentle earnestness.\r
+\r
+"There," cried Miss Crawford, "you have quite convinced Miss Price\r
+already."\r
+\r
+"I wish I could convince Miss Crawford too."\r
+\r
+"I do not think you ever will," said she, with an arch smile; "I am just\r
+as much surprised now as I was at first that you should intend to take\r
+orders. You really are fit for something better. Come, do change your\r
+mind. It is not too late. Go into the law."\r
+\r
+"Go into the law! With as much ease as I was told to go into this\r
+wilderness."\r
+\r
+"Now you are going to say something about law being the worst wilderness\r
+of the two, but I forestall you; remember, I have forestalled you."\r
+\r
+"You need not hurry when the object is only to prevent my saying a\r
+_bon_ _mot_, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very\r
+matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a\r
+repartee for half an hour together without striking it out."\r
+\r
+A general silence succeeded. Each was thoughtful. Fanny made the first\r
+interruption by saying, "I wonder that I should be tired with only\r
+walking in this sweet wood; but the next time we come to a seat, if it\r
+is not disagreeable to you, I should be glad to sit down for a little\r
+while."\r
+\r
+"My dear Fanny," cried Edmund, immediately drawing her arm within his,\r
+"how thoughtless I have been! I hope you are not very tired. Perhaps,"\r
+turning to Miss Crawford, "my other companion may do me the honour of\r
+taking an arm."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, but I am not at all tired." She took it, however, as she\r
+spoke, and the gratification of having her do so, of feeling such a\r
+connexion for the first time, made him a little forgetful of Fanny.\r
+"You scarcely touch me," said he. "You do not make me of any use. What a\r
+difference in the weight of a woman's arm from that of a man! At Oxford\r
+I have been a good deal used to have a man lean on me for the length of\r
+a street, and you are only a fly in the comparison."\r
+\r
+"I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at; for we must have\r
+walked at least a mile in this wood. Do not you think we have?"\r
+\r
+"Not half a mile," was his sturdy answer; for he was not yet so much in\r
+love as to measure distance, or reckon time, with feminine lawlessness.\r
+\r
+"Oh! you do not consider how much we have wound about. We have taken\r
+such a very serpentine course, and the wood itself must be half a mile\r
+long in a straight line, for we have never seen the end of it yet since\r
+we left the first great path."\r
+\r
+"But if you remember, before we left that first great path, we saw\r
+directly to the end of it. We looked down the whole vista, and saw it\r
+closed by iron gates, and it could not have been more than a furlong in\r
+length."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I know nothing of your furlongs, but I am sure it is a very long\r
+wood, and that we have been winding in and out ever since we came into\r
+it; and therefore, when I say that we have walked a mile in it, I must\r
+speak within compass."\r
+\r
+"We have been exactly a quarter of an hour here," said Edmund, taking\r
+out his watch. "Do you think we are walking four miles an hour?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too\r
+slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch."\r
+\r
+A few steps farther brought them out at the bottom of the very walk they\r
+had been talking of; and standing back, well shaded and sheltered, and\r
+looking over a ha-ha into the park, was a comfortable-sized bench, on\r
+which they all sat down.\r
+\r
+"I am afraid you are very tired, Fanny," said Edmund, observing her;\r
+"why would not you speak sooner? This will be a bad day's amusement for\r
+you if you are to be knocked up. Every sort of exercise fatigues her so\r
+soon, Miss Crawford, except riding."\r
+\r
+"How abominable in you, then, to let me engross her horse as I did all\r
+last week! I am ashamed of you and of myself, but it shall never happen\r
+again."\r
+\r
+"_Your_ attentiveness and consideration makes me more sensible of my own\r
+neglect. Fanny's interest seems in safer hands with you than with me."\r
+\r
+"That she should be tired now, however, gives me no surprise; for there\r
+is nothing in the course of one's duties so fatiguing as what we have\r
+been doing this morning: seeing a great house, dawdling from one room to\r
+another, straining one's eyes and one's attention, hearing what one does\r
+not understand, admiring what one does not care for. It is generally\r
+allowed to be the greatest bore in the world, and Miss Price has found\r
+it so, though she did not know it."\r
+\r
+"I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine\r
+day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment."\r
+\r
+After sitting a little while Miss Crawford was up again. "I must move,"\r
+said she; "resting fatigues me. I have looked across the ha-ha till I\r
+am weary. I must go and look through that iron gate at the same view,\r
+without being able to see it so well."\r
+\r
+Edmund left the seat likewise. "Now, Miss Crawford, if you will look up\r
+the walk, you will convince yourself that it cannot be half a mile long,\r
+or half half a mile."\r
+\r
+"It is an immense distance," said she; "I see _that_ with a glance."\r
+\r
+He still reasoned with her, but in vain. She would not calculate, she\r
+would not compare. She would only smile and assert. The greatest degree\r
+of rational consistency could not have been more engaging, and they\r
+talked with mutual satisfaction. At last it was agreed that they should\r
+endeavour to determine the dimensions of the wood by walking a little\r
+more about it. They would go to one end of it, in the line they were\r
+then in--for there was a straight green walk along the bottom by\r
+the side of the ha-ha--and perhaps turn a little way in some other\r
+direction, if it seemed likely to assist them, and be back in a few\r
+minutes. Fanny said she was rested, and would have moved too, but this\r
+was not suffered. Edmund urged her remaining where she was with an\r
+earnestness which she could not resist, and she was left on the bench to\r
+think with pleasure of her cousin's care, but with great regret that she\r
+was not stronger. She watched them till they had turned the corner, and\r
+listened till all sound of them had ceased.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, passed away, and Fanny was still\r
+thinking of Edmund, Miss Crawford, and herself, without interruption\r
+from any one. She began to be surprised at being left so long, and to\r
+listen with an anxious desire of hearing their steps and their voices\r
+again. She listened, and at length she heard; she heard voices and feet\r
+approaching; but she had just satisfied herself that it was not those\r
+she wanted, when Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth, and Mr. Crawford issued\r
+from the same path which she had trod herself, and were before her.\r
+\r
+"Miss Price all alone" and "My dear Fanny, how comes this?" were the\r
+first salutations. She told her story. "Poor dear Fanny," cried her\r
+cousin, "how ill you have been used by them! You had better have staid\r
+with us."\r
+\r
+Then seating herself with a gentleman on each side, she resumed\r
+the conversation which had engaged them before, and discussed the\r
+possibility of improvements with much animation. Nothing was fixed\r
+on; but Henry Crawford was full of ideas and projects, and, generally\r
+speaking, whatever he proposed was immediately approved, first by her,\r
+and then by Mr. Rushworth, whose principal business seemed to be to\r
+hear the others, and who scarcely risked an original thought of his own\r
+beyond a wish that they had seen his friend Smith's place.\r
+\r
+After some minutes spent in this way, Miss Bertram, observing the iron\r
+gate, expressed a wish of passing through it into the park, that their\r
+views and their plans might be more comprehensive. It was the very thing\r
+of all others to be wished, it was the best, it was the only way of\r
+proceeding with any advantage, in Henry Crawford's opinion; and he\r
+directly saw a knoll not half a mile off, which would give them exactly\r
+the requisite command of the house. Go therefore they must to that\r
+knoll, and through that gate; but the gate was locked. Mr. Rushworth\r
+wished he had brought the key; he had been very near thinking whether he\r
+should not bring the key; he was determined he would never come without\r
+the key again; but still this did not remove the present evil. They\r
+could not get through; and as Miss Bertram's inclination for so doing\r
+did by no means lessen, it ended in Mr. Rushworth's declaring outright\r
+that he would go and fetch the key. He set off accordingly.\r
+\r
+"It is undoubtedly the best thing we can do now, as we are so far from\r
+the house already," said Mr. Crawford, when he was gone.\r
+\r
+"Yes, there is nothing else to be done. But now, sincerely, do not you\r
+find the place altogether worse than you expected?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, far otherwise. I find it better, grander, more complete in\r
+its style, though that style may not be the best. And to tell you the\r
+truth," speaking rather lower, "I do not think that _I_ shall ever see\r
+Sotherton again with so much pleasure as I do now. Another summer will\r
+hardly improve it to me."\r
+\r
+After a moment's embarrassment the lady replied, "You are too much a\r
+man of the world not to see with the eyes of the world. If other people\r
+think Sotherton improved, I have no doubt that you will."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid I am not quite so much the man of the world as might be\r
+good for me in some points. My feelings are not quite so evanescent, nor\r
+my memory of the past under such easy dominion as one finds to be the\r
+case with men of the world."\r
+\r
+This was followed by a short silence. Miss Bertram began again. "You\r
+seemed to enjoy your drive here very much this morning. I was glad to\r
+see you so well entertained. You and Julia were laughing the whole way."\r
+\r
+"Were we? Yes, I believe we were; but I have not the least recollection\r
+at what. Oh! I believe I was relating to her some ridiculous stories of\r
+an old Irish groom of my uncle's. Your sister loves to laugh."\r
+\r
+"You think her more light-hearted than I am?"\r
+\r
+"More easily amused," he replied; "consequently, you know," smiling,\r
+"better company. I could not have hoped to entertain you with Irish\r
+anecdotes during a ten miles' drive."\r
+\r
+"Naturally, I believe, I am as lively as Julia, but I have more to think\r
+of now."\r
+\r
+"You have, undoubtedly; and there are situations in which very high\r
+spirits would denote insensibility. Your prospects, however, are too\r
+fair to justify want of spirits. You have a very smiling scene before\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"Do you mean literally or figuratively? Literally, I conclude. Yes,\r
+certainly, the sun shines, and the park looks very cheerful. But\r
+unluckily that iron gate, that ha-ha, give me a feeling of restraint and\r
+hardship. 'I cannot get out,' as the starling said." As she spoke, and\r
+it was with expression, she walked to the gate: he followed her. "Mr.\r
+Rushworth is so long fetching this key!"\r
+\r
+"And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr.\r
+Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little\r
+difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance;\r
+I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and\r
+could allow yourself to think it not prohibited."\r
+\r
+"Prohibited! nonsense! I certainly can get out that way, and I will.\r
+Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment, you know; we shall not be out of\r
+sight."\r
+\r
+"Or if we are, Miss Price will be so good as to tell him that he will\r
+find us near that knoll: the grove of oak on the knoll."\r
+\r
+Fanny, feeling all this to be wrong, could not help making an effort to\r
+prevent it. "You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram," she cried; "you will\r
+certainly hurt yourself against those spikes; you will tear your gown;\r
+you will be in danger of slipping into the ha-ha. You had better not\r
+go."\r
+\r
+Her cousin was safe on the other side while these words were spoken,\r
+and, smiling with all the good-humour of success, she said, "Thank you,\r
+my dear Fanny, but I and my gown are alive and well, and so good-bye."\r
+\r
+Fanny was again left to her solitude, and with no increase of pleasant\r
+feelings, for she was sorry for almost all that she had seen and heard,\r
+astonished at Miss Bertram, and angry with Mr. Crawford. By taking\r
+a circuitous route, and, as it appeared to her, very unreasonable\r
+direction to the knoll, they were soon beyond her eye; and for some\r
+minutes longer she remained without sight or sound of any companion.\r
+She seemed to have the little wood all to herself. She could almost\r
+have thought that Edmund and Miss Crawford had left it, but that it was\r
+impossible for Edmund to forget her so entirely.\r
+\r
+She was again roused from disagreeable musings by sudden footsteps:\r
+somebody was coming at a quick pace down the principal walk. She\r
+expected Mr. Rushworth, but it was Julia, who, hot and out of breath,\r
+and with a look of disappointment, cried out on seeing her, "Heyday!\r
+Where are the others? I thought Maria and Mr. Crawford were with you."\r
+\r
+Fanny explained.\r
+\r
+"A pretty trick, upon my word! I cannot see them anywhere," looking\r
+eagerly into the park. "But they cannot be very far off, and I think I\r
+am equal to as much as Maria, even without help."\r
+\r
+"But, Julia, Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment with the key. Do\r
+wait for Mr. Rushworth."\r
+\r
+"Not I, indeed. I have had enough of the family for one morning. Why,\r
+child, I have but this moment escaped from his horrible mother. Such a\r
+penance as I have been enduring, while you were sitting here so composed\r
+and so happy! It might have been as well, perhaps, if you had been in my\r
+place, but you always contrive to keep out of these scrapes."\r
+\r
+This was a most unjust reflection, but Fanny could allow for it, and let\r
+it pass: Julia was vexed, and her temper was hasty; but she felt that it\r
+would not last, and therefore, taking no notice, only asked her if she\r
+had not seen Mr. Rushworth.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, we saw him. He was posting away as if upon life and death,\r
+and could but just spare time to tell us his errand, and where you all\r
+were."\r
+\r
+"It is a pity he should have so much trouble for nothing."\r
+\r
+"_That_ is Miss Maria's concern. I am not obliged to punish myself for\r
+_her_ sins. The mother I could not avoid, as long as my tiresome aunt\r
+was dancing about with the housekeeper, but the son I _can_ get away\r
+from."\r
+\r
+And she immediately scrambled across the fence, and walked away, not\r
+attending to Fanny's last question of whether she had seen anything of\r
+Miss Crawford and Edmund. The sort of dread in which Fanny now sat of\r
+seeing Mr. Rushworth prevented her thinking so much of their continued\r
+absence, however, as she might have done. She felt that he had been\r
+very ill-used, and was quite unhappy in having to communicate what had\r
+passed. He joined her within five minutes after Julia's exit; and\r
+though she made the best of the story, he was evidently mortified and\r
+displeased in no common degree. At first he scarcely said anything; his\r
+looks only expressed his extreme surprise and vexation, and he walked to\r
+the gate and stood there, without seeming to know what to do.\r
+\r
+"They desired me to stay--my cousin Maria charged me to say that you\r
+would find them at that knoll, or thereabouts."\r
+\r
+"I do not believe I shall go any farther," said he sullenly; "I see\r
+nothing of them. By the time I get to the knoll they may be gone\r
+somewhere else. I have had walking enough."\r
+\r
+And he sat down with a most gloomy countenance by Fanny.\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry," said she; "it is very unlucky." And she longed to be\r
+able to say something more to the purpose.\r
+\r
+After an interval of silence, "I think they might as well have staid for\r
+me," said he.\r
+\r
+"Miss Bertram thought you would follow her."\r
+\r
+"I should not have had to follow her if she had staid."\r
+\r
+This could not be denied, and Fanny was silenced. After another pause,\r
+he went on--"Pray, Miss Price, are you such a great admirer of this Mr.\r
+Crawford as some people are? For my part, I can see nothing in him."\r
+\r
+"I do not think him at all handsome."\r
+\r
+"Handsome! Nobody can call such an undersized man handsome. He is not\r
+five foot nine. I should not wonder if he is not more than five foot\r
+eight. I think he is an ill-looking fellow. In my opinion, these\r
+Crawfords are no addition at all. We did very well without them."\r
+\r
+A small sigh escaped Fanny here, and she did not know how to contradict\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"If I had made any difficulty about fetching the key, there might have\r
+been some excuse, but I went the very moment she said she wanted it."\r
+\r
+"Nothing could be more obliging than your manner, I am sure, and I dare\r
+say you walked as fast as you could; but still it is some distance, you\r
+know, from this spot to the house, quite into the house; and when people\r
+are waiting, they are bad judges of time, and every half minute seems\r
+like five."\r
+\r
+He got up and walked to the gate again, and "wished he had had the key\r
+about him at the time." Fanny thought she discerned in his standing\r
+there an indication of relenting, which encouraged her to another\r
+attempt, and she said, therefore, "It is a pity you should not join\r
+them. They expected to have a better view of the house from that part\r
+of the park, and will be thinking how it may be improved; and nothing of\r
+that sort, you know, can be settled without you."\r
+\r
+She found herself more successful in sending away than in retaining a\r
+companion. Mr. Rushworth was worked on. "Well," said he, "if you\r
+really think I had better go: it would be foolish to bring the key\r
+for nothing." And letting himself out, he walked off without farther\r
+ceremony.\r
+\r
+Fanny's thoughts were now all engrossed by the two who had left her so\r
+long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search\r
+of them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just\r
+turned up into another, when the voice and the laugh of Miss Crawford\r
+once more caught her ear; the sound approached, and a few more windings\r
+brought them before her. They were just returned into the wilderness\r
+from the park, to which a sidegate, not fastened, had tempted them very\r
+soon after their leaving her, and they had been across a portion of the\r
+park into the very avenue which Fanny had been hoping the whole morning\r
+to reach at last, and had been sitting down under one of the trees. This\r
+was their history. It was evident that they had been spending their time\r
+pleasantly, and were not aware of the length of their absence. Fanny's\r
+best consolation was in being assured that Edmund had wished for her\r
+very much, and that he should certainly have come back for her, had she\r
+not been tired already; but this was not quite sufficient to do away\r
+with the pain of having been left a whole hour, when he had talked of\r
+only a few minutes, nor to banish the sort of curiosity she felt to know\r
+what they had been conversing about all that time; and the result of\r
+the whole was to her disappointment and depression, as they prepared by\r
+general agreement to return to the house.\r
+\r
+On reaching the bottom of the steps to the terrace, Mrs. Rushworth\r
+and Mrs. Norris presented themselves at the top, just ready for the\r
+wilderness, at the end of an hour and a half from their leaving the\r
+house. Mrs. Norris had been too well employed to move faster. Whatever\r
+cross-accidents had occurred to intercept the pleasures of her nieces,\r
+she had found a morning of complete enjoyment; for the housekeeper,\r
+after a great many courtesies on the subject of pheasants, had taken her\r
+to the dairy, told her all about their cows, and given her the receipt\r
+for a famous cream cheese; and since Julia's leaving them they had\r
+been met by the gardener, with whom she had made a most satisfactory\r
+acquaintance, for she had set him right as to his grandson's illness,\r
+convinced him that it was an ague, and promised him a charm for it; and\r
+he, in return, had shewn her all his choicest nursery of plants, and\r
+actually presented her with a very curious specimen of heath.\r
+\r
+On this _rencontre_ they all returned to the house together, there\r
+to lounge away the time as they could with sofas, and chit-chat, and\r
+Quarterly Reviews, till the return of the others, and the arrival of\r
+dinner. It was late before the Miss Bertrams and the two gentlemen came\r
+in, and their ramble did not appear to have been more than partially\r
+agreeable, or at all productive of anything useful with regard to the\r
+object of the day. By their own accounts they had been all walking after\r
+each other, and the junction which had taken place at last seemed, to\r
+Fanny's observation, to have been as much too late for re-establishing\r
+harmony, as it confessedly had been for determining on any alteration.\r
+She felt, as she looked at Julia and Mr. Rushworth, that hers was not\r
+the only dissatisfied bosom amongst them: there was gloom on the face of\r
+each. Mr. Crawford and Miss Bertram were much more gay, and she thought\r
+that he was taking particular pains, during dinner, to do away any\r
+little resentment of the other two, and restore general good-humour.\r
+\r
+Dinner was soon followed by tea and coffee, a ten miles' drive home\r
+allowed no waste of hours; and from the time of their sitting down to\r
+table, it was a quick succession of busy nothings till the carriage came\r
+to the door, and Mrs. Norris, having fidgeted about, and obtained a\r
+few pheasants' eggs and a cream cheese from the housekeeper, and made\r
+abundance of civil speeches to Mrs. Rushworth, was ready to lead the\r
+way. At the same moment Mr. Crawford, approaching Julia, said, "I hope I\r
+am not to lose my companion, unless she is afraid of the evening air\r
+in so exposed a seat." The request had not been foreseen, but was very\r
+graciously received, and Julia's day was likely to end almost as well as\r
+it began. Miss Bertram had made up her mind to something different, and\r
+was a little disappointed; but her conviction of being really the\r
+one preferred comforted her under it, and enabled her to receive Mr.\r
+Rushworth's parting attentions as she ought. He was certainly better\r
+pleased to hand her into the barouche than to assist her in ascending\r
+the box, and his complacency seemed confirmed by the arrangement.\r
+\r
+"Well, Fanny, this has been a fine day for you, upon my word," said\r
+Mrs. Norris, as they drove through the park. "Nothing but pleasure from\r
+beginning to end! I am sure you ought to be very much obliged to your\r
+aunt Bertram and me for contriving to let you go. A pretty good day's\r
+amusement you have had!"\r
+\r
+Maria was just discontented enough to say directly, "I think _you_ have\r
+done pretty well yourself, ma'am. Your lap seems full of good things,\r
+and here is a basket of something between us which has been knocking my\r
+elbow unmercifully."\r
+\r
+"My dear, it is only a beautiful little heath, which that nice old\r
+gardener would make me take; but if it is in your way, I will have it in\r
+my lap directly. There, Fanny, you shall carry that parcel for me; take\r
+great care of it: do not let it fall; it is a cream cheese, just like\r
+the excellent one we had at dinner. Nothing would satisfy that good old\r
+Mrs. Whitaker, but my taking one of the cheeses. I stood out as long\r
+as I could, till the tears almost came into her eyes, and I knew it was\r
+just the sort that my sister would be delighted with. That Mrs. Whitaker\r
+is a treasure! She was quite shocked when I asked her whether wine was\r
+allowed at the second table, and she has turned away two housemaids for\r
+wearing white gowns. Take care of the cheese, Fanny. Now I can manage\r
+the other parcel and the basket very well."\r
+\r
+"What else have you been spunging?" said Maria, half-pleased that\r
+Sotherton should be so complimented.\r
+\r
+"Spunging, my dear! It is nothing but four of those beautiful pheasants'\r
+eggs, which Mrs. Whitaker would quite force upon me: she would not take\r
+a denial. She said it must be such an amusement to me, as she understood\r
+I lived quite alone, to have a few living creatures of that sort; and\r
+so to be sure it will. I shall get the dairymaid to set them under the\r
+first spare hen, and if they come to good I can have them moved to my\r
+own house and borrow a coop; and it will be a great delight to me in\r
+my lonely hours to attend to them. And if I have good luck, your mother\r
+shall have some."\r
+\r
+It was a beautiful evening, mild and still, and the drive was as\r
+pleasant as the serenity of Nature could make it; but when Mrs. Norris\r
+ceased speaking, it was altogether a silent drive to those within. Their\r
+spirits were in general exhausted; and to determine whether the day had\r
+afforded most pleasure or pain, might occupy the meditations of almost\r
+all.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+The day at Sotherton, with all its imperfections, afforded the Miss\r
+Bertrams much more agreeable feelings than were derived from the letters\r
+from Antigua, which soon afterwards reached Mansfield. It was much\r
+pleasanter to think of Henry Crawford than of their father; and to think\r
+of their father in England again within a certain period, which these\r
+letters obliged them to do, was a most unwelcome exercise.\r
+\r
+November was the black month fixed for his return. Sir Thomas wrote of\r
+it with as much decision as experience and anxiety could authorise. His\r
+business was so nearly concluded as to justify him in proposing to take\r
+his passage in the September packet, and he consequently looked forward\r
+with the hope of being with his beloved family again early in November.\r
+\r
+Maria was more to be pitied than Julia; for to her the father brought a\r
+husband, and the return of the friend most solicitous for her happiness\r
+would unite her to the lover, on whom she had chosen that happiness\r
+should depend. It was a gloomy prospect, and all she could do was to\r
+throw a mist over it, and hope when the mist cleared away she should\r
+see something else. It would hardly be _early_ in November, there\r
+were generally delays, a bad passage or _something_; that favouring\r
+_something_ which everybody who shuts their eyes while they look, or\r
+their understandings while they reason, feels the comfort of. It would\r
+probably be the middle of November at least; the middle of November\r
+was three months off. Three months comprised thirteen weeks. Much might\r
+happen in thirteen weeks.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas would have been deeply mortified by a suspicion of half that\r
+his daughters felt on the subject of his return, and would hardly have\r
+found consolation in a knowledge of the interest it excited in the\r
+breast of another young lady. Miss Crawford, on walking up with her\r
+brother to spend the evening at Mansfield Park, heard the good news; and\r
+though seeming to have no concern in the affair beyond politeness, and\r
+to have vented all her feelings in a quiet congratulation, heard it with\r
+an attention not so easily satisfied. Mrs. Norris gave the particulars\r
+of the letters, and the subject was dropt; but after tea, as Miss\r
+Crawford was standing at an open window with Edmund and Fanny looking\r
+out on a twilight scene, while the Miss Bertrams, Mr. Rushworth,\r
+and Henry Crawford were all busy with candles at the pianoforte, she\r
+suddenly revived it by turning round towards the group, and saying, "How\r
+happy Mr. Rushworth looks! He is thinking of November."\r
+\r
+Edmund looked round at Mr. Rushworth too, but had nothing to say.\r
+\r
+"Your father's return will be a very interesting event."\r
+\r
+"It will, indeed, after such an absence; an absence not only long, but\r
+including so many dangers."\r
+\r
+"It will be the forerunner also of other interesting events: your\r
+sister's marriage, and your taking orders."\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Don't be affronted," said she, laughing, "but it does put me in mind of\r
+some of the old heathen heroes, who, after performing great exploits in\r
+a foreign land, offered sacrifices to the gods on their safe return."\r
+\r
+"There is no sacrifice in the case," replied Edmund, with a serious\r
+smile, and glancing at the pianoforte again; "it is entirely her own\r
+doing."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes I know it is. I was merely joking. She has done no more than\r
+what every young woman would do; and I have no doubt of her being\r
+extremely happy. My other sacrifice, of course, you do not understand."\r
+\r
+"My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria's\r
+marrying."\r
+\r
+"It is fortunate that your inclination and your father's convenience\r
+should accord so well. There is a very good living kept for you, I\r
+understand, hereabouts."\r
+\r
+"Which you suppose has biassed me?"\r
+\r
+"But _that_ I am sure it has not," cried Fanny.\r
+\r
+"Thank you for your good word, Fanny, but it is more than I would affirm\r
+myself. On the contrary, the knowing that there was such a provision for\r
+me probably did bias me. Nor can I think it wrong that it should. There\r
+was no natural disinclination to be overcome, and I see no reason why\r
+a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a\r
+competence early in life. I was in safe hands. I hope I should not have\r
+been influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father was too\r
+conscientious to have allowed it. I have no doubt that I was biased, but\r
+I think it was blamelessly."\r
+\r
+"It is the same sort of thing," said Fanny, after a short pause, "as for\r
+the son of an admiral to go into the navy, or the son of a general to be\r
+in the army, and nobody sees anything wrong in that. Nobody wonders that\r
+they should prefer the line where their friends can serve them best, or\r
+suspects them to be less in earnest in it than they appear."\r
+\r
+"No, my dear Miss Price, and for reasons good. The profession, either\r
+navy or army, is its own justification. It has everything in its favour:\r
+heroism, danger, bustle, fashion. Soldiers and sailors are always\r
+acceptable in society. Nobody can wonder that men are soldiers and\r
+sailors."\r
+\r
+"But the motives of a man who takes orders with the certainty of\r
+preferment may be fairly suspected, you think?" said Edmund. "To be\r
+justified in your eyes, he must do it in the most complete uncertainty\r
+of any provision."\r
+\r
+"What! take orders without a living! No; that is madness indeed;\r
+absolute madness."\r
+\r
+"Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to\r
+take orders with a living nor without? No; for you certainly would not\r
+know what to say. But I must beg some advantage to the clergyman from\r
+your own argument. As he cannot be influenced by those feelings which\r
+you rank highly as temptation and reward to the soldier and sailor in\r
+their choice of a profession, as heroism, and noise, and fashion, are\r
+all against him, he ought to be less liable to the suspicion of wanting\r
+sincerity or good intentions in the choice of his."\r
+\r
+"Oh! no doubt he is very sincere in preferring an income ready made,\r
+to the trouble of working for one; and has the best intentions of doing\r
+nothing all the rest of his days but eat, drink, and grow fat. It is\r
+indolence, Mr. Bertram, indeed. Indolence and love of ease; a want of\r
+all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination\r
+to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen.\r
+A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish--read the\r
+newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does\r
+all the work, and the business of his own life is to dine."\r
+\r
+"There are such clergymen, no doubt, but I think they are not so common\r
+as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general character. I\r
+suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure,\r
+you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose\r
+opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that\r
+your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy.\r
+You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men\r
+you condemn so conclusively. You are speaking what you have been told at\r
+your uncle's table."\r
+\r
+"I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion\r
+is general, it is usually correct. Though _I_ have not seen much of\r
+the domestic lives of clergymen, it is seen by too many to leave any\r
+deficiency of information."\r
+\r
+"Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are\r
+condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information,\r
+or (smiling) of something else. Your uncle, and his brother admirals,\r
+perhaps knew little of clergymen beyond the chaplains whom, good or bad,\r
+they were always wishing away."\r
+\r
+"Poor William! He has met with great kindness from the chaplain of the\r
+Antwerp," was a tender apostrophe of Fanny's, very much to the purpose\r
+of her own feelings if not of the conversation.\r
+\r
+"I have been so little addicted to take my opinions from my uncle,"\r
+said Miss Crawford, "that I can hardly suppose--and since you push me so\r
+hard, I must observe, that I am not entirely without the means of seeing\r
+what clergymen are, being at this present time the guest of my own\r
+brother, Dr. Grant. And though Dr. Grant is most kind and obliging to\r
+me, and though he is really a gentleman, and, I dare say, a good scholar\r
+and clever, and often preaches good sermons, and is very respectable,\r
+_I_ see him to be an indolent, selfish _bon_ _vivant_, who must have\r
+his palate consulted in everything; who will not stir a finger for the\r
+convenience of any one; and who, moreover, if the cook makes a blunder,\r
+is out of humour with his excellent wife. To own the truth, Henry and\r
+I were partly driven out this very evening by a disappointment about a\r
+green goose, which he could not get the better of. My poor sister was\r
+forced to stay and bear it."\r
+\r
+"I do not wonder at your disapprobation, upon my word. It is a great\r
+defect of temper, made worse by a very faulty habit of self-indulgence;\r
+and to see your sister suffering from it must be exceedingly painful to\r
+such feelings as yours. Fanny, it goes against us. We cannot attempt to\r
+defend Dr. Grant."\r
+\r
+"No," replied Fanny, "but we need not give up his profession for all\r
+that; because, whatever profession Dr. Grant had chosen, he would have\r
+taken a--not a good temper into it; and as he must, either in the navy\r
+or army, have had a great many more people under his command than he\r
+has now, I think more would have been made unhappy by him as a sailor or\r
+soldier than as a clergyman. Besides, I cannot but suppose that whatever\r
+there may be to wish otherwise in Dr. Grant would have been in a greater\r
+danger of becoming worse in a more active and worldly profession, where\r
+he would have had less time and obligation--where he might have escaped\r
+that knowledge of himself, the _frequency_, at least, of that knowledge\r
+which it is impossible he should escape as he is now. A man--a sensible\r
+man like Dr. Grant, cannot be in the habit of teaching others their duty\r
+every week, cannot go to church twice every Sunday, and preach such very\r
+good sermons in so good a manner as he does, without being the better\r
+for it himself. It must make him think; and I have no doubt that he\r
+oftener endeavours to restrain himself than he would if he had been\r
+anything but a clergyman."\r
+\r
+"We cannot prove to the contrary, to be sure; but I wish you a better\r
+fate, Miss Price, than to be the wife of a man whose amiableness\r
+depends upon his own sermons; for though he may preach himself into a\r
+good-humour every Sunday, it will be bad enough to have him quarrelling\r
+about green geese from Monday morning till Saturday night."\r
+\r
+"I think the man who could often quarrel with Fanny," said Edmund\r
+affectionately, "must be beyond the reach of any sermons."\r
+\r
+Fanny turned farther into the window; and Miss Crawford had only time\r
+to say, in a pleasant manner, "I fancy Miss Price has been more used to\r
+deserve praise than to hear it"; when, being earnestly invited by the\r
+Miss Bertrams to join in a glee, she tripped off to the instrument,\r
+leaving Edmund looking after her in an ecstasy of admiration of all her\r
+many virtues, from her obliging manners down to her light and graceful\r
+tread.\r
+\r
+"There goes good-humour, I am sure," said he presently. "There goes a\r
+temper which would never give pain! How well she walks! and how readily\r
+she falls in with the inclination of others! joining them the moment she\r
+is asked. What a pity," he added, after an instant's reflection, "that\r
+she should have been in such hands!"\r
+\r
+Fanny agreed to it, and had the pleasure of seeing him continue at the\r
+window with her, in spite of the expected glee; and of having his eyes\r
+soon turned, like hers, towards the scene without, where all that was\r
+solemn, and soothing, and lovely, appeared in the brilliancy of an\r
+unclouded night, and the contrast of the deep shade of the woods. Fanny\r
+spoke her feelings. "Here's harmony!" said she; "here's repose! Here's\r
+what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what poetry only\r
+can attempt to describe! Here's what may tranquillise every care, and\r
+lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I\r
+feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world;\r
+and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature\r
+were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by\r
+contemplating such a scene."\r
+\r
+"I like to hear your enthusiasm, Fanny. It is a lovely night, and they\r
+are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree,\r
+as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in\r
+early life. They lose a great deal."\r
+\r
+"_You_ taught me to think and feel on the subject, cousin."\r
+\r
+"I had a very apt scholar. There's Arcturus looking very bright."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and the Bear. I wish I could see Cassiopeia."\r
+\r
+"We must go out on the lawn for that. Should you be afraid?"\r
+\r
+"Not in the least. It is a great while since we have had any\r
+star-gazing."\r
+\r
+"Yes; I do not know how it has happened." The glee began. "We will stay\r
+till this is finished, Fanny," said he, turning his back on the window;\r
+and as it advanced, she had the mortification of seeing him advance too,\r
+moving forward by gentle degrees towards the instrument, and when it\r
+ceased, he was close by the singers, among the most urgent in requesting\r
+to hear the glee again.\r
+\r
+Fanny sighed alone at the window till scolded away by Mrs. Norris's\r
+threats of catching cold.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas was to return in November, and his eldest son had duties to\r
+call him earlier home. The approach of September brought tidings of Mr.\r
+Bertram, first in a letter to the gamekeeper and then in a letter\r
+to Edmund; and by the end of August he arrived himself, to be gay,\r
+agreeable, and gallant again as occasion served, or Miss Crawford\r
+demanded; to tell of races and Weymouth, and parties and friends, to\r
+which she might have listened six weeks before with some interest, and\r
+altogether to give her the fullest conviction, by the power of actual\r
+comparison, of her preferring his younger brother.\r
+\r
+It was very vexatious, and she was heartily sorry for it; but so it was;\r
+and so far from now meaning to marry the elder, she did not even want\r
+to attract him beyond what the simplest claims of conscious beauty\r
+required: his lengthened absence from Mansfield, without anything but\r
+pleasure in view, and his own will to consult, made it perfectly clear\r
+that he did not care about her; and his indifference was so much more\r
+than equalled by her own, that were he now to step forth the owner of\r
+Mansfield Park, the Sir Thomas complete, which he was to be in time, she\r
+did not believe she could accept him.\r
+\r
+The season and duties which brought Mr. Bertram back to Mansfield took\r
+Mr. Crawford into Norfolk. Everingham could not do without him in the\r
+beginning of September. He went for a fortnight--a fortnight of such\r
+dullness to the Miss Bertrams as ought to have put them both on their\r
+guard, and made even Julia admit, in her jealousy of her sister, the\r
+absolute necessity of distrusting his attentions, and wishing him not\r
+to return; and a fortnight of sufficient leisure, in the intervals of\r
+shooting and sleeping, to have convinced the gentleman that he ought\r
+to keep longer away, had he been more in the habit of examining his own\r
+motives, and of reflecting to what the indulgence of his idle vanity was\r
+tending; but, thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example,\r
+he would not look beyond the present moment. The sisters, handsome,\r
+clever, and encouraging, were an amusement to his sated mind; and\r
+finding nothing in Norfolk to equal the social pleasures of Mansfield,\r
+he gladly returned to it at the time appointed, and was welcomed thither\r
+quite as gladly by those whom he came to trifle with further.\r
+\r
+Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, and doomed to the\r
+repeated details of his day's sport, good or bad, his boast of his dogs,\r
+his jealousy of his neighbours, his doubts of their qualifications,\r
+and his zeal after poachers, subjects which will not find their way to\r
+female feelings without some talent on one side or some attachment on\r
+the other, had missed Mr. Crawford grievously; and Julia, unengaged and\r
+unemployed, felt all the right of missing him much more. Each sister\r
+believed herself the favourite. Julia might be justified in so doing by\r
+the hints of Mrs. Grant, inclined to credit what she wished, and Maria\r
+by the hints of Mr. Crawford himself. Everything returned into the same\r
+channel as before his absence; his manners being to each so animated and\r
+agreeable as to lose no ground with either, and just stopping short of\r
+the consistence, the steadiness, the solicitude, and the warmth which\r
+might excite general notice.\r
+\r
+Fanny was the only one of the party who found anything to dislike; but\r
+since the day at Sotherton, she could never see Mr. Crawford with either\r
+sister without observation, and seldom without wonder or censure; and\r
+had her confidence in her own judgment been equal to her exercise of it\r
+in every other respect, had she been sure that she was seeing clearly,\r
+and judging candidly, she would probably have made some important\r
+communications to her usual confidant. As it was, however, she only\r
+hazarded a hint, and the hint was lost. "I am rather surprised," said\r
+she, "that Mr. Crawford should come back again so soon, after being here\r
+so long before, full seven weeks; for I had understood he was so\r
+very fond of change and moving about, that I thought something would\r
+certainly occur, when he was once gone, to take him elsewhere. He is\r
+used to much gayer places than Mansfield."\r
+\r
+"It is to his credit," was Edmund's answer; "and I dare say it gives his\r
+sister pleasure. She does not like his unsettled habits."\r
+\r
+"What a favourite he is with my cousins!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, his manners to women are such as must please. Mrs. Grant, I\r
+believe, suspects him of a preference for Julia; I have never seen much\r
+symptom of it, but I wish it may be so. He has no faults but what a\r
+serious attachment would remove."\r
+\r
+"If Miss Bertram were not engaged," said Fanny cautiously, "I could\r
+sometimes almost think that he admired her more than Julia."\r
+\r
+"Which is, perhaps, more in favour of his liking Julia best, than you,\r
+Fanny, may be aware; for I believe it often happens that a man, before\r
+he has quite made up his own mind, will distinguish the sister or\r
+intimate friend of the woman he is really thinking of more than the\r
+woman herself. Crawford has too much sense to stay here if he found\r
+himself in any danger from Maria; and I am not at all afraid for her,\r
+after such a proof as she has given that her feelings are not strong."\r
+\r
+Fanny supposed she must have been mistaken, and meant to think\r
+differently in future; but with all that submission to Edmund could\r
+do, and all the help of the coinciding looks and hints which she\r
+occasionally noticed in some of the others, and which seemed to say that\r
+Julia was Mr. Crawford's choice, she knew not always what to think. She\r
+was privy, one evening, to the hopes of her aunt Norris on the subject,\r
+as well as to her feelings, and the feelings of Mrs. Rushworth, on a\r
+point of some similarity, and could not help wondering as she listened;\r
+and glad would she have been not to be obliged to listen, for it was\r
+while all the other young people were dancing, and she sitting,\r
+most unwillingly, among the chaperons at the fire, longing for the\r
+re-entrance of her elder cousin, on whom all her own hopes of a partner\r
+then depended. It was Fanny's first ball, though without the preparation\r
+or splendour of many a young lady's first ball, being the thought only\r
+of the afternoon, built on the late acquisition of a violin player in\r
+the servants' hall, and the possibility of raising five couple with\r
+the help of Mrs. Grant and a new intimate friend of Mr. Bertram's just\r
+arrived on a visit. It had, however, been a very happy one to Fanny\r
+through four dances, and she was quite grieved to be losing even a\r
+quarter of an hour. While waiting and wishing, looking now at\r
+the dancers and now at the door, this dialogue between the two\r
+above-mentioned ladies was forced on her--\r
+\r
+"I think, ma'am," said Mrs. Norris, her eyes directed towards Mr.\r
+Rushworth and Maria, who were partners for the second time, "we shall\r
+see some happy faces again now."\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, indeed," replied the other, with a stately simper, "there\r
+will be some satisfaction in looking on _now_, and I think it was rather\r
+a pity they should have been obliged to part. Young folks in their\r
+situation should be excused complying with the common forms. I wonder my\r
+son did not propose it."\r
+\r
+"I dare say he did, ma'am. Mr. Rushworth is never remiss. But dear Maria\r
+has such a strict sense of propriety, so much of that true delicacy\r
+which one seldom meets with nowadays, Mrs. Rushworth--that wish of\r
+avoiding particularity! Dear ma'am, only look at her face at this\r
+moment; how different from what it was the two last dances!"\r
+\r
+Miss Bertram did indeed look happy, her eyes were sparkling with\r
+pleasure, and she was speaking with great animation, for Julia and her\r
+partner, Mr. Crawford, were close to her; they were all in a cluster\r
+together. How she had looked before, Fanny could not recollect, for she\r
+had been dancing with Edmund herself, and had not thought about her.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris continued, "It is quite delightful, ma'am, to see young\r
+people so properly happy, so well suited, and so much the thing! I\r
+cannot but think of dear Sir Thomas's delight. And what do you say,\r
+ma'am, to the chance of another match? Mr. Rushworth has set a good\r
+example, and such things are very catching."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth, who saw nothing but her son, was quite at a loss.\r
+\r
+"The couple above, ma'am. Do you see no symptoms there?"\r
+\r
+"Oh dear! Miss Julia and Mr. Crawford. Yes, indeed, a very pretty match.\r
+What is his property?"\r
+\r
+"Four thousand a year."\r
+\r
+"Very well. Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they\r
+have. Four thousand a year is a pretty estate, and he seems a very\r
+genteel, steady young man, so I hope Miss Julia will be very happy."\r
+\r
+"It is not a settled thing, ma'am, yet. We only speak of it among\r
+friends. But I have very little doubt it _will_ be. He is growing\r
+extremely particular in his attentions."\r
+\r
+Fanny could listen no farther. Listening and wondering were all\r
+suspended for a time, for Mr. Bertram was in the room again; and though\r
+feeling it would be a great honour to be asked by him, she thought it\r
+must happen. He came towards their little circle; but instead of asking\r
+her to dance, drew a chair near her, and gave her an account of the\r
+present state of a sick horse, and the opinion of the groom, from\r
+whom he had just parted. Fanny found that it was not to be, and in the\r
+modesty of her nature immediately felt that she had been unreasonable\r
+in expecting it. When he had told of his horse, he took a newspaper from\r
+the table, and looking over it, said in a languid way, "If you want to\r
+dance, Fanny, I will stand up with you." With more than equal civility\r
+the offer was declined; she did not wish to dance. "I am glad of it,"\r
+said he, in a much brisker tone, and throwing down the newspaper again,\r
+"for I am tired to death. I only wonder how the good people can keep\r
+it up so long. They had need be _all_ in love, to find any amusement in\r
+such folly; and so they are, I fancy. If you look at them you may see\r
+they are so many couple of lovers--all but Yates and Mrs. Grant--and,\r
+between ourselves, she, poor woman, must want a lover as much as any one\r
+of them. A desperate dull life hers must be with the doctor," making\r
+a sly face as he spoke towards the chair of the latter, who proving,\r
+however, to be close at his elbow, made so instantaneous a change of\r
+expression and subject necessary, as Fanny, in spite of everything,\r
+could hardly help laughing at. "A strange business this in America, Dr.\r
+Grant! What is your opinion? I always come to you to know what I am to\r
+think of public matters."\r
+\r
+"My dear Tom," cried his aunt soon afterwards, "as you are not dancing,\r
+I dare say you will have no objection to join us in a rubber; shall\r
+you?" Then leaving her seat, and coming to him to enforce the proposal,\r
+added in a whisper, "We want to make a table for Mrs. Rushworth, you\r
+know. Your mother is quite anxious about it, but cannot very well spare\r
+time to sit down herself, because of her fringe. Now, you and I and Dr.\r
+Grant will just do; and though _we_ play but half-crowns, you know, you\r
+may bet half-guineas with _him_."\r
+\r
+"I should be most happy," replied he aloud, and jumping up with\r
+alacrity, "it would give me the greatest pleasure; but that I am\r
+this moment going to dance." Come, Fanny, taking her hand, "do not be\r
+dawdling any longer, or the dance will be over."\r
+\r
+Fanny was led off very willingly, though it was impossible for her to\r
+feel much gratitude towards her cousin, or distinguish, as he certainly\r
+did, between the selfishness of another person and his own.\r
+\r
+"A pretty modest request upon my word," he indignantly exclaimed as they\r
+walked away. "To want to nail me to a card-table for the next two hours\r
+with herself and Dr. Grant, who are always quarrelling, and that poking\r
+old woman, who knows no more of whist than of algebra. I wish my good\r
+aunt would be a little less busy! And to ask me in such a way too!\r
+without ceremony, before them all, so as to leave me no possibility\r
+of refusing. _That_ is what I dislike most particularly. It raises my\r
+spleen more than anything, to have the pretence of being asked, of\r
+being given a choice, and at the same time addressed in such a way as\r
+to oblige one to do the very thing, whatever it be! If I had not luckily\r
+thought of standing up with you I could not have got out of it. It is\r
+a great deal too bad. But when my aunt has got a fancy in her head,\r
+nothing can stop her."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+The Honourable John Yates, this new friend, had not much to recommend\r
+him beyond habits of fashion and expense, and being the younger son of\r
+a lord with a tolerable independence; and Sir Thomas would probably\r
+have thought his introduction at Mansfield by no means desirable. Mr.\r
+Bertram's acquaintance with him had begun at Weymouth, where they had\r
+spent ten days together in the same society, and the friendship, if\r
+friendship it might be called, had been proved and perfected by Mr.\r
+Yates's being invited to take Mansfield in his way, whenever he could,\r
+and by his promising to come; and he did come rather earlier than had\r
+been expected, in consequence of the sudden breaking-up of a large party\r
+assembled for gaiety at the house of another friend, which he had left\r
+Weymouth to join. He came on the wings of disappointment, and with his\r
+head full of acting, for it had been a theatrical party; and the play\r
+in which he had borne a part was within two days of representation,\r
+when the sudden death of one of the nearest connexions of the family\r
+had destroyed the scheme and dispersed the performers. To be so near\r
+happiness, so near fame, so near the long paragraph in praise of the\r
+private theatricals at Ecclesford, the seat of the Right Hon. Lord\r
+Ravenshaw, in Cornwall, which would of course have immortalised the\r
+whole party for at least a twelvemonth! and being so near, to lose\r
+it all, was an injury to be keenly felt, and Mr. Yates could talk of\r
+nothing else. Ecclesford and its theatre, with its arrangements and\r
+dresses, rehearsals and jokes, was his never-failing subject, and to\r
+boast of the past his only consolation.\r
+\r
+Happily for him, a love of the theatre is so general, an itch for acting\r
+so strong among young people, that he could hardly out-talk the interest\r
+of his hearers. From the first casting of the parts to the epilogue it\r
+was all bewitching, and there were few who did not wish to have been a\r
+party concerned, or would have hesitated to try their skill. The play\r
+had been Lovers' Vows, and Mr. Yates was to have been Count Cassel. "A\r
+trifling part," said he, "and not at all to my taste, and such a one\r
+as I certainly would not accept again; but I was determined to make no\r
+difficulties. Lord Ravenshaw and the duke had appropriated the only two\r
+characters worth playing before I reached Ecclesford; and though Lord\r
+Ravenshaw offered to resign his to me, it was impossible to take it, you\r
+know. I was sorry for _him_ that he should have so mistaken his powers,\r
+for he was no more equal to the Baron--a little man with a weak voice,\r
+always hoarse after the first ten minutes. It must have injured the\r
+piece materially; but _I_ was resolved to make no difficulties. Sir\r
+Henry thought the duke not equal to Frederick, but that was because\r
+Sir Henry wanted the part himself; whereas it was certainly in the best\r
+hands of the two. I was surprised to see Sir Henry such a stick. Luckily\r
+the strength of the piece did not depend upon him. Our Agatha was\r
+inimitable, and the duke was thought very great by many. And upon the\r
+whole, it would certainly have gone off wonderfully."\r
+\r
+"It was a hard case, upon my word"; and, "I do think you were very much\r
+to be pitied," were the kind responses of listening sympathy.\r
+\r
+"It is not worth complaining about; but to be sure the poor old dowager\r
+could not have died at a worse time; and it is impossible to help\r
+wishing that the news could have been suppressed for just the three days\r
+we wanted. It was but three days; and being only a grandmother, and all\r
+happening two hundred miles off, I think there would have been no great\r
+harm, and it was suggested, I know; but Lord Ravenshaw, who I suppose is\r
+one of the most correct men in England, would not hear of it."\r
+\r
+"An afterpiece instead of a comedy," said Mr. Bertram. "Lovers' Vows\r
+were at an end, and Lord and Lady Ravenshaw left to act My Grandmother\r
+by themselves. Well, the jointure may comfort _him_; and perhaps,\r
+between friends, he began to tremble for his credit and his lungs in the\r
+Baron, and was not sorry to withdraw; and to make _you_ amends, Yates, I\r
+think we must raise a little theatre at Mansfield, and ask you to be our\r
+manager."\r
+\r
+This, though the thought of the moment, did not end with the moment; for\r
+the inclination to act was awakened, and in no one more strongly than in\r
+him who was now master of the house; and who, having so much leisure as\r
+to make almost any novelty a certain good, had likewise such a degree of\r
+lively talents and comic taste, as were exactly adapted to the novelty\r
+of acting. The thought returned again and again. "Oh for the Ecclesford\r
+theatre and scenery to try something with." Each sister could echo the\r
+wish; and Henry Crawford, to whom, in all the riot of his gratifications\r
+it was yet an untasted pleasure, was quite alive at the idea. "I really\r
+believe," said he, "I could be fool enough at this moment to undertake\r
+any character that ever was written, from Shylock or Richard III down to\r
+the singing hero of a farce in his scarlet coat and cocked hat. I feel\r
+as if I could be anything or everything; as if I could rant and storm,\r
+or sigh or cut capers, in any tragedy or comedy in the English language.\r
+Let us be doing something. Be it only half a play, an act, a scene; what\r
+should prevent us? Not these countenances, I am sure," looking towards\r
+the Miss Bertrams; "and for a theatre, what signifies a theatre? We\r
+shall be only amusing ourselves. Any room in this house might suffice."\r
+\r
+"We must have a curtain," said Tom Bertram; "a few yards of green baize\r
+for a curtain, and perhaps that may be enough."\r
+\r
+"Oh, quite enough," cried Mr. Yates, "with only just a side wing or two\r
+run up, doors in flat, and three or four scenes to be let down; nothing\r
+more would be necessary on such a plan as this. For mere amusement among\r
+ourselves we should want nothing more."\r
+\r
+"I believe we must be satisfied with _less_," said Maria. "There would\r
+not be time, and other difficulties would arise. We must rather adopt\r
+Mr. Crawford's views, and make the _performance_, not the _theatre_, our\r
+object. Many parts of our best plays are independent of scenery."\r
+\r
+"Nay," said Edmund, who began to listen with alarm. "Let us do nothing\r
+by halves. If we are to act, let it be in a theatre completely fitted\r
+up with pit, boxes, and gallery, and let us have a play entire from\r
+beginning to end; so as it be a German play, no matter what, with a good\r
+tricking, shifting afterpiece, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe, and a\r
+song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford, we do nothing."\r
+\r
+"Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable," said Julia. "Nobody loves a play\r
+better than you do, or can have gone much farther to see one."\r
+\r
+"True, to see real acting, good hardened real acting; but I would hardly\r
+walk from this room to the next to look at the raw efforts of those who\r
+have not been bred to the trade: a set of gentlemen and ladies, who have\r
+all the disadvantages of education and decorum to struggle through."\r
+\r
+After a short pause, however, the subject still continued, and was\r
+discussed with unabated eagerness, every one's inclination increasing\r
+by the discussion, and a knowledge of the inclination of the rest; and\r
+though nothing was settled but that Tom Bertram would prefer a comedy,\r
+and his sisters and Henry Crawford a tragedy, and that nothing in the\r
+world could be easier than to find a piece which would please them all,\r
+the resolution to act something or other seemed so decided as to\r
+make Edmund quite uncomfortable. He was determined to prevent it, if\r
+possible, though his mother, who equally heard the conversation which\r
+passed at table, did not evince the least disapprobation.\r
+\r
+The same evening afforded him an opportunity of trying his strength.\r
+Maria, Julia, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates were in the billiard-room.\r
+Tom, returning from them into the drawing-room, where Edmund was\r
+standing thoughtfully by the fire, while Lady Bertram was on the sofa at\r
+a little distance, and Fanny close beside her arranging her work, thus\r
+began as he entered--"Such a horribly vile billiard-table as ours is not\r
+to be met with, I believe, above ground. I can stand it no longer, and I\r
+think, I may say, that nothing shall ever tempt me to it again; but one\r
+good thing I have just ascertained: it is the very room for a theatre,\r
+precisely the shape and length for it; and the doors at the farther\r
+end, communicating with each other, as they may be made to do in five\r
+minutes, by merely moving the bookcase in my father's room, is the very\r
+thing we could have desired, if we had sat down to wish for it; and\r
+my father's room will be an excellent greenroom. It seems to join the\r
+billiard-room on purpose."\r
+\r
+"You are not serious, Tom, in meaning to act?" said Edmund, in a low\r
+voice, as his brother approached the fire.\r
+\r
+"Not serious! never more so, I assure you. What is there to surprise you\r
+in it?"\r
+\r
+"I think it would be very wrong. In a _general_ light, private\r
+theatricals are open to some objections, but as _we_ are circumstanced,\r
+I must think it would be highly injudicious, and more than injudicious\r
+to attempt anything of the kind. It would shew great want of feeling\r
+on my father's account, absent as he is, and in some degree of constant\r
+danger; and it would be imprudent, I think, with regard to Maria, whose\r
+situation is a very delicate one, considering everything, extremely\r
+delicate."\r
+\r
+"You take up a thing so seriously! as if we were going to act three\r
+times a week till my father's return, and invite all the country. But\r
+it is not to be a display of that sort. We mean nothing but a little\r
+amusement among ourselves, just to vary the scene, and exercise our\r
+powers in something new. We want no audience, no publicity. We may be\r
+trusted, I think, in chusing some play most perfectly unexceptionable;\r
+and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing\r
+in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in\r
+chattering in words of our own. I have no fears and no scruples. And\r
+as to my father's being absent, it is so far from an objection, that I\r
+consider it rather as a motive; for the expectation of his return must\r
+be a very anxious period to my mother; and if we can be the means of\r
+amusing that anxiety, and keeping up her spirits for the next few weeks,\r
+I shall think our time very well spent, and so, I am sure, will he. It\r
+is a _very_ anxious period for her."\r
+\r
+As he said this, each looked towards their mother. Lady Bertram, sunk\r
+back in one corner of the sofa, the picture of health, wealth, ease,\r
+and tranquillity, was just falling into a gentle doze, while Fanny was\r
+getting through the few difficulties of her work for her.\r
+\r
+Edmund smiled and shook his head.\r
+\r
+"By Jove! this won't do," cried Tom, throwing himself into a chair with\r
+a hearty laugh. "To be sure, my dear mother, your anxiety--I was unlucky\r
+there."\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" asked her ladyship, in the heavy tone of one\r
+half-roused; "I was not asleep."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, no, ma'am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund," he continued,\r
+returning to the former subject, posture, and voice, as soon as Lady\r
+Bertram began to nod again, "but _this_ I _will_ maintain, that we shall\r
+be doing no harm."\r
+\r
+"I cannot agree with you; I am convinced that my father would totally\r
+disapprove it."\r
+\r
+"And I am convinced to the contrary. Nobody is fonder of the exercise\r
+of talent in young people, or promotes it more, than my father, and for\r
+anything of the acting, spouting, reciting kind, I think he has always a\r
+decided taste. I am sure he encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time\r
+have we mourned over the dead body of Julius Caesar, and to _be'd_ and\r
+not _to_ _be'd_, in this very room, for his amusement? And I am sure,\r
+_my_ _name_ _was_ _Norval_, every evening of my life through one\r
+Christmas holidays."\r
+\r
+"It was a very different thing. You must see the difference yourself. My\r
+father wished us, as schoolboys, to speak well, but he would never\r
+wish his grown-up daughters to be acting plays. His sense of decorum is\r
+strict."\r
+\r
+"I know all that," said Tom, displeased. "I know my father as well as\r
+you do; and I'll take care that his daughters do nothing to distress\r
+him. Manage your own concerns, Edmund, and I'll take care of the rest of\r
+the family."\r
+\r
+"If you are resolved on acting," replied the persevering Edmund, "I must\r
+hope it will be in a very small and quiet way; and I think a theatre\r
+ought not to be attempted. It would be taking liberties with my father's\r
+house in his absence which could not be justified."\r
+\r
+"For everything of that nature I will be answerable," said Tom, in a\r
+decided tone. "His house shall not be hurt. I have quite as great an\r
+interest in being careful of his house as you can have; and as to such\r
+alterations as I was suggesting just now, such as moving a bookcase, or\r
+unlocking a door, or even as using the billiard-room for the space of a\r
+week without playing at billiards in it, you might just as well suppose\r
+he would object to our sitting more in this room, and less in the\r
+breakfast-room, than we did before he went away, or to my sister's\r
+pianoforte being moved from one side of the room to the other. Absolute\r
+nonsense!"\r
+\r
+"The innovation, if not wrong as an innovation, will be wrong as an\r
+expense."\r
+\r
+"Yes, the expense of such an undertaking would be prodigious! Perhaps\r
+it might cost a whole twenty pounds. Something of a theatre we must have\r
+undoubtedly, but it will be on the simplest plan: a green curtain and a\r
+little carpenter's work, and that's all; and as the carpenter's work\r
+may be all done at home by Christopher Jackson himself, it will be\r
+too absurd to talk of expense; and as long as Jackson is employed,\r
+everything will be right with Sir Thomas. Don't imagine that nobody in\r
+this house can see or judge but yourself. Don't act yourself, if you do\r
+not like it, but don't expect to govern everybody else."\r
+\r
+"No, as to acting myself," said Edmund, "_that_ I absolutely protest\r
+against."\r
+\r
+Tom walked out of the room as he said it, and Edmund was left to sit\r
+down and stir the fire in thoughtful vexation.\r
+\r
+Fanny, who had heard it all, and borne Edmund company in every feeling\r
+throughout the whole, now ventured to say, in her anxiety to suggest\r
+some comfort, "Perhaps they may not be able to find any play to suit\r
+them. Your brother's taste and your sisters' seem very different."\r
+\r
+"I have no hope there, Fanny. If they persist in the scheme, they will\r
+find something. I shall speak to my sisters and try to dissuade _them_,\r
+and that is all I can do."\r
+\r
+"I should think my aunt Norris would be on your side."\r
+\r
+"I dare say she would, but she has no influence with either Tom or my\r
+sisters that could be of any use; and if I cannot convince them myself,\r
+I shall let things take their course, without attempting it through\r
+her. Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all, and we had better do\r
+anything than be altogether by the ears."\r
+\r
+His sisters, to whom he had an opportunity of speaking the next morning,\r
+were quite as impatient of his advice, quite as unyielding to his\r
+representation, quite as determined in the cause of pleasure, as Tom.\r
+Their mother had no objection to the plan, and they were not in the\r
+least afraid of their father's disapprobation. There could be no harm in\r
+what had been done in so many respectable families, and by so many women\r
+of the first consideration; and it must be scrupulousness run mad that\r
+could see anything to censure in a plan like theirs, comprehending only\r
+brothers and sisters and intimate friends, and which would never be\r
+heard of beyond themselves. Julia _did_ seem inclined to admit that\r
+Maria's situation might require particular caution and delicacy--but\r
+that could not extend to _her_--she was at liberty; and Maria evidently\r
+considered her engagement as only raising her so much more above\r
+restraint, and leaving her less occasion than Julia to consult either\r
+father or mother. Edmund had little to hope, but he was still urging the\r
+subject when Henry Crawford entered the room, fresh from the Parsonage,\r
+calling out, "No want of hands in our theatre, Miss Bertram. No want\r
+of understrappers: my sister desires her love, and hopes to be admitted\r
+into the company, and will be happy to take the part of any old duenna\r
+or tame confidante, that you may not like to do yourselves."\r
+\r
+Maria gave Edmund a glance, which meant, "What say you now? Can we\r
+be wrong if Mary Crawford feels the same?" And Edmund, silenced,\r
+was obliged to acknowledge that the charm of acting might well carry\r
+fascination to the mind of genius; and with the ingenuity of love, to\r
+dwell more on the obliging, accommodating purport of the message than on\r
+anything else.\r
+\r
+The scheme advanced. Opposition was vain; and as to Mrs. Norris, he\r
+was mistaken in supposing she would wish to make any. She started no\r
+difficulties that were not talked down in five minutes by her eldest\r
+nephew and niece, who were all-powerful with her; and as the whole\r
+arrangement was to bring very little expense to anybody, and none at all\r
+to herself, as she foresaw in it all the comforts of hurry, bustle,\r
+and importance, and derived the immediate advantage of fancying herself\r
+obliged to leave her own house, where she had been living a month at\r
+her own cost, and take up her abode in theirs, that every hour might be\r
+spent in their service, she was, in fact, exceedingly delighted with the\r
+project.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+Fanny seemed nearer being right than Edmund had supposed. The business\r
+of finding a play that would suit everybody proved to be no trifle; and\r
+the carpenter had received his orders and taken his measurements, had\r
+suggested and removed at least two sets of difficulties, and having made\r
+the necessity of an enlargement of plan and expense fully evident, was\r
+already at work, while a play was still to seek. Other preparations\r
+were also in hand. An enormous roll of green baize had arrived from\r
+Northampton, and been cut out by Mrs. Norris (with a saving by her good\r
+management of full three-quarters of a yard), and was actually forming\r
+into a curtain by the housemaids, and still the play was wanting; and\r
+as two or three days passed away in this manner, Edmund began almost to\r
+hope that none might ever be found.\r
+\r
+There were, in fact, so many things to be attended to, so many people\r
+to be pleased, so many best characters required, and, above all, such a\r
+need that the play should be at once both tragedy and comedy, that there\r
+did seem as little chance of a decision as anything pursued by youth and\r
+zeal could hold out.\r
+\r
+On the tragic side were the Miss Bertrams, Henry Crawford, and Mr.\r
+Yates; on the comic, Tom Bertram, not _quite_ alone, because it was\r
+evident that Mary Crawford's wishes, though politely kept back, inclined\r
+the same way: but his determinateness and his power seemed to make\r
+allies unnecessary; and, independent of this great irreconcilable\r
+difference, they wanted a piece containing very few characters in the\r
+whole, but every character first-rate, and three principal women. All\r
+the best plays were run over in vain. Neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth, nor\r
+Othello, nor Douglas, nor The Gamester, presented anything that could\r
+satisfy even the tragedians; and The Rivals, The School for Scandal,\r
+Wheel of Fortune, Heir at Law, and a long et cetera, were successively\r
+dismissed with yet warmer objections. No piece could be proposed that\r
+did not supply somebody with a difficulty, and on one side or the other\r
+it was a continual repetition of, "Oh no, _that_ will never do! Let us\r
+have no ranting tragedies. Too many characters. Not a tolerable\r
+woman's part in the play. Anything but _that_, my dear Tom. It would be\r
+impossible to fill it up. One could not expect anybody to take such a\r
+part. Nothing but buffoonery from beginning to end. _That_ might do,\r
+perhaps, but for the low parts. If I _must_ give my opinion, I have\r
+always thought it the most insipid play in the English language. _I_ do\r
+not wish to make objections; I shall be happy to be of any use, but I\r
+think we could not chuse worse."\r
+\r
+Fanny looked on and listened, not unamused to observe the selfishness\r
+which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them all, and wondering\r
+how it would end. For her own gratification she could have wished that\r
+something might be acted, for she had never seen even half a play, but\r
+everything of higher consequence was against it.\r
+\r
+"This will never do," said Tom Bertram at last. "We are wasting time\r
+most abominably. Something must be fixed on. No matter what, so that\r
+something is chosen. We must not be so nice. A few characters too many\r
+must not frighten us. We must _double_ them. We must descend a little.\r
+If a part is insignificant, the greater our credit in making anything of\r
+it. From this moment I make no difficulties. I take any part you chuse\r
+to give me, so as it be comic. Let it but be comic, I condition for\r
+nothing more."\r
+\r
+For about the fifth time he then proposed the Heir at Law, doubting only\r
+whether to prefer Lord Duberley or Dr. Pangloss for himself; and very\r
+earnestly, but very unsuccessfully, trying to persuade the others that\r
+there were some fine tragic parts in the rest of the dramatis personae.\r
+\r
+The pause which followed this fruitless effort was ended by the same\r
+speaker, who, taking up one of the many volumes of plays that lay on the\r
+table, and turning it over, suddenly exclaimed--"Lovers' Vows! And why\r
+should not Lovers' Vows do for _us_ as well as for the Ravenshaws? How\r
+came it never to be thought of before? It strikes me as if it would do\r
+exactly. What say you all? Here are two capital tragic parts for Yates\r
+and Crawford, and here is the rhyming Butler for me, if nobody else\r
+wants it; a trifling part, but the sort of thing I should not dislike,\r
+and, as I said before, I am determined to take anything and do my best.\r
+And as for the rest, they may be filled up by anybody. It is only Count\r
+Cassel and Anhalt."\r
+\r
+The suggestion was generally welcome. Everybody was growing weary of\r
+indecision, and the first idea with everybody was, that nothing had been\r
+proposed before so likely to suit them all. Mr. Yates was particularly\r
+pleased: he had been sighing and longing to do the Baron at Ecclesford,\r
+had grudged every rant of Lord Ravenshaw's, and been forced to re-rant\r
+it all in his own room. The storm through Baron Wildenheim was the\r
+height of his theatrical ambition; and with the advantage of knowing\r
+half the scenes by heart already, he did now, with the greatest\r
+alacrity, offer his services for the part. To do him justice, however,\r
+he did not resolve to appropriate it; for remembering that there was\r
+some very good ranting-ground in Frederick, he professed an equal\r
+willingness for that. Henry Crawford was ready to take either. Whichever\r
+Mr. Yates did not chuse would perfectly satisfy him, and a short parley\r
+of compliment ensued. Miss Bertram, feeling all the interest of an\r
+Agatha in the question, took on her to decide it, by observing to Mr.\r
+Yates that this was a point in which height and figure ought to\r
+be considered, and that _his_ being the tallest, seemed to fit him\r
+peculiarly for the Baron. She was acknowledged to be quite right, and\r
+the two parts being accepted accordingly, she was certain of the proper\r
+Frederick. Three of the characters were now cast, besides Mr. Rushworth,\r
+who was always answered for by Maria as willing to do anything; when\r
+Julia, meaning, like her sister, to be Agatha, began to be scrupulous on\r
+Miss Crawford's account.\r
+\r
+"This is not behaving well by the absent," said she. "Here are not women\r
+enough. Amelia and Agatha may do for Maria and me, but here is nothing\r
+for your sister, Mr. Crawford."\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford desired _that_ might not be thought of: he was very sure\r
+his sister had no wish of acting but as she might be useful, and that\r
+she would not allow herself to be considered in the present case. But\r
+this was immediately opposed by Tom Bertram, who asserted the part of\r
+Amelia to be in every respect the property of Miss Crawford, if she\r
+would accept it. "It falls as naturally, as necessarily to her,"\r
+said he, "as Agatha does to one or other of my sisters. It can be no\r
+sacrifice on their side, for it is highly comic."\r
+\r
+A short silence followed. Each sister looked anxious; for each felt the\r
+best claim to Agatha, and was hoping to have it pressed on her by the\r
+rest. Henry Crawford, who meanwhile had taken up the play, and with\r
+seeming carelessness was turning over the first act, soon settled the\r
+business.\r
+\r
+"I must entreat Miss _Julia_ Bertram," said he, "not to engage in the\r
+part of Agatha, or it will be the ruin of all my solemnity. You must\r
+not, indeed you must not" (turning to her). "I could not stand your\r
+countenance dressed up in woe and paleness. The many laughs we have had\r
+together would infallibly come across me, and Frederick and his knapsack\r
+would be obliged to run away."\r
+\r
+Pleasantly, courteously, it was spoken; but the manner was lost in the\r
+matter to Julia's feelings. She saw a glance at Maria which confirmed\r
+the injury to herself: it was a scheme, a trick; she was slighted, Maria\r
+was preferred; the smile of triumph which Maria was trying to suppress\r
+shewed how well it was understood; and before Julia could command\r
+herself enough to speak, her brother gave his weight against her too,\r
+by saying, "Oh yes! Maria must be Agatha. Maria will be the best Agatha.\r
+Though Julia fancies she prefers tragedy, I would not trust her in it.\r
+There is nothing of tragedy about her. She has not the look of it. Her\r
+features are not tragic features, and she walks too quick, and speaks\r
+too quick, and would not keep her countenance. She had better do the old\r
+countrywoman: the Cottager's wife; you had, indeed, Julia. Cottager's\r
+wife is a very pretty part, I assure you. The old lady relieves the\r
+high-flown benevolence of her husband with a good deal of spirit. You\r
+shall be Cottager's wife."\r
+\r
+"Cottager's wife!" cried Mr. Yates. "What are you talking of? The most\r
+trivial, paltry, insignificant part; the merest commonplace; not a\r
+tolerable speech in the whole. Your sister do that! It is an insult\r
+to propose it. At Ecclesford the governess was to have done it. We\r
+all agreed that it could not be offered to anybody else. A little more\r
+justice, Mr. Manager, if you please. You do not deserve the office, if\r
+you cannot appreciate the talents of your company a little better."\r
+\r
+"Why, as to _that_, my good friend, till I and my company have really\r
+acted there must be some guesswork; but I mean no disparagement to\r
+Julia. We cannot have two Agathas, and we must have one Cottager's\r
+wife; and I am sure I set her the example of moderation myself in being\r
+satisfied with the old Butler. If the part is trifling she will have\r
+more credit in making something of it; and if she is so desperately bent\r
+against everything humorous, let her take Cottager's speeches instead of\r
+Cottager's wife's, and so change the parts all through; _he_ is solemn\r
+and pathetic enough, I am sure. It could make no difference in the play,\r
+and as for Cottager himself, when he has got his wife's speeches, _I_\r
+would undertake him with all my heart."\r
+\r
+"With all your partiality for Cottager's wife," said Henry Crawford, "it\r
+will be impossible to make anything of it fit for your sister, and we\r
+must not suffer her good-nature to be imposed on. We must not _allow_\r
+her to accept the part. She must not be left to her own complaisance.\r
+Her talents will be wanted in Amelia. Amelia is a character more\r
+difficult to be well represented than even Agatha. I consider Amelia\r
+is the most difficult character in the whole piece. It requires great\r
+powers, great nicety, to give her playfulness and simplicity without\r
+extravagance. I have seen good actresses fail in the part. Simplicity,\r
+indeed, is beyond the reach of almost every actress by profession.\r
+It requires a delicacy of feeling which they have not. It requires a\r
+gentlewoman--a Julia Bertram. You _will_ undertake it, I hope?" turning\r
+to her with a look of anxious entreaty, which softened her a little; but\r
+while she hesitated what to say, her brother again interposed with Miss\r
+Crawford's better claim.\r
+\r
+"No, no, Julia must not be Amelia. It is not at all the part for her.\r
+She would not like it. She would not do well. She is too tall and\r
+robust. Amelia should be a small, light, girlish, skipping figure. It is\r
+fit for Miss Crawford, and Miss Crawford only. She looks the part, and I\r
+am persuaded will do it admirably."\r
+\r
+Without attending to this, Henry Crawford continued his supplication.\r
+"You must oblige us," said he, "indeed you must. When you have studied\r
+the character, I am sure you will feel it suit you. Tragedy may be your\r
+choice, but it will certainly appear that comedy chuses _you_. You\r
+will be to visit me in prison with a basket of provisions; you will\r
+not refuse to visit me in prison? I think I see you coming in with your\r
+basket."\r
+\r
+The influence of his voice was felt. Julia wavered; but was he only\r
+trying to soothe and pacify her, and make her overlook the previous\r
+affront? She distrusted him. The slight had been most determined. He\r
+was, perhaps, but at treacherous play with her. She looked suspiciously\r
+at her sister; Maria's countenance was to decide it: if she were vexed\r
+and alarmed--but Maria looked all serenity and satisfaction, and Julia\r
+well knew that on this ground Maria could not be happy but at her\r
+expense. With hasty indignation, therefore, and a tremulous voice, she\r
+said to him, "You do not seem afraid of not keeping your countenance\r
+when I come in with a basket of provisions--though one might have\r
+supposed--but it is only as Agatha that I was to be so overpowering!"\r
+She stopped--Henry Crawford looked rather foolish, and as if he did not\r
+know what to say. Tom Bertram began again--\r
+\r
+"Miss Crawford must be Amelia. She will be an excellent Amelia."\r
+\r
+"Do not be afraid of _my_ wanting the character," cried Julia, with\r
+angry quickness: "I am _not_ to be Agatha, and I am sure I will do\r
+nothing else; and as to Amelia, it is of all parts in the world the\r
+most disgusting to me. I quite detest her. An odious, little, pert,\r
+unnatural, impudent girl. I have always protested against comedy, and\r
+this is comedy in its worst form." And so saying, she walked hastily\r
+out of the room, leaving awkward feelings to more than one, but exciting\r
+small compassion in any except Fanny, who had been a quiet auditor of\r
+the whole, and who could not think of her as under the agitations of\r
+_jealousy_ without great pity.\r
+\r
+A short silence succeeded her leaving them; but her brother soon\r
+returned to business and Lovers' Vows, and was eagerly looking over\r
+the play, with Mr. Yates's help, to ascertain what scenery would be\r
+necessary--while Maria and Henry Crawford conversed together in an\r
+under-voice, and the declaration with which she began of, "I am sure I\r
+would give up the part to Julia most willingly, but that though I shall\r
+probably do it very ill, I feel persuaded _she_ would do it worse," was\r
+doubtless receiving all the compliments it called for.\r
+\r
+When this had lasted some time, the division of the party was completed\r
+by Tom Bertram and Mr. Yates walking off together to consult farther in\r
+the room now beginning to be called _the_ _Theatre_, and Miss Bertram's\r
+resolving to go down to the Parsonage herself with the offer of Amelia\r
+to Miss Crawford; and Fanny remained alone.\r
+\r
+The first use she made of her solitude was to take up the volume which\r
+had been left on the table, and begin to acquaint herself with the play\r
+of which she had heard so much. Her curiosity was all awake, and she ran\r
+through it with an eagerness which was suspended only by intervals of\r
+astonishment, that it could be chosen in the present instance, that it\r
+could be proposed and accepted in a private theatre! Agatha and Amelia\r
+appeared to her in their different ways so totally improper for home\r
+representation--the situation of one, and the language of the other,\r
+so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty, that she could hardly\r
+suppose her cousins could be aware of what they were engaging in; and\r
+longed to have them roused as soon as possible by the remonstrance which\r
+Edmund would certainly make.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford accepted the part very readily; and soon after Miss\r
+Bertram's return from the Parsonage, Mr. Rushworth arrived, and another\r
+character was consequently cast. He had the offer of Count Cassel\r
+and Anhalt, and at first did not know which to chuse, and wanted Miss\r
+Bertram to direct him; but upon being made to understand the different\r
+style of the characters, and which was which, and recollecting that he\r
+had once seen the play in London, and had thought Anhalt a very stupid\r
+fellow, he soon decided for the Count. Miss Bertram approved the\r
+decision, for the less he had to learn the better; and though she could\r
+not sympathise in his wish that the Count and Agatha might be to act\r
+together, nor wait very patiently while he was slowly turning over the\r
+leaves with the hope of still discovering such a scene, she very kindly\r
+took his part in hand, and curtailed every speech that admitted being\r
+shortened; besides pointing out the necessity of his being very much\r
+dressed, and chusing his colours. Mr. Rushworth liked the idea of his\r
+finery very well, though affecting to despise it; and was too much\r
+engaged with what his own appearance would be to think of the others,\r
+or draw any of those conclusions, or feel any of that displeasure which\r
+Maria had been half prepared for.\r
+\r
+Thus much was settled before Edmund, who had been out all the morning,\r
+knew anything of the matter; but when he entered the drawing-room before\r
+dinner, the buzz of discussion was high between Tom, Maria, and Mr.\r
+Yates; and Mr. Rushworth stepped forward with great alacrity to tell him\r
+the agreeable news.\r
+\r
+"We have got a play," said he. "It is to be Lovers' Vows; and I am to be\r
+Count Cassel, and am to come in first with a blue dress and a pink satin\r
+cloak, and afterwards am to have another fine fancy suit, by way of a\r
+shooting-dress. I do not know how I shall like it."\r
+\r
+Fanny's eyes followed Edmund, and her heart beat for him as she heard\r
+this speech, and saw his look, and felt what his sensations must be.\r
+\r
+"Lovers' Vows!" in a tone of the greatest amazement, was his only reply\r
+to Mr. Rushworth, and he turned towards his brother and sisters as if\r
+hardly doubting a contradiction.\r
+\r
+"Yes," cried Mr. Yates. "After all our debatings and difficulties, we\r
+find there is nothing that will suit us altogether so well, nothing so\r
+unexceptionable, as Lovers' Vows. The wonder is that it should not have\r
+been thought of before. My stupidity was abominable, for here we have\r
+all the advantage of what I saw at Ecclesford; and it is so useful to\r
+have anything of a model! We have cast almost every part."\r
+\r
+"But what do you do for women?" said Edmund gravely, and looking at\r
+Maria.\r
+\r
+Maria blushed in spite of herself as she answered, "I take the part\r
+which Lady Ravenshaw was to have done, and" (with a bolder eye) "Miss\r
+Crawford is to be Amelia."\r
+\r
+"I should not have thought it the sort of play to be so easily filled\r
+up, with _us_," replied Edmund, turning away to the fire, where sat\r
+his mother, aunt, and Fanny, and seating himself with a look of great\r
+vexation.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rushworth followed him to say, "I come in three times, and have\r
+two-and-forty speeches. That's something, is not it? But I do not much\r
+like the idea of being so fine. I shall hardly know myself in a blue\r
+dress and a pink satin cloak."\r
+\r
+Edmund could not answer him. In a few minutes Mr. Bertram was called\r
+out of the room to satisfy some doubts of the carpenter; and being\r
+accompanied by Mr. Yates, and followed soon afterwards by Mr. Rushworth,\r
+Edmund almost immediately took the opportunity of saying, "I cannot,\r
+before Mr. Yates, speak what I feel as to this play, without reflecting\r
+on his friends at Ecclesford; but I must now, my dear Maria, tell _you_,\r
+that I think it exceedingly unfit for private representation, and that I\r
+hope you will give it up. I cannot but suppose you _will_ when you have\r
+read it carefully over. Read only the first act aloud to either your\r
+mother or aunt, and see how you can approve it. It will not be necessary\r
+to send you to your _father's_ judgment, I am convinced."\r
+\r
+"We see things very differently," cried Maria. "I am perfectly\r
+acquainted with the play, I assure you; and with a very few omissions,\r
+and so forth, which will be made, of course, I can see nothing\r
+objectionable in it; and _I_ am not the _only_ young woman you find who\r
+thinks it very fit for private representation."\r
+\r
+"I am sorry for it," was his answer; "but in this matter it is _you_ who\r
+are to lead. _You_ must set the example. If others have blundered, it\r
+is your place to put them right, and shew them what true delicacy is.\r
+In all points of decorum _your_ conduct must be law to the rest of the\r
+party."\r
+\r
+This picture of her consequence had some effect, for no one loved better\r
+to lead than Maria; and with far more good-humour she answered, "I am\r
+much obliged to you, Edmund; you mean very well, I am sure: but I still\r
+think you see things too strongly; and I really cannot undertake to\r
+harangue all the rest upon a subject of this kind. _There_ would be the\r
+greatest indecorum, I think."\r
+\r
+"Do you imagine that I could have such an idea in my head? No; let your\r
+conduct be the only harangue. Say that, on examining the part, you feel\r
+yourself unequal to it; that you find it requiring more exertion and\r
+confidence than you can be supposed to have. Say this with firmness, and\r
+it will be quite enough. All who can distinguish will understand your\r
+motive. The play will be given up, and your delicacy honoured as it\r
+ought."\r
+\r
+"Do not act anything improper, my dear," said Lady Bertram. "Sir Thomas\r
+would not like it.--Fanny, ring the bell; I must have my dinner.--To be\r
+sure, Julia is dressed by this time."\r
+\r
+"I am convinced, madam," said Edmund, preventing Fanny, "that Sir Thomas\r
+would not like it."\r
+\r
+"There, my dear, do you hear what Edmund says?"\r
+\r
+"If I were to decline the part," said Maria, with renewed zeal, "Julia\r
+would certainly take it."\r
+\r
+"What!" cried Edmund, "if she knew your reasons!"\r
+\r
+"Oh! she might think the difference between us--the difference in our\r
+situations--that _she_ need not be so scrupulous as _I_ might feel\r
+necessary. I am sure she would argue so. No; you must excuse me; I\r
+cannot retract my consent; it is too far settled, everybody would be so\r
+disappointed, Tom would be quite angry; and if we are so very nice, we\r
+shall never act anything."\r
+\r
+"I was just going to say the very same thing," said Mrs. Norris.\r
+"If every play is to be objected to, you will act nothing, and the\r
+preparations will be all so much money thrown away, and I am sure _that_\r
+would be a discredit to us all. I do not know the play; but, as Maria\r
+says, if there is anything a little too warm (and it is so with most of\r
+them) it can be easily left out. We must not be over-precise, Edmund. As\r
+Mr. Rushworth is to act too, there can be no harm. I only wish Tom had\r
+known his own mind when the carpenters began, for there was the loss\r
+of half a day's work about those side-doors. The curtain will be a good\r
+job, however. The maids do their work very well, and I think we shall be\r
+able to send back some dozens of the rings. There is no occasion to put\r
+them so very close together. I _am_ of some use, I hope, in preventing\r
+waste and making the most of things. There should always be one\r
+steady head to superintend so many young ones. I forgot to tell Tom of\r
+something that happened to me this very day. I had been looking about me\r
+in the poultry-yard, and was just coming out, when who should I see but\r
+Dick Jackson making up to the servants' hall-door with two bits of deal\r
+board in his hand, bringing them to father, you may be sure; mother had\r
+chanced to send him of a message to father, and then father had bid\r
+him bring up them two bits of board, for he could not no how do without\r
+them. I knew what all this meant, for the servants' dinner-bell\r
+was ringing at the very moment over our heads; and as I hate such\r
+encroaching people (the Jacksons are very encroaching, I have always\r
+said so: just the sort of people to get all they can), I said to the boy\r
+directly (a great lubberly fellow of ten years old, you know, who ought\r
+to be ashamed of himself), '_I'll_ take the boards to your father, Dick,\r
+so get you home again as fast as you can.' The boy looked very silly,\r
+and turned away without offering a word, for I believe I might speak\r
+pretty sharp; and I dare say it will cure him of coming marauding about\r
+the house for one while. I hate such greediness--so good as your father\r
+is to the family, employing the man all the year round!"\r
+\r
+Nobody was at the trouble of an answer; the others soon returned; and\r
+Edmund found that to have endeavoured to set them right must be his only\r
+satisfaction.\r
+\r
+Dinner passed heavily. Mrs. Norris related again her triumph over Dick\r
+Jackson, but neither play nor preparation were otherwise much talked\r
+of, for Edmund's disapprobation was felt even by his brother, though\r
+he would not have owned it. Maria, wanting Henry Crawford's animating\r
+support, thought the subject better avoided. Mr. Yates, who was trying\r
+to make himself agreeable to Julia, found her gloom less impenetrable on\r
+any topic than that of his regret at her secession from their company;\r
+and Mr. Rushworth, having only his own part and his own dress in his\r
+head, had soon talked away all that could be said of either.\r
+\r
+But the concerns of the theatre were suspended only for an hour or two:\r
+there was still a great deal to be settled; and the spirits of evening\r
+giving fresh courage, Tom, Maria, and Mr. Yates, soon after their being\r
+reassembled in the drawing-room, seated themselves in committee at a\r
+separate table, with the play open before them, and were just getting\r
+deep in the subject when a most welcome interruption was given by the\r
+entrance of Mr. and Miss Crawford, who, late and dark and dirty as it\r
+was, could not help coming, and were received with the most grateful\r
+joy.\r
+\r
+"Well, how do you go on?" and "What have you settled?" and "Oh! we\r
+can do nothing without you," followed the first salutations; and Henry\r
+Crawford was soon seated with the other three at the table, while his\r
+sister made her way to Lady Bertram, and with pleasant attention was\r
+complimenting _her_. "I must really congratulate your ladyship," said\r
+she, "on the play being chosen; for though you have borne it with\r
+exemplary patience, I am sure you must be sick of all our noise and\r
+difficulties. The actors may be glad, but the bystanders must be\r
+infinitely more thankful for a decision; and I do sincerely give you\r
+joy, madam, as well as Mrs. Norris, and everybody else who is in the\r
+same predicament," glancing half fearfully, half slyly, beyond Fanny to\r
+Edmund.\r
+\r
+She was very civilly answered by Lady Bertram, but Edmund said nothing.\r
+His being only a bystander was not disclaimed. After continuing in chat\r
+with the party round the fire a few minutes, Miss Crawford returned\r
+to the party round the table; and standing by them, seemed to\r
+interest herself in their arrangements till, as if struck by a sudden\r
+recollection, she exclaimed, "My good friends, you are most composedly\r
+at work upon these cottages and alehouses, inside and out; but pray let\r
+me know my fate in the meanwhile. Who is to be Anhalt? What gentleman\r
+among you am I to have the pleasure of making love to?"\r
+\r
+For a moment no one spoke; and then many spoke together to tell the same\r
+melancholy truth, that they had not yet got any Anhalt. "Mr. Rushworth\r
+was to be Count Cassel, but no one had yet undertaken Anhalt."\r
+\r
+"I had my choice of the parts," said Mr. Rushworth; "but I thought I\r
+should like the Count best, though I do not much relish the finery I am\r
+to have."\r
+\r
+"You chose very wisely, I am sure," replied Miss Crawford, with a\r
+brightened look; "Anhalt is a heavy part."\r
+\r
+"_The_ _Count_ has two-and-forty speeches," returned Mr. Rushworth,\r
+"which is no trifle."\r
+\r
+"I am not at all surprised," said Miss Crawford, after a short pause,\r
+"at this want of an Anhalt. Amelia deserves no better. Such a forward\r
+young lady may well frighten the men."\r
+\r
+"I should be but too happy in taking the part, if it were possible,"\r
+cried Tom; "but, unluckily, the Butler and Anhalt are in together. I\r
+will not entirely give it up, however; I will try what can be done--I\r
+will look it over again."\r
+\r
+"Your _brother_ should take the part," said Mr. Yates, in a low voice.\r
+"Do not you think he would?"\r
+\r
+"_I_ shall not ask him," replied Tom, in a cold, determined manner.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford talked of something else, and soon afterwards rejoined the\r
+party at the fire.\r
+\r
+"They do not want me at all," said she, seating herself. "I only puzzle\r
+them, and oblige them to make civil speeches. Mr. Edmund Bertram, as\r
+you do not act yourself, you will be a disinterested adviser; and,\r
+therefore, I apply to _you_. What shall we do for an Anhalt? Is it\r
+practicable for any of the others to double it? What is your advice?"\r
+\r
+"My advice," said he calmly, "is that you change the play."\r
+\r
+"_I_ should have no objection," she replied; "for though I should not\r
+particularly dislike the part of Amelia if well supported, that is, if\r
+everything went well, I shall be sorry to be an inconvenience; but\r
+as they do not chuse to hear your advice at _that_ _table_" (looking\r
+round), "it certainly will not be taken."\r
+\r
+Edmund said no more.\r
+\r
+"If _any_ part could tempt _you_ to act, I suppose it would be Anhalt,"\r
+observed the lady archly, after a short pause; "for he is a clergyman,\r
+you know."\r
+\r
+"_That_ circumstance would by no means tempt me," he replied, "for I\r
+should be sorry to make the character ridiculous by bad acting. It\r
+must be very difficult to keep Anhalt from appearing a formal, solemn\r
+lecturer; and the man who chuses the profession itself is, perhaps, one\r
+of the last who would wish to represent it on the stage."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford was silenced, and with some feelings of resentment and\r
+mortification, moved her chair considerably nearer the tea-table, and\r
+gave all her attention to Mrs. Norris, who was presiding there.\r
+\r
+"Fanny," cried Tom Bertram, from the other table, where the conference\r
+was eagerly carrying on, and the conversation incessant, "we want your\r
+services."\r
+\r
+Fanny was up in a moment, expecting some errand; for the habit of\r
+employing her in that way was not yet overcome, in spite of all that\r
+Edmund could do.\r
+\r
+"Oh! we do not want to disturb you from your seat. We do not want your\r
+_present_ services. We shall only want you in our play. You must be\r
+Cottager's wife."\r
+\r
+"Me!" cried Fanny, sitting down again with a most frightened look.\r
+"Indeed you must excuse me. I could not act anything if you were to give\r
+me the world. No, indeed, I cannot act."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, but you must, for we cannot excuse you. It need not frighten\r
+you: it is a nothing of a part, a mere nothing, not above half a dozen\r
+speeches altogether, and it will not much signify if nobody hears a word\r
+you say; so you may be as creep-mouse as you like, but we must have you\r
+to look at."\r
+\r
+"If you are afraid of half a dozen speeches," cried Mr. Rushworth, "what\r
+would you do with such a part as mine? I have forty-two to learn."\r
+\r
+"It is not that I am afraid of learning by heart," said Fanny, shocked\r
+to find herself at that moment the only speaker in the room, and to feel\r
+that almost every eye was upon her; "but I really cannot act."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, you can act well enough for _us_. Learn your part, and we\r
+will teach you all the rest. You have only two scenes, and as I shall\r
+be Cottager, I'll put you in and push you about, and you will do it very\r
+well, I'll answer for it."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, Mr. Bertram, you must excuse me. You cannot have an idea.\r
+It would be absolutely impossible for me. If I were to undertake it, I\r
+should only disappoint you."\r
+\r
+"Phoo! Phoo! Do not be so shamefaced. You'll do it very well. Every\r
+allowance will be made for you. We do not expect perfection. You must\r
+get a brown gown, and a white apron, and a mob cap, and we must make\r
+you a few wrinkles, and a little of the crowsfoot at the corner of your\r
+eyes, and you will be a very proper, little old woman."\r
+\r
+"You must excuse me, indeed you must excuse me," cried Fanny, growing\r
+more and more red from excessive agitation, and looking distressfully\r
+at Edmund, who was kindly observing her; but unwilling to exasperate\r
+his brother by interference, gave her only an encouraging smile. Her\r
+entreaty had no effect on Tom: he only said again what he had said\r
+before; and it was not merely Tom, for the requisition was now backed by\r
+Maria, and Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Yates, with an urgency which differed\r
+from his but in being more gentle or more ceremonious, and which\r
+altogether was quite overpowering to Fanny; and before she could breathe\r
+after it, Mrs. Norris completed the whole by thus addressing her in a\r
+whisper at once angry and audible--"What a piece of work here is about\r
+nothing: I am quite ashamed of you, Fanny, to make such a difficulty of\r
+obliging your cousins in a trifle of this sort--so kind as they are to\r
+you! Take the part with a good grace, and let us hear no more of the\r
+matter, I entreat."\r
+\r
+"Do not urge her, madam," said Edmund. "It is not fair to urge her\r
+in this manner. You see she does not like to act. Let her chuse for\r
+herself, as well as the rest of us. Her judgment may be quite as safely\r
+trusted. Do not urge her any more."\r
+\r
+"I am not going to urge her," replied Mrs. Norris sharply; "but I shall\r
+think her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her\r
+aunt and cousins wish her--very ungrateful, indeed, considering who and\r
+what she is."\r
+\r
+Edmund was too angry to speak; but Miss Crawford, looking for a moment\r
+with astonished eyes at Mrs. Norris, and then at Fanny, whose tears were\r
+beginning to shew themselves, immediately said, with some keenness, "I\r
+do not like my situation: this _place_ is too hot for me," and moved\r
+away her chair to the opposite side of the table, close to Fanny, saying\r
+to her, in a kind, low whisper, as she placed herself, "Never mind,\r
+my dear Miss Price, this is a cross evening: everybody is cross and\r
+teasing, but do not let us mind them"; and with pointed attention\r
+continued to talk to her and endeavour to raise her spirits, in spite of\r
+being out of spirits herself. By a look at her brother she prevented any\r
+farther entreaty from the theatrical board, and the really good feelings\r
+by which she was almost purely governed were rapidly restoring her to\r
+all the little she had lost in Edmund's favour.\r
+\r
+Fanny did not love Miss Crawford; but she felt very much obliged to her\r
+for her present kindness; and when, from taking notice of her work,\r
+and wishing _she_ could work as well, and begging for the pattern, and\r
+supposing Fanny was now preparing for her _appearance_, as of course she\r
+would come out when her cousin was married, Miss Crawford proceeded to\r
+inquire if she had heard lately from her brother at sea, and said that\r
+she had quite a curiosity to see him, and imagined him a very fine young\r
+man, and advised Fanny to get his picture drawn before he went to sea\r
+again--she could not help admitting it to be very agreeable flattery, or\r
+help listening, and answering with more animation than she had intended.\r
+\r
+The consultation upon the play still went on, and Miss Crawford's\r
+attention was first called from Fanny by Tom Bertram's telling her,\r
+with infinite regret, that he found it absolutely impossible for him to\r
+undertake the part of Anhalt in addition to the Butler: he had been most\r
+anxiously trying to make it out to be feasible, but it would not do;\r
+he must give it up. "But there will not be the smallest difficulty in\r
+filling it," he added. "We have but to speak the word; we may pick and\r
+chuse. I could name, at this moment, at least six young men within six\r
+miles of us, who are wild to be admitted into our company, and there are\r
+one or two that would not disgrace us: I should not be afraid to trust\r
+either of the Olivers or Charles Maddox. Tom Oliver is a very clever\r
+fellow, and Charles Maddox is as gentlemanlike a man as you will see\r
+anywhere, so I will take my horse early to-morrow morning and ride over\r
+to Stoke, and settle with one of them."\r
+\r
+While he spoke, Maria was looking apprehensively round at Edmund in full\r
+expectation that he must oppose such an enlargement of the plan as this:\r
+so contrary to all their first protestations; but Edmund said nothing.\r
+After a moment's thought, Miss Crawford calmly replied, "As far as I\r
+am concerned, I can have no objection to anything that you all think\r
+eligible. Have I ever seen either of the gentlemen? Yes, Mr. Charles\r
+Maddox dined at my sister's one day, did not he, Henry? A quiet-looking\r
+young man. I remember him. Let _him_ be applied to, if you please, for\r
+it will be less unpleasant to me than to have a perfect stranger."\r
+\r
+Charles Maddox was to be the man. Tom repeated his resolution of going\r
+to him early on the morrow; and though Julia, who had scarcely opened\r
+her lips before, observed, in a sarcastic manner, and with a glance\r
+first at Maria and then at Edmund, that "the Mansfield theatricals would\r
+enliven the whole neighbourhood exceedingly," Edmund still held his\r
+peace, and shewed his feelings only by a determined gravity.\r
+\r
+"I am not very sanguine as to our play," said Miss Crawford, in an\r
+undervoice to Fanny, after some consideration; "and I can tell Mr.\r
+Maddox that I shall shorten some of _his_ speeches, and a great many of\r
+_my_ _own_, before we rehearse together. It will be very disagreeable,\r
+and by no means what I expected."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+It was not in Miss Crawford's power to talk Fanny into any real\r
+forgetfulness of what had passed. When the evening was over, she went to\r
+bed full of it, her nerves still agitated by the shock of such an attack\r
+from her cousin Tom, so public and so persevered in, and her spirits\r
+sinking under her aunt's unkind reflection and reproach. To be called\r
+into notice in such a manner, to hear that it was but the prelude to\r
+something so infinitely worse, to be told that she must do what was\r
+so impossible as to act; and then to have the charge of obstinacy and\r
+ingratitude follow it, enforced with such a hint at the dependence\r
+of her situation, had been too distressing at the time to make the\r
+remembrance when she was alone much less so, especially with the\r
+superadded dread of what the morrow might produce in continuation of the\r
+subject. Miss Crawford had protected her only for the time; and if\r
+she were applied to again among themselves with all the authoritative\r
+urgency that Tom and Maria were capable of, and Edmund perhaps away,\r
+what should she do? She fell asleep before she could answer the\r
+question, and found it quite as puzzling when she awoke the next\r
+morning. The little white attic, which had continued her sleeping-room\r
+ever since her first entering the family, proving incompetent to suggest\r
+any reply, she had recourse, as soon as she was dressed, to another\r
+apartment more spacious and more meet for walking about in and thinking,\r
+and of which she had now for some time been almost equally mistress. It\r
+had been their school-room; so called till the Miss Bertrams would not\r
+allow it to be called so any longer, and inhabited as such to a later\r
+period. There Miss Lee had lived, and there they had read and written,\r
+and talked and laughed, till within the last three years, when she had\r
+quitted them. The room had then become useless, and for some time was\r
+quite deserted, except by Fanny, when she visited her plants, or wanted\r
+one of the books, which she was still glad to keep there, from the\r
+deficiency of space and accommodation in her little chamber above: but\r
+gradually, as her value for the comforts of it increased, she had added\r
+to her possessions, and spent more of her time there; and having nothing\r
+to oppose her, had so naturally and so artlessly worked herself into it,\r
+that it was now generally admitted to be hers. The East room, as it had\r
+been called ever since Maria Bertram was sixteen, was now considered\r
+Fanny's, almost as decidedly as the white attic: the smallness of the\r
+one making the use of the other so evidently reasonable that the Miss\r
+Bertrams, with every superiority in their own apartments which their own\r
+sense of superiority could demand, were entirely approving it; and Mrs.\r
+Norris, having stipulated for there never being a fire in it on Fanny's\r
+account, was tolerably resigned to her having the use of what nobody\r
+else wanted, though the terms in which she sometimes spoke of the\r
+indulgence seemed to imply that it was the best room in the house.\r
+\r
+The aspect was so favourable that even without a fire it was habitable\r
+in many an early spring and late autumn morning to such a willing mind\r
+as Fanny's; and while there was a gleam of sunshine she hoped not to be\r
+driven from it entirely, even when winter came. The comfort of it in\r
+her hours of leisure was extreme. She could go there after anything\r
+unpleasant below, and find immediate consolation in some pursuit, or\r
+some train of thought at hand. Her plants, her books--of which she had\r
+been a collector from the first hour of her commanding a shilling--her\r
+writing-desk, and her works of charity and ingenuity, were all within\r
+her reach; or if indisposed for employment, if nothing but musing would\r
+do, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an\r
+interesting remembrance connected with it. Everything was a friend, or\r
+bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much\r
+of suffering to her; though her motives had often been misunderstood,\r
+her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she\r
+had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost\r
+every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory: her aunt\r
+Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or, what\r
+was yet more frequent or more dear, Edmund had been her champion and her\r
+friend: he had supported her cause or explained her meaning, he had told\r
+her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made\r
+her tears delightful; and the whole was now so blended together, so\r
+harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm. The\r
+room was most dear to her, and she would not have changed its furniture\r
+for the handsomest in the house, though what had been originally plain\r
+had suffered all the ill-usage of children; and its greatest elegancies\r
+and ornaments were a faded footstool of Julia's work, too ill done\r
+for the drawing-room, three transparencies, made in a rage for\r
+transparencies, for the three lower panes of one window, where Tintern\r
+Abbey held its station between a cave in Italy and a moonlight lake in\r
+Cumberland, a collection of family profiles, thought unworthy of being\r
+anywhere else, over the mantelpiece, and by their side, and pinned\r
+against the wall, a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the\r
+Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters\r
+as tall as the mainmast.\r
+\r
+To this nest of comforts Fanny now walked down to try its influence on\r
+an agitated, doubting spirit, to see if by looking at Edmund's profile\r
+she could catch any of his counsel, or by giving air to her geraniums\r
+she might inhale a breeze of mental strength herself. But she had more\r
+than fears of her own perseverance to remove: she had begun to feel\r
+undecided as to what she _ought_ _to_ _do_; and as she walked round the\r
+room her doubts were increasing. Was she _right_ in refusing what was\r
+so warmly asked, so strongly wished for--what might be so essential to a\r
+scheme on which some of those to whom she owed the greatest complaisance\r
+had set their hearts? Was it not ill-nature, selfishness, and a fear of\r
+exposing herself? And would Edmund's judgment, would his persuasion of\r
+Sir Thomas's disapprobation of the whole, be enough to justify her in a\r
+determined denial in spite of all the rest? It would be so horrible to\r
+her to act that she was inclined to suspect the truth and purity of her\r
+own scruples; and as she looked around her, the claims of her cousins\r
+to being obliged were strengthened by the sight of present upon present\r
+that she had received from them. The table between the windows was\r
+covered with work-boxes and netting-boxes which had been given her at\r
+different times, principally by Tom; and she grew bewildered as to the\r
+amount of the debt which all these kind remembrances produced. A tap at\r
+the door roused her in the midst of this attempt to find her way to her\r
+duty, and her gentle "Come in" was answered by the appearance of one,\r
+before whom all her doubts were wont to be laid. Her eyes brightened at\r
+the sight of Edmund.\r
+\r
+"Can I speak with you, Fanny, for a few minutes?" said he.\r
+\r
+"Yes, certainly."\r
+\r
+"I want to consult. I want your opinion."\r
+\r
+"My opinion!" she cried, shrinking from such a compliment, highly as it\r
+gratified her.\r
+\r
+"Yes, your advice and opinion. I do not know what to do. This acting\r
+scheme gets worse and worse, you see. They have chosen almost as bad a\r
+play as they could, and now, to complete the business, are going to ask\r
+the help of a young man very slightly known to any of us. This is the\r
+end of all the privacy and propriety which was talked about at first.\r
+I know no harm of Charles Maddox; but the excessive intimacy which\r
+must spring from his being admitted among us in this manner is highly\r
+objectionable, the _more_ than intimacy--the familiarity. I cannot\r
+think of it with any patience; and it does appear to me an evil of such\r
+magnitude as must, _if_ _possible_, be prevented. Do not you see it in\r
+the same light?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; but what can be done? Your brother is so determined."\r
+\r
+"There is but _one_ thing to be done, Fanny. I must take Anhalt myself.\r
+I am well aware that nothing else will quiet Tom."\r
+\r
+Fanny could not answer him.\r
+\r
+"It is not at all what I like," he continued. "No man can like being\r
+driven into the _appearance_ of such inconsistency. After being known to\r
+oppose the scheme from the beginning, there is absurdity in the face of\r
+my joining them _now_, when they are exceeding their first plan in every\r
+respect; but I can think of no other alternative. Can you, Fanny?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Fanny slowly, "not immediately, but--"\r
+\r
+"But what? I see your judgment is not with me. Think it a little over.\r
+Perhaps you are not so much aware as I am of the mischief that _may_, of\r
+the unpleasantness that _must_ arise from a young man's being received\r
+in this manner: domesticated among us; authorised to come at all hours,\r
+and placed suddenly on a footing which must do away all restraints. To\r
+think only of the licence which every rehearsal must tend to create. It\r
+is all very bad! Put yourself in Miss Crawford's place, Fanny. Consider\r
+what it would be to act Amelia with a stranger. She has a right to be\r
+felt for, because she evidently feels for herself. I heard enough of\r
+what she said to you last night to understand her unwillingness to be\r
+acting with a stranger; and as she probably engaged in the part with\r
+different expectations--perhaps without considering the subject enough\r
+to know what was likely to be--it would be ungenerous, it would be\r
+really wrong to expose her to it. Her feelings ought to be respected.\r
+Does it not strike you so, Fanny? You hesitate."\r
+\r
+"I am sorry for Miss Crawford; but I am more sorry to see you drawn in\r
+to do what you had resolved against, and what you are known to think\r
+will be disagreeable to my uncle. It will be such a triumph to the\r
+others!"\r
+\r
+"They will not have much cause of triumph when they see how infamously I\r
+act. But, however, triumph there certainly will be, and I must brave it.\r
+But if I can be the means of restraining the publicity of the business,\r
+of limiting the exhibition, of concentrating our folly, I shall be\r
+well repaid. As I am now, I have no influence, I can do nothing: I have\r
+offended them, and they will not hear me; but when I have put them in\r
+good-humour by this concession, I am not without hopes of persuading\r
+them to confine the representation within a much smaller circle than\r
+they are now in the high road for. This will be a material gain. My\r
+object is to confine it to Mrs. Rushworth and the Grants. Will not this\r
+be worth gaining?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, it will be a great point."\r
+\r
+"But still it has not your approbation. Can you mention any other\r
+measure by which I have a chance of doing equal good?"\r
+\r
+"No, I cannot think of anything else."\r
+\r
+"Give me your approbation, then, Fanny. I am not comfortable without\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, cousin!"\r
+\r
+"If you are against me, I ought to distrust myself, and yet--But it is\r
+absolutely impossible to let Tom go on in this way, riding about the\r
+country in quest of anybody who can be persuaded to act--no matter whom:\r
+the look of a gentleman is to be enough. I thought _you_ would have\r
+entered more into Miss Crawford's feelings."\r
+\r
+"No doubt she will be very glad. It must be a great relief to her," said\r
+Fanny, trying for greater warmth of manner.\r
+\r
+"She never appeared more amiable than in her behaviour to you last\r
+night. It gave her a very strong claim on my goodwill."\r
+\r
+"She _was_ very kind, indeed, and I am glad to have her spared"...\r
+\r
+She could not finish the generous effusion. Her conscience stopt her in\r
+the middle, but Edmund was satisfied.\r
+\r
+"I shall walk down immediately after breakfast," said he, "and am sure\r
+of giving pleasure there. And now, dear Fanny, I will not interrupt you\r
+any longer. You want to be reading. But I could not be easy till I had\r
+spoken to you, and come to a decision. Sleeping or waking, my head has\r
+been full of this matter all night. It is an evil, but I am certainly\r
+making it less than it might be. If Tom is up, I shall go to him\r
+directly and get it over, and when we meet at breakfast we shall be all\r
+in high good-humour at the prospect of acting the fool together with\r
+such unanimity. _You_, in the meanwhile, will be taking a trip into\r
+China, I suppose. How does Lord Macartney go on?"--opening a volume on\r
+the table and then taking up some others. "And here are Crabbe's Tales,\r
+and the Idler, at hand to relieve you, if you tire of your great book. I\r
+admire your little establishment exceedingly; and as soon as I am\r
+gone, you will empty your head of all this nonsense of acting, and sit\r
+comfortably down to your table. But do not stay here to be cold."\r
+\r
+He went; but there was no reading, no China, no composure for Fanny. He\r
+had told her the most extraordinary, the most inconceivable, the most\r
+unwelcome news; and she could think of nothing else. To be acting! After\r
+all his objections--objections so just and so public! After all that she\r
+had heard him say, and seen him look, and known him to be feeling. Could\r
+it be possible? Edmund so inconsistent! Was he not deceiving himself?\r
+Was he not wrong? Alas! it was all Miss Crawford's doing. She had seen\r
+her influence in every speech, and was miserable. The doubts and alarms\r
+as to her own conduct, which had previously distressed her, and\r
+which had all slept while she listened to him, were become of little\r
+consequence now. This deeper anxiety swallowed them up. Things should\r
+take their course; she cared not how it ended. Her cousins might attack,\r
+but could hardly tease her. She was beyond their reach; and if at last\r
+obliged to yield--no matter--it was all misery now.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+It was, indeed, a triumphant day to Mr. Bertram and Maria. Such a\r
+victory over Edmund's discretion had been beyond their hopes, and was\r
+most delightful. There was no longer anything to disturb them in their\r
+darling project, and they congratulated each other in private on the\r
+jealous weakness to which they attributed the change, with all the glee\r
+of feelings gratified in every way. Edmund might still look grave, and\r
+say he did not like the scheme in general, and must disapprove the play\r
+in particular; their point was gained: he was to act, and he was driven\r
+to it by the force of selfish inclinations only. Edmund had descended\r
+from that moral elevation which he had maintained before, and they were\r
+both as much the better as the happier for the descent.\r
+\r
+They behaved very well, however, to _him_ on the occasion, betraying no\r
+exultation beyond the lines about the corners of the mouth, and seemed\r
+to think it as great an escape to be quit of the intrusion of Charles\r
+Maddox, as if they had been forced into admitting him against their\r
+inclination. "To have it quite in their own family circle was what\r
+they had particularly wished. A stranger among them would have been the\r
+destruction of all their comfort"; and when Edmund, pursuing that idea,\r
+gave a hint of his hope as to the limitation of the audience, they were\r
+ready, in the complaisance of the moment, to promise anything. It was\r
+all good-humour and encouragement. Mrs. Norris offered to contrive his\r
+dress, Mr. Yates assured him that Anhalt's last scene with the Baron\r
+admitted a good deal of action and emphasis, and Mr. Rushworth undertook\r
+to count his speeches.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Tom, "Fanny may be more disposed to oblige us now.\r
+Perhaps you may persuade _her_."\r
+\r
+"No, she is quite determined. She certainly will not act."\r
+\r
+"Oh! very well." And not another word was said; but Fanny felt herself\r
+again in danger, and her indifference to the danger was beginning to\r
+fail her already.\r
+\r
+There were not fewer smiles at the Parsonage than at the Park on this\r
+change in Edmund; Miss Crawford looked very lovely in hers, and entered\r
+with such an instantaneous renewal of cheerfulness into the whole\r
+affair as could have but one effect on him. "He was certainly right in\r
+respecting such feelings; he was glad he had determined on it." And the\r
+morning wore away in satisfactions very sweet, if not very sound. One\r
+advantage resulted from it to Fanny: at the earnest request of Miss\r
+Crawford, Mrs. Grant had, with her usual good-humour, agreed to\r
+undertake the part for which Fanny had been wanted; and this was all\r
+that occurred to gladden _her_ heart during the day; and even this, when\r
+imparted by Edmund, brought a pang with it, for it was Miss Crawford to\r
+whom she was obliged--it was Miss Crawford whose kind exertions were to\r
+excite her gratitude, and whose merit in making them was spoken of\r
+with a glow of admiration. She was safe; but peace and safety were\r
+unconnected here. Her mind had been never farther from peace. She could\r
+not feel that she had done wrong herself, but she was disquieted\r
+in every other way. Her heart and her judgment were equally against\r
+Edmund's decision: she could not acquit his unsteadiness, and his\r
+happiness under it made her wretched. She was full of jealousy and\r
+agitation. Miss Crawford came with looks of gaiety which seemed an\r
+insult, with friendly expressions towards herself which she could hardly\r
+answer calmly. Everybody around her was gay and busy, prosperous and\r
+important; each had their object of interest, their part, their dress,\r
+their favourite scene, their friends and confederates: all were finding\r
+employment in consultations and comparisons, or diversion in the playful\r
+conceits they suggested. She alone was sad and insignificant: she had\r
+no share in anything; she might go or stay; she might be in the midst\r
+of their noise, or retreat from it to the solitude of the East room,\r
+without being seen or missed. She could almost think anything would\r
+have been preferable to this. Mrs. Grant was of consequence: _her_\r
+good-nature had honourable mention; her taste and her time were\r
+considered; her presence was wanted; she was sought for, and attended,\r
+and praised; and Fanny was at first in some danger of envying her the\r
+character she had accepted. But reflection brought better feelings, and\r
+shewed her that Mrs. Grant was entitled to respect, which could never\r
+have belonged to _her_; and that, had she received even the greatest,\r
+she could never have been easy in joining a scheme which, considering\r
+only her uncle, she must condemn altogether.\r
+\r
+Fanny's heart was not absolutely the only saddened one amongst them,\r
+as she soon began to acknowledge to herself. Julia was a sufferer too,\r
+though not quite so blamelessly.\r
+\r
+Henry Crawford had trifled with her feelings; but she had very long\r
+allowed and even sought his attentions, with a jealousy of her sister so\r
+reasonable as ought to have been their cure; and now that the conviction\r
+of his preference for Maria had been forced on her, she submitted to it\r
+without any alarm for Maria's situation, or any endeavour at rational\r
+tranquillity for herself. She either sat in gloomy silence, wrapt in\r
+such gravity as nothing could subdue, no curiosity touch, no wit amuse;\r
+or allowing the attentions of Mr. Yates, was talking with forced gaiety\r
+to him alone, and ridiculing the acting of the others.\r
+\r
+For a day or two after the affront was given, Henry Crawford had\r
+endeavoured to do it away by the usual attack of gallantry and\r
+compliment, but he had not cared enough about it to persevere against a\r
+few repulses; and becoming soon too busy with his play to have time for\r
+more than one flirtation, he grew indifferent to the quarrel, or rather\r
+thought it a lucky occurrence, as quietly putting an end to what might\r
+ere long have raised expectations in more than Mrs. Grant. She was not\r
+pleased to see Julia excluded from the play, and sitting by disregarded;\r
+but as it was not a matter which really involved her happiness, as Henry\r
+must be the best judge of his own, and as he did assure her, with a\r
+most persuasive smile, that neither he nor Julia had ever had a serious\r
+thought of each other, she could only renew her former caution as to\r
+the elder sister, entreat him not to risk his tranquillity by too\r
+much admiration there, and then gladly take her share in anything that\r
+brought cheerfulness to the young people in general, and that did so\r
+particularly promote the pleasure of the two so dear to her.\r
+\r
+"I rather wonder Julia is not in love with Henry," was her observation\r
+to Mary.\r
+\r
+"I dare say she is," replied Mary coldly. "I imagine both sisters are."\r
+\r
+"Both! no, no, that must not be. Do not give him a hint of it. Think of\r
+Mr. Rushworth!"\r
+\r
+"You had better tell Miss Bertram to think of Mr. Rushworth. It may\r
+do _her_ some good. I often think of Mr. Rushworth's property and\r
+independence, and wish them in other hands; but I never think of him. A\r
+man might represent the county with such an estate; a man might escape a\r
+profession and represent the county."\r
+\r
+"I dare say he _will_ be in parliament soon. When Sir Thomas comes, I\r
+dare say he will be in for some borough, but there has been nobody to\r
+put him in the way of doing anything yet."\r
+\r
+"Sir Thomas is to achieve many mighty things when he comes home," said\r
+Mary, after a pause. "Do you remember Hawkins Browne's 'Address to\r
+Tobacco,' in imitation of Pope?--\r
+\r
+ Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispense\r
+ To Templars modesty, to Parsons sense.\r
+\r
+I will parody them--\r
+\r
+ Blest Knight! whose dictatorial looks dispense\r
+ To Children affluence, to Rushworth sense.\r
+\r
+Will not that do, Mrs. Grant? Everything seems to depend upon Sir\r
+Thomas's return."\r
+\r
+"You will find his consequence very just and reasonable when you see him\r
+in his family, I assure you. I do not think we do so well without him.\r
+He has a fine dignified manner, which suits the head of such a house,\r
+and keeps everybody in their place. Lady Bertram seems more of a cipher\r
+now than when he is at home; and nobody else can keep Mrs. Norris in\r
+order. But, Mary, do not fancy that Maria Bertram cares for Henry. I\r
+am sure _Julia_ does not, or she would not have flirted as she did last\r
+night with Mr. Yates; and though he and Maria are very good friends, I\r
+think she likes Sotherton too well to be inconstant."\r
+\r
+"I would not give much for Mr. Rushworth's chance if Henry stept in\r
+before the articles were signed."\r
+\r
+"If you have such a suspicion, something must be done; and as soon as\r
+the play is all over, we will talk to him seriously and make him know\r
+his own mind; and if he means nothing, we will send him off, though he\r
+is Henry, for a time."\r
+\r
+Julia _did_ suffer, however, though Mrs. Grant discerned it not, and\r
+though it escaped the notice of many of her own family likewise. She had\r
+loved, she did love still, and she had all the suffering which a warm\r
+temper and a high spirit were likely to endure under the disappointment\r
+of a dear, though irrational hope, with a strong sense of ill-usage.\r
+Her heart was sore and angry, and she was capable only of angry\r
+consolations. The sister with whom she was used to be on easy terms was\r
+now become her greatest enemy: they were alienated from each other;\r
+and Julia was not superior to the hope of some distressing end to the\r
+attentions which were still carrying on there, some punishment to\r
+Maria for conduct so shameful towards herself as well as towards Mr.\r
+Rushworth. With no material fault of temper, or difference of opinion,\r
+to prevent their being very good friends while their interests were\r
+the same, the sisters, under such a trial as this, had not affection or\r
+principle enough to make them merciful or just, to give them honour or\r
+compassion. Maria felt her triumph, and pursued her purpose, careless of\r
+Julia; and Julia could never see Maria distinguished by Henry Crawford\r
+without trusting that it would create jealousy, and bring a public\r
+disturbance at last.\r
+\r
+Fanny saw and pitied much of this in Julia; but there was no outward\r
+fellowship between them. Julia made no communication, and Fanny took\r
+no liberties. They were two solitary sufferers, or connected only by\r
+Fanny's consciousness.\r
+\r
+The inattention of the two brothers and the aunt to Julia's\r
+discomposure, and their blindness to its true cause, must be imputed to\r
+the fullness of their own minds. They were totally preoccupied. Tom was\r
+engrossed by the concerns of his theatre, and saw nothing that did not\r
+immediately relate to it. Edmund, between his theatrical and his real\r
+part, between Miss Crawford's claims and his own conduct, between love\r
+and consistency, was equally unobservant; and Mrs. Norris was too busy\r
+in contriving and directing the general little matters of the company,\r
+superintending their various dresses with economical expedient, for\r
+which nobody thanked her, and saving, with delighted integrity, half\r
+a crown here and there to the absent Sir Thomas, to have leisure for\r
+watching the behaviour, or guarding the happiness of his daughters.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Everything was now in a regular train: theatre, actors, actresses, and\r
+dresses, were all getting forward; but though no other great impediments\r
+arose, Fanny found, before many days were past, that it was not all\r
+uninterrupted enjoyment to the party themselves, and that she had not to\r
+witness the continuance of such unanimity and delight as had been almost\r
+too much for her at first. Everybody began to have their vexation.\r
+Edmund had many. Entirely against _his_ judgment, a scene-painter\r
+arrived from town, and was at work, much to the increase of the\r
+expenses, and, what was worse, of the eclat of their proceedings; and\r
+his brother, instead of being really guided by him as to the privacy of\r
+the representation, was giving an invitation to every family who came\r
+in his way. Tom himself began to fret over the scene-painter's slow\r
+progress, and to feel the miseries of waiting. He had learned his\r
+part--all his parts, for he took every trifling one that could be united\r
+with the Butler, and began to be impatient to be acting; and every day\r
+thus unemployed was tending to increase his sense of the insignificance\r
+of all his parts together, and make him more ready to regret that some\r
+other play had not been chosen.\r
+\r
+Fanny, being always a very courteous listener, and often the only\r
+listener at hand, came in for the complaints and the distresses of\r
+most of them. _She_ knew that Mr. Yates was in general thought to rant\r
+dreadfully; that Mr. Yates was disappointed in Henry Crawford; that\r
+Tom Bertram spoke so quick he would be unintelligible; that Mrs. Grant\r
+spoiled everything by laughing; that Edmund was behindhand with his\r
+part, and that it was misery to have anything to do with Mr. Rushworth,\r
+who was wanting a prompter through every speech. She knew, also, that\r
+poor Mr. Rushworth could seldom get anybody to rehearse with him: _his_\r
+complaint came before her as well as the rest; and so decided to her\r
+eye was her cousin Maria's avoidance of him, and so needlessly often the\r
+rehearsal of the first scene between her and Mr. Crawford, that she had\r
+soon all the terror of other complaints from _him_. So far from being\r
+all satisfied and all enjoying, she found everybody requiring something\r
+they had not, and giving occasion of discontent to the others. Everybody\r
+had a part either too long or too short; nobody would attend as they\r
+ought; nobody would remember on which side they were to come in; nobody\r
+but the complainer would observe any directions.\r
+\r
+Fanny believed herself to derive as much innocent enjoyment from the\r
+play as any of them; Henry Crawford acted well, and it was a pleasure to\r
+_her_ to creep into the theatre, and attend the rehearsal of the first\r
+act, in spite of the feelings it excited in some speeches for Maria.\r
+Maria, she also thought, acted well, too well; and after the first\r
+rehearsal or two, Fanny began to be their only audience; and sometimes\r
+as prompter, sometimes as spectator, was often very useful. As far as\r
+she could judge, Mr. Crawford was considerably the best actor of all: he\r
+had more confidence than Edmund, more judgment than Tom, more talent and\r
+taste than Mr. Yates. She did not like him as a man, but she must admit\r
+him to be the best actor, and on this point there were not many who\r
+differed from her. Mr. Yates, indeed, exclaimed against his tameness and\r
+insipidity; and the day came at last, when Mr. Rushworth turned to her\r
+with a black look, and said, "Do you think there is anything so very\r
+fine in all this? For the life and soul of me, I cannot admire him; and,\r
+between ourselves, to see such an undersized, little, mean-looking man,\r
+set up for a fine actor, is very ridiculous in my opinion."\r
+\r
+From this moment there was a return of his former jealousy, which Maria,\r
+from increasing hopes of Crawford, was at little pains to remove; and\r
+the chances of Mr. Rushworth's ever attaining to the knowledge of his\r
+two-and-forty speeches became much less. As to his ever making anything\r
+_tolerable_ of them, nobody had the smallest idea of that except\r
+his mother; _she_, indeed, regretted that his part was not more\r
+considerable, and deferred coming over to Mansfield till they were\r
+forward enough in their rehearsal to comprehend all his scenes; but the\r
+others aspired at nothing beyond his remembering the catchword, and the\r
+first line of his speech, and being able to follow the prompter through\r
+the rest. Fanny, in her pity and kindheartedness, was at great pains to\r
+teach him how to learn, giving him all the helps and directions in her\r
+power, trying to make an artificial memory for him, and learning every\r
+word of his part herself, but without his being much the forwarder.\r
+\r
+Many uncomfortable, anxious, apprehensive feelings she certainly had;\r
+but with all these, and other claims on her time and attention, she was\r
+as far from finding herself without employment or utility amongst them,\r
+as without a companion in uneasiness; quite as far from having no\r
+demand on her leisure as on her compassion. The gloom of her first\r
+anticipations was proved to have been unfounded. She was occasionally\r
+useful to all; she was perhaps as much at peace as any.\r
+\r
+There was a great deal of needlework to be done, moreover, in which her\r
+help was wanted; and that Mrs. Norris thought her quite as well off\r
+as the rest, was evident by the manner in which she claimed it--"Come,\r
+Fanny," she cried, "these are fine times for you, but you must not be\r
+always walking from one room to the other, and doing the lookings-on at\r
+your ease, in this way; I want you here. I have been slaving myself till\r
+I can hardly stand, to contrive Mr. Rushworth's cloak without sending\r
+for any more satin; and now I think you may give me your help in putting\r
+it together. There are but three seams; you may do them in a trice. It\r
+would be lucky for me if I had nothing but the executive part to do.\r
+_You_ are best off, I can tell you: but if nobody did more than _you_,\r
+we should not get on very fast."\r
+\r
+Fanny took the work very quietly, without attempting any defence; but\r
+her kinder aunt Bertram observed on her behalf--\r
+\r
+"One cannot wonder, sister, that Fanny _should_ be delighted: it is\r
+all new to her, you know; you and I used to be very fond of a play\r
+ourselves, and so am I still; and as soon as I am a little more at\r
+leisure, _I_ mean to look in at their rehearsals too. What is the play\r
+about, Fanny? you have never told me."\r
+\r
+"Oh! sister, pray do not ask her now; for Fanny is not one of those who\r
+can talk and work at the same time. It is about Lovers' Vows."\r
+\r
+"I believe," said Fanny to her aunt Bertram, "there will be three acts\r
+rehearsed to-morrow evening, and that will give you an opportunity of\r
+seeing all the actors at once."\r
+\r
+"You had better stay till the curtain is hung," interposed Mrs. Norris;\r
+"the curtain will be hung in a day or two--there is very little sense in\r
+a play without a curtain--and I am much mistaken if you do not find it\r
+draw up into very handsome festoons."\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram seemed quite resigned to waiting. Fanny did not share her\r
+aunt's composure: she thought of the morrow a great deal, for if the\r
+three acts were rehearsed, Edmund and Miss Crawford would then be acting\r
+together for the first time; the third act would bring a scene between\r
+them which interested her most particularly, and which she was longing\r
+and dreading to see how they would perform. The whole subject of it was\r
+love--a marriage of love was to be described by the gentleman, and very\r
+little short of a declaration of love be made by the lady.\r
+\r
+She had read and read the scene again with many painful, many wondering\r
+emotions, and looked forward to their representation of it as a\r
+circumstance almost too interesting. She did not _believe_ they had yet\r
+rehearsed it, even in private.\r
+\r
+The morrow came, the plan for the evening continued, and Fanny's\r
+consideration of it did not become less agitated. She worked very\r
+diligently under her aunt's directions, but her diligence and her\r
+silence concealed a very absent, anxious mind; and about noon she\r
+made her escape with her work to the East room, that she might have no\r
+concern in another, and, as she deemed it, most unnecessary rehearsal of\r
+the first act, which Henry Crawford was just proposing, desirous at\r
+once of having her time to herself, and of avoiding the sight of Mr.\r
+Rushworth. A glimpse, as she passed through the hall, of the two ladies\r
+walking up from the Parsonage made no change in her wish of retreat, and\r
+she worked and meditated in the East room, undisturbed, for a quarter of\r
+an hour, when a gentle tap at the door was followed by the entrance of\r
+Miss Crawford.\r
+\r
+"Am I right? Yes; this is the East room. My dear Miss Price, I beg your\r
+pardon, but I have made my way to you on purpose to entreat your help."\r
+\r
+Fanny, quite surprised, endeavoured to shew herself mistress of the room\r
+by her civilities, and looked at the bright bars of her empty grate with\r
+concern.\r
+\r
+"Thank you; I am quite warm, very warm. Allow me to stay here a little\r
+while, and do have the goodness to hear me my third act. I have brought\r
+my book, and if you would but rehearse it with me, I should be _so_\r
+obliged! I came here to-day intending to rehearse it with Edmund--by\r
+ourselves--against the evening, but he is not in the way; and if he\r
+_were_, I do not think I could go through it with _him_, till I have\r
+hardened myself a little; for really there is a speech or two. You will\r
+be so good, won't you?"\r
+\r
+Fanny was most civil in her assurances, though she could not give them\r
+in a very steady voice.\r
+\r
+"Have you ever happened to look at the part I mean?" continued Miss\r
+Crawford, opening her book. "Here it is. I did not think much of it at\r
+first--but, upon my word. There, look at _that_ speech, and _that_, and\r
+_that_. How am I ever to look him in the face and say such things? Could\r
+you do it? But then he is your cousin, which makes all the difference.\r
+You must rehearse it with me, that I may fancy _you_ him, and get on by\r
+degrees. You _have_ a look of _his_ sometimes."\r
+\r
+"Have I? I will do my best with the greatest readiness; but I must\r
+_read_ the part, for I can say very little of it."\r
+\r
+"_None_ of it, I suppose. You are to have the book, of course. Now for\r
+it. We must have two chairs at hand for you to bring forward to the\r
+front of the stage. There--very good school-room chairs, not made for a\r
+theatre, I dare say; much more fitted for little girls to sit and kick\r
+their feet against when they are learning a lesson. What would your\r
+governess and your uncle say to see them used for such a purpose? Could\r
+Sir Thomas look in upon us just now, he would bless himself, for we\r
+are rehearsing all over the house. Yates is storming away in the\r
+dining-room. I heard him as I came upstairs, and the theatre is engaged\r
+of course by those indefatigable rehearsers, Agatha and Frederick. If\r
+_they_ are not perfect, I _shall_ be surprised. By the bye, I looked in\r
+upon them five minutes ago, and it happened to be exactly at one of the\r
+times when they were trying _not_ to embrace, and Mr. Rushworth was with\r
+me. I thought he began to look a little queer, so I turned it off as\r
+well as I could, by whispering to him, 'We shall have an excellent\r
+Agatha; there is something so _maternal_ in her manner, so completely\r
+_maternal_ in her voice and countenance.' Was not that well done of me?\r
+He brightened up directly. Now for my soliloquy."\r
+\r
+She began, and Fanny joined in with all the modest feeling which the\r
+idea of representing Edmund was so strongly calculated to inspire; but\r
+with looks and voice so truly feminine as to be no very good picture of\r
+a man. With such an Anhalt, however, Miss Crawford had courage enough;\r
+and they had got through half the scene, when a tap at the door brought\r
+a pause, and the entrance of Edmund, the next moment, suspended it all.\r
+\r
+Surprise, consciousness, and pleasure appeared in each of the three\r
+on this unexpected meeting; and as Edmund was come on the very same\r
+business that had brought Miss Crawford, consciousness and pleasure were\r
+likely to be more than momentary in _them_. He too had his book, and was\r
+seeking Fanny, to ask her to rehearse with him, and help him to prepare\r
+for the evening, without knowing Miss Crawford to be in the house;\r
+and great was the joy and animation of being thus thrown together, of\r
+comparing schemes, and sympathising in praise of Fanny's kind offices.\r
+\r
+_She_ could not equal them in their warmth. _Her_ spirits sank under the\r
+glow of theirs, and she felt herself becoming too nearly nothing to\r
+both to have any comfort in having been sought by either. They must now\r
+rehearse together. Edmund proposed, urged, entreated it, till the lady,\r
+not very unwilling at first, could refuse no longer, and Fanny was\r
+wanted only to prompt and observe them. She was invested, indeed, with\r
+the office of judge and critic, and earnestly desired to exercise it and\r
+tell them all their faults; but from doing so every feeling within her\r
+shrank--she could not, would not, dared not attempt it: had she been\r
+otherwise qualified for criticism, her conscience must have restrained\r
+her from venturing at disapprobation. She believed herself to feel too\r
+much of it in the aggregate for honesty or safety in particulars. To\r
+prompt them must be enough for her; and it was sometimes _more_ than\r
+enough; for she could not always pay attention to the book. In watching\r
+them she forgot herself; and, agitated by the increasing spirit of\r
+Edmund's manner, had once closed the page and turned away exactly as he\r
+wanted help. It was imputed to very reasonable weariness, and she was\r
+thanked and pitied; but she deserved their pity more than she hoped they\r
+would ever surmise. At last the scene was over, and Fanny forced herself\r
+to add her praise to the compliments each was giving the other; and when\r
+again alone and able to recall the whole, she was inclined to believe\r
+their performance would, indeed, have such nature and feeling in it as\r
+must ensure their credit, and make it a very suffering exhibition to\r
+herself. Whatever might be its effect, however, she must stand the brunt\r
+of it again that very day.\r
+\r
+The first regular rehearsal of the three first acts was certainly to\r
+take place in the evening: Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords were engaged to\r
+return for that purpose as soon as they could after dinner; and every\r
+one concerned was looking forward with eagerness. There seemed a general\r
+diffusion of cheerfulness on the occasion. Tom was enjoying such an\r
+advance towards the end; Edmund was in spirits from the morning's\r
+rehearsal, and little vexations seemed everywhere smoothed away. All\r
+were alert and impatient; the ladies moved soon, the gentlemen soon\r
+followed them, and with the exception of Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris, and\r
+Julia, everybody was in the theatre at an early hour; and having lighted\r
+it up as well as its unfinished state admitted, were waiting only the\r
+arrival of Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords to begin.\r
+\r
+They did not wait long for the Crawfords, but there was no Mrs. Grant.\r
+She could not come. Dr. Grant, professing an indisposition, for which he\r
+had little credit with his fair sister-in-law, could not spare his wife.\r
+\r
+"Dr. Grant is ill," said she, with mock solemnity. "He has been ill ever\r
+since he did not eat any of the pheasant today. He fancied it tough,\r
+sent away his plate, and has been suffering ever since".\r
+\r
+Here was disappointment! Mrs. Grant's non-attendance was sad indeed.\r
+Her pleasant manners and cheerful conformity made her always valuable\r
+amongst them; but _now_ she was absolutely necessary. They could not\r
+act, they could not rehearse with any satisfaction without her. The\r
+comfort of the whole evening was destroyed. What was to be done? Tom, as\r
+Cottager, was in despair. After a pause of perplexity, some eyes began\r
+to be turned towards Fanny, and a voice or two to say, "If Miss Price\r
+would be so good as to _read_ the part." She was immediately surrounded\r
+by supplications; everybody asked it; even Edmund said, "Do, Fanny, if\r
+it is not _very_ disagreeable to you."\r
+\r
+But Fanny still hung back. She could not endure the idea of it. Why was\r
+not Miss Crawford to be applied to as well? Or why had not she rather\r
+gone to her own room, as she had felt to be safest, instead of attending\r
+the rehearsal at all? She had known it would irritate and distress her;\r
+she had known it her duty to keep away. She was properly punished.\r
+\r
+"You have only to _read_ the part," said Henry Crawford, with renewed\r
+entreaty.\r
+\r
+"And I do believe she can say every word of it," added Maria, "for she\r
+could put Mrs. Grant right the other day in twenty places. Fanny, I am\r
+sure you know the part."\r
+\r
+Fanny could not say she did _not_; and as they all persevered, as\r
+Edmund repeated his wish, and with a look of even fond dependence on\r
+her good-nature, she must yield. She would do her best. Everybody was\r
+satisfied; and she was left to the tremors of a most palpitating heart,\r
+while the others prepared to begin.\r
+\r
+They _did_ begin; and being too much engaged in their own noise to be\r
+struck by an unusual noise in the other part of the house, had proceeded\r
+some way when the door of the room was thrown open, and Julia, appearing\r
+at it, with a face all aghast, exclaimed, "My father is come! He is in\r
+the hall at this moment."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+How is the consternation of the party to be described? To the greater\r
+number it was a moment of absolute horror. Sir Thomas in the house! All\r
+felt the instantaneous conviction. Not a hope of imposition or mistake\r
+was harboured anywhere. Julia's looks were an evidence of the fact that\r
+made it indisputable; and after the first starts and exclamations, not a\r
+word was spoken for half a minute: each with an altered countenance was\r
+looking at some other, and almost each was feeling it a stroke the most\r
+unwelcome, most ill-timed, most appalling! Mr. Yates might consider\r
+it only as a vexatious interruption for the evening, and Mr. Rushworth\r
+might imagine it a blessing; but every other heart was sinking under\r
+some degree of self-condemnation or undefined alarm, every other heart\r
+was suggesting, "What will become of us? what is to be done now?" It\r
+was a terrible pause; and terrible to every ear were the corroborating\r
+sounds of opening doors and passing footsteps.\r
+\r
+Julia was the first to move and speak again. Jealousy and bitterness\r
+had been suspended: selfishness was lost in the common cause; but at the\r
+moment of her appearance, Frederick was listening with looks of devotion\r
+to Agatha's narrative, and pressing her hand to his heart; and as soon\r
+as she could notice this, and see that, in spite of the shock of her\r
+words, he still kept his station and retained her sister's hand, her\r
+wounded heart swelled again with injury, and looking as red as she had\r
+been white before, she turned out of the room, saying, "_I_ need not be\r
+afraid of appearing before him."\r
+\r
+Her going roused the rest; and at the same moment the two brothers\r
+stepped forward, feeling the necessity of doing something. A very few\r
+words between them were sufficient. The case admitted no difference of\r
+opinion: they must go to the drawing-room directly. Maria joined them\r
+with the same intent, just then the stoutest of the three; for the\r
+very circumstance which had driven Julia away was to her the sweetest\r
+support. Henry Crawford's retaining her hand at such a moment, a moment\r
+of such peculiar proof and importance, was worth ages of doubt and\r
+anxiety. She hailed it as an earnest of the most serious determination,\r
+and was equal even to encounter her father. They walked off, utterly\r
+heedless of Mr. Rushworth's repeated question of, "Shall I go too? Had\r
+not I better go too? Will not it be right for me to go too?" but they\r
+were no sooner through the door than Henry Crawford undertook to answer\r
+the anxious inquiry, and, encouraging him by all means to pay his\r
+respects to Sir Thomas without delay, sent him after the others with\r
+delighted haste.\r
+\r
+Fanny was left with only the Crawfords and Mr. Yates. She had been quite\r
+overlooked by her cousins; and as her own opinion of her claims on Sir\r
+Thomas's affection was much too humble to give her any idea of classing\r
+herself with his children, she was glad to remain behind and gain a\r
+little breathing-time. Her agitation and alarm exceeded all that was\r
+endured by the rest, by the right of a disposition which not even\r
+innocence could keep from suffering. She was nearly fainting: all her\r
+former habitual dread of her uncle was returning, and with it compassion\r
+for him and for almost every one of the party on the development before\r
+him, with solicitude on Edmund's account indescribable. She had found\r
+a seat, where in excessive trembling she was enduring all these fearful\r
+thoughts, while the other three, no longer under any restraint, were\r
+giving vent to their feelings of vexation, lamenting over such an\r
+unlooked-for premature arrival as a most untoward event, and without\r
+mercy wishing poor Sir Thomas had been twice as long on his passage, or\r
+were still in Antigua.\r
+\r
+The Crawfords were more warm on the subject than Mr. Yates, from better\r
+understanding the family, and judging more clearly of the mischief that\r
+must ensue. The ruin of the play was to them a certainty: they felt\r
+the total destruction of the scheme to be inevitably at hand; while Mr.\r
+Yates considered it only as a temporary interruption, a disaster for the\r
+evening, and could even suggest the possibility of the rehearsal being\r
+renewed after tea, when the bustle of receiving Sir Thomas were over,\r
+and he might be at leisure to be amused by it. The Crawfords laughed\r
+at the idea; and having soon agreed on the propriety of their walking\r
+quietly home and leaving the family to themselves, proposed Mr. Yates's\r
+accompanying them and spending the evening at the Parsonage. But Mr.\r
+Yates, having never been with those who thought much of parental claims,\r
+or family confidence, could not perceive that anything of the kind was\r
+necessary; and therefore, thanking them, said, "he preferred remaining\r
+where he was, that he might pay his respects to the old gentleman\r
+handsomely since he _was_ come; and besides, he did not think it would\r
+be fair by the others to have everybody run away."\r
+\r
+Fanny was just beginning to collect herself, and to feel that if she\r
+staid longer behind it might seem disrespectful, when this point was\r
+settled, and being commissioned with the brother and sister's apology,\r
+saw them preparing to go as she quitted the room herself to perform the\r
+dreadful duty of appearing before her uncle.\r
+\r
+Too soon did she find herself at the drawing-room door; and after\r
+pausing a moment for what she knew would not come, for a courage which\r
+the outside of no door had ever supplied to her, she turned the lock in\r
+desperation, and the lights of the drawing-room, and all the collected\r
+family, were before her. As she entered, her own name caught her ear.\r
+Sir Thomas was at that moment looking round him, and saying, "But where\r
+is Fanny? Why do not I see my little Fanny?"--and on perceiving her,\r
+came forward with a kindness which astonished and penetrated her,\r
+calling her his dear Fanny, kissing her affectionately, and observing\r
+with decided pleasure how much she was grown! Fanny knew not how to\r
+feel, nor where to look. She was quite oppressed. He had never been so\r
+kind, so _very_ kind to her in his life. His manner seemed changed, his\r
+voice was quick from the agitation of joy; and all that had been awful\r
+in his dignity seemed lost in tenderness. He led her nearer the light\r
+and looked at her again--inquired particularly after her health, and\r
+then, correcting himself, observed that he need not inquire, for\r
+her appearance spoke sufficiently on that point. A fine blush having\r
+succeeded the previous paleness of her face, he was justified in his\r
+belief of her equal improvement in health and beauty. He inquired next\r
+after her family, especially William: and his kindness altogether was\r
+such as made her reproach herself for loving him so little, and thinking\r
+his return a misfortune; and when, on having courage to lift her eyes to\r
+his face, she saw that he was grown thinner, and had the burnt, fagged,\r
+worn look of fatigue and a hot climate, every tender feeling was\r
+increased, and she was miserable in considering how much unsuspected\r
+vexation was probably ready to burst on him.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas was indeed the life of the party, who at his suggestion\r
+now seated themselves round the fire. He had the best right to be the\r
+talker; and the delight of his sensations in being again in his own\r
+house, in the centre of his family, after such a separation, made him\r
+communicative and chatty in a very unusual degree; and he was ready to\r
+give every information as to his voyage, and answer every question\r
+of his two sons almost before it was put. His business in Antigua had\r
+latterly been prosperously rapid, and he came directly from Liverpool,\r
+having had an opportunity of making his passage thither in a private\r
+vessel, instead of waiting for the packet; and all the little\r
+particulars of his proceedings and events, his arrivals and departures,\r
+were most promptly delivered, as he sat by Lady Bertram and looked with\r
+heartfelt satisfaction on the faces around him--interrupting himself\r
+more than once, however, to remark on his good fortune in finding them\r
+all at home--coming unexpectedly as he did--all collected together\r
+exactly as he could have wished, but dared not depend on. Mr. Rushworth\r
+was not forgotten: a most friendly reception and warmth of hand-shaking\r
+had already met him, and with pointed attention he was now included in\r
+the objects most intimately connected with Mansfield. There was nothing\r
+disagreeable in Mr. Rushworth's appearance, and Sir Thomas was liking\r
+him already.\r
+\r
+By not one of the circle was he listened to with such unbroken,\r
+unalloyed enjoyment as by his wife, who was really extremely happy to\r
+see him, and whose feelings were so warmed by his sudden arrival as to\r
+place her nearer agitation than she had been for the last twenty years.\r
+She had been _almost_ fluttered for a few minutes, and still remained so\r
+sensibly animated as to put away her work, move Pug from her side, and\r
+give all her attention and all the rest of her sofa to her husband. She\r
+had no anxieties for anybody to cloud _her_ pleasure: her own time had\r
+been irreproachably spent during his absence: she had done a great\r
+deal of carpet-work, and made many yards of fringe; and she would have\r
+answered as freely for the good conduct and useful pursuits of all\r
+the young people as for her own. It was so agreeable to her to see\r
+him again, and hear him talk, to have her ear amused and her whole\r
+comprehension filled by his narratives, that she began particularly\r
+to feel how dreadfully she must have missed him, and how impossible it\r
+would have been for her to bear a lengthened absence.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris was by no means to be compared in happiness to her\r
+sister. Not that _she_ was incommoded by many fears of Sir Thomas's\r
+disapprobation when the present state of his house should be known, for\r
+her judgment had been so blinded that, except by the instinctive caution\r
+with which she had whisked away Mr. Rushworth's pink satin cloak as her\r
+brother-in-law entered, she could hardly be said to shew any sign of\r
+alarm; but she was vexed by the _manner_ of his return. It had left her\r
+nothing to do. Instead of being sent for out of the room, and seeing\r
+him first, and having to spread the happy news through the house, Sir\r
+Thomas, with a very reasonable dependence, perhaps, on the nerves of his\r
+wife and children, had sought no confidant but the butler, and had been\r
+following him almost instantaneously into the drawing-room. Mrs. Norris\r
+felt herself defrauded of an office on which she had always depended,\r
+whether his arrival or his death were to be the thing unfolded; and was\r
+now trying to be in a bustle without having anything to bustle about,\r
+and labouring to be important where nothing was wanted but tranquillity\r
+and silence. Would Sir Thomas have consented to eat, she might have gone\r
+to the housekeeper with troublesome directions, and insulted the footmen\r
+with injunctions of despatch; but Sir Thomas resolutely declined all\r
+dinner: he would take nothing, nothing till tea came--he would rather\r
+wait for tea. Still Mrs. Norris was at intervals urging something\r
+different; and in the most interesting moment of his passage to England,\r
+when the alarm of a French privateer was at the height, she burst\r
+through his recital with the proposal of soup. "Sure, my dear Sir\r
+Thomas, a basin of soup would be a much better thing for you than tea.\r
+Do have a basin of soup."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas could not be provoked. "Still the same anxiety for\r
+everybody's comfort, my dear Mrs. Norris," was his answer. "But indeed I\r
+would rather have nothing but tea."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, Lady Bertram, suppose you speak for tea directly; suppose\r
+you hurry Baddeley a little; he seems behindhand to-night." She carried\r
+this point, and Sir Thomas's narrative proceeded.\r
+\r
+At length there was a pause. His immediate communications were\r
+exhausted, and it seemed enough to be looking joyfully around him, now\r
+at one, now at another of the beloved circle; but the pause was not\r
+long: in the elation of her spirits Lady Bertram became talkative, and\r
+what were the sensations of her children upon hearing her say, "How\r
+do you think the young people have been amusing themselves lately, Sir\r
+Thomas? They have been acting. We have been all alive with acting."\r
+\r
+"Indeed! and what have you been acting?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! they'll tell you all about it."\r
+\r
+"The _all_ will soon be told," cried Tom hastily, and with affected\r
+unconcern; "but it is not worth while to bore my father with it now. You\r
+will hear enough of it to-morrow, sir. We have just been trying, by way\r
+of doing something, and amusing my mother, just within the last week,\r
+to get up a few scenes, a mere trifle. We have had such incessant rains\r
+almost since October began, that we have been nearly confined to the\r
+house for days together. I have hardly taken out a gun since the 3rd.\r
+Tolerable sport the first three days, but there has been no attempting\r
+anything since. The first day I went over Mansfield Wood, and Edmund\r
+took the copses beyond Easton, and we brought home six brace between\r
+us, and might each have killed six times as many, but we respect your\r
+pheasants, sir, I assure you, as much as you could desire. I do not\r
+think you will find your woods by any means worse stocked than they\r
+were. _I_ never saw Mansfield Wood so full of pheasants in my life\r
+as this year. I hope you will take a day's sport there yourself, sir,\r
+soon."\r
+\r
+For the present the danger was over, and Fanny's sick feelings subsided;\r
+but when tea was soon afterwards brought in, and Sir Thomas, getting up,\r
+said that he found that he could not be any longer in the house without\r
+just looking into his own dear room, every agitation was returning. He\r
+was gone before anything had been said to prepare him for the change he\r
+must find there; and a pause of alarm followed his disappearance. Edmund\r
+was the first to speak--\r
+\r
+"Something must be done," said he.\r
+\r
+"It is time to think of our visitors," said Maria, still feeling her\r
+hand pressed to Henry Crawford's heart, and caring little for anything\r
+else. "Where did you leave Miss Crawford, Fanny?"\r
+\r
+Fanny told of their departure, and delivered their message.\r
+\r
+"Then poor Yates is all alone," cried Tom. "I will go and fetch him. He\r
+will be no bad assistant when it all comes out."\r
+\r
+To the theatre he went, and reached it just in time to witness the first\r
+meeting of his father and his friend. Sir Thomas had been a good deal\r
+surprised to find candles burning in his room; and on casting his eye\r
+round it, to see other symptoms of recent habitation and a general air\r
+of confusion in the furniture. The removal of the bookcase from before\r
+the billiard-room door struck him especially, but he had scarcely more\r
+than time to feel astonished at all this, before there were sounds from\r
+the billiard-room to astonish him still farther. Some one was talking\r
+there in a very loud accent; he did not know the voice--more than\r
+talking--almost hallooing. He stepped to the door, rejoicing at that\r
+moment in having the means of immediate communication, and, opening it,\r
+found himself on the stage of a theatre, and opposed to a ranting young\r
+man, who appeared likely to knock him down backwards. At the very moment\r
+of Yates perceiving Sir Thomas, and giving perhaps the very best start\r
+he had ever given in the whole course of his rehearsals, Tom Bertram\r
+entered at the other end of the room; and never had he found greater\r
+difficulty in keeping his countenance. His father's looks of solemnity\r
+and amazement on this his first appearance on any stage, and the gradual\r
+metamorphosis of the impassioned Baron Wildenheim into the well-bred and\r
+easy Mr. Yates, making his bow and apology to Sir Thomas Bertram, was\r
+such an exhibition, such a piece of true acting, as he would not have\r
+lost upon any account. It would be the last--in all probability--the\r
+last scene on that stage; but he was sure there could not be a finer.\r
+The house would close with the greatest eclat.\r
+\r
+There was little time, however, for the indulgence of any images of\r
+merriment. It was necessary for him to step forward, too, and assist\r
+the introduction, and with many awkward sensations he did his best. Sir\r
+Thomas received Mr. Yates with all the appearance of cordiality which\r
+was due to his own character, but was really as far from pleased\r
+with the necessity of the acquaintance as with the manner of its\r
+commencement. Mr. Yates's family and connexions were sufficiently known\r
+to him to render his introduction as the "particular friend," another of\r
+the hundred particular friends of his son, exceedingly unwelcome; and it\r
+needed all the felicity of being again at home, and all the forbearance\r
+it could supply, to save Sir Thomas from anger on finding himself thus\r
+bewildered in his own house, making part of a ridiculous exhibition in\r
+the midst of theatrical nonsense, and forced in so untoward a moment to\r
+admit the acquaintance of a young man whom he felt sure of disapproving,\r
+and whose easy indifference and volubility in the course of the first\r
+five minutes seemed to mark him the most at home of the two.\r
+\r
+Tom understood his father's thoughts, and heartily wishing he might be\r
+always as well disposed to give them but partial expression, began to\r
+see, more clearly than he had ever done before, that there might be some\r
+ground of offence, that there might be some reason for the glance his\r
+father gave towards the ceiling and stucco of the room; and that when he\r
+inquired with mild gravity after the fate of the billiard-table, he was\r
+not proceeding beyond a very allowable curiosity. A few minutes were\r
+enough for such unsatisfactory sensations on each side; and Sir\r
+Thomas having exerted himself so far as to speak a few words of\r
+calm approbation in reply to an eager appeal of Mr. Yates, as to the\r
+happiness of the arrangement, the three gentlemen returned to the\r
+drawing-room together, Sir Thomas with an increase of gravity which was\r
+not lost on all.\r
+\r
+"I come from your theatre," said he composedly, as he sat down; "I found\r
+myself in it rather unexpectedly. Its vicinity to my own room--but in\r
+every respect, indeed, it took me by surprise, as I had not the smallest\r
+suspicion of your acting having assumed so serious a character. It\r
+appears a neat job, however, as far as I could judge by candlelight,\r
+and does my friend Christopher Jackson credit." And then he would\r
+have changed the subject, and sipped his coffee in peace over domestic\r
+matters of a calmer hue; but Mr. Yates, without discernment to catch Sir\r
+Thomas's meaning, or diffidence, or delicacy, or discretion enough to\r
+allow him to lead the discourse while he mingled among the others with\r
+the least obtrusiveness himself, would keep him on the topic of the\r
+theatre, would torment him with questions and remarks relative to it,\r
+and finally would make him hear the whole history of his disappointment\r
+at Ecclesford. Sir Thomas listened most politely, but found much to\r
+offend his ideas of decorum, and confirm his ill-opinion of Mr. Yates's\r
+habits of thinking, from the beginning to the end of the story; and when\r
+it was over, could give him no other assurance of sympathy than what a\r
+slight bow conveyed.\r
+\r
+"This was, in fact, the origin of _our_ acting," said Tom, after\r
+a moment's thought. "My friend Yates brought the infection from\r
+Ecclesford, and it spread--as those things always spread, you know,\r
+sir--the faster, probably, from _your_ having so often encouraged the\r
+sort of thing in us formerly. It was like treading old ground again."\r
+\r
+Mr. Yates took the subject from his friend as soon as possible, and\r
+immediately gave Sir Thomas an account of what they had done and were\r
+doing: told him of the gradual increase of their views, the happy\r
+conclusion of their first difficulties, and present promising state of\r
+affairs; relating everything with so blind an interest as made him not\r
+only totally unconscious of the uneasy movements of many of his\r
+friends as they sat, the change of countenance, the fidget, the hem! of\r
+unquietness, but prevented him even from seeing the expression of the\r
+face on which his own eyes were fixed--from seeing Sir Thomas's dark\r
+brow contract as he looked with inquiring earnestness at his daughters\r
+and Edmund, dwelling particularly on the latter, and speaking a\r
+language, a remonstrance, a reproof, which _he_ felt at his heart. Not\r
+less acutely was it felt by Fanny, who had edged back her chair behind\r
+her aunt's end of the sofa, and, screened from notice herself, saw all\r
+that was passing before her. Such a look of reproach at Edmund from his\r
+father she could never have expected to witness; and to feel that it\r
+was in any degree deserved was an aggravation indeed. Sir Thomas's\r
+look implied, "On your judgment, Edmund, I depended; what have you\r
+been about?" She knelt in spirit to her uncle, and her bosom swelled to\r
+utter, "Oh, not to _him_! Look so to all the others, but not to _him_!"\r
+\r
+Mr. Yates was still talking. "To own the truth, Sir Thomas, we were in\r
+the middle of a rehearsal when you arrived this evening. We were going\r
+through the three first acts, and not unsuccessfully upon the whole. Our\r
+company is now so dispersed, from the Crawfords being gone home, that\r
+nothing more can be done to-night; but if you will give us the honour of\r
+your company to-morrow evening, I should not be afraid of the result. We\r
+bespeak your indulgence, you understand, as young performers; we bespeak\r
+your indulgence."\r
+\r
+"My indulgence shall be given, sir," replied Sir Thomas gravely, "but\r
+without any other rehearsal." And with a relenting smile, he added, "I\r
+come home to be happy and indulgent." Then turning away towards any\r
+or all of the rest, he tranquilly said, "Mr. and Miss Crawford were\r
+mentioned in my last letters from Mansfield. Do you find them agreeable\r
+acquaintance?"\r
+\r
+Tom was the only one at all ready with an answer, but he being entirely\r
+without particular regard for either, without jealousy either in love\r
+or acting, could speak very handsomely of both. "Mr. Crawford was a\r
+most pleasant, gentleman-like man; his sister a sweet, pretty, elegant,\r
+lively girl."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rushworth could be silent no longer. "I do not say he is not\r
+gentleman-like, considering; but you should tell your father he is not\r
+above five feet eight, or he will be expecting a well-looking man."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas did not quite understand this, and looked with some surprise\r
+at the speaker.\r
+\r
+"If I must say what I think," continued Mr. Rushworth, "in my opinion it\r
+is very disagreeable to be always rehearsing. It is having too much of a\r
+good thing. I am not so fond of acting as I was at first. I think we are\r
+a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among ourselves,\r
+and doing nothing."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas looked again, and then replied with an approving smile, "I am\r
+happy to find our sentiments on this subject so much the same. It gives\r
+me sincere satisfaction. That I should be cautious and quick-sighted,\r
+and feel many scruples which my children do _not_ feel, is perfectly\r
+natural; and equally so that my value for domestic tranquillity, for a\r
+home which shuts out noisy pleasures, should much exceed theirs. But at\r
+your time of life to feel all this, is a most favourable circumstance\r
+for yourself, and for everybody connected with you; and I am sensible of\r
+the importance of having an ally of such weight."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas meant to be giving Mr. Rushworth's opinion in better words\r
+than he could find himself. He was aware that he must not expect a\r
+genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with\r
+better notions than his elocution would do justice to, he intended to\r
+value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to\r
+smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but by\r
+looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly pleased with Sir Thomas's\r
+good opinion, and saying scarcely anything, he did his best towards\r
+preserving that good opinion a little longer.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+Edmund's first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and\r
+give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own\r
+share in it as far only as he could then, in a soberer moment, feel his\r
+motives to deserve, and acknowledging, with perfect ingenuousness, that\r
+his concession had been attended with such partial good as to make his\r
+judgment in it very doubtful. He was anxious, while vindicating himself,\r
+to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one amongst\r
+them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of defence\r
+or palliation. "We have all been more or less to blame," said he, "every\r
+one of us, excepting Fanny. Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly\r
+throughout; who has been consistent. _Her_ feelings have been steadily\r
+against it from first to last. She never ceased to think of what was due\r
+to you. You will find Fanny everything you could wish."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas saw all the impropriety of such a scheme among such a party,\r
+and at such a time, as strongly as his son had ever supposed he must; he\r
+felt it too much, indeed, for many words; and having shaken hands with\r
+Edmund, meant to try to lose the disagreeable impression, and forget how\r
+much he had been forgotten himself as soon as he could, after the house\r
+had been cleared of every object enforcing the remembrance, and restored\r
+to its proper state. He did not enter into any remonstrance with his\r
+other children: he was more willing to believe they felt their error\r
+than to run the risk of investigation. The reproof of an immediate\r
+conclusion of everything, the sweep of every preparation, would be\r
+sufficient.\r
+\r
+There was one person, however, in the house, whom he could not leave\r
+to learn his sentiments merely through his conduct. He could not help\r
+giving Mrs. Norris a hint of his having hoped that her advice might\r
+have been interposed to prevent what her judgment must certainly have\r
+disapproved. The young people had been very inconsiderate in forming the\r
+plan; they ought to have been capable of a better decision themselves;\r
+but they were young; and, excepting Edmund, he believed, of unsteady\r
+characters; and with greater surprise, therefore, he must regard her\r
+acquiescence in their wrong measures, her countenance of their unsafe\r
+amusements, than that such measures and such amusements should have\r
+been suggested. Mrs. Norris was a little confounded and as nearly\r
+being silenced as ever she had been in her life; for she was ashamed to\r
+confess having never seen any of the impropriety which was so glaring\r
+to Sir Thomas, and would not have admitted that her influence was\r
+insufficient--that she might have talked in vain. Her only resource was\r
+to get out of the subject as fast as possible, and turn the current\r
+of Sir Thomas's ideas into a happier channel. She had a great deal to\r
+insinuate in her own praise as to _general_ attention to the interest\r
+and comfort of his family, much exertion and many sacrifices to glance\r
+at in the form of hurried walks and sudden removals from her own\r
+fireside, and many excellent hints of distrust and economy to Lady\r
+Bertram and Edmund to detail, whereby a most considerable saving had\r
+always arisen, and more than one bad servant been detected. But her\r
+chief strength lay in Sotherton. Her greatest support and glory was\r
+in having formed the connexion with the Rushworths. _There_ she\r
+was impregnable. She took to herself all the credit of bringing Mr.\r
+Rushworth's admiration of Maria to any effect. "If I had not been\r
+active," said she, "and made a point of being introduced to his mother,\r
+and then prevailed on my sister to pay the first visit, I am as certain\r
+as I sit here that nothing would have come of it; for Mr. Rushworth\r
+is the sort of amiable modest young man who wants a great deal of\r
+encouragement, and there were girls enough on the catch for him if we\r
+had been idle. But I left no stone unturned. I was ready to move heaven\r
+and earth to persuade my sister, and at last I did persuade her. You\r
+know the distance to Sotherton; it was in the middle of winter, and the\r
+roads almost impassable, but I did persuade her."\r
+\r
+"I know how great, how justly great, your influence is with Lady Bertram\r
+and her children, and am the more concerned that it should not have\r
+been."\r
+\r
+"My dear Sir Thomas, if you had seen the state of the roads _that_ day!\r
+I thought we should never have got through them, though we had the four\r
+horses of course; and poor old coachman would attend us, out of his\r
+great love and kindness, though he was hardly able to sit the box on\r
+account of the rheumatism which I had been doctoring him for ever since\r
+Michaelmas. I cured him at last; but he was very bad all the winter--and\r
+this was such a day, I could not help going to him up in his room before\r
+we set off to advise him not to venture: he was putting on his wig; so\r
+I said, 'Coachman, you had much better not go; your Lady and I shall be\r
+very safe; you know how steady Stephen is, and Charles has been upon the\r
+leaders so often now, that I am sure there is no fear.' But, however, I\r
+soon found it would not do; he was bent upon going, and as I hate to be\r
+worrying and officious, I said no more; but my heart quite ached for him\r
+at every jolt, and when we got into the rough lanes about Stoke, where,\r
+what with frost and snow upon beds of stones, it was worse than anything\r
+you can imagine, I was quite in an agony about him. And then the poor\r
+horses too! To see them straining away! You know how I always feel for\r
+the horses. And when we got to the bottom of Sandcroft Hill, what do you\r
+think I did? You will laugh at me; but I got out and walked up. I did\r
+indeed. It might not be saving them much, but it was something, and I\r
+could not bear to sit at my ease and be dragged up at the expense of\r
+those noble animals. I caught a dreadful cold, but _that_ I did not\r
+regard. My object was accomplished in the visit."\r
+\r
+"I hope we shall always think the acquaintance worth any trouble that\r
+might be taken to establish it. There is nothing very striking in Mr.\r
+Rushworth's manners, but I was pleased last night with what appeared to\r
+be his opinion on one subject: his decided preference of a quiet family\r
+party to the bustle and confusion of acting. He seemed to feel exactly\r
+as one could wish."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, and the more you know of him the better you will like him.\r
+He is not a shining character, but he has a thousand good qualities; and\r
+is so disposed to look up to you, that I am quite laughed at about it,\r
+for everybody considers it as my doing. 'Upon my word, Mrs. Norris,'\r
+said Mrs. Grant the other day, 'if Mr. Rushworth were a son of your own,\r
+he could not hold Sir Thomas in greater respect.'"\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas gave up the point, foiled by her evasions, disarmed by her\r
+flattery; and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction that\r
+where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness\r
+did sometimes overpower her judgment.\r
+\r
+It was a busy morning with him. Conversation with any of them occupied\r
+but a small part of it. He had to reinstate himself in all the wonted\r
+concerns of his Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff; to\r
+examine and compute, and, in the intervals of business, to walk into\r
+his stables and his gardens, and nearest plantations; but active and\r
+methodical, he had not only done all this before he resumed his seat as\r
+master of the house at dinner, he had also set the carpenter to work in\r
+pulling down what had been so lately put up in the billiard-room,\r
+and given the scene-painter his dismissal long enough to justify the\r
+pleasing belief of his being then at least as far off as Northampton.\r
+The scene-painter was gone, having spoilt only the floor of one room,\r
+ruined all the coachman's sponges, and made five of the under-servants\r
+idle and dissatisfied; and Sir Thomas was in hopes that another day or\r
+two would suffice to wipe away every outward memento of what had been,\r
+even to the destruction of every unbound copy of Lovers' Vows in the\r
+house, for he was burning all that met his eye.\r
+\r
+Mr. Yates was beginning now to understand Sir Thomas's intentions,\r
+though as far as ever from understanding their source. He and his friend\r
+had been out with their guns the chief of the morning, and Tom had taken\r
+the opportunity of explaining, with proper apologies for his father's\r
+particularity, what was to be expected. Mr. Yates felt it as acutely as\r
+might be supposed. To be a second time disappointed in the same way was\r
+an instance of very severe ill-luck; and his indignation was such,\r
+that had it not been for delicacy towards his friend, and his friend's\r
+youngest sister, he believed he should certainly attack the baronet\r
+on the absurdity of his proceedings, and argue him into a little more\r
+rationality. He believed this very stoutly while he was in Mansfield\r
+Wood, and all the way home; but there was a something in Sir Thomas,\r
+when they sat round the same table, which made Mr. Yates think it\r
+wiser to let him pursue his own way, and feel the folly of it without\r
+opposition. He had known many disagreeable fathers before, and often\r
+been struck with the inconveniences they occasioned, but never, in\r
+the whole course of his life, had he seen one of that class so\r
+unintelligibly moral, so infamously tyrannical as Sir Thomas. He was\r
+not a man to be endured but for his children's sake, and he might be\r
+thankful to his fair daughter Julia that Mr. Yates did yet mean to stay\r
+a few days longer under his roof.\r
+\r
+The evening passed with external smoothness, though almost every\r
+mind was ruffled; and the music which Sir Thomas called for from his\r
+daughters helped to conceal the want of real harmony. Maria was in a\r
+good deal of agitation. It was of the utmost consequence to her that\r
+Crawford should now lose no time in declaring himself, and she was\r
+disturbed that even a day should be gone by without seeming to advance\r
+that point. She had been expecting to see him the whole morning, and\r
+all the evening, too, was still expecting him. Mr. Rushworth had set off\r
+early with the great news for Sotherton; and she had fondly hoped for\r
+such an immediate _eclaircissement_ as might save him the trouble of\r
+ever coming back again. But they had seen no one from the Parsonage,\r
+not a creature, and had heard no tidings beyond a friendly note of\r
+congratulation and inquiry from Mrs. Grant to Lady Bertram. It was the\r
+first day for many, many weeks, in which the families had been wholly\r
+divided. Four-and-twenty hours had never passed before, since August\r
+began, without bringing them together in some way or other. It was a\r
+sad, anxious day; and the morrow, though differing in the sort of evil,\r
+did by no means bring less. A few moments of feverish enjoyment were\r
+followed by hours of acute suffering. Henry Crawford was again in the\r
+house: he walked up with Dr. Grant, who was anxious to pay his respects\r
+to Sir Thomas, and at rather an early hour they were ushered into the\r
+breakfast-room, where were most of the family. Sir Thomas soon appeared,\r
+and Maria saw with delight and agitation the introduction of the man she\r
+loved to her father. Her sensations were indefinable, and so were they\r
+a few minutes afterwards upon hearing Henry Crawford, who had a chair\r
+between herself and Tom, ask the latter in an undervoice whether\r
+there were any plans for resuming the play after the present happy\r
+interruption (with a courteous glance at Sir Thomas), because, in that\r
+case, he should make a point of returning to Mansfield at any time\r
+required by the party: he was going away immediately, being to meet his\r
+uncle at Bath without delay; but if there were any prospect of a renewal\r
+of Lovers' Vows, he should hold himself positively engaged, he should\r
+break through every other claim, he should absolutely condition with his\r
+uncle for attending them whenever he might be wanted. The play should\r
+not be lost by _his_ absence.\r
+\r
+"From Bath, Norfolk, London, York, wherever I may be," said he; "I will\r
+attend you from any place in England, at an hour's notice."\r
+\r
+It was well at that moment that Tom had to speak, and not his sister. He\r
+could immediately say with easy fluency, "I am sorry you are going;\r
+but as to our play, _that_ is all over--entirely at an end" (looking\r
+significantly at his father). "The painter was sent off yesterday, and\r
+very little will remain of the theatre to-morrow. I knew how _that_\r
+would be from the first. It is early for Bath. You will find nobody\r
+there."\r
+\r
+"It is about my uncle's usual time."\r
+\r
+"When do you think of going?"\r
+\r
+"I may, perhaps, get as far as Banbury to-day."\r
+\r
+"Whose stables do you use at Bath?" was the next question; and while\r
+this branch of the subject was under discussion, Maria, who wanted\r
+neither pride nor resolution, was preparing to encounter her share of it\r
+with tolerable calmness.\r
+\r
+To her he soon turned, repeating much of what he had already said, with\r
+only a softened air and stronger expressions of regret. But what availed\r
+his expressions or his air? He was going, and, if not voluntarily going,\r
+voluntarily intending to stay away; for, excepting what might be due\r
+to his uncle, his engagements were all self-imposed. He might talk of\r
+necessity, but she knew his independence. The hand which had so pressed\r
+hers to his heart! the hand and the heart were alike motionless and\r
+passive now! Her spirit supported her, but the agony of her mind was\r
+severe. She had not long to endure what arose from listening to language\r
+which his actions contradicted, or to bury the tumult of her feelings\r
+under the restraint of society; for general civilities soon called\r
+his notice from her, and the farewell visit, as it then became openly\r
+acknowledged, was a very short one. He was gone--he had touched her\r
+hand for the last time, he had made his parting bow, and she might seek\r
+directly all that solitude could do for her. Henry Crawford was gone,\r
+gone from the house, and within two hours afterwards from the parish;\r
+and so ended all the hopes his selfish vanity had raised in Maria and\r
+Julia Bertram.\r
+\r
+Julia could rejoice that he was gone. His presence was beginning to be\r
+odious to her; and if Maria gained him not, she was now cool enough to\r
+dispense with any other revenge. She did not want exposure to be added\r
+to desertion. Henry Crawford gone, she could even pity her sister.\r
+\r
+With a purer spirit did Fanny rejoice in the intelligence. She heard it\r
+at dinner, and felt it a blessing. By all the others it was mentioned\r
+with regret; and his merits honoured with due gradation of feeling--from\r
+the sincerity of Edmund's too partial regard, to the unconcern of his\r
+mother speaking entirely by rote. Mrs. Norris began to look about her,\r
+and wonder that his falling in love with Julia had come to nothing; and\r
+could almost fear that she had been remiss herself in forwarding it; but\r
+with so many to care for, how was it possible for even _her_ activity to\r
+keep pace with her wishes?\r
+\r
+Another day or two, and Mr. Yates was gone likewise. In _his_ departure\r
+Sir Thomas felt the chief interest: wanting to be alone with his family,\r
+the presence of a stranger superior to Mr. Yates must have been irksome;\r
+but of him, trifling and confident, idle and expensive, it was every way\r
+vexatious. In himself he was wearisome, but as the friend of Tom and\r
+the admirer of Julia he became offensive. Sir Thomas had been quite\r
+indifferent to Mr. Crawford's going or staying: but his good wishes\r
+for Mr. Yates's having a pleasant journey, as he walked with him to the\r
+hall-door, were given with genuine satisfaction. Mr. Yates had staid to\r
+see the destruction of every theatrical preparation at Mansfield, the\r
+removal of everything appertaining to the play: he left the house in all\r
+the soberness of its general character; and Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing\r
+him out of it, to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme,\r
+and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris contrived to remove one article from his sight that might\r
+have distressed him. The curtain, over which she had presided with such\r
+talent and such success, went off with her to her cottage, where she\r
+happened to be particularly in want of green baize.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas's return made a striking change in the ways of the family,\r
+independent of Lovers' Vows. Under his government, Mansfield was an\r
+altered place. Some members of their society sent away, and the spirits\r
+of many others saddened--it was all sameness and gloom compared with\r
+the past--a sombre family party rarely enlivened. There was little\r
+intercourse with the Parsonage. Sir Thomas, drawing back from intimacies\r
+in general, was particularly disinclined, at this time, for any\r
+engagements but in one quarter. The Rushworths were the only addition to\r
+his own domestic circle which he could solicit.\r
+\r
+Edmund did not wonder that such should be his father's feelings, nor\r
+could he regret anything but the exclusion of the Grants. "But they," he\r
+observed to Fanny, "have a claim. They seem to belong to us; they seem\r
+to be part of ourselves. I could wish my father were more sensible of\r
+their very great attention to my mother and sisters while he was away. I\r
+am afraid they may feel themselves neglected. But the truth is, that my\r
+father hardly knows them. They had not been here a twelvemonth when he\r
+left England. If he knew them better, he would value their society as it\r
+deserves; for they are in fact exactly the sort of people he would\r
+like. We are sometimes a little in want of animation among ourselves: my\r
+sisters seem out of spirits, and Tom is certainly not at his ease. Dr.\r
+and Mrs. Grant would enliven us, and make our evenings pass away with\r
+more enjoyment even to my father."\r
+\r
+"Do you think so?" said Fanny: "in my opinion, my uncle would not like\r
+_any_ addition. I think he values the very quietness you speak of, and\r
+that the repose of his own family circle is all he wants. And it does\r
+not appear to me that we are more serious than we used to be--I mean\r
+before my uncle went abroad. As well as I can recollect, it was always\r
+much the same. There was never much laughing in his presence; or, if\r
+there is any difference, it is not more, I think, than such an absence\r
+has a tendency to produce at first. There must be a sort of shyness; but\r
+I cannot recollect that our evenings formerly were ever merry, except\r
+when my uncle was in town. No young people's are, I suppose, when those\r
+they look up to are at home".\r
+\r
+"I believe you are right, Fanny," was his reply, after a short\r
+consideration. "I believe our evenings are rather returned to what they\r
+were, than assuming a new character. The novelty was in their being\r
+lively. Yet, how strong the impression that only a few weeks will give!\r
+I have been feeling as if we had never lived so before."\r
+\r
+"I suppose I am graver than other people," said Fanny. "The evenings do\r
+not appear long to me. I love to hear my uncle talk of the West Indies.\r
+I could listen to him for an hour together. It entertains _me_ more than\r
+many other things have done; but then I am unlike other people, I dare\r
+say."\r
+\r
+"Why should you dare say _that_?" (smiling). "Do you want to be told\r
+that you are only unlike other people in being more wise and discreet?\r
+But when did you, or anybody, ever get a compliment from me, Fanny? Go\r
+to my father if you want to be complimented. He will satisfy you. Ask\r
+your uncle what he thinks, and you will hear compliments enough: and\r
+though they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it, and\r
+trust to his seeing as much beauty of mind in time."\r
+\r
+Such language was so new to Fanny that it quite embarrassed her.\r
+\r
+"Your uncle thinks you very pretty, dear Fanny--and that is the long and\r
+the short of the matter. Anybody but myself would have made something\r
+more of it, and anybody but you would resent that you had not been\r
+thought very pretty before; but the truth is, that your uncle never\r
+did admire you till now--and now he does. Your complexion is so\r
+improved!--and you have gained so much countenance!--and your\r
+figure--nay, Fanny, do not turn away about it--it is but an uncle. If\r
+you cannot bear an uncle's admiration, what is to become of you? You\r
+must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking\r
+at. You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman."\r
+\r
+"Oh! don't talk so, don't talk so," cried Fanny, distressed by more\r
+feelings than he was aware of; but seeing that she was distressed, he\r
+had done with the subject, and only added more seriously--\r
+\r
+"Your uncle is disposed to be pleased with you in every respect; and I\r
+only wish you would talk to him more. You are one of those who are too\r
+silent in the evening circle."\r
+\r
+"But I do talk to him more than I used. I am sure I do. Did not you hear\r
+me ask him about the slave-trade last night?"\r
+\r
+"I did--and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It\r
+would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther."\r
+\r
+"And I longed to do it--but there was such a dead silence! And while\r
+my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, or seeming at all\r
+interested in the subject, I did not like--I thought it would appear as\r
+if I wanted to set myself off at their expense, by shewing a curiosity\r
+and pleasure in his information which he must wish his own daughters to\r
+feel."\r
+\r
+"Miss Crawford was very right in what she said of you the other day:\r
+that you seemed almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women\r
+were of neglect. We were talking of you at the Parsonage, and those were\r
+her words. She has great discernment. I know nobody who distinguishes\r
+characters better. For so young a woman it is remarkable! She certainly\r
+understands _you_ better than you are understood by the greater part of\r
+those who have known you so long; and with regard to some others, I can\r
+perceive, from occasional lively hints, the unguarded expressions of\r
+the moment, that she could define _many_ as accurately, did not delicacy\r
+forbid it. I wonder what she thinks of my father! She must admire him\r
+as a fine-looking man, with most gentlemanlike, dignified, consistent\r
+manners; but perhaps, having seen him so seldom, his reserve may be\r
+a little repulsive. Could they be much together, I feel sure of their\r
+liking each other. He would enjoy her liveliness and she has talents to\r
+value his powers. I wish they met more frequently! I hope she does not\r
+suppose there is any dislike on his side."\r
+\r
+"She must know herself too secure of the regard of all the rest of you,"\r
+said Fanny, with half a sigh, "to have any such apprehension. And Sir\r
+Thomas's wishing just at first to be only with his family, is so very\r
+natural, that she can argue nothing from that. After a little while, I\r
+dare say, we shall be meeting again in the same sort of way, allowing\r
+for the difference of the time of year."\r
+\r
+"This is the first October that she has passed in the country since her\r
+infancy. I do not call Tunbridge or Cheltenham the country; and November\r
+is a still more serious month, and I can see that Mrs. Grant is very\r
+anxious for her not finding Mansfield dull as winter comes on."\r
+\r
+Fanny could have said a great deal, but it was safer to say nothing, and\r
+leave untouched all Miss Crawford's resources--her accomplishments, her\r
+spirits, her importance, her friends, lest it should betray her into\r
+any observations seemingly unhandsome. Miss Crawford's kind opinion of\r
+herself deserved at least a grateful forbearance, and she began to talk\r
+of something else.\r
+\r
+"To-morrow, I think, my uncle dines at Sotherton, and you and Mr.\r
+Bertram too. We shall be quite a small party at home. I hope my uncle\r
+may continue to like Mr. Rushworth."\r
+\r
+"That is impossible, Fanny. He must like him less after to-morrow's\r
+visit, for we shall be five hours in his company. I should dread\r
+the stupidity of the day, if there were not a much greater evil to\r
+follow--the impression it must leave on Sir Thomas. He cannot much\r
+longer deceive himself. I am sorry for them all, and would give\r
+something that Rushworth and Maria had never met."\r
+\r
+In this quarter, indeed, disappointment was impending over Sir Thomas.\r
+Not all his good-will for Mr. Rushworth, not all Mr. Rushworth's\r
+deference for him, could prevent him from soon discerning some part of\r
+the truth--that Mr. Rushworth was an inferior young man, as ignorant\r
+in business as in books, with opinions in general unfixed, and without\r
+seeming much aware of it himself.\r
+\r
+He had expected a very different son-in-law; and beginning to feel\r
+grave on Maria's account, tried to understand _her_ feelings. Little\r
+observation there was necessary to tell him that indifference was the\r
+most favourable state they could be in. Her behaviour to Mr. Rushworth\r
+was careless and cold. She could not, did not like him. Sir Thomas\r
+resolved to speak seriously to her. Advantageous as would be the\r
+alliance, and long standing and public as was the engagement, her\r
+happiness must not be sacrificed to it. Mr. Rushworth had, perhaps, been\r
+accepted on too short an acquaintance, and, on knowing him better, she\r
+was repenting.\r
+\r
+With solemn kindness Sir Thomas addressed her: told her his fears,\r
+inquired into her wishes, entreated her to be open and sincere, and\r
+assured her that every inconvenience should be braved, and the connexion\r
+entirely given up, if she felt herself unhappy in the prospect of it. He\r
+would act for her and release her. Maria had a moment's struggle as she\r
+listened, and only a moment's: when her father ceased, she was able to\r
+give her answer immediately, decidedly, and with no apparent agitation.\r
+She thanked him for his great attention, his paternal kindness, but he\r
+was quite mistaken in supposing she had the smallest desire of breaking\r
+through her engagement, or was sensible of any change of opinion or\r
+inclination since her forming it. She had the highest esteem for Mr.\r
+Rushworth's character and disposition, and could not have a doubt of her\r
+happiness with him.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas was satisfied; too glad to be satisfied, perhaps, to urge the\r
+matter quite so far as his judgment might have dictated to others. It\r
+was an alliance which he could not have relinquished without pain;\r
+and thus he reasoned. Mr. Rushworth was young enough to improve. Mr.\r
+Rushworth must and would improve in good society; and if Maria could now\r
+speak so securely of her happiness with him, speaking certainly without\r
+the prejudice, the blindness of love, she ought to be believed. Her\r
+feelings, probably, were not acute; he had never supposed them to be\r
+so; but her comforts might not be less on that account; and if she could\r
+dispense with seeing her husband a leading, shining character, there\r
+would certainly be everything else in her favour. A well-disposed young\r
+woman, who did not marry for love, was in general but the more attached\r
+to her own family; and the nearness of Sotherton to Mansfield\r
+must naturally hold out the greatest temptation, and would, in all\r
+probability, be a continual supply of the most amiable and innocent\r
+enjoyments. Such and such-like were the reasonings of Sir Thomas,\r
+happy to escape the embarrassing evils of a rupture, the wonder,\r
+the reflections, the reproach that must attend it; happy to secure a\r
+marriage which would bring him such an addition of respectability\r
+and influence, and very happy to think anything of his daughter's\r
+disposition that was most favourable for the purpose.\r
+\r
+To her the conference closed as satisfactorily as to him. She was in a\r
+state of mind to be glad that she had secured her fate beyond recall:\r
+that she had pledged herself anew to Sotherton; that she was safe from\r
+the possibility of giving Crawford the triumph of governing her actions,\r
+and destroying her prospects; and retired in proud resolve, determined\r
+only to behave more cautiously to Mr. Rushworth in future, that her\r
+father might not be again suspecting her.\r
+\r
+Had Sir Thomas applied to his daughter within the first three or four\r
+days after Henry Crawford's leaving Mansfield, before her feelings were\r
+at all tranquillised, before she had given up every hope of him, or\r
+absolutely resolved on enduring his rival, her answer might have been\r
+different; but after another three or four days, when there was no\r
+return, no letter, no message, no symptom of a softened heart, no hope\r
+of advantage from separation, her mind became cool enough to seek all\r
+the comfort that pride and self revenge could give.\r
+\r
+Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know that\r
+he had done it; he should not destroy her credit, her appearance, her\r
+prosperity, too. He should not have to think of her as pining in the\r
+retirement of Mansfield for _him_, rejecting Sotherton and London,\r
+independence and splendour, for _his_ sake. Independence was more\r
+needful than ever; the want of it at Mansfield more sensibly felt. She\r
+was less and less able to endure the restraint which her father imposed.\r
+The liberty which his absence had given was now become absolutely\r
+necessary. She must escape from him and Mansfield as soon as possible,\r
+and find consolation in fortune and consequence, bustle and the world,\r
+for a wounded spirit. Her mind was quite determined, and varied not.\r
+\r
+To such feelings delay, even the delay of much preparation, would have\r
+been an evil, and Mr. Rushworth could hardly be more impatient for the\r
+marriage than herself. In all the important preparations of the mind\r
+she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home,\r
+restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection,\r
+and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The\r
+preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and\r
+spring, when her own taste could have fairer play.\r
+\r
+The principals being all agreed in this respect, it soon appeared that a\r
+very few weeks would be sufficient for such arrangements as must precede\r
+the wedding.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth was quite ready to retire, and make way for the fortunate\r
+young woman whom her dear son had selected; and very early in November\r
+removed herself, her maid, her footman, and her chariot, with true\r
+dowager propriety, to Bath, there to parade over the wonders of\r
+Sotherton in her evening parties; enjoying them as thoroughly, perhaps,\r
+in the animation of a card-table, as she had ever done on the spot; and\r
+before the middle of the same month the ceremony had taken place which\r
+gave Sotherton another mistress.\r
+\r
+It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed; the two\r
+bridesmaids were duly inferior; her father gave her away; her mother\r
+stood with salts in her hand, expecting to be agitated; her aunt tried\r
+to cry; and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant. Nothing\r
+could be objected to when it came under the discussion of the\r
+neighbourhood, except that the carriage which conveyed the bride and\r
+bridegroom and Julia from the church-door to Sotherton was the same\r
+chaise which Mr. Rushworth had used for a twelvemonth before. In\r
+everything else the etiquette of the day might stand the strictest\r
+investigation.\r
+\r
+It was done, and they were gone. Sir Thomas felt as an anxious father\r
+must feel, and was indeed experiencing much of the agitation which his\r
+wife had been apprehensive of for herself, but had fortunately escaped.\r
+Mrs. Norris, most happy to assist in the duties of the day, by spending\r
+it at the Park to support her sister's spirits, and drinking the health\r
+of Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth in a supernumerary glass or two, was all\r
+joyous delight; for she had made the match; she had done everything;\r
+and no one would have supposed, from her confident triumph, that she\r
+had ever heard of conjugal infelicity in her life, or could have the\r
+smallest insight into the disposition of the niece who had been brought\r
+up under her eye.\r
+\r
+The plan of the young couple was to proceed, after a few days, to\r
+Brighton, and take a house there for some weeks. Every public place was\r
+new to Maria, and Brighton is almost as gay in winter as in summer. When\r
+the novelty of amusement there was over, it would be time for the wider\r
+range of London.\r
+\r
+Julia was to go with them to Brighton. Since rivalry between the sisters\r
+had ceased, they had been gradually recovering much of their former good\r
+understanding; and were at least sufficiently friends to make each of\r
+them exceedingly glad to be with the other at such a time. Some other\r
+companion than Mr. Rushworth was of the first consequence to his lady;\r
+and Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure as Maria, though\r
+she might not have struggled through so much to obtain them, and could\r
+better bear a subordinate situation.\r
+\r
+Their departure made another material change at Mansfield, a chasm\r
+which required some time to fill up. The family circle became greatly\r
+contracted; and though the Miss Bertrams had latterly added little to\r
+its gaiety, they could not but be missed. Even their mother missed them;\r
+and how much more their tenderhearted cousin, who wandered about\r
+the house, and thought of them, and felt for them, with a degree of\r
+affectionate regret which they had never done much to deserve!\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+Fanny's consequence increased on the departure of her cousins. Becoming,\r
+as she then did, the only young woman in the drawing-room, the only\r
+occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she had\r
+hitherto held so humble a third, it was impossible for her not to be\r
+more looked at, more thought of and attended to, than she had ever been\r
+before; and "Where is Fanny?" became no uncommon question, even without\r
+her being wanted for any one's convenience.\r
+\r
+Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. In\r
+that house, which she had hardly entered twice a year since Mr. Norris's\r
+death, she became a welcome, an invited guest, and in the gloom and dirt\r
+of a November day, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Her visits there,\r
+beginning by chance, were continued by solicitation. Mrs. Grant,\r
+really eager to get any change for her sister, could, by the easiest\r
+self-deceit, persuade herself that she was doing the kindest thing by\r
+Fanny, and giving her the most important opportunities of improvement in\r
+pressing her frequent calls.\r
+\r
+Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt\r
+Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and\r
+being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter\r
+under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just beyond their\r
+premises, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance on her\r
+part, to come in. A civil servant she had withstood; but when Dr. Grant\r
+himself went out with an umbrella, there was nothing to be done but to\r
+be very much ashamed, and to get into the house as fast as possible; and\r
+to poor Miss Crawford, who had just been contemplating the dismal rain\r
+in a very desponding state of mind, sighing over the ruin of all her\r
+plan of exercise for that morning, and of every chance of seeing a\r
+single creature beyond themselves for the next twenty-four hours, the\r
+sound of a little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price\r
+dripping with wet in the vestibule, was delightful. The value of an\r
+event on a wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before her.\r
+She was all alive again directly, and among the most active in being\r
+useful to Fanny, in detecting her to be wetter than she would at first\r
+allow, and providing her with dry clothes; and Fanny, after being\r
+obliged to submit to all this attention, and to being assisted and\r
+waited on by mistresses and maids, being also obliged, on returning\r
+downstairs, to be fixed in their drawing-room for an hour while the rain\r
+continued, the blessing of something fresh to see and think of was thus\r
+extended to Miss Crawford, and might carry on her spirits to the period\r
+of dressing and dinner.\r
+\r
+The two sisters were so kind to her, and so pleasant, that Fanny might\r
+have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way,\r
+and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at\r
+the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having Dr. Grant's\r
+carriage and horses out to take her home, with which she was threatened.\r
+As to anxiety for any alarm that her absence in such weather might\r
+occasion at home, she had nothing to suffer on that score; for as her\r
+being out was known only to her two aunts, she was perfectly aware that\r
+none would be felt, and that in whatever cottage aunt Norris might chuse\r
+to establish her during the rain, her being in such cottage would be\r
+indubitable to aunt Bertram.\r
+\r
+It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp in the\r
+room, asked some questions about it, which soon led to an acknowledgment\r
+of her wishing very much to hear it, and a confession, which could\r
+hardly be believed, of her having never yet heard it since its being\r
+in Mansfield. To Fanny herself it appeared a very simple and natural\r
+circumstance. She had scarcely ever been at the Parsonage since the\r
+instrument's arrival, there had been no reason that she should; but Miss\r
+Crawford, calling to mind an early expressed wish on the subject, was\r
+concerned at her own neglect; and "Shall I play to you now?" and "What\r
+will you have?" were questions immediately following with the readiest\r
+good-humour.\r
+\r
+She played accordingly; happy to have a new listener, and a listener who\r
+seemed so much obliged, so full of wonder at the performance, and who\r
+shewed herself not wanting in taste. She played till Fanny's eyes,\r
+straying to the window on the weather's being evidently fair, spoke what\r
+she felt must be done.\r
+\r
+"Another quarter of an hour," said Miss Crawford, "and we shall see how\r
+it will be. Do not run away the first moment of its holding up. Those\r
+clouds look alarming."\r
+\r
+"But they are passed over," said Fanny. "I have been watching them. This\r
+weather is all from the south."\r
+\r
+"South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not\r
+set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play\r
+something more to you--a very pretty piece--and your cousin Edmund's\r
+prime favourite. You must stay and hear your cousin's favourite."\r
+\r
+Fanny felt that she must; and though she had not waited for that\r
+sentence to be thinking of Edmund, such a memento made her particularly\r
+awake to his idea, and she fancied him sitting in that room again\r
+and again, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with\r
+constant delight to the favourite air, played, as it appeared to her,\r
+with superior tone and expression; and though pleased with it herself,\r
+and glad to like whatever was liked by him, she was more sincerely\r
+impatient to go away at the conclusion of it than she had been before;\r
+and on this being evident, she was so kindly asked to call again, to\r
+take them in her walk whenever she could, to come and hear more of the\r
+harp, that she felt it necessary to be done, if no objection arose at\r
+home.\r
+\r
+Such was the origin of the sort of intimacy which took place between\r
+them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams' going away--an\r
+intimacy resulting principally from Miss Crawford's desire of something\r
+new, and which had little reality in Fanny's feelings. Fanny went to her\r
+every two or three days: it seemed a kind of fascination: she could not\r
+be easy without going, and yet it was without loving her, without ever\r
+thinking like her, without any sense of obligation for being sought\r
+after now when nobody else was to be had; and deriving no higher\r
+pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and _that_\r
+often at the expense of her judgment, when it was raised by pleasantry\r
+on people or subjects which she wished to be respected. She went,\r
+however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs.\r
+Grant's shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of\r
+year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now\r
+comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst\r
+of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the sweets of so protracted\r
+an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking\r
+down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk for\r
+warmth.\r
+\r
+"This is pretty, very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as\r
+they were thus sitting together one day; "every time I come into this\r
+shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago,\r
+this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field,\r
+never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything; and now\r
+it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether\r
+most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps, in another\r
+three years, we may be forgetting--almost forgetting what it was before.\r
+How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the\r
+changes of the human mind!" And following the latter train of thought,\r
+she soon afterwards added: "If any one faculty of our nature may be\r
+called _more_ wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There\r
+seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers,\r
+the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our\r
+intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so\r
+obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so\r
+tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way;\r
+but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past\r
+finding out."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say; and\r
+Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her own mind to what she thought must\r
+interest.\r
+\r
+"It may seem impertinent in _me_ to praise, but I must admire the taste\r
+Mrs. Grant has shewn in all this. There is such a quiet simplicity in\r
+the plan of the walk! Not too much attempted!"\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied Miss Crawford carelessly, "it does very well for a\r
+place of this sort. One does not think of extent _here_; and between\r
+ourselves, till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country parson\r
+ever aspired to a shrubbery, or anything of the kind."\r
+\r
+"I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!" said Fanny, in reply. "My\r
+uncle's gardener always says the soil here is better than his own, and\r
+so it appears from the growth of the laurels and evergreens in general.\r
+The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen!\r
+When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some\r
+countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that\r
+does not make it less amazing that the same soil and the same sun should\r
+nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence.\r
+You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, especially\r
+when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of\r
+wondering strain. One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural\r
+production without finding food for a rambling fancy."\r
+\r
+"To say the truth," replied Miss Crawford, "I am something like the\r
+famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV.; and may declare that I see no\r
+wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it. If anybody had\r
+told me a year ago that this place would be my home, that I should be\r
+spending month after month here, as I have done, I certainly should\r
+not have believed them. I have now been here nearly five months; and,\r
+moreover, the quietest five months I ever passed."\r
+\r
+"_Too_ quiet for you, I believe."\r
+\r
+"I should have thought so _theoretically_ myself, but," and her eyes\r
+brightened as she spoke, "take it all and all, I never spent so happy a\r
+summer. But then," with a more thoughtful air and lowered voice, "there\r
+is no saying what it may lead to."\r
+\r
+Fanny's heart beat quick, and she felt quite unequal to surmising\r
+or soliciting anything more. Miss Crawford, however, with renewed\r
+animation, soon went on--\r
+\r
+"I am conscious of being far better reconciled to a country residence\r
+than I had ever expected to be. I can even suppose it pleasant to\r
+spend _half_ the year in the country, under certain circumstances,\r
+very pleasant. An elegant, moderate-sized house in the centre of family\r
+connexions; continual engagements among them; commanding the first\r
+society in the neighbourhood; looked up to, perhaps, as leading it even\r
+more than those of larger fortune, and turning from the cheerful round\r
+of such amusements to nothing worse than a _tete-a-tete_ with the person\r
+one feels most agreeable in the world. There is nothing frightful in\r
+such a picture, is there, Miss Price? One need not envy the new Mrs.\r
+Rushworth with such a home as _that_."\r
+\r
+"Envy Mrs. Rushworth!" was all that Fanny attempted to say. "Come, come,\r
+it would be very un-handsome in us to be severe on Mrs. Rushworth, for I\r
+look forward to our owing her a great many gay, brilliant, happy hours.\r
+I expect we shall be all very much at Sotherton another year. Such\r
+a match as Miss Bertram has made is a public blessing; for the first\r
+pleasures of Mr. Rushworth's wife must be to fill her house, and give\r
+the best balls in the country."\r
+\r
+Fanny was silent, and Miss Crawford relapsed into thoughtfulness, till\r
+suddenly looking up at the end of a few minutes, she exclaimed, "Ah!\r
+here he is." It was not Mr. Rushworth, however, but Edmund, who then\r
+appeared walking towards them with Mrs. Grant. "My sister and Mr.\r
+Bertram. I am so glad your eldest cousin is gone, that he may be Mr.\r
+Bertram again. There is something in the sound of Mr. _Edmund_ Bertram\r
+so formal, so pitiful, so younger-brother-like, that I detest it."\r
+\r
+"How differently we feel!" cried Fanny. "To me, the sound of _Mr._\r
+Bertram is so cold and nothing-meaning, so entirely without warmth or\r
+character! It just stands for a gentleman, and that's all. But there is\r
+nobleness in the name of Edmund. It is a name of heroism and renown; of\r
+kings, princes, and knights; and seems to breathe the spirit of chivalry\r
+and warm affections."\r
+\r
+"I grant you the name is good in itself, and _Lord_ Edmund or _Sir_\r
+Edmund sound delightfully; but sink it under the chill, the annihilation\r
+of a Mr., and Mr. Edmund is no more than Mr. John or Mr. Thomas. Well,\r
+shall we join and disappoint them of half their lecture upon sitting\r
+down out of doors at this time of year, by being up before they can\r
+begin?"\r
+\r
+Edmund met them with particular pleasure. It was the first time of his\r
+seeing them together since the beginning of that better acquaintance\r
+which he had been hearing of with great satisfaction. A friendship\r
+between two so very dear to him was exactly what he could have wished:\r
+and to the credit of the lover's understanding, be it stated, that he\r
+did not by any means consider Fanny as the only, or even as the greater\r
+gainer by such a friendship.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Miss Crawford, "and do you not scold us for our imprudence?\r
+What do you think we have been sitting down for but to be talked to\r
+about it, and entreated and supplicated never to do so again?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I might have scolded," said Edmund, "if either of you had been\r
+sitting down alone; but while you do wrong together, I can overlook a\r
+great deal."\r
+\r
+"They cannot have been sitting long," cried Mrs. Grant, "for when I went\r
+up for my shawl I saw them from the staircase window, and then they were\r
+walking."\r
+\r
+"And really," added Edmund, "the day is so mild, that your sitting down\r
+for a few minutes can be hardly thought imprudent. Our weather must\r
+not always be judged by the calendar. We may sometimes take greater\r
+liberties in November than in May."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word," cried Miss Crawford, "you are two of the most\r
+disappointing and unfeeling kind friends I ever met with! There is no\r
+giving you a moment's uneasiness. You do not know how much we have been\r
+suffering, nor what chills we have felt! But I have long thought Mr.\r
+Bertram one of the worst subjects to work on, in any little manoeuvre\r
+against common sense, that a woman could be plagued with. I had very\r
+little hope of _him_ from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my sister, my\r
+own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little."\r
+\r
+"Do not flatter yourself, my dearest Mary. You have not the smallest\r
+chance of moving me. I have my alarms, but they are quite in a different\r
+quarter; and if I could have altered the weather, you would have had a\r
+good sharp east wind blowing on you the whole time--for here are some of\r
+my plants which Robert _will_ leave out because the nights are so mild,\r
+and I know the end of it will be, that we shall have a sudden change of\r
+weather, a hard frost setting in all at once, taking everybody (at least\r
+Robert) by surprise, and I shall lose every one; and what is worse, cook\r
+has just been telling me that the turkey, which I particularly wished\r
+not to be dressed till Sunday, because I know how much more Dr. Grant\r
+would enjoy it on Sunday after the fatigues of the day, will not keep\r
+beyond to-morrow. These are something like grievances, and make me think\r
+the weather most unseasonably close."\r
+\r
+"The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!" said Miss Crawford\r
+archly. "Commend me to the nurseryman and the poulterer."\r
+\r
+"My dear child, commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St.\r
+Paul's, and I should be as glad of your nurseryman and poulterer as you\r
+could be. But we have no such people in Mansfield. What would you have\r
+me do?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! you can do nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often,\r
+and never lose your temper."\r
+\r
+"Thank you; but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, live\r
+where we may; and when you are settled in town and I come to see you, I\r
+dare say I shall find you with yours, in spite of the nurseryman and\r
+the poulterer, perhaps on their very account. Their remoteness and\r
+unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charges and frauds, will be drawing\r
+forth bitter lamentations."\r
+\r
+"I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anything of the sort.\r
+A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It\r
+certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it."\r
+\r
+"You intend to be very rich?" said Edmund, with a look which, to Fanny's\r
+eye, had a great deal of serious meaning.\r
+\r
+"To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot intend anything which it must be so completely beyond my power\r
+to command. Miss Crawford may chuse her degree of wealth. She has only\r
+to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no doubt of\r
+their coming. My intentions are only not to be poor."\r
+\r
+"By moderation and economy, and bringing down your wants to your income,\r
+and all that. I understand you--and a very proper plan it is for a\r
+person at your time of life, with such limited means and indifferent\r
+connexions. What can _you_ want but a decent maintenance? You have\r
+not much time before you; and your relations are in no situation to do\r
+anything for you, or to mortify you by the contrast of their own wealth\r
+and consequence. Be honest and poor, by all means--but I shall not envy\r
+you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much greater\r
+respect for those that are honest and rich."\r
+\r
+"Your degree of respect for honesty, rich or poor, is precisely what\r
+I have no manner of concern with. I do not mean to be poor. Poverty\r
+is exactly what I have determined against. Honesty, in the something\r
+between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am\r
+anxious for your not looking down on."\r
+\r
+"But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher. I must\r
+look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to\r
+distinction."\r
+\r
+"But how may it rise? How may my honesty at least rise to any\r
+distinction?"\r
+\r
+This was not so very easy a question to answer, and occasioned an "Oh!"\r
+of some length from the fair lady before she could add, "You ought to be\r
+in parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago."\r
+\r
+"_That_ is not much to the purpose now; and as to my being in\r
+parliament, I believe I must wait till there is an especial assembly for\r
+the representation of younger sons who have little to live on. No, Miss\r
+Crawford," he added, in a more serious tone, "there _are_ distinctions\r
+which I should be miserable if I thought myself without any\r
+chance--absolutely without chance or possibility of obtaining--but they\r
+are of a different character."\r
+\r
+A look of consciousness as he spoke, and what seemed a consciousness\r
+of manner on Miss Crawford's side as she made some laughing answer,\r
+was sorrowfull food for Fanny's observation; and finding herself quite\r
+unable to attend as she ought to Mrs. Grant, by whose side she was now\r
+following the others, she had nearly resolved on going home immediately,\r
+and only waited for courage to say so, when the sound of the great clock\r
+at Mansfield Park, striking three, made her feel that she had\r
+really been much longer absent than usual, and brought the previous\r
+self-inquiry of whether she should take leave or not just then, and how,\r
+to a very speedy issue. With undoubting decision she directly began her\r
+adieus; and Edmund began at the same time to recollect that his mother\r
+had been inquiring for her, and that he had walked down to the Parsonage\r
+on purpose to bring her back.\r
+\r
+Fanny's hurry increased; and without in the least expecting Edmund's\r
+attendance, she would have hastened away alone; but the general pace was\r
+quickened, and they all accompanied her into the house, through which it\r
+was necessary to pass. Dr. Grant was in the vestibule, and as they stopt\r
+to speak to him she found, from Edmund's manner, that he _did_ mean to\r
+go with her. He too was taking leave. She could not but be thankful. In\r
+the moment of parting, Edmund was invited by Dr. Grant to eat his mutton\r
+with him the next day; and Fanny had barely time for an unpleasant\r
+feeling on the occasion, when Mrs. Grant, with sudden recollection,\r
+turned to her and asked for the pleasure of her company too. This was\r
+so new an attention, so perfectly new a circumstance in the events of\r
+Fanny's life, that she was all surprise and embarrassment; and while\r
+stammering out her great obligation, and her "but she did not suppose it\r
+would be in her power," was looking at Edmund for his opinion and help.\r
+But Edmund, delighted with her having such an happiness offered, and\r
+ascertaining with half a look, and half a sentence, that she had no\r
+objection but on her aunt's account, could not imagine that his mother\r
+would make any difficulty of sparing her, and therefore gave his decided\r
+open advice that the invitation should be accepted; and though Fanny\r
+would not venture, even on his encouragement, to such a flight of\r
+audacious independence, it was soon settled, that if nothing were heard\r
+to the contrary, Mrs. Grant might expect her.\r
+\r
+"And you know what your dinner will be," said Mrs. Grant, smiling--"the\r
+turkey, and I assure you a very fine one; for, my dear," turning to her\r
+husband, "cook insists upon the turkey's being dressed to-morrow."\r
+\r
+"Very well, very well," cried Dr. Grant, "all the better; I am glad\r
+to hear you have anything so good in the house. But Miss Price and Mr.\r
+Edmund Bertram, I dare say, would take their chance. We none of us want\r
+to hear the bill of fare. A friendly meeting, and not a fine dinner,\r
+is all we have in view. A turkey, or a goose, or a leg of mutton, or\r
+whatever you and your cook chuse to give us."\r
+\r
+The two cousins walked home together; and, except in the immediate\r
+discussion of this engagement, which Edmund spoke of with the warmest\r
+satisfaction, as so particularly desirable for her in the intimacy which\r
+he saw with so much pleasure established, it was a silent walk; for\r
+having finished that subject, he grew thoughtful and indisposed for any\r
+other.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+"But why should Mrs. Grant ask Fanny?" said Lady Bertram. "How came she\r
+to think of asking Fanny? Fanny never dines there, you know, in this\r
+sort of way. I cannot spare her, and I am sure she does not want to go.\r
+Fanny, you do not want to go, do you?"\r
+\r
+"If you put such a question to her," cried Edmund, preventing his\r
+cousin's speaking, "Fanny will immediately say No; but I am sure, my\r
+dear mother, she would like to go; and I can see no reason why she\r
+should not."\r
+\r
+"I cannot imagine why Mrs. Grant should think of asking her? She never\r
+did before. She used to ask your sisters now and then, but she never\r
+asked Fanny."\r
+\r
+"If you cannot do without me, ma'am--" said Fanny, in a self-denying\r
+tone.\r
+\r
+"But my mother will have my father with her all the evening."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, so I shall."\r
+\r
+"Suppose you take my father's opinion, ma'am."\r
+\r
+"That's well thought of. So I will, Edmund. I will ask Sir Thomas, as\r
+soon as he comes in, whether I can do without her."\r
+\r
+"As you please, ma'am, on that head; but I meant my father's opinion\r
+as to the _propriety_ of the invitation's being accepted or not; and\r
+I think he will consider it a right thing by Mrs. Grant, as well as by\r
+Fanny, that being the _first_ invitation it should be accepted."\r
+\r
+"I do not know. We will ask him. But he will be very much surprised that\r
+Mrs. Grant should ask Fanny at all."\r
+\r
+There was nothing more to be said, or that could be said to any purpose,\r
+till Sir Thomas were present; but the subject involving, as it did,\r
+her own evening's comfort for the morrow, was so much uppermost in Lady\r
+Bertram's mind, that half an hour afterwards, on his looking in for a\r
+minute in his way from his plantation to his dressing-room, she called\r
+him back again, when he had almost closed the door, with "Sir Thomas,\r
+stop a moment--I have something to say to you."\r
+\r
+Her tone of calm languor, for she never took the trouble of raising her\r
+voice, was always heard and attended to; and Sir Thomas came back. Her\r
+story began; and Fanny immediately slipped out of the room; for to hear\r
+herself the subject of any discussion with her uncle was more than her\r
+nerves could bear. She was anxious, she knew--more anxious perhaps than\r
+she ought to be--for what was it after all whether she went or staid?\r
+but if her uncle were to be a great while considering and deciding, and\r
+with very grave looks, and those grave looks directed to her, and\r
+at last decide against her, she might not be able to appear properly\r
+submissive and indifferent. Her cause, meanwhile, went on well. It\r
+began, on Lady Bertram's part, with--"I have something to tell you that\r
+will surprise you. Mrs. Grant has asked Fanny to dinner."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Sir Thomas, as if waiting more to accomplish the surprise.\r
+\r
+"Edmund wants her to go. But how can I spare her?"\r
+\r
+"She will be late," said Sir Thomas, taking out his watch; "but what is\r
+your difficulty?"\r
+\r
+Edmund found himself obliged to speak and fill up the blanks in his\r
+mother's story. He told the whole; and she had only to add, "So strange!\r
+for Mrs. Grant never used to ask her."\r
+\r
+"But is it not very natural," observed Edmund, "that Mrs. Grant should\r
+wish to procure so agreeable a visitor for her sister?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing can be more natural," said Sir Thomas, after a short\r
+deliberation; "nor, were there no sister in the case, could anything,\r
+in my opinion, be more natural. Mrs. Grant's shewing civility to Miss\r
+Price, to Lady Bertram's niece, could never want explanation. The only\r
+surprise I can feel is, that this should be the _first_ time of its\r
+being paid. Fanny was perfectly right in giving only a conditional\r
+answer. She appears to feel as she ought. But as I conclude that she\r
+must wish to go, since all young people like to be together, I can see\r
+no reason why she should be denied the indulgence."\r
+\r
+"But can I do without her, Sir Thomas?"\r
+\r
+"Indeed I think you may."\r
+\r
+"She always makes tea, you know, when my sister is not here."\r
+\r
+"Your sister, perhaps, may be prevailed on to spend the day with us, and\r
+I shall certainly be at home."\r
+\r
+"Very well, then, Fanny may go, Edmund."\r
+\r
+The good news soon followed her. Edmund knocked at her door in his way\r
+to his own.\r
+\r
+"Well, Fanny, it is all happily settled, and without the smallest\r
+hesitation on your uncle's side. He had but one opinion. You are to go."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, I am _so_ glad," was Fanny's instinctive reply; though when\r
+she had turned from him and shut the door, she could not help feeling,\r
+"And yet why should I be glad? for am I not certain of seeing or hearing\r
+something there to pain me?"\r
+\r
+In spite of this conviction, however, she was glad. Simple as such an\r
+engagement might appear in other eyes, it had novelty and importance in\r
+hers, for excepting the day at Sotherton, she had scarcely ever dined\r
+out before; and though now going only half a mile, and only to three\r
+people, still it was dining out, and all the little interests of\r
+preparation were enjoyments in themselves. She had neither sympathy nor\r
+assistance from those who ought to have entered into her feelings and\r
+directed her taste; for Lady Bertram never thought of being useful to\r
+anybody, and Mrs. Norris, when she came on the morrow, in consequence of\r
+an early call and invitation from Sir Thomas, was in a very ill humour,\r
+and seemed intent only on lessening her niece's pleasure, both present\r
+and future, as much as possible.\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, Fanny, you are in high luck to meet with such attention\r
+and indulgence! You ought to be very much obliged to Mrs. Grant for\r
+thinking of you, and to your aunt for letting you go, and you ought to\r
+look upon it as something extraordinary; for I hope you are aware that\r
+there is no real occasion for your going into company in this sort of\r
+way, or ever dining out at all; and it is what you must not depend upon\r
+ever being repeated. Nor must you be fancying that the invitation is\r
+meant as any particular compliment to _you_; the compliment is intended\r
+to your uncle and aunt and me. Mrs. Grant thinks it a civility due to\r
+_us_ to take a little notice of you, or else it would never have come\r
+into her head, and you may be very certain that, if your cousin Julia\r
+had been at home, you would not have been asked at all."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris had now so ingeniously done away all Mrs. Grant's part of\r
+the favour, that Fanny, who found herself expected to speak, could only\r
+say that she was very much obliged to her aunt Bertram for sparing her,\r
+and that she was endeavouring to put her aunt's evening work in such a\r
+state as to prevent her being missed.\r
+\r
+"Oh! depend upon it, your aunt can do very well without you, or you\r
+would not be allowed to go. _I_ shall be here, so you may be quite easy\r
+about your aunt. And I hope you will have a very _agreeable_ day, and\r
+find it all mighty _delightful_. But I must observe that five is the\r
+very awkwardest of all possible numbers to sit down to table; and I\r
+cannot but be surprised that such an _elegant_ lady as Mrs. Grant should\r
+not contrive better! And round their enormous great wide table, too,\r
+which fills up the room so dreadfully! Had the doctor been contented to\r
+take my dining-table when I came away, as anybody in their senses would\r
+have done, instead of having that absurd new one of his own, which is\r
+wider, literally wider than the dinner-table here, how infinitely better\r
+it would have been! and how much more he would have been respected! for\r
+people are never respected when they step out of their proper sphere.\r
+Remember that, Fanny. Five--only five to be sitting round that table.\r
+However, you will have dinner enough on it for ten, I dare say."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris fetched breath, and went on again.\r
+\r
+"The nonsense and folly of people's stepping out of their rank and\r
+trying to appear above themselves, makes me think it right to give _you_\r
+a hint, Fanny, now that you are going into company without any of us;\r
+and I do beseech and entreat you not to be putting yourself forward, and\r
+talking and giving your opinion as if you were one of your cousins--as\r
+if you were dear Mrs. Rushworth or Julia. _That_ will never do, believe\r
+me. Remember, wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last; and\r
+though Miss Crawford is in a manner at home at the Parsonage, you are\r
+not to be taking place of her. And as to coming away at night, you are\r
+to stay just as long as Edmund chuses. Leave him to settle _that_."\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, I should not think of anything else."\r
+\r
+"And if it should rain, which I think exceedingly likely, for I never\r
+saw it more threatening for a wet evening in my life, you must manage as\r
+well as you can, and not be expecting the carriage to be sent for you. I\r
+certainly do not go home to-night, and, therefore, the carriage will not\r
+be out on my account; so you must make up your mind to what may happen,\r
+and take your things accordingly."\r
+\r
+Her niece thought it perfectly reasonable. She rated her own claims\r
+to comfort as low even as Mrs. Norris could; and when Sir Thomas soon\r
+afterwards, just opening the door, said, "Fanny, at what time would you\r
+have the carriage come round?" she felt a degree of astonishment which\r
+made it impossible for her to speak.\r
+\r
+"My dear Sir Thomas!" cried Mrs. Norris, red with anger, "Fanny can\r
+walk."\r
+\r
+"Walk!" repeated Sir Thomas, in a tone of most unanswerable dignity, and\r
+coming farther into the room. "My niece walk to a dinner engagement at\r
+this time of the year! Will twenty minutes after four suit you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir," was Fanny's humble answer, given with the feelings almost\r
+of a criminal towards Mrs. Norris; and not bearing to remain with her\r
+in what might seem a state of triumph, she followed her uncle out of\r
+the room, having staid behind him only long enough to hear these words\r
+spoken in angry agitation--\r
+\r
+"Quite unnecessary! a great deal too kind! But Edmund goes; true, it is\r
+upon Edmund's account. I observed he was hoarse on Thursday night."\r
+\r
+But this could not impose on Fanny. She felt that the carriage was for\r
+herself, and herself alone: and her uncle's consideration of her, coming\r
+immediately after such representations from her aunt, cost her some\r
+tears of gratitude when she was alone.\r
+\r
+The coachman drove round to a minute; another minute brought down the\r
+gentleman; and as the lady had, with a most scrupulous fear of being\r
+late, been many minutes seated in the drawing-room, Sir Thomas saw them\r
+off in as good time as his own correctly punctual habits required.\r
+\r
+"Now I must look at you, Fanny," said Edmund, with the kind smile of an\r
+affectionate brother, "and tell you how I like you; and as well as I can\r
+judge by this light, you look very nicely indeed. What have you got on?"\r
+\r
+"The new dress that my uncle was so good as to give me on my cousin's\r
+marriage. I hope it is not too fine; but I thought I ought to wear it as\r
+soon as I could, and that I might not have such another opportunity all\r
+the winter. I hope you do not think me too fine."\r
+\r
+"A woman can never be too fine while she is all in white. No, I see no\r
+finery about you; nothing but what is perfectly proper. Your gown seems\r
+very pretty. I like these glossy spots. Has not Miss Crawford a gown\r
+something the same?"\r
+\r
+In approaching the Parsonage they passed close by the stable-yard and\r
+coach-house.\r
+\r
+"Heyday!" said Edmund, "here's company, here's a carriage! who have they\r
+got to meet us?" And letting down the side-glass to distinguish, "'Tis\r
+Crawford's, Crawford's barouche, I protest! There are his own two men\r
+pushing it back into its old quarters. He is here, of course. This is\r
+quite a surprise, Fanny. I shall be very glad to see him."\r
+\r
+There was no occasion, there was no time for Fanny to say how very\r
+differently she felt; but the idea of having such another to observe\r
+her was a great increase of the trepidation with which she performed the\r
+very awful ceremony of walking into the drawing-room.\r
+\r
+In the drawing-room Mr. Crawford certainly was, having been just long\r
+enough arrived to be ready for dinner; and the smiles and pleased looks\r
+of the three others standing round him, shewed how welcome was his\r
+sudden resolution of coming to them for a few days on leaving Bath.\r
+A very cordial meeting passed between him and Edmund; and with the\r
+exception of Fanny, the pleasure was general; and even to _her_ there\r
+might be some advantage in his presence, since every addition to the\r
+party must rather forward her favourite indulgence of being suffered to\r
+sit silent and unattended to. She was soon aware of this herself; for\r
+though she must submit, as her own propriety of mind directed, in spite\r
+of her aunt Norris's opinion, to being the principal lady in company,\r
+and to all the little distinctions consequent thereon, she found, while\r
+they were at table, such a happy flow of conversation prevailing, in\r
+which she was not required to take any part--there was so much to be\r
+said between the brother and sister about Bath, so much between the two\r
+young men about hunting, so much of politics between Mr. Crawford and\r
+Dr. Grant, and of everything and all together between Mr. Crawford\r
+and Mrs. Grant, as to leave her the fairest prospect of having only\r
+to listen in quiet, and of passing a very agreeable day. She could not\r
+compliment the newly arrived gentleman, however, with any appearance of\r
+interest, in a scheme for extending his stay at Mansfield, and sending\r
+for his hunters from Norfolk, which, suggested by Dr. Grant, advised by\r
+Edmund, and warmly urged by the two sisters, was soon in possession of\r
+his mind, and which he seemed to want to be encouraged even by her to\r
+resolve on. Her opinion was sought as to the probable continuance of the\r
+open weather, but her answers were as short and indifferent as civility\r
+allowed. She could not wish him to stay, and would much rather not have\r
+him speak to her.\r
+\r
+Her two absent cousins, especially Maria, were much in her thoughts on\r
+seeing him; but no embarrassing remembrance affected _his_ spirits.\r
+Here he was again on the same ground where all had passed before, and\r
+apparently as willing to stay and be happy without the Miss Bertrams,\r
+as if he had never known Mansfield in any other state. She heard them\r
+spoken of by him only in a general way, till they were all re-assembled\r
+in the drawing-room, when Edmund, being engaged apart in some matter of\r
+business with Dr. Grant, which seemed entirely to engross them, and\r
+Mrs. Grant occupied at the tea-table, he began talking of them with more\r
+particularity to his other sister. With a significant smile, which made\r
+Fanny quite hate him, he said, "So! Rushworth and his fair bride are at\r
+Brighton, I understand; happy man!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, they have been there about a fortnight, Miss Price, have they not?\r
+And Julia is with them."\r
+\r
+"And Mr. Yates, I presume, is not far off."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Yates! Oh! we hear nothing of Mr. Yates. I do not imagine he\r
+figures much in the letters to Mansfield Park; do you, Miss Price? I\r
+think my friend Julia knows better than to entertain her father with Mr.\r
+Yates."\r
+\r
+"Poor Rushworth and his two-and-forty speeches!" continued Crawford.\r
+"Nobody can ever forget them. Poor fellow! I see him now--his toil and\r
+his despair. Well, I am much mistaken if his lovely Maria will ever want\r
+him to make two-and-forty speeches to her"; adding, with a momentary\r
+seriousness, "She is too good for him--much too good." And then changing\r
+his tone again to one of gentle gallantry, and addressing Fanny, he\r
+said, "You were Mr. Rushworth's best friend. Your kindness and patience\r
+can never be forgotten, your indefatigable patience in trying to make it\r
+possible for him to learn his part--in trying to give him a brain\r
+which nature had denied--to mix up an understanding for him out of the\r
+superfluity of your own! _He_ might not have sense enough himself to\r
+estimate your kindness, but I may venture to say that it had honour from\r
+all the rest of the party."\r
+\r
+Fanny coloured, and said nothing.\r
+\r
+"It is as a dream, a pleasant dream!" he exclaimed, breaking forth\r
+again, after a few minutes' musing. "I shall always look back on our\r
+theatricals with exquisite pleasure. There was such an interest, such an\r
+animation, such a spirit diffused. Everybody felt it. We were all alive.\r
+There was employment, hope, solicitude, bustle, for every hour of\r
+the day. Always some little objection, some little doubt, some little\r
+anxiety to be got over. I never was happier."\r
+\r
+With silent indignation Fanny repeated to herself, "Never\r
+happier!--never happier than when doing what you must know was not\r
+justifiable!--never happier than when behaving so dishonourably and\r
+unfeelingly! Oh! what a corrupted mind!"\r
+\r
+"We were unlucky, Miss Price," he continued, in a lower tone, to avoid\r
+the possibility of being heard by Edmund, and not at all aware of her\r
+feelings, "we certainly were very unlucky. Another week, only one other\r
+week, would have been enough for us. I think if we had had the disposal\r
+of events--if Mansfield Park had had the government of the winds\r
+just for a week or two, about the equinox, there would have been\r
+a difference. Not that we would have endangered his safety by any\r
+tremendous weather--but only by a steady contrary wind, or a calm. I\r
+think, Miss Price, we would have indulged ourselves with a week's calm\r
+in the Atlantic at that season."\r
+\r
+He seemed determined to be answered; and Fanny, averting her face, said,\r
+with a firmer tone than usual, "As far as _I_ am concerned, sir, I would\r
+not have delayed his return for a day. My uncle disapproved it all so\r
+entirely when he did arrive, that in my opinion everything had gone\r
+quite far enough."\r
+\r
+She had never spoken so much at once to him in her life before, and\r
+never so angrily to any one; and when her speech was over, she trembled\r
+and blushed at her own daring. He was surprised; but after a few\r
+moments' silent consideration of her, replied in a calmer, graver tone,\r
+and as if the candid result of conviction, "I believe you are right.\r
+It was more pleasant than prudent. We were getting too noisy." And\r
+then turning the conversation, he would have engaged her on some other\r
+subject, but her answers were so shy and reluctant that he could not\r
+advance in any.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford, who had been repeatedly eyeing Dr. Grant and Edmund,\r
+now observed, "Those gentlemen must have some very interesting point to\r
+discuss."\r
+\r
+"The most interesting in the world," replied her brother--"how to make\r
+money; how to turn a good income into a better. Dr. Grant is giving\r
+Bertram instructions about the living he is to step into so soon. I find\r
+he takes orders in a few weeks. They were at it in the dining-parlour. I\r
+am glad to hear Bertram will be so well off. He will have a very pretty\r
+income to make ducks and drakes with, and earned without much trouble. I\r
+apprehend he will not have less than seven hundred a year. Seven hundred\r
+a year is a fine thing for a younger brother; and as of course he will\r
+still live at home, it will be all for his _menus_ _plaisirs_; and a\r
+sermon at Christmas and Easter, I suppose, will be the sum total of\r
+sacrifice."\r
+\r
+His sister tried to laugh off her feelings by saying, "Nothing amuses me\r
+more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of\r
+those who have a great deal less than themselves. You would look rather\r
+blank, Henry, if your _menus_ _plaisirs_ were to be limited to seven\r
+hundred a year."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I might; but all _that_ you know is entirely comparative.\r
+Birthright and habit must settle the business. Bertram is certainly well\r
+off for a cadet of even a baronet's family. By the time he is four or\r
+five and twenty he will have seven hundred a year, and nothing to do for\r
+it."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford _could_ have said that there would be a something to do\r
+and to suffer for it, which she could not think lightly of; but she\r
+checked herself and let it pass; and tried to look calm and unconcerned\r
+when the two gentlemen shortly afterwards joined them.\r
+\r
+"Bertram," said Henry Crawford, "I shall make a point of coming to\r
+Mansfield to hear you preach your first sermon. I shall come on purpose\r
+to encourage a young beginner. When is it to be? Miss Price, will not\r
+you join me in encouraging your cousin? Will not you engage to attend\r
+with your eyes steadily fixed on him the whole time--as I shall do--not\r
+to lose a word; or only looking off just to note down any sentence\r
+preeminently beautiful? We will provide ourselves with tablets and a\r
+pencil. When will it be? You must preach at Mansfield, you know, that\r
+Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram may hear you."\r
+\r
+"I shall keep clear of you, Crawford, as long as I can," said Edmund;\r
+"for you would be more likely to disconcert me, and I should be more\r
+sorry to see you trying at it than almost any other man."\r
+\r
+"Will he not feel this?" thought Fanny. "No, he can feel nothing as he\r
+ought."\r
+\r
+The party being now all united, and the chief talkers attracting each\r
+other, she remained in tranquillity; and as a whist-table was formed\r
+after tea--formed really for the amusement of Dr. Grant, by his\r
+attentive wife, though it was not to be supposed so--and Miss Crawford\r
+took her harp, she had nothing to do but to listen; and her tranquillity\r
+remained undisturbed the rest of the evening, except when Mr. Crawford\r
+now and then addressed to her a question or observation, which she could\r
+not avoid answering. Miss Crawford was too much vexed by what had passed\r
+to be in a humour for anything but music. With that she soothed herself\r
+and amused her friend.\r
+\r
+The assurance of Edmund's being so soon to take orders, coming upon her\r
+like a blow that had been suspended, and still hoped uncertain and at a\r
+distance, was felt with resentment and mortification. She was very angry\r
+with him. She had thought her influence more. She _had_ begun to think\r
+of him; she felt that she had, with great regard, with almost decided\r
+intentions; but she would now meet him with his own cool feelings. It\r
+was plain that he could have no serious views, no true attachment, by\r
+fixing himself in a situation which he must know she would never\r
+stoop to. She would learn to match him in his indifference. She would\r
+henceforth admit his attentions without any idea beyond immediate\r
+amusement. If _he_ could so command his affections, _hers_ should do her\r
+no harm.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+Henry Crawford had quite made up his mind by the next morning to give\r
+another fortnight to Mansfield, and having sent for his hunters, and\r
+written a few lines of explanation to the Admiral, he looked round at\r
+his sister as he sealed and threw the letter from him, and seeing the\r
+coast clear of the rest of the family, said, with a smile, "And how do\r
+you think I mean to amuse myself, Mary, on the days that I do not hunt?\r
+I am grown too old to go out more than three times a week; but I have a\r
+plan for the intermediate days, and what do you think it is?"\r
+\r
+"To walk and ride with me, to be sure."\r
+\r
+"Not exactly, though I shall be happy to do both, but _that_ would be\r
+exercise only to my body, and I must take care of my mind. Besides,\r
+_that_ would be all recreation and indulgence, without the wholesome\r
+alloy of labour, and I do not like to eat the bread of idleness. No, my\r
+plan is to make Fanny Price in love with me."\r
+\r
+"Fanny Price! Nonsense! No, no. You ought to be satisfied with her two\r
+cousins."\r
+\r
+"But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small\r
+hole in Fanny Price's heart. You do not seem properly aware of her\r
+claims to notice. When we talked of her last night, you none of you\r
+seemed sensible of the wonderful improvement that has taken place in her\r
+looks within the last six weeks. You see her every day, and therefore do\r
+not notice it; but I assure you she is quite a different creature from\r
+what she was in the autumn. She was then merely a quiet, modest, not\r
+plain-looking girl, but she is now absolutely pretty. I used to think\r
+she had neither complexion nor countenance; but in that soft skin of\r
+hers, so frequently tinged with a blush as it was yesterday, there is\r
+decided beauty; and from what I observed of her eyes and mouth, I do\r
+not despair of their being capable of expression enough when she\r
+has anything to express. And then, her air, her manner, her _tout_\r
+_ensemble_, is so indescribably improved! She must be grown two inches,\r
+at least, since October."\r
+\r
+"Phoo! phoo! This is only because there were no tall women to compare\r
+her with, and because she has got a new gown, and you never saw her so\r
+well dressed before. She is just what she was in October, believe me.\r
+The truth is, that she was the only girl in company for you to notice,\r
+and you must have a somebody. I have always thought her pretty--not\r
+strikingly pretty--but 'pretty enough,' as people say; a sort of beauty\r
+that grows on one. Her eyes should be darker, but she has a sweet smile;\r
+but as for this wonderful degree of improvement, I am sure it may all\r
+be resolved into a better style of dress, and your having nobody else to\r
+look at; and therefore, if you do set about a flirtation with her, you\r
+never will persuade me that it is in compliment to her beauty, or that\r
+it proceeds from anything but your own idleness and folly."\r
+\r
+Her brother gave only a smile to this accusation, and soon afterwards\r
+said, "I do not quite know what to make of Miss Fanny. I do not\r
+understand her. I could not tell what she would be at yesterday. What is\r
+her character? Is she solemn? Is she queer? Is she prudish? Why did she\r
+draw back and look so grave at me? I could hardly get her to speak. I\r
+never was so long in company with a girl in my life, trying to entertain\r
+her, and succeed so ill! Never met with a girl who looked so grave on\r
+me! I must try to get the better of this. Her looks say, 'I will not\r
+like you, I am determined not to like you'; and I say she shall."\r
+\r
+"Foolish fellow! And so this is her attraction after all! This it is,\r
+her not caring about you, which gives her such a soft skin, and makes\r
+her so much taller, and produces all these charms and graces! I do\r
+desire that you will not be making her really unhappy; a _little_ love,\r
+perhaps, may animate and do her good, but I will not have you plunge\r
+her deep, for she is as good a little creature as ever lived, and has a\r
+great deal of feeling."\r
+\r
+"It can be but for a fortnight," said Henry; "and if a fortnight can\r
+kill her, she must have a constitution which nothing could save. No, I\r
+will not do her any harm, dear little soul! only want her to look kindly\r
+on me, to give me smiles as well as blushes, to keep a chair for me by\r
+herself wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk\r
+to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and\r
+pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away\r
+that she shall be never happy again. I want nothing more."\r
+\r
+"Moderation itself!" said Mary. "I can have no scruples now. Well, you\r
+will have opportunities enough of endeavouring to recommend yourself,\r
+for we are a great deal together."\r
+\r
+And without attempting any farther remonstrance, she left Fanny to\r
+her fate, a fate which, had not Fanny's heart been guarded in a way\r
+unsuspected by Miss Crawford, might have been a little harder than she\r
+deserved; for although there doubtless are such unconquerable young\r
+ladies of eighteen (or one should not read about them) as are never\r
+to be persuaded into love against their judgment by all that talent,\r
+manner, attention, and flattery can do, I have no inclination to\r
+believe Fanny one of them, or to think that with so much tenderness\r
+of disposition, and so much taste as belonged to her, she could have\r
+escaped heart-whole from the courtship (though the courtship only of\r
+a fortnight) of such a man as Crawford, in spite of there being some\r
+previous ill opinion of him to be overcome, had not her affection been\r
+engaged elsewhere. With all the security which love of another and\r
+disesteem of him could give to the peace of mind he was attacking,\r
+his continued attentions--continued, but not obtrusive, and adapting\r
+themselves more and more to the gentleness and delicacy of her\r
+character--obliged her very soon to dislike him less than formerly. She\r
+had by no means forgotten the past, and she thought as ill of him as\r
+ever; but she felt his powers: he was entertaining; and his manners were\r
+so improved, so polite, so seriously and blamelessly polite, that it was\r
+impossible not to be civil to him in return.\r
+\r
+A very few days were enough to effect this; and at the end of those few\r
+days, circumstances arose which had a tendency rather to forward his\r
+views of pleasing her, inasmuch as they gave her a degree of happiness\r
+which must dispose her to be pleased with everybody. William, her\r
+brother, the so long absent and dearly loved brother, was in England\r
+again. She had a letter from him herself, a few hurried happy lines,\r
+written as the ship came up Channel, and sent into Portsmouth with\r
+the first boat that left the Antwerp at anchor in Spithead; and when\r
+Crawford walked up with the newspaper in his hand, which he had hoped\r
+would bring the first tidings, he found her trembling with joy over this\r
+letter, and listening with a glowing, grateful countenance to the kind\r
+invitation which her uncle was most collectedly dictating in reply.\r
+\r
+It was but the day before that Crawford had made himself thoroughly\r
+master of the subject, or had in fact become at all aware of her having\r
+such a brother, or his being in such a ship, but the interest then\r
+excited had been very properly lively, determining him on his return to\r
+town to apply for information as to the probable period of the Antwerp's\r
+return from the Mediterranean, etc.; and the good luck which attended\r
+his early examination of ship news the next morning seemed the reward of\r
+his ingenuity in finding out such a method of pleasing her, as well as\r
+of his dutiful attention to the Admiral, in having for many years\r
+taken in the paper esteemed to have the earliest naval intelligence. He\r
+proved, however, to be too late. All those fine first feelings, of which\r
+he had hoped to be the exciter, were already given. But his intention,\r
+the kindness of his intention, was thankfully acknowledged: quite\r
+thankfully and warmly, for she was elevated beyond the common timidity\r
+of her mind by the flow of her love for William.\r
+\r
+This dear William would soon be amongst them. There could be no doubt\r
+of his obtaining leave of absence immediately, for he was still only a\r
+midshipman; and as his parents, from living on the spot, must already\r
+have seen him, and be seeing him perhaps daily, his direct holidays\r
+might with justice be instantly given to the sister, who had been his\r
+best correspondent through a period of seven years, and the uncle who\r
+had done most for his support and advancement; and accordingly the reply\r
+to her reply, fixing a very early day for his arrival, came as soon as\r
+possible; and scarcely ten days had passed since Fanny had been in\r
+the agitation of her first dinner-visit, when she found herself in an\r
+agitation of a higher nature, watching in the hall, in the lobby, on\r
+the stairs, for the first sound of the carriage which was to bring her a\r
+brother.\r
+\r
+It came happily while she was thus waiting; and there being neither\r
+ceremony nor fearfulness to delay the moment of meeting, she was with\r
+him as he entered the house, and the first minutes of exquisite feeling\r
+had no interruption and no witnesses, unless the servants chiefly intent\r
+upon opening the proper doors could be called such. This was exactly\r
+what Sir Thomas and Edmund had been separately conniving at, as each\r
+proved to the other by the sympathetic alacrity with which they both\r
+advised Mrs. Norris's continuing where she was, instead of rushing out\r
+into the hall as soon as the noises of the arrival reached them.\r
+\r
+William and Fanny soon shewed themselves; and Sir Thomas had the\r
+pleasure of receiving, in his protege, certainly a very different person\r
+from the one he had equipped seven years ago, but a young man of an\r
+open, pleasant countenance, and frank, unstudied, but feeling and\r
+respectful manners, and such as confirmed him his friend.\r
+\r
+It was long before Fanny could recover from the agitating happiness of\r
+such an hour as was formed by the last thirty minutes of expectation,\r
+and the first of fruition; it was some time even before her happiness\r
+could be said to make her happy, before the disappointment inseparable\r
+from the alteration of person had vanished, and she could see in him the\r
+same William as before, and talk to him, as her heart had been yearning\r
+to do through many a past year. That time, however, did gradually come,\r
+forwarded by an affection on his side as warm as her own, and much less\r
+encumbered by refinement or self-distrust. She was the first object\r
+of his love, but it was a love which his stronger spirits, and bolder\r
+temper, made it as natural for him to express as to feel. On the\r
+morrow they were walking about together with true enjoyment, and every\r
+succeeding morrow renewed a _tete-a-tete_ which Sir Thomas could not but\r
+observe with complacency, even before Edmund had pointed it out to him.\r
+\r
+Excepting the moments of peculiar delight, which any marked or\r
+unlooked-for instance of Edmund's consideration of her in the last few\r
+months had excited, Fanny had never known so much felicity in her life,\r
+as in this unchecked, equal, fearless intercourse with the brother and\r
+friend who was opening all his heart to her, telling her all his hopes\r
+and fears, plans, and solicitudes respecting that long thought of,\r
+dearly earned, and justly valued blessing of promotion; who could give\r
+her direct and minute information of the father and mother, brothers and\r
+sisters, of whom she very seldom heard; who was interested in all the\r
+comforts and all the little hardships of her home at Mansfield; ready to\r
+think of every member of that home as she directed, or differing only\r
+by a less scrupulous opinion, and more noisy abuse of their aunt Norris,\r
+and with whom (perhaps the dearest indulgence of the whole) all the evil\r
+and good of their earliest years could be gone over again, and every\r
+former united pain and pleasure retraced with the fondest recollection.\r
+An advantage this, a strengthener of love, in which even the conjugal\r
+tie is beneath the fraternal. Children of the same family, the same\r
+blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of\r
+enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connexions can supply; and\r
+it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which\r
+no subsequent connexion can justify, if such precious remains of the\r
+earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived. Too often, alas! it is\r
+so. Fraternal love, sometimes almost everything, is at others worse than\r
+nothing. But with William and Fanny Price it was still a sentiment\r
+in all its prime and freshness, wounded by no opposition of interest,\r
+cooled by no separate attachment, and feeling the influence of time and\r
+absence only in its increase.\r
+\r
+An affection so amiable was advancing each in the opinion of all who had\r
+hearts to value anything good. Henry Crawford was as much struck with\r
+it as any. He honoured the warm-hearted, blunt fondness of the young\r
+sailor, which led him to say, with his hands stretched towards Fanny's\r
+head, "Do you know, I begin to like that queer fashion already, though\r
+when I first heard of such things being done in England, I could\r
+not believe it; and when Mrs. Brown, and the other women at the\r
+Commissioner's at Gibraltar, appeared in the same trim, I thought they\r
+were mad; but Fanny can reconcile me to anything"; and saw, with lively\r
+admiration, the glow of Fanny's cheek, the brightness of her eye, the\r
+deep interest, the absorbed attention, while her brother was describing\r
+any of the imminent hazards, or terrific scenes, which such a period at\r
+sea must supply.\r
+\r
+It was a picture which Henry Crawford had moral taste enough to value.\r
+Fanny's attractions increased--increased twofold; for the sensibility\r
+which beautified her complexion and illumined her countenance was an\r
+attraction in itself. He was no longer in doubt of the capabilities of\r
+her heart. She had feeling, genuine feeling. It would be something to\r
+be loved by such a girl, to excite the first ardours of her young\r
+unsophisticated mind! She interested him more than he had foreseen. A\r
+fortnight was not enough. His stay became indefinite.\r
+\r
+William was often called on by his uncle to be the talker. His recitals\r
+were amusing in themselves to Sir Thomas, but the chief object in\r
+seeking them was to understand the reciter, to know the young man by his\r
+histories; and he listened to his clear, simple, spirited details\r
+with full satisfaction, seeing in them the proof of good principles,\r
+professional knowledge, energy, courage, and cheerfulness, everything\r
+that could deserve or promise well. Young as he was, William had already\r
+seen a great deal. He had been in the Mediterranean; in the West Indies;\r
+in the Mediterranean again; had been often taken on shore by the favour\r
+of his captain, and in the course of seven years had known every variety\r
+of danger which sea and war together could offer. With such means in\r
+his power he had a right to be listened to; and though Mrs. Norris could\r
+fidget about the room, and disturb everybody in quest of two needlefuls\r
+of thread or a second-hand shirt button, in the midst of her nephew's\r
+account of a shipwreck or an engagement, everybody else was attentive;\r
+and even Lady Bertram could not hear of such horrors unmoved, or\r
+without sometimes lifting her eyes from her work to say, "Dear me! how\r
+disagreeable! I wonder anybody can ever go to sea."\r
+\r
+To Henry Crawford they gave a different feeling. He longed to have been\r
+at sea, and seen and done and suffered as much. His heart was warmed,\r
+his fancy fired, and he felt the highest respect for a lad who, before\r
+he was twenty, had gone through such bodily hardships and given such\r
+proofs of mind. The glory of heroism, of usefulness, of exertion, of\r
+endurance, made his own habits of selfish indulgence appear in shameful\r
+contrast; and he wished he had been a William Price, distinguishing\r
+himself and working his way to fortune and consequence with so much\r
+self-respect and happy ardour, instead of what he was!\r
+\r
+The wish was rather eager than lasting. He was roused from the reverie\r
+of retrospection and regret produced by it, by some inquiry from Edmund\r
+as to his plans for the next day's hunting; and he found it was as well\r
+to be a man of fortune at once with horses and grooms at his command.\r
+In one respect it was better, as it gave him the means of conferring a\r
+kindness where he wished to oblige. With spirits, courage, and curiosity\r
+up to anything, William expressed an inclination to hunt; and Crawford\r
+could mount him without the slightest inconvenience to himself, and with\r
+only some scruples to obviate in Sir Thomas, who knew better than his\r
+nephew the value of such a loan, and some alarms to reason away in\r
+Fanny. She feared for William; by no means convinced by all that he\r
+could relate of his own horsemanship in various countries, of the\r
+scrambling parties in which he had been engaged, the rough horses and\r
+mules he had ridden, or his many narrow escapes from dreadful falls,\r
+that he was at all equal to the management of a high-fed hunter in an\r
+English fox-chase; nor till he returned safe and well, without accident\r
+or discredit, could she be reconciled to the risk, or feel any of that\r
+obligation to Mr. Crawford for lending the horse which he had fully\r
+intended it should produce. When it was proved, however, to have done\r
+William no harm, she could allow it to be a kindness, and even reward\r
+the owner with a smile when the animal was one minute tendered to his\r
+use again; and the next, with the greatest cordiality, and in a manner\r
+not to be resisted, made over to his use entirely so long as he remained\r
+in Northamptonshire.\r
+\r
+ [End volume one of this edition.\r
+ Printed by T. and A. Constable,\r
+ Printers to Her Majesty at\r
+ the Edinburgh University Press]\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+The intercourse of the two families was at this period more nearly\r
+restored to what it had been in the autumn, than any member of the\r
+old intimacy had thought ever likely to be again. The return of Henry\r
+Crawford, and the arrival of William Price, had much to do with it,\r
+but much was still owing to Sir Thomas's more than toleration of the\r
+neighbourly attempts at the Parsonage. His mind, now disengaged from\r
+the cares which had pressed on him at first, was at leisure to find\r
+the Grants and their young inmates really worth visiting; and though\r
+infinitely above scheming or contriving for any the most advantageous\r
+matrimonial establishment that could be among the apparent possibilities\r
+of any one most dear to him, and disdaining even as a littleness the\r
+being quick-sighted on such points, he could not avoid perceiving, in\r
+a grand and careless way, that Mr. Crawford was somewhat distinguishing\r
+his niece--nor perhaps refrain (though unconsciously) from giving a more\r
+willing assent to invitations on that account.\r
+\r
+His readiness, however, in agreeing to dine at the Parsonage, when the\r
+general invitation was at last hazarded, after many debates and many\r
+doubts as to whether it were worth while, "because Sir Thomas seemed\r
+so ill inclined, and Lady Bertram was so indolent!" proceeded from\r
+good-breeding and goodwill alone, and had nothing to do with Mr.\r
+Crawford, but as being one in an agreeable group: for it was in the\r
+course of that very visit that he first began to think that any one in\r
+the habit of such idle observations _would_ _have_ _thought_ that Mr.\r
+Crawford was the admirer of Fanny Price.\r
+\r
+The meeting was generally felt to be a pleasant one, being composed in a\r
+good proportion of those who would talk and those who would listen;\r
+and the dinner itself was elegant and plentiful, according to the usual\r
+style of the Grants, and too much according to the usual habits of\r
+all to raise any emotion except in Mrs. Norris, who could never behold\r
+either the wide table or the number of dishes on it with patience, and\r
+who did always contrive to experience some evil from the passing of the\r
+servants behind her chair, and to bring away some fresh conviction of\r
+its being impossible among so many dishes but that some must be cold.\r
+\r
+In the evening it was found, according to the predetermination of Mrs.\r
+Grant and her sister, that after making up the whist-table there would\r
+remain sufficient for a round game, and everybody being as perfectly\r
+complying and without a choice as on such occasions they always are,\r
+speculation was decided on almost as soon as whist; and Lady Bertram\r
+soon found herself in the critical situation of being applied to for her\r
+own choice between the games, and being required either to draw a card\r
+for whist or not. She hesitated. Luckily Sir Thomas was at hand.\r
+\r
+"What shall I do, Sir Thomas? Whist and speculation; which will amuse me\r
+most?"\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas, after a moment's thought, recommended speculation. He was\r
+a whist player himself, and perhaps might feel that it would not much\r
+amuse him to have her for a partner.\r
+\r
+"Very well," was her ladyship's contented answer; "then speculation, if\r
+you please, Mrs. Grant. I know nothing about it, but Fanny must teach\r
+me."\r
+\r
+Here Fanny interposed, however, with anxious protestations of her own\r
+equal ignorance; she had never played the game nor seen it played in\r
+her life; and Lady Bertram felt a moment's indecision again; but upon\r
+everybody's assuring her that nothing could be so easy, that it was the\r
+easiest game on the cards, and Henry Crawford's stepping forward with a\r
+most earnest request to be allowed to sit between her ladyship and Miss\r
+Price, and teach them both, it was so settled; and Sir Thomas, Mrs.\r
+Norris, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant being seated at the table of prime\r
+intellectual state and dignity, the remaining six, under Miss Crawford's\r
+direction, were arranged round the other. It was a fine arrangement\r
+for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with his hands full of\r
+business, having two persons' cards to manage as well as his own; for\r
+though it was impossible for Fanny not to feel herself mistress of the\r
+rules of the game in three minutes, he had yet to inspirit her play,\r
+sharpen her avarice, and harden her heart, which, especially in any\r
+competition with William, was a work of some difficulty; and as for Lady\r
+Bertram, he must continue in charge of all her fame and fortune through\r
+the whole evening; and if quick enough to keep her from looking at her\r
+cards when the deal began, must direct her in whatever was to be done\r
+with them to the end of it.\r
+\r
+He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease, and preeminent\r
+in all the lively turns, quick resources, and playful impudence that\r
+could do honour to the game; and the round table was altogether a very\r
+comfortable contrast to the steady sobriety and orderly silence of the\r
+other.\r
+\r
+Twice had Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment and success of his\r
+lady, but in vain; no pause was long enough for the time his measured\r
+manner needed; and very little of her state could be known till Mrs.\r
+Grant was able, at the end of the first rubber, to go to her and pay her\r
+compliments.\r
+\r
+"I hope your ladyship is pleased with the game."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, yes! very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know\r
+what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does\r
+all the rest."\r
+\r
+"Bertram," said Crawford, some time afterwards, taking the opportunity\r
+of a little languor in the game, "I have never told you what happened to\r
+me yesterday in my ride home." They had been hunting together, and were\r
+in the midst of a good run, and at some distance from Mansfield, when\r
+his horse being found to have flung a shoe, Henry Crawford had been\r
+obliged to give up, and make the best of his way back. "I told you I\r
+lost my way after passing that old farmhouse with the yew-trees, because\r
+I can never bear to ask; but I have not told you that, with my usual\r
+luck--for I never do wrong without gaining by it--I found myself in due\r
+time in the very place which I had a curiosity to see. I was suddenly,\r
+upon turning the corner of a steepish downy field, in the midst of\r
+a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream\r
+before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to my\r
+right--which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, and\r
+not a gentleman or half a gentleman's house to be seen excepting one--to\r
+be presumed the Parsonage--within a stone's throw of the said knoll and\r
+church. I found myself, in short, in Thornton Lacey."\r
+\r
+"It sounds like it," said Edmund; "but which way did you turn after\r
+passing Sewell's farm?"\r
+\r
+"I answer no such irrelevant and insidious questions; though were I to\r
+answer all that you could put in the course of an hour, you would never\r
+be able to prove that it was _not_ Thornton Lacey--for such it certainly\r
+was."\r
+\r
+"You inquired, then?"\r
+\r
+"No, I never inquire. But I _told_ a man mending a hedge that it was\r
+Thornton Lacey, and he agreed to it."\r
+\r
+"You have a good memory. I had forgotten having ever told you half so\r
+much of the place."\r
+\r
+Thornton Lacey was the name of his impending living, as Miss Crawford\r
+well knew; and her interest in a negotiation for William Price's knave\r
+increased.\r
+\r
+"Well," continued Edmund, "and how did you like what you saw?"\r
+\r
+"Very much indeed. You are a lucky fellow. There will be work for five\r
+summers at least before the place is liveable."\r
+\r
+"No, no, not so bad as that. The farmyard must be moved, I grant you;\r
+but I am not aware of anything else. The house is by no means bad, and\r
+when the yard is removed, there may be a very tolerable approach to it."\r
+\r
+"The farmyard must be cleared away entirely, and planted up to shut\r
+out the blacksmith's shop. The house must be turned to front the east\r
+instead of the north--the entrance and principal rooms, I mean, must be\r
+on that side, where the view is really very pretty; I am sure it may be\r
+done. And _there_ must be your approach, through what is at present the\r
+garden. You must make a new garden at what is now the back of the house;\r
+which will be giving it the best aspect in the world, sloping to the\r
+south-east. The ground seems precisely formed for it. I rode fifty yards\r
+up the lane, between the church and the house, in order to look about\r
+me; and saw how it might all be. Nothing can be easier. The meadows\r
+beyond what _will_ _be_ the garden, as well as what now _is_, sweeping\r
+round from the lane I stood in to the north-east, that is, to the\r
+principal road through the village, must be all laid together, of\r
+course; very pretty meadows they are, finely sprinkled with timber. They\r
+belong to the living, I suppose; if not, you must purchase them. Then\r
+the stream--something must be done with the stream; but I could not\r
+quite determine what. I had two or three ideas."\r
+\r
+"And I have two or three ideas also," said Edmund, "and one of them is,\r
+that very little of your plan for Thornton Lacey will ever be put in\r
+practice. I must be satisfied with rather less ornament and beauty. I\r
+think the house and premises may be made comfortable, and given the air\r
+of a gentleman's residence, without any very heavy expense, and that\r
+must suffice me; and, I hope, may suffice all who care about me."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford, a little suspicious and resentful of a certain tone of\r
+voice, and a certain half-look attending the last expression of his\r
+hope, made a hasty finish of her dealings with William Price; and\r
+securing his knave at an exorbitant rate, exclaimed, "There, I will\r
+stake my last like a woman of spirit. No cold prudence for me. I am not\r
+born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be\r
+from not striving for it."\r
+\r
+The game was hers, and only did not pay her for what she had given\r
+to secure it. Another deal proceeded, and Crawford began again about\r
+Thornton Lacey.\r
+\r
+"My plan may not be the best possible: I had not many minutes to form\r
+it in; but you must do a good deal. The place deserves it, and you\r
+will find yourself not satisfied with much less than it is capable of.\r
+(Excuse me, your ladyship must not see your cards. There, let them lie\r
+just before you.) The place deserves it, Bertram. You talk of giving it\r
+the air of a gentleman's residence. _That_ will be done by the removal\r
+of the farmyard; for, independent of that terrible nuisance, I never saw\r
+a house of the kind which had in itself so much the air of a\r
+gentleman's residence, so much the look of a something above a mere\r
+parsonage-house--above the expenditure of a few hundreds a year. It is\r
+not a scrambling collection of low single rooms, with as many roofs\r
+as windows; it is not cramped into the vulgar compactness of a square\r
+farmhouse: it is a solid, roomy, mansion-like looking house, such as\r
+one might suppose a respectable old country family had lived in from\r
+generation to generation, through two centuries at least, and were now\r
+spending from two to three thousand a year in." Miss Crawford listened,\r
+and Edmund agreed to this. "The air of a gentleman's residence,\r
+therefore, you cannot but give it, if you do anything. But it is capable\r
+of much more. (Let me see, Mary; Lady Bertram bids a dozen for that\r
+queen; no, no, a dozen is more than it is worth. Lady Bertram does not\r
+bid a dozen. She will have nothing to say to it. Go on, go on.) By some\r
+such improvements as I have suggested (I do not really require you to\r
+proceed upon my plan, though, by the bye, I doubt anybody's striking out\r
+a better) you may give it a higher character. You may raise it into\r
+a _place_. From being the mere gentleman's residence, it becomes, by\r
+judicious improvement, the residence of a man of education, taste,\r
+modern manners, good connexions. All this may be stamped on it; and that\r
+house receive such an air as to make its owner be set down as the\r
+great landholder of the parish by every creature travelling the road;\r
+especially as there is no real squire's house to dispute the point--a\r
+circumstance, between ourselves, to enhance the value of such a\r
+situation in point of privilege and independence beyond all calculation.\r
+_You_ think with me, I hope" (turning with a softened voice to Fanny).\r
+"Have you ever seen the place?"\r
+\r
+Fanny gave a quick negative, and tried to hide her interest in the\r
+subject by an eager attention to her brother, who was driving as hard a\r
+bargain, and imposing on her as much as he could; but Crawford pursued\r
+with "No, no, you must not part with the queen. You have bought her too\r
+dearly, and your brother does not offer half her value. No, no, sir,\r
+hands off, hands off. Your sister does not part with the queen. She is\r
+quite determined. The game will be yours," turning to her again; "it\r
+will certainly be yours."\r
+\r
+"And Fanny had much rather it were William's," said Edmund, smiling at\r
+her. "Poor Fanny! not allowed to cheat herself as she wishes!"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Bertram," said Miss Crawford, a few minutes afterwards, "you know\r
+Henry to be such a capital improver, that you cannot possibly engage in\r
+anything of the sort at Thornton Lacey without accepting his help. Only\r
+think how useful he was at Sotherton! Only think what grand things were\r
+produced there by our all going with him one hot day in August to drive\r
+about the grounds, and see his genius take fire. There we went, and\r
+there we came home again; and what was done there is not to be told!"\r
+\r
+Fanny's eyes were turned on Crawford for a moment with an expression\r
+more than grave--even reproachful; but on catching his, were instantly\r
+withdrawn. With something of consciousness he shook his head at his\r
+sister, and laughingly replied, "I cannot say there was much done at\r
+Sotherton; but it was a hot day, and we were all walking after each\r
+other, and bewildered." As soon as a general buzz gave him shelter, he\r
+added, in a low voice, directed solely at Fanny, "I should be sorry to\r
+have my powers of _planning_ judged of by the day at Sotherton. I see\r
+things very differently now. Do not think of me as I appeared then."\r
+\r
+Sotherton was a word to catch Mrs. Norris, and being just then in the\r
+happy leisure which followed securing the odd trick by Sir Thomas's\r
+capital play and her own against Dr. and Mrs. Grant's great hands,\r
+she called out, in high good-humour, "Sotherton! Yes, that is a place,\r
+indeed, and we had a charming day there. William, you are quite out of\r
+luck; but the next time you come, I hope dear Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth\r
+will be at home, and I am sure I can answer for your being kindly\r
+received by both. Your cousins are not of a sort to forget their\r
+relations, and Mr. Rushworth is a most amiable man. They are at Brighton\r
+now, you know; in one of the best houses there, as Mr. Rushworth's fine\r
+fortune gives them a right to be. I do not exactly know the distance,\r
+but when you get back to Portsmouth, if it is not very far off, you\r
+ought to go over and pay your respects to them; and I could send a\r
+little parcel by you that I want to get conveyed to your cousins."\r
+\r
+"I should be very happy, aunt; but Brighton is almost by Beachey Head;\r
+and if I could get so far, I could not expect to be welcome in such a\r
+smart place as that--poor scrubby midshipman as I am."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris was beginning an eager assurance of the affability he might\r
+depend on, when she was stopped by Sir Thomas's saying with authority,\r
+"I do not advise your going to Brighton, William, as I trust you may\r
+soon have more convenient opportunities of meeting; but my daughters\r
+would be happy to see their cousins anywhere; and you will find Mr.\r
+Rushworth most sincerely disposed to regard all the connexions of our\r
+family as his own."\r
+\r
+"I would rather find him private secretary to the First Lord than\r
+anything else," was William's only answer, in an undervoice, not meant\r
+to reach far, and the subject dropped.\r
+\r
+As yet Sir Thomas had seen nothing to remark in Mr. Crawford's\r
+behaviour; but when the whist-table broke up at the end of the second\r
+rubber, and leaving Dr. Grant and Mrs. Norris to dispute over their last\r
+play, he became a looker-on at the other, he found his niece the\r
+object of attentions, or rather of professions, of a somewhat pointed\r
+character.\r
+\r
+Henry Crawford was in the first glow of another scheme about Thornton\r
+Lacey; and not being able to catch Edmund's ear, was detailing it to his\r
+fair neighbour with a look of considerable earnestness. His scheme was\r
+to rent the house himself the following winter, that he might have a\r
+home of his own in that neighbourhood; and it was not merely for the use\r
+of it in the hunting-season (as he was then telling her), though _that_\r
+consideration had certainly some weight, feeling as he did that, in\r
+spite of all Dr. Grant's very great kindness, it was impossible for him\r
+and his horses to be accommodated where they now were without material\r
+inconvenience; but his attachment to that neighbourhood did not depend\r
+upon one amusement or one season of the year: he had set his heart upon\r
+having a something there that he could come to at any time, a little\r
+homestall at his command, where all the holidays of his year might be\r
+spent, and he might find himself continuing, improving, and _perfecting_\r
+that friendship and intimacy with the Mansfield Park family which was\r
+increasing in value to him every day. Sir Thomas heard and was not\r
+offended. There was no want of respect in the young man's address;\r
+and Fanny's reception of it was so proper and modest, so calm and\r
+uninviting, that he had nothing to censure in her. She said little,\r
+assented only here and there, and betrayed no inclination either of\r
+appropriating any part of the compliment to herself, or of strengthening\r
+his views in favour of Northamptonshire. Finding by whom he was\r
+observed, Henry Crawford addressed himself on the same subject to Sir\r
+Thomas, in a more everyday tone, but still with feeling.\r
+\r
+"I want to be your neighbour, Sir Thomas, as you have, perhaps, heard me\r
+telling Miss Price. May I hope for your acquiescence, and for your not\r
+influencing your son against such a tenant?"\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas, politely bowing, replied, "It is the only way, sir, in which\r
+I could _not_ wish you established as a permanent neighbour; but I hope,\r
+and believe, that Edmund will occupy his own house at Thornton Lacey.\r
+Edmund, am I saying too much?"\r
+\r
+Edmund, on this appeal, had first to hear what was going on; but, on\r
+understanding the question, was at no loss for an answer.\r
+\r
+"Certainly, sir, I have no idea but of residence. But, Crawford, though\r
+I refuse you as a tenant, come to me as a friend. Consider the house as\r
+half your own every winter, and we will add to the stables on your own\r
+improved plan, and with all the improvements of your improved plan that\r
+may occur to you this spring."\r
+\r
+"We shall be the losers," continued Sir Thomas. "His going, though only\r
+eight miles, will be an unwelcome contraction of our family circle; but\r
+I should have been deeply mortified if any son of mine could reconcile\r
+himself to doing less. It is perfectly natural that you should not have\r
+thought much on the subject, Mr. Crawford. But a parish has wants and\r
+claims which can be known only by a clergyman constantly resident, and\r
+which no proxy can be capable of satisfying to the same extent. Edmund\r
+might, in the common phrase, do the duty of Thornton, that is, he might\r
+read prayers and preach, without giving up Mansfield Park: he might ride\r
+over every Sunday, to a house nominally inhabited, and go through divine\r
+service; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day,\r
+for three or four hours, if that would content him. But it will not.\r
+He knows that human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can\r
+convey; and that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove\r
+himself, by constant attention, their well-wisher and friend, he does\r
+very little either for their good or his own."\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford bowed his acquiescence.\r
+\r
+"I repeat again," added Sir Thomas, "that Thornton Lacey is the only\r
+house in the neighbourhood in which I should _not_ be happy to wait on\r
+Mr. Crawford as occupier."\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford bowed his thanks.\r
+\r
+"Sir Thomas," said Edmund, "undoubtedly understands the duty of a parish\r
+priest. We must hope his son may prove that _he_ knows it too."\r
+\r
+Whatever effect Sir Thomas's little harangue might really produce on Mr.\r
+Crawford, it raised some awkward sensations in two of the others, two\r
+of his most attentive listeners--Miss Crawford and Fanny. One of\r
+whom, having never before understood that Thornton was so soon and so\r
+completely to be his home, was pondering with downcast eyes on what it\r
+would be _not_ to see Edmund every day; and the other, startled from the\r
+agreeable fancies she had been previously indulging on the strength of\r
+her brother's description, no longer able, in the picture she had\r
+been forming of a future Thornton, to shut out the church, sink the\r
+clergyman, and see only the respectable, elegant, modernised, and\r
+occasional residence of a man of independent fortune, was considering\r
+Sir Thomas, with decided ill-will, as the destroyer of all this, and\r
+suffering the more from that involuntary forbearance which his character\r
+and manner commanded, and from not daring to relieve herself by a single\r
+attempt at throwing ridicule on his cause.\r
+\r
+All the agreeable of _her_ speculation was over for that hour. It was\r
+time to have done with cards, if sermons prevailed; and she was glad to\r
+find it necessary to come to a conclusion, and be able to refresh her\r
+spirits by a change of place and neighbour.\r
+\r
+The chief of the party were now collected irregularly round the\r
+fire, and waiting the final break-up. William and Fanny were the most\r
+detached. They remained together at the otherwise deserted card-table,\r
+talking very comfortably, and not thinking of the rest, till some of the\r
+rest began to think of them. Henry Crawford's chair was the first to be\r
+given a direction towards them, and he sat silently observing them for a\r
+few minutes; himself, in the meanwhile, observed by Sir Thomas, who was\r
+standing in chat with Dr. Grant.\r
+\r
+"This is the assembly night," said William. "If I were at Portsmouth I\r
+should be at it, perhaps."\r
+\r
+"But you do not wish yourself at Portsmouth, William?"\r
+\r
+"No, Fanny, that I do not. I shall have enough of Portsmouth and of\r
+dancing too, when I cannot have you. And I do not know that there would\r
+be any good in going to the assembly, for I might not get a partner.\r
+The Portsmouth girls turn up their noses at anybody who has not a\r
+commission. One might as well be nothing as a midshipman. One _is_\r
+nothing, indeed. You remember the Gregorys; they are grown up amazing\r
+fine girls, but they will hardly speak to _me_, because Lucy is courted\r
+by a lieutenant."\r
+\r
+"Oh! shame, shame! But never mind it, William" (her own cheeks in a\r
+glow of indignation as she spoke). "It is not worth minding. It is no\r
+reflection on _you_; it is no more than what the greatest admirals have\r
+all experienced, more or less, in their time. You must think of that,\r
+you must try to make up your mind to it as one of the hardships which\r
+fall to every sailor's share, like bad weather and hard living, only\r
+with this advantage, that there will be an end to it, that there will\r
+come a time when you will have nothing of that sort to endure. When you\r
+are a lieutenant! only think, William, when you are a lieutenant, how\r
+little you will care for any nonsense of this kind."\r
+\r
+"I begin to think I shall never be a lieutenant, Fanny. Everybody gets\r
+made but me."\r
+\r
+"Oh! my dear William, do not talk so; do not be so desponding. My uncle\r
+says nothing, but I am sure he will do everything in his power to get\r
+you made. He knows, as well as you do, of what consequence it is."\r
+\r
+She was checked by the sight of her uncle much nearer to them than she\r
+had any suspicion of, and each found it necessary to talk of something\r
+else.\r
+\r
+"Are you fond of dancing, Fanny?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very; only I am soon tired."\r
+\r
+"I should like to go to a ball with you and see you dance. Have you\r
+never any balls at Northampton? I should like to see you dance, and I'd\r
+dance with you if you _would_, for nobody would know who I was here,\r
+and I should like to be your partner once more. We used to jump about\r
+together many a time, did not we? when the hand-organ was in the street?\r
+I am a pretty good dancer in my way, but I dare say you are a better."\r
+And turning to his uncle, who was now close to them, "Is not Fanny a\r
+very good dancer, sir?"\r
+\r
+Fanny, in dismay at such an unprecedented question, did not know which\r
+way to look, or how to be prepared for the answer. Some very grave\r
+reproof, or at least the coldest expression of indifference, must be\r
+coming to distress her brother, and sink her to the ground. But, on the\r
+contrary, it was no worse than, "I am sorry to say that I am unable\r
+to answer your question. I have never seen Fanny dance since she was a\r
+little girl; but I trust we shall both think she acquits herself like\r
+a gentlewoman when we do see her, which, perhaps, we may have an\r
+opportunity of doing ere long."\r
+\r
+"I have had the pleasure of seeing your sister dance, Mr. Price,"\r
+said Henry Crawford, leaning forward, "and will engage to answer every\r
+inquiry which you can make on the subject, to your entire satisfaction.\r
+But I believe" (seeing Fanny looked distressed) "it must be at some\r
+other time. There is _one_ person in company who does not like to have\r
+Miss Price spoken of."\r
+\r
+True enough, he had once seen Fanny dance; and it was equally true\r
+that he would now have answered for her gliding about with quiet, light\r
+elegance, and in admirable time; but, in fact, he could not for the life\r
+of him recall what her dancing had been, and rather took it for granted\r
+that she had been present than remembered anything about her.\r
+\r
+He passed, however, for an admirer of her dancing; and Sir Thomas, by no\r
+means displeased, prolonged the conversation on dancing in general, and\r
+was so well engaged in describing the balls of Antigua, and listening to\r
+what his nephew could relate of the different modes of dancing which\r
+had fallen within his observation, that he had not heard his carriage\r
+announced, and was first called to the knowledge of it by the bustle of\r
+Mrs. Norris.\r
+\r
+"Come, Fanny, Fanny, what are you about? We are going. Do not you see\r
+your aunt is going? Quick, quick! I cannot bear to keep good old Wilcox\r
+waiting. You should always remember the coachman and horses. My dear Sir\r
+Thomas, we have settled it that the carriage should come back for you,\r
+and Edmund and William."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas could not dissent, as it had been his own arrangement,\r
+previously communicated to his wife and sister; but _that_ seemed\r
+forgotten by Mrs. Norris, who must fancy that she settled it all\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+Fanny's last feeling in the visit was disappointment: for the shawl\r
+which Edmund was quietly taking from the servant to bring and put round\r
+her shoulders was seized by Mr. Crawford's quicker hand, and she was\r
+obliged to be indebted to his more prominent attention.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+William's desire of seeing Fanny dance made more than a momentary\r
+impression on his uncle. The hope of an opportunity, which Sir Thomas\r
+had then given, was not given to be thought of no more. He remained\r
+steadily inclined to gratify so amiable a feeling; to gratify anybody\r
+else who might wish to see Fanny dance, and to give pleasure to the\r
+young people in general; and having thought the matter over, and taken\r
+his resolution in quiet independence, the result of it appeared the\r
+next morning at breakfast, when, after recalling and commending what\r
+his nephew had said, he added, "I do not like, William, that you\r
+should leave Northamptonshire without this indulgence. It would give me\r
+pleasure to see you both dance. You spoke of the balls at Northampton.\r
+Your cousins have occasionally attended them; but they would not\r
+altogether suit us now. The fatigue would be too much for your aunt. I\r
+believe we must not think of a Northampton ball. A dance at home would\r
+be more eligible; and if--"\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear Sir Thomas!" interrupted Mrs. Norris, "I knew what was\r
+coming. I knew what you were going to say. If dear Julia were at home,\r
+or dearest Mrs. Rushworth at Sotherton, to afford a reason, an occasion\r
+for such a thing, you would be tempted to give the young people a dance\r
+at Mansfield. I know you would. If _they_ were at home to grace the\r
+ball, a ball you would have this very Christmas. Thank your uncle,\r
+William, thank your uncle!"\r
+\r
+"My daughters," replied Sir Thomas, gravely interposing, "have their\r
+pleasures at Brighton, and I hope are very happy; but the dance which I\r
+think of giving at Mansfield will be for their cousins. Could we be all\r
+assembled, our satisfaction would undoubtedly be more complete, but the\r
+absence of some is not to debar the others of amusement."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris had not another word to say. She saw decision in his looks,\r
+and her surprise and vexation required some minutes' silence to be\r
+settled into composure. A ball at such a time! His daughters absent and\r
+herself not consulted! There was comfort, however, soon at hand. _She_\r
+must be the doer of everything: Lady Bertram would of course be spared\r
+all thought and exertion, and it would all fall upon _her_. She should\r
+have to do the honours of the evening; and this reflection quickly\r
+restored so much of her good-humour as enabled her to join in with the\r
+others, before their happiness and thanks were all expressed.\r
+\r
+Edmund, William, and Fanny did, in their different ways, look and speak\r
+as much grateful pleasure in the promised ball as Sir Thomas could\r
+desire. Edmund's feelings were for the other two. His father had never\r
+conferred a favour or shewn a kindness more to his satisfaction.\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram was perfectly quiescent and contented, and had no\r
+objections to make. Sir Thomas engaged for its giving her very little\r
+trouble; and she assured him "that she was not at all afraid of the\r
+trouble; indeed, she could not imagine there would be any."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris was ready with her suggestions as to the rooms he would\r
+think fittest to be used, but found it all prearranged; and when she\r
+would have conjectured and hinted about the day, it appeared that the\r
+day was settled too. Sir Thomas had been amusing himself with shaping a\r
+very complete outline of the business; and as soon as she would listen\r
+quietly, could read his list of the families to be invited, from whom\r
+he calculated, with all necessary allowance for the shortness of the\r
+notice, to collect young people enough to form twelve or fourteen\r
+couple: and could detail the considerations which had induced him to\r
+fix on the 22nd as the most eligible day. William was required to be at\r
+Portsmouth on the 24th; the 22nd would therefore be the last day of his\r
+visit; but where the days were so few it would be unwise to fix on any\r
+earlier. Mrs. Norris was obliged to be satisfied with thinking just the\r
+same, and with having been on the point of proposing the 22nd herself,\r
+as by far the best day for the purpose.\r
+\r
+The ball was now a settled thing, and before the evening a proclaimed\r
+thing to all whom it concerned. Invitations were sent with despatch,\r
+and many a young lady went to bed that night with her head full of happy\r
+cares as well as Fanny. To her the cares were sometimes almost beyond\r
+the happiness; for young and inexperienced, with small means of choice\r
+and no confidence in her own taste, the "how she should be dressed" was\r
+a point of painful solicitude; and the almost solitary ornament in her\r
+possession, a very pretty amber cross which William had brought her from\r
+Sicily, was the greatest distress of all, for she had nothing but a bit\r
+of ribbon to fasten it to; and though she had worn it in that manner\r
+once, would it be allowable at such a time in the midst of all the rich\r
+ornaments which she supposed all the other young ladies would appear in?\r
+And yet not to wear it! William had wanted to buy her a gold chain too,\r
+but the purchase had been beyond his means, and therefore not to wear\r
+the cross might be mortifying him. These were anxious considerations;\r
+enough to sober her spirits even under the prospect of a ball given\r
+principally for her gratification.\r
+\r
+The preparations meanwhile went on, and Lady Bertram continued to sit on\r
+her sofa without any inconvenience from them. She had some extra visits\r
+from the housekeeper, and her maid was rather hurried in making up a new\r
+dress for her: Sir Thomas gave orders, and Mrs. Norris ran about; but\r
+all this gave _her_ no trouble, and as she had foreseen, "there was, in\r
+fact, no trouble in the business."\r
+\r
+Edmund was at this time particularly full of cares: his mind being\r
+deeply occupied in the consideration of two important events now\r
+at hand, which were to fix his fate in life--ordination and\r
+matrimony--events of such a serious character as to make the ball, which\r
+would be very quickly followed by one of them, appear of less moment in\r
+his eyes than in those of any other person in the house. On the 23rd\r
+he was going to a friend near Peterborough, in the same situation\r
+as himself, and they were to receive ordination in the course of the\r
+Christmas week. Half his destiny would then be determined, but the\r
+other half might not be so very smoothly wooed. His duties would be\r
+established, but the wife who was to share, and animate, and reward\r
+those duties, might yet be unattainable. He knew his own mind, but he\r
+was not always perfectly assured of knowing Miss Crawford's. There were\r
+points on which they did not quite agree; there were moments in which\r
+she did not seem propitious; and though trusting altogether to her\r
+affection, so far as to be resolved--almost resolved--on bringing it to\r
+a decision within a very short time, as soon as the variety of business\r
+before him were arranged, and he knew what he had to offer her, he\r
+had many anxious feelings, many doubting hours as to the result. His\r
+conviction of her regard for him was sometimes very strong; he could\r
+look back on a long course of encouragement, and she was as perfect in\r
+disinterested attachment as in everything else. But at other times\r
+doubt and alarm intermingled with his hopes; and when he thought of\r
+her acknowledged disinclination for privacy and retirement, her decided\r
+preference of a London life, what could he expect but a determined\r
+rejection? unless it were an acceptance even more to be deprecated,\r
+demanding such sacrifices of situation and employment on his side as\r
+conscience must forbid.\r
+\r
+The issue of all depended on one question. Did she love him well enough\r
+to forego what had used to be essential points? Did she love him well\r
+enough to make them no longer essential? And this question, which he was\r
+continually repeating to himself, though oftenest answered with a "Yes,"\r
+had sometimes its "No."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford was soon to leave Mansfield, and on this circumstance the\r
+"no" and the "yes" had been very recently in alternation. He had seen\r
+her eyes sparkle as she spoke of the dear friend's letter, which claimed\r
+a long visit from her in London, and of the kindness of Henry, in\r
+engaging to remain where he was till January, that he might convey her\r
+thither; he had heard her speak of the pleasure of such a journey with\r
+an animation which had "no" in every tone. But this had occurred on the\r
+first day of its being settled, within the first hour of the burst of\r
+such enjoyment, when nothing but the friends she was to visit was before\r
+her. He had since heard her express herself differently, with other\r
+feelings, more chequered feelings: he had heard her tell Mrs. Grant that\r
+she should leave her with regret; that she began to believe neither the\r
+friends nor the pleasures she was going to were worth those she left\r
+behind; and that though she felt she must go, and knew she should enjoy\r
+herself when once away, she was already looking forward to being at\r
+Mansfield again. Was there not a "yes" in all this?\r
+\r
+With such matters to ponder over, and arrange, and re-arrange, Edmund\r
+could not, on his own account, think very much of the evening which the\r
+rest of the family were looking forward to with a more equal degree of\r
+strong interest. Independent of his two cousins' enjoyment in it, the\r
+evening was to him of no higher value than any other appointed meeting\r
+of the two families might be. In every meeting there was a hope of\r
+receiving farther confirmation of Miss Crawford's attachment; but the\r
+whirl of a ballroom, perhaps, was not particularly favourable to the\r
+excitement or expression of serious feelings. To engage her early for\r
+the two first dances was all the command of individual happiness which\r
+he felt in his power, and the only preparation for the ball which he\r
+could enter into, in spite of all that was passing around him on the\r
+subject, from morning till night.\r
+\r
+Thursday was the day of the ball; and on Wednesday morning Fanny, still\r
+unable to satisfy herself as to what she ought to wear, determined to\r
+seek the counsel of the more enlightened, and apply to Mrs. Grant and\r
+her sister, whose acknowledged taste would certainly bear her blameless;\r
+and as Edmund and William were gone to Northampton, and she had reason\r
+to think Mr. Crawford likewise out, she walked down to the Parsonage\r
+without much fear of wanting an opportunity for private discussion;\r
+and the privacy of such a discussion was a most important part of it to\r
+Fanny, being more than half-ashamed of her own solicitude.\r
+\r
+She met Miss Crawford within a few yards of the Parsonage, just setting\r
+out to call on her, and as it seemed to her that her friend, though\r
+obliged to insist on turning back, was unwilling to lose her walk, she\r
+explained her business at once, and observed, that if she would be so\r
+kind as to give her opinion, it might be all talked over as well without\r
+doors as within. Miss Crawford appeared gratified by the application,\r
+and after a moment's thought, urged Fanny's returning with her in a much\r
+more cordial manner than before, and proposed their going up into her\r
+room, where they might have a comfortable coze, without disturbing Dr.\r
+and Mrs. Grant, who were together in the drawing-room. It was just the\r
+plan to suit Fanny; and with a great deal of gratitude on her side for\r
+such ready and kind attention, they proceeded indoors, and upstairs, and\r
+were soon deep in the interesting subject. Miss Crawford, pleased with\r
+the appeal, gave her all her best judgment and taste, made everything\r
+easy by her suggestions, and tried to make everything agreeable by her\r
+encouragement. The dress being settled in all its grander parts--"But\r
+what shall you have by way of necklace?" said Miss Crawford. "Shall not\r
+you wear your brother's cross?" And as she spoke she was undoing a\r
+small parcel, which Fanny had observed in her hand when they met. Fanny\r
+acknowledged her wishes and doubts on this point: she did not know\r
+how either to wear the cross, or to refrain from wearing it. She was\r
+answered by having a small trinket-box placed before her, and being\r
+requested to chuse from among several gold chains and necklaces. Such\r
+had been the parcel with which Miss Crawford was provided, and such the\r
+object of her intended visit: and in the kindest manner she now urged\r
+Fanny's taking one for the cross and to keep for her sake, saying\r
+everything she could think of to obviate the scruples which were making\r
+Fanny start back at first with a look of horror at the proposal.\r
+\r
+"You see what a collection I have," said she; "more by half than I ever\r
+use or think of. I do not offer them as new. I offer nothing but an old\r
+necklace. You must forgive the liberty, and oblige me."\r
+\r
+Fanny still resisted, and from her heart. The gift was too valuable. But\r
+Miss Crawford persevered, and argued the case with so much affectionate\r
+earnestness through all the heads of William and the cross, and the\r
+ball, and herself, as to be finally successful. Fanny found\r
+herself obliged to yield, that she might not be accused of pride\r
+or indifference, or some other littleness; and having with modest\r
+reluctance given her consent, proceeded to make the selection. She\r
+looked and looked, longing to know which might be least valuable; and\r
+was determined in her choice at last, by fancying there was one necklace\r
+more frequently placed before her eyes than the rest. It was of gold,\r
+prettily worked; and though Fanny would have preferred a longer and a\r
+plainer chain as more adapted for her purpose, she hoped, in fixing\r
+on this, to be chusing what Miss Crawford least wished to keep. Miss\r
+Crawford smiled her perfect approbation; and hastened to complete the\r
+gift by putting the necklace round her, and making her see how well\r
+it looked. Fanny had not a word to say against its becomingness, and,\r
+excepting what remained of her scruples, was exceedingly pleased with\r
+an acquisition so very apropos. She would rather, perhaps, have been\r
+obliged to some other person. But this was an unworthy feeling. Miss\r
+Crawford had anticipated her wants with a kindness which proved her a\r
+real friend. "When I wear this necklace I shall always think of you,"\r
+said she, "and feel how very kind you were."\r
+\r
+"You must think of somebody else too, when you wear that necklace,"\r
+replied Miss Crawford. "You must think of Henry, for it was his choice\r
+in the first place. He gave it to me, and with the necklace I make over\r
+to you all the duty of remembering the original giver. It is to be\r
+a family remembrancer. The sister is not to be in your mind without\r
+bringing the brother too."\r
+\r
+Fanny, in great astonishment and confusion, would have returned the\r
+present instantly. To take what had been the gift of another person,\r
+of a brother too, impossible! it must not be! and with an eagerness\r
+and embarrassment quite diverting to her companion, she laid down the\r
+necklace again on its cotton, and seemed resolved either to take another\r
+or none at all. Miss Crawford thought she had never seen a prettier\r
+consciousness. "My dear child," said she, laughing, "what are you afraid\r
+of? Do you think Henry will claim the necklace as mine, and fancy you\r
+did not come honestly by it? or are you imagining he would be too much\r
+flattered by seeing round your lovely throat an ornament which his money\r
+purchased three years ago, before he knew there was such a throat in the\r
+world? or perhaps"--looking archly--"you suspect a confederacy between\r
+us, and that what I am now doing is with his knowledge and at his\r
+desire?"\r
+\r
+With the deepest blushes Fanny protested against such a thought.\r
+\r
+"Well, then," replied Miss Crawford more seriously, but without at all\r
+believing her, "to convince me that you suspect no trick, and are as\r
+unsuspicious of compliment as I have always found you, take the necklace\r
+and say no more about it. Its being a gift of my brother's need not make\r
+the smallest difference in your accepting it, as I assure you it makes\r
+none in my willingness to part with it. He is always giving me something\r
+or other. I have such innumerable presents from him that it is quite\r
+impossible for me to value or for him to remember half. And as for this\r
+necklace, I do not suppose I have worn it six times: it is very pretty,\r
+but I never think of it; and though you would be most heartily welcome\r
+to any other in my trinket-box, you have happened to fix on the very\r
+one which, if I have a choice, I would rather part with and see in your\r
+possession than any other. Say no more against it, I entreat you. Such a\r
+trifle is not worth half so many words."\r
+\r
+Fanny dared not make any farther opposition; and with renewed but less\r
+happy thanks accepted the necklace again, for there was an expression in\r
+Miss Crawford's eyes which she could not be satisfied with.\r
+\r
+It was impossible for her to be insensible of Mr. Crawford's change of\r
+manners. She had long seen it. He evidently tried to please her: he was\r
+gallant, he was attentive, he was something like what he had been to her\r
+cousins: he wanted, she supposed, to cheat her of her tranquillity as\r
+he had cheated them; and whether he might not have some concern in this\r
+necklace--she could not be convinced that he had not, for Miss Crawford,\r
+complaisant as a sister, was careless as a woman and a friend.\r
+\r
+Reflecting and doubting, and feeling that the possession of what she had\r
+so much wished for did not bring much satisfaction, she now walked\r
+home again, with a change rather than a diminution of cares since her\r
+treading that path before.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+On reaching home Fanny went immediately upstairs to deposit this\r
+unexpected acquisition, this doubtful good of a necklace, in some\r
+favourite box in the East room, which held all her smaller treasures;\r
+but on opening the door, what was her surprise to find her cousin Edmund\r
+there writing at the table! Such a sight having never occurred before,\r
+was almost as wonderful as it was welcome.\r
+\r
+"Fanny," said he directly, leaving his seat and his pen, and meeting her\r
+with something in his hand, "I beg your pardon for being here. I came\r
+to look for you, and after waiting a little while in hope of your coming\r
+in, was making use of your inkstand to explain my errand. You will find\r
+the beginning of a note to yourself; but I can now speak my business,\r
+which is merely to beg your acceptance of this little trifle--a chain\r
+for William's cross. You ought to have had it a week ago, but there has\r
+been a delay from my brother's not being in town by several days so soon\r
+as I expected; and I have only just now received it at Northampton. I\r
+hope you will like the chain itself, Fanny. I endeavoured to consult the\r
+simplicity of your taste; but, at any rate, I know you will be kind to\r
+my intentions, and consider it, as it really is, a token of the love of\r
+one of your oldest friends."\r
+\r
+And so saying, he was hurrying away, before Fanny, overpowered by a\r
+thousand feelings of pain and pleasure, could attempt to speak; but\r
+quickened by one sovereign wish, she then called out, "Oh! cousin, stop\r
+a moment, pray stop!"\r
+\r
+He turned back.\r
+\r
+"I cannot attempt to thank you," she continued, in a very agitated\r
+manner; "thanks are out of the question. I feel much more than I can\r
+possibly express. Your goodness in thinking of me in such a way is\r
+beyond--"\r
+\r
+"If that is all you have to say, Fanny" smiling and turning away again.\r
+\r
+"No, no, it is not. I want to consult you."\r
+\r
+Almost unconsciously she had now undone the parcel he had just put\r
+into her hand, and seeing before her, in all the niceness of jewellers'\r
+packing, a plain gold chain, perfectly simple and neat, she could not\r
+help bursting forth again, "Oh, this is beautiful indeed! This is the\r
+very thing, precisely what I wished for! This is the only ornament I\r
+have ever had a desire to possess. It will exactly suit my cross. They\r
+must and shall be worn together. It comes, too, in such an acceptable\r
+moment. Oh, cousin, you do not know how acceptable it is."\r
+\r
+"My dear Fanny, you feel these things a great deal too much. I am most\r
+happy that you like the chain, and that it should be here in time for\r
+to-morrow; but your thanks are far beyond the occasion. Believe me, I\r
+have no pleasure in the world superior to that of contributing to yours.\r
+No, I can safely say, I have no pleasure so complete, so unalloyed. It\r
+is without a drawback."\r
+\r
+Upon such expressions of affection Fanny could have lived an hour\r
+without saying another word; but Edmund, after waiting a moment, obliged\r
+her to bring down her mind from its heavenly flight by saying, "But what\r
+is it that you want to consult me about?"\r
+\r
+It was about the necklace, which she was now most earnestly longing to\r
+return, and hoped to obtain his approbation of her doing. She gave the\r
+history of her recent visit, and now her raptures might well be over;\r
+for Edmund was so struck with the circumstance, so delighted with what\r
+Miss Crawford had done, so gratified by such a coincidence of conduct\r
+between them, that Fanny could not but admit the superior power of one\r
+pleasure over his own mind, though it might have its drawback. It was\r
+some time before she could get his attention to her plan, or any answer\r
+to her demand of his opinion: he was in a reverie of fond reflection,\r
+uttering only now and then a few half-sentences of praise; but when\r
+he did awake and understand, he was very decided in opposing what she\r
+wished.\r
+\r
+"Return the necklace! No, my dear Fanny, upon no account. It would be\r
+mortifying her severely. There can hardly be a more unpleasant sensation\r
+than the having anything returned on our hands which we have given with\r
+a reasonable hope of its contributing to the comfort of a friend. Why\r
+should she lose a pleasure which she has shewn herself so deserving of?"\r
+\r
+"If it had been given to me in the first instance," said Fanny, "I\r
+should not have thought of returning it; but being her brother's\r
+present, is not it fair to suppose that she would rather not part with\r
+it, when it is not wanted?"\r
+\r
+"She must not suppose it not wanted, not acceptable, at least: and its\r
+having been originally her brother's gift makes no difference; for as\r
+she was not prevented from offering, nor you from taking it on that\r
+account, it ought not to prevent you from keeping it. No doubt it is\r
+handsomer than mine, and fitter for a ballroom."\r
+\r
+"No, it is not handsomer, not at all handsomer in its way, and, for\r
+my purpose, not half so fit. The chain will agree with William's cross\r
+beyond all comparison better than the necklace."\r
+\r
+"For one night, Fanny, for only one night, if it _be_ a sacrifice; I am\r
+sure you will, upon consideration, make that sacrifice rather than give\r
+pain to one who has been so studious of your comfort. Miss Crawford's\r
+attentions to you have been--not more than you were justly entitled\r
+to--I am the last person to think that _could_ _be_, but they have been\r
+invariable; and to be returning them with what must have something the\r
+_air_ of ingratitude, though I know it could never have the _meaning_,\r
+is not in your nature, I am sure. Wear the necklace, as you are engaged\r
+to do, to-morrow evening, and let the chain, which was not ordered with\r
+any reference to the ball, be kept for commoner occasions. This is my\r
+advice. I would not have the shadow of a coolness between the two whose\r
+intimacy I have been observing with the greatest pleasure, and in whose\r
+characters there is so much general resemblance in true generosity\r
+and natural delicacy as to make the few slight differences, resulting\r
+principally from situation, no reasonable hindrance to a perfect\r
+friendship. I would not have the shadow of a coolness arise," he\r
+repeated, his voice sinking a little, "between the two dearest objects I\r
+have on earth."\r
+\r
+He was gone as he spoke; and Fanny remained to tranquillise herself as\r
+she could. She was one of his two dearest--that must support her. But\r
+the other: the first! She had never heard him speak so openly before,\r
+and though it told her no more than what she had long perceived, it was\r
+a stab, for it told of his own convictions and views. They were\r
+decided. He would marry Miss Crawford. It was a stab, in spite of every\r
+long-standing expectation; and she was obliged to repeat again and\r
+again, that she was one of his two dearest, before the words gave her\r
+any sensation. Could she believe Miss Crawford to deserve him, it would\r
+be--oh, how different would it be--how far more tolerable! But he was\r
+deceived in her: he gave her merits which she had not; her faults were\r
+what they had ever been, but he saw them no longer. Till she had shed\r
+many tears over this deception, Fanny could not subdue her agitation;\r
+and the dejection which followed could only be relieved by the influence\r
+of fervent prayers for his happiness.\r
+\r
+It was her intention, as she felt it to be her duty, to try to overcome\r
+all that was excessive, all that bordered on selfishness, in her\r
+affection for Edmund. To call or to fancy it a loss, a disappointment,\r
+would be a presumption for which she had not words strong enough to\r
+satisfy her own humility. To think of him as Miss Crawford might be\r
+justified in thinking, would in her be insanity. To her he could be\r
+nothing under any circumstances; nothing dearer than a friend. Why did\r
+such an idea occur to her even enough to be reprobated and forbidden? It\r
+ought not to have touched on the confines of her imagination. She would\r
+endeavour to be rational, and to deserve the right of judging of Miss\r
+Crawford's character, and the privilege of true solicitude for him by a\r
+sound intellect and an honest heart.\r
+\r
+She had all the heroism of principle, and was determined to do her duty;\r
+but having also many of the feelings of youth and nature, let her not\r
+be much wondered at, if, after making all these good resolutions on the\r
+side of self-government, she seized the scrap of paper on which Edmund\r
+had begun writing to her, as a treasure beyond all her hopes, and\r
+reading with the tenderest emotion these words, "My very dear Fanny,\r
+you must do me the favour to accept" locked it up with the chain, as the\r
+dearest part of the gift. It was the only thing approaching to a letter\r
+which she had ever received from him; she might never receive another;\r
+it was impossible that she ever should receive another so perfectly\r
+gratifying in the occasion and the style. Two lines more prized had\r
+never fallen from the pen of the most distinguished author--never\r
+more completely blessed the researches of the fondest biographer. The\r
+enthusiasm of a woman's love is even beyond the biographer's. To her,\r
+the handwriting itself, independent of anything it may convey, is a\r
+blessedness. Never were such characters cut by any other human being as\r
+Edmund's commonest handwriting gave! This specimen, written in haste\r
+as it was, had not a fault; and there was a felicity in the flow of the\r
+first four words, in the arrangement of "My very dear Fanny," which she\r
+could have looked at for ever.\r
+\r
+Having regulated her thoughts and comforted her feelings by this happy\r
+mixture of reason and weakness, she was able in due time to go down\r
+and resume her usual employments near her aunt Bertram, and pay her the\r
+usual observances without any apparent want of spirits.\r
+\r
+Thursday, predestined to hope and enjoyment, came; and opened with\r
+more kindness to Fanny than such self-willed, unmanageable days often\r
+volunteer, for soon after breakfast a very friendly note was brought\r
+from Mr. Crawford to William, stating that as he found himself obliged\r
+to go to London on the morrow for a few days, he could not help trying\r
+to procure a companion; and therefore hoped that if William could\r
+make up his mind to leave Mansfield half a day earlier than had been\r
+proposed, he would accept a place in his carriage. Mr. Crawford meant to\r
+be in town by his uncle's accustomary late dinner-hour, and William\r
+was invited to dine with him at the Admiral's. The proposal was a very\r
+pleasant one to William himself, who enjoyed the idea of travelling post\r
+with four horses, and such a good-humoured, agreeable friend; and, in\r
+likening it to going up with despatches, was saying at once everything\r
+in favour of its happiness and dignity which his imagination could\r
+suggest; and Fanny, from a different motive, was exceedingly pleased;\r
+for the original plan was that William should go up by the mail from\r
+Northampton the following night, which would not have allowed him an\r
+hour's rest before he must have got into a Portsmouth coach; and though\r
+this offer of Mr. Crawford's would rob her of many hours of his company,\r
+she was too happy in having William spared from the fatigue of such\r
+a journey, to think of anything else. Sir Thomas approved of it for\r
+another reason. His nephew's introduction to Admiral Crawford might be\r
+of service. The Admiral, he believed, had interest. Upon the whole, it\r
+was a very joyous note. Fanny's spirits lived on it half the morning,\r
+deriving some accession of pleasure from its writer being himself to go\r
+away.\r
+\r
+As for the ball, so near at hand, she had too many agitations and fears\r
+to have half the enjoyment in anticipation which she ought to have had,\r
+or must have been supposed to have by the many young ladies looking\r
+forward to the same event in situations more at ease, but under\r
+circumstances of less novelty, less interest, less peculiar\r
+gratification, than would be attributed to her. Miss Price, known\r
+only by name to half the people invited, was now to make her first\r
+appearance, and must be regarded as the queen of the evening. Who could\r
+be happier than Miss Price? But Miss Price had not been brought up to\r
+the trade of _coming_ _out_; and had she known in what light this ball\r
+was, in general, considered respecting her, it would very much have\r
+lessened her comfort by increasing the fears she already had of doing\r
+wrong and being looked at. To dance without much observation or any\r
+extraordinary fatigue, to have strength and partners for about half the\r
+evening, to dance a little with Edmund, and not a great deal with Mr.\r
+Crawford, to see William enjoy himself, and be able to keep away\r
+from her aunt Norris, was the height of her ambition, and seemed to\r
+comprehend her greatest possibility of happiness. As these were the best\r
+of her hopes, they could not always prevail; and in the course of a long\r
+morning, spent principally with her two aunts, she was often under the\r
+influence of much less sanguine views. William, determined to make this\r
+last day a day of thorough enjoyment, was out snipe-shooting; Edmund,\r
+she had too much reason to suppose, was at the Parsonage; and left\r
+alone to bear the worrying of Mrs. Norris, who was cross because the\r
+housekeeper would have her own way with the supper, and whom _she_ could\r
+not avoid though the housekeeper might, Fanny was worn down at last to\r
+think everything an evil belonging to the ball, and when sent off with\r
+a parting worry to dress, moved as languidly towards her own room, and\r
+felt as incapable of happiness as if she had been allowed no share in\r
+it.\r
+\r
+As she walked slowly upstairs she thought of yesterday; it had been\r
+about the same hour that she had returned from the Parsonage, and\r
+found Edmund in the East room. "Suppose I were to find him there again\r
+to-day!" said she to herself, in a fond indulgence of fancy.\r
+\r
+"Fanny," said a voice at that moment near her. Starting and looking up,\r
+she saw, across the lobby she had just reached, Edmund himself, standing\r
+at the head of a different staircase. He came towards her. "You look\r
+tired and fagged, Fanny. You have been walking too far."\r
+\r
+"No, I have not been out at all."\r
+\r
+"Then you have had fatigues within doors, which are worse. You had\r
+better have gone out."\r
+\r
+Fanny, not liking to complain, found it easiest to make no answer; and\r
+though he looked at her with his usual kindness, she believed he had\r
+soon ceased to think of her countenance. He did not appear in spirits:\r
+something unconnected with her was probably amiss. They proceeded\r
+upstairs together, their rooms being on the same floor above.\r
+\r
+"I come from Dr. Grant's," said Edmund presently. "You may guess my\r
+errand there, Fanny." And he looked so conscious, that Fanny could think\r
+but of one errand, which turned her too sick for speech. "I wished to\r
+engage Miss Crawford for the two first dances," was the explanation that\r
+followed, and brought Fanny to life again, enabling her, as she found\r
+she was expected to speak, to utter something like an inquiry as to the\r
+result.\r
+\r
+"Yes," he answered, "she is engaged to me; but" (with a smile that did\r
+not sit easy) "she says it is to be the last time that she ever will\r
+dance with me. She is not serious. I think, I hope, I am sure she is\r
+not serious; but I would rather not hear it. She never has danced with a\r
+clergyman, she says, and she never _will_. For my own sake, I could wish\r
+there had been no ball just at--I mean not this very week, this very\r
+day; to-morrow I leave home."\r
+\r
+Fanny struggled for speech, and said, "I am very sorry that anything has\r
+occurred to distress you. This ought to be a day of pleasure. My uncle\r
+meant it so."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, yes! and it will be a day of pleasure. It will all end right. I\r
+am only vexed for a moment. In fact, it is not that I consider the ball\r
+as ill-timed; what does it signify? But, Fanny," stopping her, by taking\r
+her hand, and speaking low and seriously, "you know what all this means.\r
+You see how it is; and could tell me, perhaps better than I could tell\r
+you, how and why I am vexed. Let me talk to you a little. You are a\r
+kind, kind listener. I have been pained by her manner this morning, and\r
+cannot get the better of it. I know her disposition to be as sweet and\r
+faultless as your own, but the influence of her former companions\r
+makes her seem--gives to her conversation, to her professed opinions,\r
+sometimes a tinge of wrong. She does not _think_ evil, but she speaks\r
+it, speaks it in playfulness; and though I know it to be playfulness, it\r
+grieves me to the soul."\r
+\r
+"The effect of education," said Fanny gently.\r
+\r
+Edmund could not but agree to it. "Yes, that uncle and aunt! They have\r
+injured the finest mind; for sometimes, Fanny, I own to you, it does\r
+appear more than manner: it appears as if the mind itself was tainted."\r
+\r
+Fanny imagined this to be an appeal to her judgment, and therefore,\r
+after a moment's consideration, said, "If you only want me as a\r
+listener, cousin, I will be as useful as I can; but I am not qualified\r
+for an adviser. Do not ask advice of _me_. I am not competent."\r
+\r
+"You are right, Fanny, to protest against such an office, but you need\r
+not be afraid. It is a subject on which I should never ask advice; it\r
+is the sort of subject on which it had better never be asked; and few,\r
+I imagine, do ask it, but when they want to be influenced against their\r
+conscience. I only want to talk to you."\r
+\r
+"One thing more. Excuse the liberty; but take care _how_ you talk to me.\r
+Do not tell me anything now, which hereafter you may be sorry for. The\r
+time may come--"\r
+\r
+The colour rushed into her cheeks as she spoke.\r
+\r
+"Dearest Fanny!" cried Edmund, pressing her hand to his lips with\r
+almost as much warmth as if it had been Miss Crawford's, "you are all\r
+considerate thought! But it is unnecessary here. The time will never\r
+come. No such time as you allude to will ever come. I begin to think it\r
+most improbable: the chances grow less and less; and even if it should,\r
+there will be nothing to be remembered by either you or me that we need\r
+be afraid of, for I can never be ashamed of my own scruples; and if they\r
+are removed, it must be by changes that will only raise her character\r
+the more by the recollection of the faults she once had. You are the\r
+only being upon earth to whom I should say what I have said; but you\r
+have always known my opinion of her; you can bear me witness, Fanny,\r
+that I have never been blinded. How many a time have we talked over\r
+her little errors! You need not fear me; I have almost given up every\r
+serious idea of her; but I must be a blockhead indeed, if, whatever\r
+befell me, I could think of your kindness and sympathy without the\r
+sincerest gratitude."\r
+\r
+He had said enough to shake the experience of eighteen. He had said\r
+enough to give Fanny some happier feelings than she had lately known,\r
+and with a brighter look, she answered, "Yes, cousin, I am convinced\r
+that _you_ would be incapable of anything else, though perhaps some\r
+might not. I cannot be afraid of hearing anything you wish to say. Do\r
+not check yourself. Tell me whatever you like."\r
+\r
+They were now on the second floor, and the appearance of a housemaid\r
+prevented any farther conversation. For Fanny's present comfort it was\r
+concluded, perhaps, at the happiest moment: had he been able to talk\r
+another five minutes, there is no saying that he might not have talked\r
+away all Miss Crawford's faults and his own despondence. But as it was,\r
+they parted with looks on his side of grateful affection, and with\r
+some very precious sensations on hers. She had felt nothing like it for\r
+hours. Since the first joy from Mr. Crawford's note to William had worn\r
+away, she had been in a state absolutely the reverse; there had been\r
+no comfort around, no hope within her. Now everything was smiling.\r
+William's good fortune returned again upon her mind, and seemed of\r
+greater value than at first. The ball, too--such an evening of pleasure\r
+before her! It was now a real animation; and she began to dress for it\r
+with much of the happy flutter which belongs to a ball. All went well:\r
+she did not dislike her own looks; and when she came to the necklaces\r
+again, her good fortune seemed complete, for upon trial the one given\r
+her by Miss Crawford would by no means go through the ring of the cross.\r
+She had, to oblige Edmund, resolved to wear it; but it was too large for\r
+the purpose. His, therefore, must be worn; and having, with delightful\r
+feelings, joined the chain and the cross--those memorials of the two\r
+most beloved of her heart, those dearest tokens so formed for each other\r
+by everything real and imaginary--and put them round her neck, and seen\r
+and felt how full of William and Edmund they were, she was able, without\r
+an effort, to resolve on wearing Miss Crawford's necklace too. She\r
+acknowledged it to be right. Miss Crawford had a claim; and when it was\r
+no longer to encroach on, to interfere with the stronger claims, the\r
+truer kindness of another, she could do her justice even with pleasure\r
+to herself. The necklace really looked very well; and Fanny left her\r
+room at last, comfortably satisfied with herself and all about her.\r
+\r
+Her aunt Bertram had recollected her on this occasion with an unusual\r
+degree of wakefulness. It had really occurred to her, unprompted, that\r
+Fanny, preparing for a ball, might be glad of better help than the upper\r
+housemaid's, and when dressed herself, she actually sent her own maid to\r
+assist her; too late, of course, to be of any use. Mrs. Chapman had just\r
+reached the attic floor, when Miss Price came out of her room completely\r
+dressed, and only civilities were necessary; but Fanny felt her aunt's\r
+attention almost as much as Lady Bertram or Mrs. Chapman could do\r
+themselves.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+Her uncle and both her aunts were in the drawing-room when Fanny went\r
+down. To the former she was an interesting object, and he saw with\r
+pleasure the general elegance of her appearance, and her being in\r
+remarkably good looks. The neatness and propriety of her dress was all\r
+that he would allow himself to commend in her presence, but upon her\r
+leaving the room again soon afterwards, he spoke of her beauty with very\r
+decided praise.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Lady Bertram, "she looks very well. I sent Chapman to her."\r
+\r
+"Look well! Oh, yes!" cried Mrs. Norris, "she has good reason to look\r
+well with all her advantages: brought up in this family as she has been,\r
+with all the benefit of her cousins' manners before her. Only think, my\r
+dear Sir Thomas, what extraordinary advantages you and I have been the\r
+means of giving her. The very gown you have been taking notice of is\r
+your own generous present to her when dear Mrs. Rushworth married. What\r
+would she have been if we had not taken her by the hand?"\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas said no more; but when they sat down to table the eyes of\r
+the two young men assured him that the subject might be gently touched\r
+again, when the ladies withdrew, with more success. Fanny saw that she\r
+was approved; and the consciousness of looking well made her look still\r
+better. From a variety of causes she was happy, and she was soon made\r
+still happier; for in following her aunts out of the room, Edmund, who\r
+was holding open the door, said, as she passed him, "You must dance\r
+with me, Fanny; you must keep two dances for me; any two that you like,\r
+except the first." She had nothing more to wish for. She had hardly\r
+ever been in a state so nearly approaching high spirits in her life. Her\r
+cousins' former gaiety on the day of a ball was no longer surprising to\r
+her; she felt it to be indeed very charming, and was actually practising\r
+her steps about the drawing-room as long as she could be safe from the\r
+notice of her aunt Norris, who was entirely taken up at first in fresh\r
+arranging and injuring the noble fire which the butler had prepared.\r
+\r
+Half an hour followed that would have been at least languid under any\r
+other circumstances, but Fanny's happiness still prevailed. It was but\r
+to think of her conversation with Edmund, and what was the restlessness\r
+of Mrs. Norris? What were the yawns of Lady Bertram?\r
+\r
+The gentlemen joined them; and soon after began the sweet expectation of\r
+a carriage, when a general spirit of ease and enjoyment seemed diffused,\r
+and they all stood about and talked and laughed, and every moment had\r
+its pleasure and its hope. Fanny felt that there must be a struggle\r
+in Edmund's cheerfulness, but it was delightful to see the effort so\r
+successfully made.\r
+\r
+When the carriages were really heard, when the guests began really to\r
+assemble, her own gaiety of heart was much subdued: the sight of so\r
+many strangers threw her back into herself; and besides the gravity and\r
+formality of the first great circle, which the manners of neither Sir\r
+Thomas nor Lady Bertram were of a kind to do away, she found herself\r
+occasionally called on to endure something worse. She was introduced\r
+here and there by her uncle, and forced to be spoken to, and to curtsey,\r
+and speak again. This was a hard duty, and she was never summoned to\r
+it without looking at William, as he walked about at his ease in the\r
+background of the scene, and longing to be with him.\r
+\r
+The entrance of the Grants and Crawfords was a favourable epoch. The\r
+stiffness of the meeting soon gave way before their popular manners and\r
+more diffused intimacies: little groups were formed, and everybody grew\r
+comfortable. Fanny felt the advantage; and, drawing back from the toils\r
+of civility, would have been again most happy, could she have kept her\r
+eyes from wandering between Edmund and Mary Crawford. _She_ looked all\r
+loveliness--and what might not be the end of it? Her own musings\r
+were brought to an end on perceiving Mr. Crawford before her, and\r
+her thoughts were put into another channel by his engaging her almost\r
+instantly for the first two dances. Her happiness on this occasion was\r
+very much _a_ _la_ _mortal_, finely chequered. To be secure of a partner\r
+at first was a most essential good--for the moment of beginning was now\r
+growing seriously near; and she so little understood her own claims as\r
+to think that if Mr. Crawford had not asked her, she must have been the\r
+last to be sought after, and should have received a partner only through\r
+a series of inquiry, and bustle, and interference, which would have been\r
+terrible; but at the same time there was a pointedness in his manner of\r
+asking her which she did not like, and she saw his eye glancing for\r
+a moment at her necklace, with a smile--she thought there was a\r
+smile--which made her blush and feel wretched. And though there was no\r
+second glance to disturb her, though his object seemed then to be only\r
+quietly agreeable, she could not get the better of her embarrassment,\r
+heightened as it was by the idea of his perceiving it, and had no\r
+composure till he turned away to some one else. Then she could gradually\r
+rise up to the genuine satisfaction of having a partner, a voluntary\r
+partner, secured against the dancing began.\r
+\r
+When the company were moving into the ballroom, she found herself\r
+for the first time near Miss Crawford, whose eyes and smiles were\r
+immediately and more unequivocally directed as her brother's had been,\r
+and who was beginning to speak on the subject, when Fanny, anxious\r
+to get the story over, hastened to give the explanation of the second\r
+necklace: the real chain. Miss Crawford listened; and all her intended\r
+compliments and insinuations to Fanny were forgotten: she felt only one\r
+thing; and her eyes, bright as they had been before, shewing they could\r
+yet be brighter, she exclaimed with eager pleasure, "Did he? Did Edmund?\r
+That was like himself. No other man would have thought of it. I honour\r
+him beyond expression." And she looked around as if longing to tell him\r
+so. He was not near, he was attending a party of ladies out of the room;\r
+and Mrs. Grant coming up to the two girls, and taking an arm of each,\r
+they followed with the rest.\r
+\r
+Fanny's heart sunk, but there was no leisure for thinking long even of\r
+Miss Crawford's feelings. They were in the ballroom, the violins were\r
+playing, and her mind was in a flutter that forbade its fixing on\r
+anything serious. She must watch the general arrangements, and see how\r
+everything was done.\r
+\r
+In a few minutes Sir Thomas came to her, and asked if she were engaged;\r
+and the "Yes, sir; to Mr. Crawford," was exactly what he had intended\r
+to hear. Mr. Crawford was not far off; Sir Thomas brought him to her,\r
+saying something which discovered to Fanny, that _she_ was to lead the\r
+way and open the ball; an idea that had never occurred to her before.\r
+Whenever she had thought of the minutiae of the evening, it had been as\r
+a matter of course that Edmund would begin with Miss Crawford; and the\r
+impression was so strong, that though _her_ _uncle_ spoke the contrary,\r
+she could not help an exclamation of surprise, a hint of her unfitness,\r
+an entreaty even to be excused. To be urging her opinion against Sir\r
+Thomas's was a proof of the extremity of the case; but such was her\r
+horror at the first suggestion, that she could actually look him in\r
+the face and say that she hoped it might be settled otherwise; in vain,\r
+however: Sir Thomas smiled, tried to encourage her, and then looked too\r
+serious, and said too decidedly, "It must be so, my dear," for her to\r
+hazard another word; and she found herself the next moment conducted by\r
+Mr. Crawford to the top of the room, and standing there to be joined by\r
+the rest of the dancers, couple after couple, as they were formed.\r
+\r
+She could hardly believe it. To be placed above so many elegant young\r
+women! The distinction was too great. It was treating her like her\r
+cousins! And her thoughts flew to those absent cousins with most\r
+unfeigned and truly tender regret, that they were not at home to take\r
+their own place in the room, and have their share of a pleasure which\r
+would have been so very delightful to them. So often as she had heard\r
+them wish for a ball at home as the greatest of all felicities! And\r
+to have them away when it was given--and for _her_ to be opening the\r
+ball--and with Mr. Crawford too! She hoped they would not envy her that\r
+distinction _now_; but when she looked back to the state of things in\r
+the autumn, to what they had all been to each other when once dancing\r
+in that house before, the present arrangement was almost more than she\r
+could understand herself.\r
+\r
+The ball began. It was rather honour than happiness to Fanny, for the\r
+first dance at least: her partner was in excellent spirits, and tried to\r
+impart them to her; but she was a great deal too much frightened to have\r
+any enjoyment till she could suppose herself no longer looked at. Young,\r
+pretty, and gentle, however, she had no awkwardnesses that were not\r
+as good as graces, and there were few persons present that were not\r
+disposed to praise her. She was attractive, she was modest, she was Sir\r
+Thomas's niece, and she was soon said to be admired by Mr. Crawford. It\r
+was enough to give her general favour. Sir Thomas himself was watching\r
+her progress down the dance with much complacency; he was proud of his\r
+niece; and without attributing all her personal beauty, as Mrs. Norris\r
+seemed to do, to her transplantation to Mansfield, he was pleased with\r
+himself for having supplied everything else: education and manners she\r
+owed to him.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford saw much of Sir Thomas's thoughts as he stood, and having,\r
+in spite of all his wrongs towards her, a general prevailing desire of\r
+recommending herself to him, took an opportunity of stepping aside to\r
+say something agreeable of Fanny. Her praise was warm, and he\r
+received it as she could wish, joining in it as far as discretion, and\r
+politeness, and slowness of speech would allow, and certainly appearing\r
+to greater advantage on the subject than his lady did soon afterwards,\r
+when Mary, perceiving her on a sofa very near, turned round before she\r
+began to dance, to compliment her on Miss Price's looks.\r
+\r
+"Yes, she does look very well," was Lady Bertram's placid reply.\r
+"Chapman helped her to dress. I sent Chapman to her." Not but that\r
+she was really pleased to have Fanny admired; but she was so much more\r
+struck with her own kindness in sending Chapman to her, that she could\r
+not get it out of her head.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford knew Mrs. Norris too well to think of gratifying _her_\r
+by commendation of Fanny; to her, it was as the occasion offered--"Ah!\r
+ma'am, how much we want dear Mrs. Rushworth and Julia to-night!" and\r
+Mrs. Norris paid her with as many smiles and courteous words as she had\r
+time for, amid so much occupation as she found for herself in making\r
+up card-tables, giving hints to Sir Thomas, and trying to move all the\r
+chaperons to a better part of the room.\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford blundered most towards Fanny herself in her intentions\r
+to please. She meant to be giving her little heart a happy flutter,\r
+and filling her with sensations of delightful self-consequence; and,\r
+misinterpreting Fanny's blushes, still thought she must be doing so when\r
+she went to her after the two first dances, and said, with a significant\r
+look, "Perhaps _you_ can tell me why my brother goes to town to-morrow?\r
+He says he has business there, but will not tell me what. The first time\r
+he ever denied me his confidence! But this is what we all come to.\r
+All are supplanted sooner or later. Now, I must apply to you for\r
+information. Pray, what is Henry going for?"\r
+\r
+Fanny protested her ignorance as steadily as her embarrassment allowed.\r
+\r
+"Well, then," replied Miss Crawford, laughing, "I must suppose it to be\r
+purely for the pleasure of conveying your brother, and of talking of you\r
+by the way."\r
+\r
+Fanny was confused, but it was the confusion of discontent; while Miss\r
+Crawford wondered she did not smile, and thought her over-anxious,\r
+or thought her odd, or thought her anything rather than insensible of\r
+pleasure in Henry's attentions. Fanny had a good deal of enjoyment in\r
+the course of the evening; but Henry's attentions had very little to\r
+do with it. She would much rather _not_ have been asked by him again so\r
+very soon, and she wished she had not been obliged to suspect that his\r
+previous inquiries of Mrs. Norris, about the supper hour, were all for\r
+the sake of securing her at that part of the evening. But it was not to\r
+be avoided: he made her feel that she was the object of all; though she\r
+could not say that it was unpleasantly done, that there was indelicacy\r
+or ostentation in his manner; and sometimes, when he talked of William,\r
+he was really not unagreeable, and shewed even a warmth of heart\r
+which did him credit. But still his attentions made no part of her\r
+satisfaction. She was happy whenever she looked at William, and saw how\r
+perfectly he was enjoying himself, in every five minutes that she could\r
+walk about with him and hear his account of his partners; she was happy\r
+in knowing herself admired; and she was happy in having the two dances\r
+with Edmund still to look forward to, during the greatest part of the\r
+evening, her hand being so eagerly sought after that her indefinite\r
+engagement with _him_ was in continual perspective. She was happy even\r
+when they did take place; but not from any flow of spirits on his side,\r
+or any such expressions of tender gallantry as had blessed the morning.\r
+His mind was fagged, and her happiness sprung from being the friend with\r
+whom it could find repose. "I am worn out with civility," said he. "I\r
+have been talking incessantly all night, and with nothing to say. But\r
+with _you_, Fanny, there may be peace. You will not want to be talked\r
+to. Let us have the luxury of silence." Fanny would hardly even speak\r
+her agreement. A weariness, arising probably, in great measure, from the\r
+same feelings which he had acknowledged in the morning, was peculiarly\r
+to be respected, and they went down their two dances together with such\r
+sober tranquillity as might satisfy any looker-on that Sir Thomas had\r
+been bringing up no wife for his younger son.\r
+\r
+The evening had afforded Edmund little pleasure. Miss Crawford had\r
+been in gay spirits when they first danced together, but it was not her\r
+gaiety that could do him good: it rather sank than raised his comfort;\r
+and afterwards, for he found himself still impelled to seek her\r
+again, she had absolutely pained him by her manner of speaking of the\r
+profession to which he was now on the point of belonging. They had\r
+talked, and they had been silent; he had reasoned, she had ridiculed;\r
+and they had parted at last with mutual vexation. Fanny, not able to\r
+refrain entirely from observing them, had seen enough to be tolerably\r
+satisfied. It was barbarous to be happy when Edmund was suffering. Yet\r
+some happiness must and would arise from the very conviction that he did\r
+suffer.\r
+\r
+When her two dances with him were over, her inclination and strength for\r
+more were pretty well at an end; and Sir Thomas, having seen her walk\r
+rather than dance down the shortening set, breathless, and with her hand\r
+at her side, gave his orders for her sitting down entirely. From that\r
+time Mr. Crawford sat down likewise.\r
+\r
+"Poor Fanny!" cried William, coming for a moment to visit her, and\r
+working away his partner's fan as if for life, "how soon she is knocked\r
+up! Why, the sport is but just begun. I hope we shall keep it up these\r
+two hours. How can you be tired so soon?"\r
+\r
+"So soon! my good friend," said Sir Thomas, producing his watch with all\r
+necessary caution; "it is three o'clock, and your sister is not used to\r
+these sort of hours."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, Fanny, you shall not get up to-morrow before I go. Sleep as\r
+long as you can, and never mind me."\r
+\r
+"Oh! William."\r
+\r
+"What! Did she think of being up before you set off?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes, sir," cried Fanny, rising eagerly from her seat to be nearer\r
+her uncle; "I must get up and breakfast with him. It will be the last\r
+time, you know; the last morning."\r
+\r
+"You had better not. He is to have breakfasted and be gone by half-past\r
+nine. Mr. Crawford, I think you call for him at half-past nine?"\r
+\r
+Fanny was too urgent, however, and had too many tears in her eyes for\r
+denial; and it ended in a gracious "Well, well!" which was permission.\r
+\r
+"Yes, half-past nine," said Crawford to William as the latter was\r
+leaving them, "and I shall be punctual, for there will be no kind sister\r
+to get up for _me_." And in a lower tone to Fanny, "I shall have only\r
+a desolate house to hurry from. Your brother will find my ideas of time\r
+and his own very different to-morrow."\r
+\r
+After a short consideration, Sir Thomas asked Crawford to join the early\r
+breakfast party in that house instead of eating alone: he should himself\r
+be of it; and the readiness with which his invitation was accepted\r
+convinced him that the suspicions whence, he must confess to himself,\r
+this very ball had in great measure sprung, were well founded. Mr.\r
+Crawford was in love with Fanny. He had a pleasing anticipation of what\r
+would be. His niece, meanwhile, did not thank him for what he had just\r
+done. She had hoped to have William all to herself the last morning. It\r
+would have been an unspeakable indulgence. But though her wishes\r
+were overthrown, there was no spirit of murmuring within her. On the\r
+contrary, she was so totally unused to have her pleasure consulted, or\r
+to have anything take place at all in the way she could desire, that she\r
+was more disposed to wonder and rejoice in having carried her point so\r
+far, than to repine at the counteraction which followed.\r
+\r
+Shortly afterward, Sir Thomas was again interfering a little with her\r
+inclination, by advising her to go immediately to bed. "Advise" was his\r
+word, but it was the advice of absolute power, and she had only to\r
+rise, and, with Mr. Crawford's very cordial adieus, pass quietly away;\r
+stopping at the entrance-door, like the Lady of Branxholm Hall, "one\r
+moment and no more," to view the happy scene, and take a last look at\r
+the five or six determined couple who were still hard at work; and then,\r
+creeping slowly up the principal staircase, pursued by the ceaseless\r
+country-dance, feverish with hopes and fears, soup and negus,\r
+sore-footed and fatigued, restless and agitated, yet feeling, in spite\r
+of everything, that a ball was indeed delightful.\r
+\r
+In thus sending her away, Sir Thomas perhaps might not be thinking\r
+merely of her health. It might occur to him that Mr. Crawford had been\r
+sitting by her long enough, or he might mean to recommend her as a wife\r
+by shewing her persuadableness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIX\r
+\r
+The ball was over, and the breakfast was soon over too; the last kiss\r
+was given, and William was gone. Mr. Crawford had, as he foretold, been\r
+very punctual, and short and pleasant had been the meal.\r
+\r
+After seeing William to the last moment, Fanny walked back to the\r
+breakfast-room with a very saddened heart to grieve over the melancholy\r
+change; and there her uncle kindly left her to cry in peace, conceiving,\r
+perhaps, that the deserted chair of each young man might exercise her\r
+tender enthusiasm, and that the remaining cold pork bones and mustard in\r
+William's plate might but divide her feelings with the broken egg-shells\r
+in Mr. Crawford's. She sat and cried _con_ _amore_ as her uncle\r
+intended, but it was _con_ _amore_ fraternal and no other. William was\r
+gone, and she now felt as if she had wasted half his visit in idle cares\r
+and selfish solicitudes unconnected with him.\r
+\r
+Fanny's disposition was such that she could never even think of her\r
+aunt Norris in the meagreness and cheerlessness of her own small house,\r
+without reproaching herself for some little want of attention to her\r
+when they had been last together; much less could her feelings acquit\r
+her of having done and said and thought everything by William that was\r
+due to him for a whole fortnight.\r
+\r
+It was a heavy, melancholy day. Soon after the second breakfast, Edmund\r
+bade them good-bye for a week, and mounted his horse for Peterborough,\r
+and then all were gone. Nothing remained of last night but remembrances,\r
+which she had nobody to share in. She talked to her aunt Bertram--she\r
+must talk to somebody of the ball; but her aunt had seen so little of\r
+what had passed, and had so little curiosity, that it was heavy work.\r
+Lady Bertram was not certain of anybody's dress or anybody's place at\r
+supper but her own. "She could not recollect what it was that she had\r
+heard about one of the Miss Maddoxes, or what it was that Lady Prescott\r
+had noticed in Fanny: she was not sure whether Colonel Harrison had been\r
+talking of Mr. Crawford or of William when he said he was the finest\r
+young man in the room--somebody had whispered something to her; she had\r
+forgot to ask Sir Thomas what it could be." And these were her longest\r
+speeches and clearest communications: the rest was only a languid "Yes,\r
+yes; very well; did you? did he? I did not see _that_; I should not know\r
+one from the other." This was very bad. It was only better than Mrs.\r
+Norris's sharp answers would have been; but she being gone home with\r
+all the supernumerary jellies to nurse a sick maid, there was peace\r
+and good-humour in their little party, though it could not boast much\r
+beside.\r
+\r
+The evening was heavy like the day. "I cannot think what is the matter\r
+with me," said Lady Bertram, when the tea-things were removed. "I feel\r
+quite stupid. It must be sitting up so late last night. Fanny, you must\r
+do something to keep me awake. I cannot work. Fetch the cards; I feel so\r
+very stupid."\r
+\r
+The cards were brought, and Fanny played at cribbage with her aunt till\r
+bedtime; and as Sir Thomas was reading to himself, no sounds were\r
+heard in the room for the next two hours beyond the reckonings of the\r
+game--"And _that_ makes thirty-one; four in hand and eight in crib. You\r
+are to deal, ma'am; shall I deal for you?" Fanny thought and thought\r
+again of the difference which twenty-four hours had made in that room,\r
+and all that part of the house. Last night it had been hope and smiles,\r
+bustle and motion, noise and brilliancy, in the drawing-room, and out\r
+of the drawing-room, and everywhere. Now it was languor, and all but\r
+solitude.\r
+\r
+A good night's rest improved her spirits. She could think of William the\r
+next day more cheerfully; and as the morning afforded her an opportunity\r
+of talking over Thursday night with Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford, in a\r
+very handsome style, with all the heightenings of imagination, and\r
+all the laughs of playfulness which are so essential to the shade of a\r
+departed ball, she could afterwards bring her mind without much effort\r
+into its everyday state, and easily conform to the tranquillity of the\r
+present quiet week.\r
+\r
+They were indeed a smaller party than she had ever known there for\r
+a whole day together, and _he_ was gone on whom the comfort and\r
+cheerfulness of every family meeting and every meal chiefly depended.\r
+But this must be learned to be endured. He would soon be always gone;\r
+and she was thankful that she could now sit in the same room with her\r
+uncle, hear his voice, receive his questions, and even answer them,\r
+without such wretched feelings as she had formerly known.\r
+\r
+"We miss our two young men," was Sir Thomas's observation on both the\r
+first and second day, as they formed their very reduced circle after\r
+dinner; and in consideration of Fanny's swimming eyes, nothing more was\r
+said on the first day than to drink their good health; but on the\r
+second it led to something farther. William was kindly commended and\r
+his promotion hoped for. "And there is no reason to suppose," added Sir\r
+Thomas, "but that his visits to us may now be tolerably frequent. As to\r
+Edmund, we must learn to do without him. This will be the last winter of\r
+his belonging to us, as he has done."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Lady Bertram, "but I wish he was not going away. They are\r
+all going away, I think. I wish they would stay at home."\r
+\r
+This wish was levelled principally at Julia, who had just applied for\r
+permission to go to town with Maria; and as Sir Thomas thought it best\r
+for each daughter that the permission should be granted, Lady Bertram,\r
+though in her own good-nature she would not have prevented it, was\r
+lamenting the change it made in the prospect of Julia's return, which\r
+would otherwise have taken place about this time. A great deal of good\r
+sense followed on Sir Thomas's side, tending to reconcile his wife to\r
+the arrangement. Everything that a considerate parent _ought_ to feel\r
+was advanced for her use; and everything that an affectionate mother\r
+_must_ feel in promoting her children's enjoyment was attributed to her\r
+nature. Lady Bertram agreed to it all with a calm "Yes"; and at the end\r
+of a quarter of an hour's silent consideration spontaneously observed,\r
+"Sir Thomas, I have been thinking--and I am very glad we took Fanny as\r
+we did, for now the others are away we feel the good of it."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas immediately improved this compliment by adding, "Very true.\r
+We shew Fanny what a good girl we think her by praising her to her face,\r
+she is now a very valuable companion. If we have been kind to _her_, she\r
+is now quite as necessary to _us_."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Lady Bertram presently; "and it is a comfort to think that\r
+we shall always have _her_."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas paused, half smiled, glanced at his niece, and then gravely\r
+replied, "She will never leave us, I hope, till invited to some other\r
+home that may reasonably promise her greater happiness than she knows\r
+here."\r
+\r
+"And _that_ is not very likely to be, Sir Thomas. Who should invite her?\r
+Maria might be very glad to see her at Sotherton now and then, but she\r
+would not think of asking her to live there; and I am sure she is better\r
+off here; and besides, I cannot do without her."\r
+\r
+The week which passed so quietly and peaceably at the great house in\r
+Mansfield had a very different character at the Parsonage. To the young\r
+lady, at least, in each family, it brought very different feelings. What\r
+was tranquillity and comfort to Fanny was tediousness and vexation to\r
+Mary. Something arose from difference of disposition and habit: one so\r
+easily satisfied, the other so unused to endure; but still more might be\r
+imputed to difference of circumstances. In some points of interest they\r
+were exactly opposed to each other. To Fanny's mind, Edmund's absence\r
+was really, in its cause and its tendency, a relief. To Mary it was\r
+every way painful. She felt the want of his society every day, almost\r
+every hour, and was too much in want of it to derive anything but\r
+irritation from considering the object for which he went. He could not\r
+have devised anything more likely to raise his consequence than this\r
+week's absence, occurring as it did at the very time of her brother's\r
+going away, of William Price's going too, and completing the sort of\r
+general break-up of a party which had been so animated. She felt it\r
+keenly. They were now a miserable trio, confined within doors by a\r
+series of rain and snow, with nothing to do and no variety to hope for.\r
+Angry as she was with Edmund for adhering to his own notions, and acting\r
+on them in defiance of her (and she had been so angry that they had\r
+hardly parted friends at the ball), she could not help thinking of\r
+him continually when absent, dwelling on his merit and affection, and\r
+longing again for the almost daily meetings they lately had. His absence\r
+was unnecessarily long. He should not have planned such an absence--he\r
+should not have left home for a week, when her own departure from\r
+Mansfield was so near. Then she began to blame herself. She wished she\r
+had not spoken so warmly in their last conversation. She was afraid she\r
+had used some strong, some contemptuous expressions in speaking of the\r
+clergy, and that should not have been. It was ill-bred; it was wrong.\r
+She wished such words unsaid with all her heart.\r
+\r
+Her vexation did not end with the week. All this was bad, but she had\r
+still more to feel when Friday came round again and brought no Edmund;\r
+when Saturday came and still no Edmund; and when, through the slight\r
+communication with the other family which Sunday produced, she learned\r
+that he had actually written home to defer his return, having promised\r
+to remain some days longer with his friend.\r
+\r
+If she had felt impatience and regret before--if she had been sorry for\r
+what she said, and feared its too strong effect on him--she now felt\r
+and feared it all tenfold more. She had, moreover, to contend with one\r
+disagreeable emotion entirely new to her--jealousy. His friend Mr.\r
+Owen had sisters; he might find them attractive. But, at any rate, his\r
+staying away at a time when, according to all preceding plans, she was\r
+to remove to London, meant something that she could not bear. Had Henry\r
+returned, as he talked of doing, at the end of three or four days, she\r
+should now have been leaving Mansfield. It became absolutely necessary\r
+for her to get to Fanny and try to learn something more. She could not\r
+live any longer in such solitary wretchedness; and she made her way\r
+to the Park, through difficulties of walking which she had deemed\r
+unconquerable a week before, for the chance of hearing a little in\r
+addition, for the sake of at least hearing his name.\r
+\r
+The first half-hour was lost, for Fanny and Lady Bertram were together,\r
+and unless she had Fanny to herself she could hope for nothing. But\r
+at last Lady Bertram left the room, and then almost immediately Miss\r
+Crawford thus began, with a voice as well regulated as she could--"And\r
+how do _you_ like your cousin Edmund's staying away so long? Being the\r
+only young person at home, I consider _you_ as the greatest sufferer.\r
+You must miss him. Does his staying longer surprise you?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know," said Fanny hesitatingly. "Yes; I had not particularly\r
+expected it."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps he will always stay longer than he talks of. It is the general\r
+way all young men do."\r
+\r
+"He did not, the only time he went to see Mr. Owen before."\r
+\r
+"He finds the house more agreeable _now_. He is a very--a very pleasing\r
+young man himself, and I cannot help being rather concerned at not\r
+seeing him again before I go to London, as will now undoubtedly be the\r
+case. I am looking for Henry every day, and as soon as he comes there\r
+will be nothing to detain me at Mansfield. I should like to have seen\r
+him once more, I confess. But you must give my compliments to him. Yes;\r
+I think it must be compliments. Is not there a something wanted,\r
+Miss Price, in our language--a something between compliments and--and\r
+love--to suit the sort of friendly acquaintance we have had together? So\r
+many months' acquaintance! But compliments may be sufficient here.\r
+Was his letter a long one? Does he give you much account of what he is\r
+doing? Is it Christmas gaieties that he is staying for?"\r
+\r
+"I only heard a part of the letter; it was to my uncle; but I believe\r
+it was very short; indeed I am sure it was but a few lines. All that I\r
+heard was that his friend had pressed him to stay longer, and that he\r
+had agreed to do so. A _few_ days longer, or _some_ days longer; I am\r
+not quite sure which."\r
+\r
+"Oh! if he wrote to his father; but I thought it might have been to Lady\r
+Bertram or you. But if he wrote to his father, no wonder he was concise.\r
+Who could write chat to Sir Thomas? If he had written to you, there\r
+would have been more particulars. You would have heard of balls\r
+and parties. He would have sent you a description of everything and\r
+everybody. How many Miss Owens are there?"\r
+\r
+"Three grown up."\r
+\r
+"Are they musical?"\r
+\r
+"I do not at all know. I never heard."\r
+\r
+"That is the first question, you know," said Miss Crawford, trying to\r
+appear gay and unconcerned, "which every woman who plays herself is sure\r
+to ask about another. But it is very foolish to ask questions about\r
+any young ladies--about any three sisters just grown up; for one knows,\r
+without being told, exactly what they are: all very accomplished and\r
+pleasing, and one very pretty. There is a beauty in every family; it is\r
+a regular thing. Two play on the pianoforte, and one on the harp; and\r
+all sing, or would sing if they were taught, or sing all the better for\r
+not being taught; or something like it."\r
+\r
+"I know nothing of the Miss Owens," said Fanny calmly.\r
+\r
+"You know nothing and you care less, as people say. Never did tone\r
+express indifference plainer. Indeed, how can one care for those one has\r
+never seen? Well, when your cousin comes back, he will find Mansfield\r
+very quiet; all the noisy ones gone, your brother and mine and myself. I\r
+do not like the idea of leaving Mrs. Grant now the time draws near. She\r
+does not like my going."\r
+\r
+Fanny felt obliged to speak. "You cannot doubt your being missed by\r
+many," said she. "You will be very much missed."\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford turned her eye on her, as if wanting to hear or see more,\r
+and then laughingly said, "Oh yes! missed as every noisy evil is missed\r
+when it is taken away; that is, there is a great difference felt. But I\r
+am not fishing; don't compliment me. If I _am_ missed, it will appear.\r
+I may be discovered by those who want to see me. I shall not be in any\r
+doubtful, or distant, or unapproachable region."\r
+\r
+Now Fanny could not bring herself to speak, and Miss Crawford was\r
+disappointed; for she had hoped to hear some pleasant assurance of her\r
+power from one who she thought must know, and her spirits were clouded\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"The Miss Owens," said she, soon afterwards; "suppose you were to have\r
+one of the Miss Owens settled at Thornton Lacey; how should you like it?\r
+Stranger things have happened. I dare say they are trying for it. And\r
+they are quite in the right, for it would be a very pretty establishment\r
+for them. I do not at all wonder or blame them. It is everybody's duty\r
+to do as well for themselves as they can. Sir Thomas Bertram's son is\r
+somebody; and now he is in their own line. Their father is a clergyman,\r
+and their brother is a clergyman, and they are all clergymen together.\r
+He is their lawful property; he fairly belongs to them. You don't speak,\r
+Fanny; Miss Price, you don't speak. But honestly now, do not you rather\r
+expect it than otherwise?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Fanny stoutly, "I do not expect it at all."\r
+\r
+"Not at all!" cried Miss Crawford with alacrity. "I wonder at that. But\r
+I dare say you know exactly--I always imagine you are--perhaps you do\r
+not think him likely to marry at all--or not at present."\r
+\r
+"No, I do not," said Fanny softly, hoping she did not err either in the\r
+belief or the acknowledgment of it.\r
+\r
+Her companion looked at her keenly; and gathering greater spirit from\r
+the blush soon produced from such a look, only said, "He is best off as\r
+he is," and turned the subject.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXX\r
+\r
+Miss Crawford's uneasiness was much lightened by this conversation, and\r
+she walked home again in spirits which might have defied almost another\r
+week of the same small party in the same bad weather, had they been put\r
+to the proof; but as that very evening brought her brother down from\r
+London again in quite, or more than quite, his usual cheerfulness, she\r
+had nothing farther to try her own. His still refusing to tell her what\r
+he had gone for was but the promotion of gaiety; a day before it might\r
+have irritated, but now it was a pleasant joke--suspected only of\r
+concealing something planned as a pleasant surprise to herself. And the\r
+next day _did_ bring a surprise to her. Henry had said he should just\r
+go and ask the Bertrams how they did, and be back in ten minutes, but\r
+he was gone above an hour; and when his sister, who had been waiting for\r
+him to walk with her in the garden, met him at last most impatiently in\r
+the sweep, and cried out, "My dear Henry, where can you have been\r
+all this time?" he had only to say that he had been sitting with Lady\r
+Bertram and Fanny.\r
+\r
+"Sitting with them an hour and a half!" exclaimed Mary.\r
+\r
+But this was only the beginning of her surprise.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mary," said he, drawing her arm within his, and walking along\r
+the sweep as if not knowing where he was: "I could not get away sooner;\r
+Fanny looked so lovely! I am quite determined, Mary. My mind is entirely\r
+made up. Will it astonish you? No: you must be aware that I am quite\r
+determined to marry Fanny Price."\r
+\r
+The surprise was now complete; for, in spite of whatever his\r
+consciousness might suggest, a suspicion of his having any such views\r
+had never entered his sister's imagination; and she looked so truly the\r
+astonishment she felt, that he was obliged to repeat what he had said,\r
+and more fully and more solemnly. The conviction of his determination\r
+once admitted, it was not unwelcome. There was even pleasure with the\r
+surprise. Mary was in a state of mind to rejoice in a connexion with the\r
+Bertram family, and to be not displeased with her brother's marrying a\r
+little beneath him.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mary," was Henry's concluding assurance. "I am fairly caught.\r
+You know with what idle designs I began; but this is the end of them.\r
+I have, I flatter myself, made no inconsiderable progress in her\r
+affections; but my own are entirely fixed."\r
+\r
+"Lucky, lucky girl!" cried Mary, as soon as she could speak; "what a\r
+match for her! My dearest Henry, this must be my _first_ feeling; but\r
+my _second_, which you shall have as sincerely, is, that I approve your\r
+choice from my soul, and foresee your happiness as heartily as I wish\r
+and desire it. You will have a sweet little wife; all gratitude and\r
+devotion. Exactly what you deserve. What an amazing match for her! Mrs.\r
+Norris often talks of her luck; what will she say now? The delight\r
+of all the family, indeed! And she has some _true_ friends in it! How\r
+_they_ will rejoice! But tell me all about it! Talk to me for ever. When\r
+did you begin to think seriously about her?"\r
+\r
+Nothing could be more impossible than to answer such a question, though\r
+nothing could be more agreeable than to have it asked. "How the pleasing\r
+plague had stolen on him" he could not say; and before he had expressed\r
+the same sentiment with a little variation of words three times over,\r
+his sister eagerly interrupted him with, "Ah, my dear Henry, and this\r
+is what took you to London! This was your business! You chose to consult\r
+the Admiral before you made up your mind."\r
+\r
+But this he stoutly denied. He knew his uncle too well to consult him on\r
+any matrimonial scheme. The Admiral hated marriage, and thought it never\r
+pardonable in a young man of independent fortune.\r
+\r
+"When Fanny is known to him," continued Henry, "he will doat on her.\r
+She is exactly the woman to do away every prejudice of such a man as\r
+the Admiral, for she he would describe, if indeed he has now delicacy\r
+of language enough to embody his own ideas. But till it is absolutely\r
+settled--settled beyond all interference, he shall know nothing of the\r
+matter. No, Mary, you are quite mistaken. You have not discovered my\r
+business yet."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, I am satisfied. I know now to whom it must relate, and am\r
+in no hurry for the rest. Fanny Price! wonderful, quite wonderful! That\r
+Mansfield should have done so much for--that _you_ should have found\r
+your fate in Mansfield! But you are quite right; you could not have\r
+chosen better. There is not a better girl in the world, and you do not\r
+want for fortune; and as to her connexions, they are more than good. The\r
+Bertrams are undoubtedly some of the first people in this country. She\r
+is niece to Sir Thomas Bertram; that will be enough for the world. But\r
+go on, go on. Tell me more. What are your plans? Does she know her own\r
+happiness?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"What are you waiting for?"\r
+\r
+"For--for very little more than opportunity. Mary, she is not like her\r
+cousins; but I think I shall not ask in vain."\r
+\r
+"Oh no! you cannot. Were you even less pleasing--supposing her not to\r
+love you already (of which, however, I can have little doubt)--you would\r
+be safe. The gentleness and gratitude of her disposition would secure\r
+her all your own immediately. From my soul I do not think she would\r
+marry you _without_ love; that is, if there is a girl in the world\r
+capable of being uninfluenced by ambition, I can suppose it her; but ask\r
+her to love you, and she will never have the heart to refuse."\r
+\r
+As soon as her eagerness could rest in silence, he was as happy to tell\r
+as she could be to listen; and a conversation followed almost as deeply\r
+interesting to her as to himself, though he had in fact nothing to\r
+relate but his own sensations, nothing to dwell on but Fanny's charms.\r
+Fanny's beauty of face and figure, Fanny's graces of manner and goodness\r
+of heart, were the exhaustless theme. The gentleness, modesty, and\r
+sweetness of her character were warmly expatiated on; that sweetness\r
+which makes so essential a part of every woman's worth in the judgment\r
+of man, that though he sometimes loves where it is not, he can never\r
+believe it absent. Her temper he had good reason to depend on and\r
+to praise. He had often seen it tried. Was there one of the family,\r
+excepting Edmund, who had not in some way or other continually exercised\r
+her patience and forbearance? Her affections were evidently strong. To\r
+see her with her brother! What could more delightfully prove that the\r
+warmth of her heart was equal to its gentleness? What could be more\r
+encouraging to a man who had her love in view? Then, her understanding\r
+was beyond every suspicion, quick and clear; and her manners were the\r
+mirror of her own modest and elegant mind. Nor was this all. Henry\r
+Crawford had too much sense not to feel the worth of good principles\r
+in a wife, though he was too little accustomed to serious reflection to\r
+know them by their proper name; but when he talked of her having such a\r
+steadiness and regularity of conduct, such a high notion of honour, and\r
+such an observance of decorum as might warrant any man in the fullest\r
+dependence on her faith and integrity, he expressed what was inspired by\r
+the knowledge of her being well principled and religious.\r
+\r
+"I could so wholly and absolutely confide in her," said he; "and _that_\r
+is what I want."\r
+\r
+Well might his sister, believing as she really did that his opinion of\r
+Fanny Price was scarcely beyond her merits, rejoice in her prospects.\r
+\r
+"The more I think of it," she cried, "the more am I convinced that you\r
+are doing quite right; and though I should never have selected Fanny\r
+Price as the girl most likely to attach you, I am now persuaded she is\r
+the very one to make you happy. Your wicked project upon her peace turns\r
+out a clever thought indeed. You will both find your good in it."\r
+\r
+"It was bad, very bad in me against such a creature; but I did not know\r
+her then; and she shall have no reason to lament the hour that first put\r
+it into my head. I will make her very happy, Mary; happier than she has\r
+ever yet been herself, or ever seen anybody else. I will not take her\r
+from Northamptonshire. I shall let Everingham, and rent a place in this\r
+neighbourhood; perhaps Stanwix Lodge. I shall let a seven years' lease\r
+of Everingham. I am sure of an excellent tenant at half a word. I could\r
+name three people now, who would give me my own terms and thank me."\r
+\r
+"Ha!" cried Mary; "settle in Northamptonshire! That is pleasant! Then we\r
+shall be all together."\r
+\r
+When she had spoken it, she recollected herself, and wished it unsaid;\r
+but there was no need of confusion; for her brother saw her only as the\r
+supposed inmate of Mansfield parsonage, and replied but to invite her in\r
+the kindest manner to his own house, and to claim the best right in her.\r
+\r
+"You must give us more than half your time," said he. "I cannot admit\r
+Mrs. Grant to have an equal claim with Fanny and myself, for we shall\r
+both have a right in you. Fanny will be so truly your sister!"\r
+\r
+Mary had only to be grateful and give general assurances; but she was\r
+now very fully purposed to be the guest of neither brother nor sister\r
+many months longer.\r
+\r
+"You will divide your year between London and Northamptonshire?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"That's right; and in London, of course, a house of your own: no longer\r
+with the Admiral. My dearest Henry, the advantage to you of getting away\r
+from the Admiral before your manners are hurt by the contagion of his,\r
+before you have contracted any of his foolish opinions, or learned to\r
+sit over your dinner as if it were the best blessing of life! _You_ are\r
+not sensible of the gain, for your regard for him has blinded you; but,\r
+in my estimation, your marrying early may be the saving of you. To have\r
+seen you grow like the Admiral in word or deed, look or gesture, would\r
+have broken my heart."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, we do not think quite alike here. The Admiral has his\r
+faults, but he is a very good man, and has been more than a father to\r
+me. Few fathers would have let me have my own way half so much. You must\r
+not prejudice Fanny against him. I must have them love one another."\r
+\r
+Mary refrained from saying what she felt, that there could not be two\r
+persons in existence whose characters and manners were less accordant:\r
+time would discover it to him; but she could not help _this_ reflection\r
+on the Admiral. "Henry, I think so highly of Fanny Price, that if I\r
+could suppose the next Mrs. Crawford would have half the reason which\r
+my poor ill-used aunt had to abhor the very name, I would prevent the\r
+marriage, if possible; but I know you: I know that a wife you _loved_\r
+would be the happiest of women, and that even when you ceased to\r
+love, she would yet find in you the liberality and good-breeding of a\r
+gentleman."\r
+\r
+The impossibility of not doing everything in the world to make Fanny\r
+Price happy, or of ceasing to love Fanny Price, was of course the\r
+groundwork of his eloquent answer.\r
+\r
+"Had you seen her this morning, Mary," he continued, "attending with\r
+such ineffable sweetness and patience to all the demands of her aunt's\r
+stupidity, working with her, and for her, her colour beautifully\r
+heightened as she leant over the work, then returning to her seat to\r
+finish a note which she was previously engaged in writing for that\r
+stupid woman's service, and all this with such unpretending gentleness,\r
+so much as if it were a matter of course that she was not to have a\r
+moment at her own command, her hair arranged as neatly as it always is,\r
+and one little curl falling forward as she wrote, which she now and then\r
+shook back, and in the midst of all this, still speaking at intervals to\r
+_me_, or listening, and as if she liked to listen, to what I said. Had\r
+you seen her so, Mary, you would not have implied the possibility of her\r
+power over my heart ever ceasing."\r
+\r
+"My dearest Henry," cried Mary, stopping short, and smiling in his face,\r
+"how glad I am to see you so much in love! It quite delights me. But\r
+what will Mrs. Rushworth and Julia say?"\r
+\r
+"I care neither what they say nor what they feel. They will now see what\r
+sort of woman it is that can attach me, that can attach a man of sense.\r
+I wish the discovery may do them any good. And they will now see their\r
+cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily\r
+ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness. They will be\r
+angry," he added, after a moment's silence, and in a cooler tone; "Mrs.\r
+Rushworth will be very angry. It will be a bitter pill to her; that is,\r
+like other bitter pills, it will have two moments' ill flavour, and then\r
+be swallowed and forgotten; for I am not such a coxcomb as to suppose\r
+her feelings more lasting than other women's, though _I_ was the object\r
+of them. Yes, Mary, my Fanny will feel a difference indeed: a daily,\r
+hourly difference, in the behaviour of every being who approaches her;\r
+and it will be the completion of my happiness to know that I am the doer\r
+of it, that I am the person to give the consequence so justly her due.\r
+Now she is dependent, helpless, friendless, neglected, forgotten."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Henry, not by all; not forgotten by all; not friendless or\r
+forgotten. Her cousin Edmund never forgets her."\r
+\r
+"Edmund! True, I believe he is, generally speaking, kind to her, and\r
+so is Sir Thomas in his way; but it is the way of a rich, superior,\r
+long-worded, arbitrary uncle. What can Sir Thomas and Edmund together\r
+do, what do they _do_ for her happiness, comfort, honour, and dignity in\r
+the world, to what I _shall_ do?"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXI\r
+\r
+Henry Crawford was at Mansfield Park again the next morning, and at an\r
+earlier hour than common visiting warrants. The two ladies were together\r
+in the breakfast-room, and, fortunately for him, Lady Bertram was on the\r
+very point of quitting it as he entered. She was almost at the door, and\r
+not chusing by any means to take so much trouble in vain, she still went\r
+on, after a civil reception, a short sentence about being waited for,\r
+and a "Let Sir Thomas know" to the servant.\r
+\r
+Henry, overjoyed to have her go, bowed and watched her off, and without\r
+losing another moment, turned instantly to Fanny, and, taking out some\r
+letters, said, with a most animated look, "I must acknowledge myself\r
+infinitely obliged to any creature who gives me such an opportunity\r
+of seeing you alone: I have been wishing it more than you can have any\r
+idea. Knowing as I do what your feelings as a sister are, I could hardly\r
+have borne that any one in the house should share with you in the\r
+first knowledge of the news I now bring. He is made. Your brother is a\r
+lieutenant. I have the infinite satisfaction of congratulating you on\r
+your brother's promotion. Here are the letters which announce it, this\r
+moment come to hand. You will, perhaps, like to see them."\r
+\r
+Fanny could not speak, but he did not want her to speak. To see the\r
+expression of her eyes, the change of her complexion, the progress of\r
+her feelings, their doubt, confusion, and felicity, was enough. She took\r
+the letters as he gave them. The first was from the Admiral to inform\r
+his nephew, in a few words, of his having succeeded in the object he had\r
+undertaken, the promotion of young Price, and enclosing two more, one\r
+from the Secretary of the First Lord to a friend, whom the Admiral had\r
+set to work in the business, the other from that friend to himself,\r
+by which it appeared that his lordship had the very great happiness of\r
+attending to the recommendation of Sir Charles; that Sir Charles was\r
+much delighted in having such an opportunity of proving his regard\r
+for Admiral Crawford, and that the circumstance of Mr. William Price's\r
+commission as Second Lieutenant of H.M. Sloop Thrush being made out was\r
+spreading general joy through a wide circle of great people.\r
+\r
+While her hand was trembling under these letters, her eye running from\r
+one to the other, and her heart swelling with emotion, Crawford thus\r
+continued, with unfeigned eagerness, to express his interest in the\r
+event--\r
+\r
+"I will not talk of my own happiness," said he, "great as it is, for I\r
+think only of yours. Compared with you, who has a right to be happy? I\r
+have almost grudged myself my own prior knowledge of what you ought to\r
+have known before all the world. I have not lost a moment, however.\r
+The post was late this morning, but there has not been since a moment's\r
+delay. How impatient, how anxious, how wild I have been on the subject,\r
+I will not attempt to describe; how severely mortified, how cruelly\r
+disappointed, in not having it finished while I was in London! I was\r
+kept there from day to day in the hope of it, for nothing less dear\r
+to me than such an object would have detained me half the time from\r
+Mansfield. But though my uncle entered into my wishes with all the\r
+warmth I could desire, and exerted himself immediately, there were\r
+difficulties from the absence of one friend, and the engagements of\r
+another, which at last I could no longer bear to stay the end of, and\r
+knowing in what good hands I left the cause, I came away on Monday,\r
+trusting that many posts would not pass before I should be followed by\r
+such very letters as these. My uncle, who is the very best man in\r
+the world, has exerted himself, as I knew he would, after seeing your\r
+brother. He was delighted with him. I would not allow myself yesterday\r
+to say how delighted, or to repeat half that the Admiral said in his\r
+praise. I deferred it all till his praise should be proved the praise of\r
+a friend, as this day _does_ prove it. _Now_ I may say that even I could\r
+not require William Price to excite a greater interest, or be followed\r
+by warmer wishes and higher commendation, than were most voluntarily\r
+bestowed by my uncle after the evening they had passed together."\r
+\r
+"Has this been all _your_ doing, then?" cried Fanny. "Good heaven! how\r
+very, very kind! Have you really--was it by _your_ desire? I beg your\r
+pardon, but I am bewildered. Did Admiral Crawford apply? How was it? I\r
+am stupefied."\r
+\r
+Henry was most happy to make it more intelligible, by beginning at an\r
+earlier stage, and explaining very particularly what he had done. His\r
+last journey to London had been undertaken with no other view than that\r
+of introducing her brother in Hill Street, and prevailing on the Admiral\r
+to exert whatever interest he might have for getting him on. This had\r
+been his business. He had communicated it to no creature: he had not\r
+breathed a syllable of it even to Mary; while uncertain of the issue,\r
+he could not have borne any participation of his feelings, but this had\r
+been his business; and he spoke with such a glow of what his solicitude\r
+had been, and used such strong expressions, was so abounding in the\r
+_deepest_ _interest_, in _twofold_ _motives_, in _views_ _and_ _wishes_\r
+_more_ _than_ _could_ _be_ _told_, that Fanny could not have remained\r
+insensible of his drift, had she been able to attend; but her heart was\r
+so full and her senses still so astonished, that she could listen but\r
+imperfectly even to what he told her of William, and saying only when\r
+he paused, "How kind! how very kind! Oh, Mr. Crawford, we are infinitely\r
+obliged to you! Dearest, dearest William!" She jumped up and moved in\r
+haste towards the door, crying out, "I will go to my uncle. My uncle\r
+ought to know it as soon as possible." But this could not be suffered.\r
+The opportunity was too fair, and his feelings too impatient. He was\r
+after her immediately. "She must not go, she must allow him five minutes\r
+longer," and he took her hand and led her back to her seat, and was in\r
+the middle of his farther explanation, before she had suspected for what\r
+she was detained. When she did understand it, however, and found herself\r
+expected to believe that she had created sensations which his heart had\r
+never known before, and that everything he had done for William was to\r
+be placed to the account of his excessive and unequalled attachment\r
+to her, she was exceedingly distressed, and for some moments unable\r
+to speak. She considered it all as nonsense, as mere trifling and\r
+gallantry, which meant only to deceive for the hour; she could not but\r
+feel that it was treating her improperly and unworthily, and in such a\r
+way as she had not deserved; but it was like himself, and entirely of a\r
+piece with what she had seen before; and she would not allow herself to\r
+shew half the displeasure she felt, because he had been conferring an\r
+obligation, which no want of delicacy on his part could make a trifle\r
+to her. While her heart was still bounding with joy and gratitude on\r
+William's behalf, she could not be severely resentful of anything that\r
+injured only herself; and after having twice drawn back her hand, and\r
+twice attempted in vain to turn away from him, she got up, and said\r
+only, with much agitation, "Don't, Mr. Crawford, pray don't! I beg you\r
+would not. This is a sort of talking which is very unpleasant to me. I\r
+must go away. I cannot bear it." But he was still talking on, describing\r
+his affection, soliciting a return, and, finally, in words so plain as\r
+to bear but one meaning even to her, offering himself, hand, fortune,\r
+everything, to her acceptance. It was so; he had said it. Her\r
+astonishment and confusion increased; and though still not knowing\r
+how to suppose him serious, she could hardly stand. He pressed for an\r
+answer.\r
+\r
+"No, no, no!" she cried, hiding her face. "This is all nonsense. Do not\r
+distress me. I can hear no more of this. Your kindness to William makes\r
+me more obliged to you than words can express; but I do not want, I\r
+cannot bear, I must not listen to such--No, no, don't think of me. But\r
+you are _not_ thinking of me. I know it is all nothing."\r
+\r
+She had burst away from him, and at that moment Sir Thomas was heard\r
+speaking to a servant in his way towards the room they were in. It was\r
+no time for farther assurances or entreaty, though to part with her at\r
+a moment when her modesty alone seemed, to his sanguine and preassured\r
+mind, to stand in the way of the happiness he sought, was a cruel\r
+necessity. She rushed out at an opposite door from the one her uncle\r
+was approaching, and was walking up and down the East room in the\r
+utmost confusion of contrary feeling, before Sir Thomas's politeness\r
+or apologies were over, or he had reached the beginning of the joyful\r
+intelligence which his visitor came to communicate.\r
+\r
+She was feeling, thinking, trembling about everything; agitated, happy,\r
+miserable, infinitely obliged, absolutely angry. It was all beyond\r
+belief! He was inexcusable, incomprehensible! But such were his habits\r
+that he could do nothing without a mixture of evil. He had previously\r
+made her the happiest of human beings, and now he had insulted--she knew\r
+not what to say, how to class, or how to regard it. She would not have\r
+him be serious, and yet what could excuse the use of such words and\r
+offers, if they meant but to trifle?\r
+\r
+But William was a lieutenant. _That_ was a fact beyond a doubt, and\r
+without an alloy. She would think of it for ever and forget all the\r
+rest. Mr. Crawford would certainly never address her so again: he must\r
+have seen how unwelcome it was to her; and in that case, how gratefully\r
+she could esteem him for his friendship to William!\r
+\r
+She would not stir farther from the East room than the head of the great\r
+staircase, till she had satisfied herself of Mr. Crawford's having left\r
+the house; but when convinced of his being gone, she was eager to go\r
+down and be with her uncle, and have all the happiness of his joy\r
+as well as her own, and all the benefit of his information or his\r
+conjectures as to what would now be William's destination. Sir Thomas\r
+was as joyful as she could desire, and very kind and communicative; and\r
+she had so comfortable a talk with him about William as to make her\r
+feel as if nothing had occurred to vex her, till she found, towards the\r
+close, that Mr. Crawford was engaged to return and dine there that\r
+very day. This was a most unwelcome hearing, for though he might think\r
+nothing of what had passed, it would be quite distressing to her to see\r
+him again so soon.\r
+\r
+She tried to get the better of it; tried very hard, as the dinner hour\r
+approached, to feel and appear as usual; but it was quite impossible for\r
+her not to look most shy and uncomfortable when their visitor entered\r
+the room. She could not have supposed it in the power of any concurrence\r
+of circumstances to give her so many painful sensations on the first day\r
+of hearing of William's promotion.\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford was not only in the room--he was soon close to her. He\r
+had a note to deliver from his sister. Fanny could not look at him, but\r
+there was no consciousness of past folly in his voice. She opened her\r
+note immediately, glad to have anything to do, and happy, as she read\r
+it, to feel that the fidgetings of her aunt Norris, who was also to dine\r
+there, screened her a little from view.\r
+\r
+"My dear Fanny,--for so I may now always call you, to the infinite\r
+relief of a tongue that has been stumbling at _Miss_ _Price_ for at\r
+least the last six weeks--I cannot let my brother go without sending you\r
+a few lines of general congratulation, and giving my most joyful consent\r
+and approval. Go on, my dear Fanny, and without fear; there can be no\r
+difficulties worth naming. I chuse to suppose that the assurance of my\r
+consent will be something; so you may smile upon him with your sweetest\r
+smiles this afternoon, and send him back to me even happier than he\r
+goes.--Yours affectionately, M. C."\r
+\r
+These were not expressions to do Fanny any good; for though she read\r
+in too much haste and confusion to form the clearest judgment of Miss\r
+Crawford's meaning, it was evident that she meant to compliment her on\r
+her brother's attachment, and even to _appear_ to believe it serious.\r
+She did not know what to do, or what to think. There was wretchedness in\r
+the idea of its being serious; there was perplexity and agitation every\r
+way. She was distressed whenever Mr. Crawford spoke to her, and he spoke\r
+to her much too often; and she was afraid there was a something in his\r
+voice and manner in addressing her very different from what they were\r
+when he talked to the others. Her comfort in that day's dinner was\r
+quite destroyed: she could hardly eat anything; and when Sir Thomas\r
+good-humouredly observed that joy had taken away her appetite, she\r
+was ready to sink with shame, from the dread of Mr. Crawford's\r
+interpretation; for though nothing could have tempted her to turn\r
+her eyes to the right hand, where he sat, she felt that _his_ were\r
+immediately directed towards her.\r
+\r
+She was more silent than ever. She would hardly join even when William\r
+was the subject, for his commission came all from the right hand too,\r
+and there was pain in the connexion.\r
+\r
+She thought Lady Bertram sat longer than ever, and began to be in\r
+despair of ever getting away; but at last they were in the drawing-room,\r
+and she was able to think as she would, while her aunts finished the\r
+subject of William's appointment in their own style.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris seemed as much delighted with the saving it would be to\r
+Sir Thomas as with any part of it. "_Now_ William would be able to keep\r
+himself, which would make a vast difference to his uncle, for it was\r
+unknown how much he had cost his uncle; and, indeed, it would make some\r
+difference in _her_ presents too. She was very glad that she had given\r
+William what she did at parting, very glad, indeed, that it had been in\r
+her power, without material inconvenience, just at that time to give him\r
+something rather considerable; that is, for _her_, with _her_ limited\r
+means, for now it would all be useful in helping to fit up his cabin.\r
+She knew he must be at some expense, that he would have many things to\r
+buy, though to be sure his father and mother would be able to put him in\r
+the way of getting everything very cheap; but she was very glad she had\r
+contributed her mite towards it."\r
+\r
+"I am glad you gave him something considerable," said Lady Bertram, with\r
+most unsuspicious calmness, "for _I_ gave him only 10 pounds."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!" cried Mrs. Norris, reddening. "Upon my word, he must have gone\r
+off with his pockets well lined, and at no expense for his journey to\r
+London either!"\r
+\r
+"Sir Thomas told me 10 pounds would be enough."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris, being not at all inclined to question its sufficiency,\r
+began to take the matter in another point.\r
+\r
+"It is amazing," said she, "how much young people cost their friends,\r
+what with bringing them up and putting them out in the world! They\r
+little think how much it comes to, or what their parents, or their\r
+uncles and aunts, pay for them in the course of the year. Now, here are\r
+my sister Price's children; take them all together, I dare say nobody\r
+would believe what a sum they cost Sir Thomas every year, to say nothing\r
+of what _I_ do for them."\r
+\r
+"Very true, sister, as you say. But, poor things! they cannot help\r
+it; and you know it makes very little difference to Sir Thomas. Fanny,\r
+William must not forget my shawl if he goes to the East Indies; and I\r
+shall give him a commission for anything else that is worth having. I\r
+wish he may go to the East Indies, that I may have my shawl. I think I\r
+will have two shawls, Fanny."\r
+\r
+Fanny, meanwhile, speaking only when she could not help it, was very\r
+earnestly trying to understand what Mr. and Miss Crawford were at. There\r
+was everything in the world _against_ their being serious but his words\r
+and manner. Everything natural, probable, reasonable, was against it;\r
+all their habits and ways of thinking, and all her own demerits. How\r
+could _she_ have excited serious attachment in a man who had seen so\r
+many, and been admired by so many, and flirted with so many, infinitely\r
+her superiors; who seemed so little open to serious impressions, even\r
+where pains had been taken to please him; who thought so slightly, so\r
+carelessly, so unfeelingly on all such points; who was everything to\r
+everybody, and seemed to find no one essential to him? And farther,\r
+how could it be supposed that his sister, with all her high and worldly\r
+notions of matrimony, would be forwarding anything of a serious nature\r
+in such a quarter? Nothing could be more unnatural in either. Fanny\r
+was ashamed of her own doubts. Everything might be possible rather than\r
+serious attachment, or serious approbation of it toward her. She had\r
+quite convinced herself of this before Sir Thomas and Mr. Crawford\r
+joined them. The difficulty was in maintaining the conviction quite so\r
+absolutely after Mr. Crawford was in the room; for once or twice a\r
+look seemed forced on her which she did not know how to class among the\r
+common meaning; in any other man, at least, she would have said that\r
+it meant something very earnest, very pointed. But she still tried to\r
+believe it no more than what he might often have expressed towards her\r
+cousins and fifty other women.\r
+\r
+She thought he was wishing to speak to her unheard by the rest. She\r
+fancied he was trying for it the whole evening at intervals, whenever\r
+Sir Thomas was out of the room, or at all engaged with Mrs. Norris, and\r
+she carefully refused him every opportunity.\r
+\r
+At last--it seemed an at last to Fanny's nervousness, though not\r
+remarkably late--he began to talk of going away; but the comfort of the\r
+sound was impaired by his turning to her the next moment, and saying,\r
+"Have you nothing to send to Mary? No answer to her note? She will be\r
+disappointed if she receives nothing from you. Pray write to her, if it\r
+be only a line."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! certainly," cried Fanny, rising in haste, the haste of\r
+embarrassment and of wanting to get away--"I will write directly."\r
+\r
+She went accordingly to the table, where she was in the habit of writing\r
+for her aunt, and prepared her materials without knowing what in the\r
+world to say. She had read Miss Crawford's note only once, and how to\r
+reply to anything so imperfectly understood was most distressing.\r
+Quite unpractised in such sort of note-writing, had there been time for\r
+scruples and fears as to style she would have felt them in abundance:\r
+but something must be instantly written; and with only one decided\r
+feeling, that of wishing not to appear to think anything really\r
+intended, she wrote thus, in great trembling both of spirits and hand--\r
+\r
+"I am very much obliged to you, my dear Miss Crawford, for your kind\r
+congratulations, as far as they relate to my dearest William. The rest\r
+of your note I know means nothing; but I am so unequal to anything of\r
+the sort, that I hope you will excuse my begging you to take no farther\r
+notice. I have seen too much of Mr. Crawford not to understand his\r
+manners; if he understood me as well, he would, I dare say, behave\r
+differently. I do not know what I write, but it would be a great favour\r
+of you never to mention the subject again. With thanks for the honour of\r
+your note, I remain, dear Miss Crawford, etc., etc."\r
+\r
+The conclusion was scarcely intelligible from increasing fright, for\r
+she found that Mr. Crawford, under pretence of receiving the note, was\r
+coming towards her.\r
+\r
+"You cannot think I mean to hurry you," said he, in an undervoice,\r
+perceiving the amazing trepidation with which she made up the note, "you\r
+cannot think I have any such object. Do not hurry yourself, I entreat."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I thank you; I have quite done, just done; it will be ready in a\r
+moment; I am very much obliged to you; if you will be so good as to give\r
+_that_ to Miss Crawford."\r
+\r
+The note was held out, and must be taken; and as she instantly and with\r
+averted eyes walked towards the fireplace, where sat the others, he had\r
+nothing to do but to go in good earnest.\r
+\r
+Fanny thought she had never known a day of greater agitation, both of\r
+pain and pleasure; but happily the pleasure was not of a sort to die\r
+with the day; for every day would restore the knowledge of William's\r
+advancement, whereas the pain, she hoped, would return no more. She had\r
+no doubt that her note must appear excessively ill-written, that\r
+the language would disgrace a child, for her distress had allowed no\r
+arrangement; but at least it would assure them both of her being neither\r
+imposed on nor gratified by Mr. Crawford's attentions.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXII\r
+\r
+Fanny had by no means forgotten Mr. Crawford when she awoke the next\r
+morning; but she remembered the purport of her note, and was not less\r
+sanguine as to its effect than she had been the night before. If Mr.\r
+Crawford would but go away! That was what she most earnestly desired:\r
+go and take his sister with him, as he was to do, and as he returned to\r
+Mansfield on purpose to do. And why it was not done already she could\r
+not devise, for Miss Crawford certainly wanted no delay. Fanny had\r
+hoped, in the course of his yesterday's visit, to hear the day named;\r
+but he had only spoken of their journey as what would take place ere\r
+long.\r
+\r
+Having so satisfactorily settled the conviction her note would convey,\r
+she could not but be astonished to see Mr. Crawford, as she accidentally\r
+did, coming up to the house again, and at an hour as early as the day\r
+before. His coming might have nothing to do with her, but she must avoid\r
+seeing him if possible; and being then on her way upstairs, she resolved\r
+there to remain, during the whole of his visit, unless actually sent\r
+for; and as Mrs. Norris was still in the house, there seemed little\r
+danger of her being wanted.\r
+\r
+She sat some time in a good deal of agitation, listening, trembling, and\r
+fearing to be sent for every moment; but as no footsteps approached the\r
+East room, she grew gradually composed, could sit down, and be able to\r
+employ herself, and able to hope that Mr. Crawford had come and would go\r
+without her being obliged to know anything of the matter.\r
+\r
+Nearly half an hour had passed, and she was growing very comfortable,\r
+when suddenly the sound of a step in regular approach was heard; a heavy\r
+step, an unusual step in that part of the house: it was her uncle's; she\r
+knew it as well as his voice; she had trembled at it as often, and began\r
+to tremble again, at the idea of his coming up to speak to her, whatever\r
+might be the subject. It was indeed Sir Thomas who opened the door and\r
+asked if she were there, and if he might come in. The terror of his\r
+former occasional visits to that room seemed all renewed, and she felt\r
+as if he were going to examine her again in French and English.\r
+\r
+She was all attention, however, in placing a chair for him, and trying\r
+to appear honoured; and, in her agitation, had quite overlooked the\r
+deficiencies of her apartment, till he, stopping short as he entered,\r
+said, with much surprise, "Why have you no fire to-day?"\r
+\r
+There was snow on the ground, and she was sitting in a shawl. She\r
+hesitated.\r
+\r
+"I am not cold, sir: I never sit here long at this time of year."\r
+\r
+"But you have a fire in general?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir."\r
+\r
+"How comes this about? Here must be some mistake. I understood that you\r
+had the use of this room by way of making you perfectly comfortable.\r
+In your bedchamber I know you _cannot_ have a fire. Here is some great\r
+misapprehension which must be rectified. It is highly unfit for you to\r
+sit, be it only half an hour a day, without a fire. You are not strong.\r
+You are chilly. Your aunt cannot be aware of this."\r
+\r
+Fanny would rather have been silent; but being obliged to speak, she\r
+could not forbear, in justice to the aunt she loved best, from saying\r
+something in which the words "my aunt Norris" were distinguishable.\r
+\r
+"I understand," cried her uncle, recollecting himself, and not wanting\r
+to hear more: "I understand. Your aunt Norris has always been an\r
+advocate, and very judiciously, for young people's being brought up\r
+without unnecessary indulgences; but there should be moderation in\r
+everything. She is also very hardy herself, which of course will\r
+influence her in her opinion of the wants of others. And on another\r
+account, too, I can perfectly comprehend. I know what her sentiments\r
+have always been. The principle was good in itself, but it may have\r
+been, and I believe _has_ _been_, carried too far in your case. I\r
+am aware that there has been sometimes, in some points, a misplaced\r
+distinction; but I think too well of you, Fanny, to suppose you will\r
+ever harbour resentment on that account. You have an understanding\r
+which will prevent you from receiving things only in part, and judging\r
+partially by the event. You will take in the whole of the past, you\r
+will consider times, persons, and probabilities, and you will feel that\r
+_they_ were not least your friends who were educating and preparing you\r
+for that mediocrity of condition which _seemed_ to be your lot. Though\r
+their caution may prove eventually unnecessary, it was kindly meant; and\r
+of this you may be assured, that every advantage of affluence will be\r
+doubled by the little privations and restrictions that may have been\r
+imposed. I am sure you will not disappoint my opinion of you, by failing\r
+at any time to treat your aunt Norris with the respect and attention\r
+that are due to her. But enough of this. Sit down, my dear. I must speak\r
+to you for a few minutes, but I will not detain you long."\r
+\r
+Fanny obeyed, with eyes cast down and colour rising. After a moment's\r
+pause, Sir Thomas, trying to suppress a smile, went on.\r
+\r
+"You are not aware, perhaps, that I have had a visitor this morning. I\r
+had not been long in my own room, after breakfast, when Mr. Crawford was\r
+shewn in. His errand you may probably conjecture."\r
+\r
+Fanny's colour grew deeper and deeper; and her uncle, perceiving that\r
+she was embarrassed to a degree that made either speaking or looking\r
+up quite impossible, turned away his own eyes, and without any farther\r
+pause proceeded in his account of Mr. Crawford's visit.\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford's business had been to declare himself the lover of Fanny,\r
+make decided proposals for her, and entreat the sanction of the uncle,\r
+who seemed to stand in the place of her parents; and he had done it all\r
+so well, so openly, so liberally, so properly, that Sir Thomas, feeling,\r
+moreover, his own replies, and his own remarks to have been very much\r
+to the purpose, was exceedingly happy to give the particulars of their\r
+conversation; and little aware of what was passing in his niece's mind,\r
+conceived that by such details he must be gratifying her far more than\r
+himself. He talked, therefore, for several minutes without Fanny's\r
+daring to interrupt him. She had hardly even attained the wish to do it.\r
+Her mind was in too much confusion. She had changed her position; and,\r
+with her eyes fixed intently on one of the windows, was listening to her\r
+uncle in the utmost perturbation and dismay. For a moment he ceased, but\r
+she had barely become conscious of it, when, rising from his chair, he\r
+said, "And now, Fanny, having performed one part of my commission,\r
+and shewn you everything placed on a basis the most assured and\r
+satisfactory, I may execute the remainder by prevailing on you to\r
+accompany me downstairs, where, though I cannot but presume on having\r
+been no unacceptable companion myself, I must submit to your finding\r
+one still better worth listening to. Mr. Crawford, as you have perhaps\r
+foreseen, is yet in the house. He is in my room, and hoping to see you\r
+there."\r
+\r
+There was a look, a start, an exclamation on hearing this, which\r
+astonished Sir Thomas; but what was his increase of astonishment on\r
+hearing her exclaim--"Oh! no, sir, I cannot, indeed I cannot go down to\r
+him. Mr. Crawford ought to know--he must know that: I told him enough\r
+yesterday to convince him; he spoke to me on this subject yesterday,\r
+and I told him without disguise that it was very disagreeable to me, and\r
+quite out of my power to return his good opinion."\r
+\r
+"I do not catch your meaning," said Sir Thomas, sitting down again. "Out\r
+of your power to return his good opinion? What is all this? I know he\r
+spoke to you yesterday, and (as far as I understand) received as much\r
+encouragement to proceed as a well-judging young woman could permit\r
+herself to give. I was very much pleased with what I collected to have\r
+been your behaviour on the occasion; it shewed a discretion highly to\r
+be commended. But now, when he has made his overtures so properly, and\r
+honourably--what are your scruples _now_?"\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken, sir," cried Fanny, forced by the anxiety of the\r
+moment even to tell her uncle that he was wrong; "you are quite\r
+mistaken. How could Mr. Crawford say such a thing? I gave him no\r
+encouragement yesterday. On the contrary, I told him, I cannot recollect\r
+my exact words, but I am sure I told him that I would not listen to him,\r
+that it was very unpleasant to me in every respect, and that I begged\r
+him never to talk to me in that manner again. I am sure I said as much\r
+as that and more; and I should have said still more, if I had been quite\r
+certain of his meaning anything seriously; but I did not like to be, I\r
+could not bear to be, imputing more than might be intended. I thought it\r
+might all pass for nothing with _him_."\r
+\r
+She could say no more; her breath was almost gone.\r
+\r
+"Am I to understand," said Sir Thomas, after a few moments' silence,\r
+"that you mean to _refuse_ Mr. Crawford?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Refuse him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Refuse Mr. Crawford! Upon what plea? For what reason?"\r
+\r
+"I--I cannot like him, sir, well enough to marry him."\r
+\r
+"This is very strange!" said Sir Thomas, in a voice of calm displeasure.\r
+"There is something in this which my comprehension does not reach. Here\r
+is a young man wishing to pay his addresses to you, with everything to\r
+recommend him: not merely situation in life, fortune, and character,\r
+but with more than common agreeableness, with address and conversation\r
+pleasing to everybody. And he is not an acquaintance of to-day; you have\r
+now known him some time. His sister, moreover, is your intimate friend,\r
+and he has been doing _that_ for your brother, which I should suppose\r
+would have been almost sufficient recommendation to you, had there been\r
+no other. It is very uncertain when my interest might have got William\r
+on. He has done it already."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Fanny, in a faint voice, and looking down with fresh shame;\r
+and she did feel almost ashamed of herself, after such a picture as her\r
+uncle had drawn, for not liking Mr. Crawford.\r
+\r
+"You must have been aware," continued Sir Thomas presently, "you must\r
+have been some time aware of a particularity in Mr. Crawford's manners\r
+to you. This cannot have taken you by surprise. You must have observed\r
+his attentions; and though you always received them very properly (I\r
+have no accusation to make on that head), I never perceived them to be\r
+unpleasant to you. I am half inclined to think, Fanny, that you do not\r
+quite know your own feelings."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, sir! indeed I do. His attentions were always--what I did not\r
+like."\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas looked at her with deeper surprise. "This is beyond me,"\r
+said he. "This requires explanation. Young as you are, and having seen\r
+scarcely any one, it is hardly possible that your affections--"\r
+\r
+He paused and eyed her fixedly. He saw her lips formed into a _no_,\r
+though the sound was inarticulate, but her face was like scarlet. That,\r
+however, in so modest a girl, might be very compatible with innocence;\r
+and chusing at least to appear satisfied, he quickly added, "No, no, I\r
+know _that_ is quite out of the question; quite impossible. Well, there\r
+is nothing more to be said."\r
+\r
+And for a few minutes he did say nothing. He was deep in thought. His\r
+niece was deep in thought likewise, trying to harden and prepare herself\r
+against farther questioning. She would rather die than own the truth;\r
+and she hoped, by a little reflection, to fortify herself beyond\r
+betraying it.\r
+\r
+"Independently of the interest which Mr. Crawford's _choice_ seemed to\r
+justify" said Sir Thomas, beginning again, and very composedly, "his\r
+wishing to marry at all so early is recommendatory to me. I am an\r
+advocate for early marriages, where there are means in proportion, and\r
+would have every young man, with a sufficient income, settle as soon\r
+after four-and-twenty as he can. This is so much my opinion, that I am\r
+sorry to think how little likely my own eldest son, your cousin, Mr.\r
+Bertram, is to marry early; but at present, as far as I can judge,\r
+matrimony makes no part of his plans or thoughts. I wish he were more\r
+likely to fix." Here was a glance at Fanny. "Edmund, I consider, from\r
+his dispositions and habits, as much more likely to marry early than\r
+his brother. _He_, indeed, I have lately thought, has seen the woman he\r
+could love, which, I am convinced, my eldest son has not. Am I right? Do\r
+you agree with me, my dear?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+It was gently, but it was calmly said, and Sir Thomas was easy on the\r
+score of the cousins. But the removal of his alarm did his niece\r
+no service: as her unaccountableness was confirmed his displeasure\r
+increased; and getting up and walking about the room with a frown, which\r
+Fanny could picture to herself, though she dared not lift up her eyes,\r
+he shortly afterwards, and in a voice of authority, said, "Have you any\r
+reason, child, to think ill of Mr. Crawford's temper?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir."\r
+\r
+She longed to add, "But of his principles I have"; but her heart sunk\r
+under the appalling prospect of discussion, explanation, and probably\r
+non-conviction. Her ill opinion of him was founded chiefly on\r
+observations, which, for her cousins' sake, she could scarcely dare\r
+mention to their father. Maria and Julia, and especially Maria, were so\r
+closely implicated in Mr. Crawford's misconduct, that she could not give\r
+his character, such as she believed it, without betraying them. She had\r
+hoped that, to a man like her uncle, so discerning, so honourable, so\r
+good, the simple acknowledgment of settled _dislike_ on her side would\r
+have been sufficient. To her infinite grief she found it was not.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas came towards the table where she sat in trembling\r
+wretchedness, and with a good deal of cold sternness, said, "It is of no\r
+use, I perceive, to talk to you. We had better put an end to this most\r
+mortifying conference. Mr. Crawford must not be kept longer waiting. I\r
+will, therefore, only add, as thinking it my duty to mark my opinion of\r
+your conduct, that you have disappointed every expectation I had formed,\r
+and proved yourself of a character the very reverse of what I had\r
+supposed. For I _had_, Fanny, as I think my behaviour must have shewn,\r
+formed a very favourable opinion of you from the period of my return to\r
+England. I had thought you peculiarly free from wilfulness of temper,\r
+self-conceit, and every tendency to that independence of spirit which\r
+prevails so much in modern days, even in young women, and which in young\r
+women is offensive and disgusting beyond all common offence. But you\r
+have now shewn me that you can be wilful and perverse; that you can and\r
+will decide for yourself, without any consideration or deference for\r
+those who have surely some right to guide you, without even asking their\r
+advice. You have shewn yourself very, very different from anything that\r
+I had imagined. The advantage or disadvantage of your family, of your\r
+parents, your brothers and sisters, never seems to have had a moment's\r
+share in your thoughts on this occasion. How _they_ might be benefited,\r
+how _they_ must rejoice in such an establishment for you, is nothing to\r
+_you_. You think only of yourself, and because you do not feel for Mr.\r
+Crawford exactly what a young heated fancy imagines to be necessary for\r
+happiness, you resolve to refuse him at once, without wishing even for\r
+a little time to consider of it, a little more time for cool\r
+consideration, and for really examining your own inclinations; and are,\r
+in a wild fit of folly, throwing away from you such an opportunity of\r
+being settled in life, eligibly, honourably, nobly settled, as will,\r
+probably, never occur to you again. Here is a young man of sense, of\r
+character, of temper, of manners, and of fortune, exceedingly attached\r
+to you, and seeking your hand in the most handsome and disinterested\r
+way; and let me tell you, Fanny, that you may live eighteen years longer\r
+in the world without being addressed by a man of half Mr. Crawford's\r
+estate, or a tenth part of his merits. Gladly would I have bestowed\r
+either of my own daughters on him. Maria is nobly married; but had\r
+Mr. Crawford sought Julia's hand, I should have given it to him with\r
+superior and more heartfelt satisfaction than I gave Maria's to Mr.\r
+Rushworth." After half a moment's pause: "And I should have been very\r
+much surprised had either of my daughters, on receiving a proposal\r
+of marriage at any time which might carry with it only _half_ the\r
+eligibility of _this_, immediately and peremptorily, and without paying\r
+my opinion or my regard the compliment of any consultation, put a\r
+decided negative on it. I should have been much surprised and much hurt\r
+by such a proceeding. I should have thought it a gross violation of duty\r
+and respect. _You_ are not to be judged by the same rule. You do not\r
+owe me the duty of a child. But, Fanny, if your heart can acquit you of\r
+_ingratitude_--"\r
+\r
+He ceased. Fanny was by this time crying so bitterly that, angry as he\r
+was, he would not press that article farther. Her heart was almost broke\r
+by such a picture of what she appeared to him; by such accusations,\r
+so heavy, so multiplied, so rising in dreadful gradation! Self-willed,\r
+obstinate, selfish, and ungrateful. He thought her all this. She had\r
+deceived his expectations; she had lost his good opinion. What was to\r
+become of her?\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry," said she inarticulately, through her tears, "I am\r
+very sorry indeed."\r
+\r
+"Sorry! yes, I hope you are sorry; and you will probably have reason to\r
+be long sorry for this day's transactions."\r
+\r
+"If it were possible for me to do otherwise" said she, with another\r
+strong effort; "but I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make\r
+him happy, and that I should be miserable myself."\r
+\r
+Another burst of tears; but in spite of that burst, and in spite of that\r
+great black word _miserable_, which served to introduce it, Sir Thomas\r
+began to think a little relenting, a little change of inclination, might\r
+have something to do with it; and to augur favourably from the personal\r
+entreaty of the young man himself. He knew her to be very timid, and\r
+exceedingly nervous; and thought it not improbable that her mind\r
+might be in such a state as a little time, a little pressing, a little\r
+patience, and a little impatience, a judicious mixture of all on the\r
+lover's side, might work their usual effect on. If the gentleman would\r
+but persevere, if he had but love enough to persevere, Sir Thomas began\r
+to have hopes; and these reflections having passed across his mind and\r
+cheered it, "Well," said he, in a tone of becoming gravity, but of less\r
+anger, "well, child, dry up your tears. There is no use in these tears;\r
+they can do no good. You must now come downstairs with me. Mr. Crawford\r
+has been kept waiting too long already. You must give him your own\r
+answer: we cannot expect him to be satisfied with less; and you only\r
+can explain to him the grounds of that misconception of your sentiments,\r
+which, unfortunately for himself, he certainly has imbibed. I am totally\r
+unequal to it."\r
+\r
+But Fanny shewed such reluctance, such misery, at the idea of going down\r
+to him, that Sir Thomas, after a little consideration, judged it better\r
+to indulge her. His hopes from both gentleman and lady suffered a small\r
+depression in consequence; but when he looked at his niece, and saw the\r
+state of feature and complexion which her crying had brought her\r
+into, he thought there might be as much lost as gained by an immediate\r
+interview. With a few words, therefore, of no particular meaning, he\r
+walked off by himself, leaving his poor niece to sit and cry over what\r
+had passed, with very wretched feelings.\r
+\r
+Her mind was all disorder. The past, present, future, everything was\r
+terrible. But her uncle's anger gave her the severest pain of all.\r
+Selfish and ungrateful! to have appeared so to him! She was miserable\r
+for ever. She had no one to take her part, to counsel, or speak for her.\r
+Her only friend was absent. He might have softened his father; but all,\r
+perhaps all, would think her selfish and ungrateful. She might have to\r
+endure the reproach again and again; she might hear it, or see it, or\r
+know it to exist for ever in every connexion about her. She could not\r
+but feel some resentment against Mr. Crawford; yet, if he really loved\r
+her, and were unhappy too! It was all wretchedness together.\r
+\r
+In about a quarter of an hour her uncle returned; she was almost\r
+ready to faint at the sight of him. He spoke calmly, however, without\r
+austerity, without reproach, and she revived a little. There was\r
+comfort, too, in his words, as well as his manner, for he began with,\r
+"Mr. Crawford is gone: he has just left me. I need not repeat what has\r
+passed. I do not want to add to anything you may now be feeling, by an\r
+account of what he has felt. Suffice it, that he has behaved in the\r
+most gentlemanlike and generous manner, and has confirmed me in a most\r
+favourable opinion of his understanding, heart, and temper. Upon my\r
+representation of what you were suffering, he immediately, and with the\r
+greatest delicacy, ceased to urge to see you for the present."\r
+\r
+Here Fanny, who had looked up, looked down again. "Of course," continued\r
+her uncle, "it cannot be supposed but that he should request to speak\r
+with you alone, be it only for five minutes; a request too natural,\r
+a claim too just to be denied. But there is no time fixed; perhaps\r
+to-morrow, or whenever your spirits are composed enough. For the present\r
+you have only to tranquillise yourself. Check these tears; they do but\r
+exhaust you. If, as I am willing to suppose, you wish to shew me any\r
+observance, you will not give way to these emotions, but endeavour to\r
+reason yourself into a stronger frame of mind. I advise you to go out:\r
+the air will do you good; go out for an hour on the gravel; you will\r
+have the shrubbery to yourself, and will be the better for air and\r
+exercise. And, Fanny" (turning back again for a moment), "I shall make\r
+no mention below of what has passed; I shall not even tell your aunt\r
+Bertram. There is no occasion for spreading the disappointment; say\r
+nothing about it yourself."\r
+\r
+This was an order to be most joyfully obeyed; this was an act of\r
+kindness which Fanny felt at her heart. To be spared from her aunt\r
+Norris's interminable reproaches! he left her in a glow of gratitude.\r
+Anything might be bearable rather than such reproaches. Even to see Mr.\r
+Crawford would be less overpowering.\r
+\r
+She walked out directly, as her uncle recommended, and followed his\r
+advice throughout, as far as she could; did check her tears; did\r
+earnestly try to compose her spirits and strengthen her mind. She wished\r
+to prove to him that she did desire his comfort, and sought to regain\r
+his favour; and he had given her another strong motive for exertion, in\r
+keeping the whole affair from the knowledge of her aunts. Not to excite\r
+suspicion by her look or manner was now an object worth attaining; and\r
+she felt equal to almost anything that might save her from her aunt\r
+Norris.\r
+\r
+She was struck, quite struck, when, on returning from her walk and going\r
+into the East room again, the first thing which caught her eye was a\r
+fire lighted and burning. A fire! it seemed too much; just at that time\r
+to be giving her such an indulgence was exciting even painful gratitude.\r
+She wondered that Sir Thomas could have leisure to think of such a\r
+trifle again; but she soon found, from the voluntary information of the\r
+housemaid, who came in to attend it, that so it was to be every day. Sir\r
+Thomas had given orders for it.\r
+\r
+"I must be a brute, indeed, if I can be really ungrateful!" said she, in\r
+soliloquy. "Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!"\r
+\r
+She saw nothing more of her uncle, nor of her aunt Norris, till they met\r
+at dinner. Her uncle's behaviour to her was then as nearly as possible\r
+what it had been before; she was sure he did not mean there should be\r
+any change, and that it was only her own conscience that could fancy\r
+any; but her aunt was soon quarrelling with her; and when she found how\r
+much and how unpleasantly her having only walked out without her aunt's\r
+knowledge could be dwelt on, she felt all the reason she had to bless\r
+the kindness which saved her from the same spirit of reproach, exerted\r
+on a more momentous subject.\r
+\r
+"If I had known you were going out, I should have got you just to go\r
+as far as my house with some orders for Nanny," said she, "which I have\r
+since, to my very great inconvenience, been obliged to go and carry\r
+myself. I could very ill spare the time, and you might have saved me the\r
+trouble, if you would only have been so good as to let us know you were\r
+going out. It would have made no difference to you, I suppose, whether\r
+you had walked in the shrubbery or gone to my house."\r
+\r
+"I recommended the shrubbery to Fanny as the driest place," said Sir\r
+Thomas.\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Norris, with a moment's check, "that was very kind of\r
+you, Sir Thomas; but you do not know how dry the path is to my house.\r
+Fanny would have had quite as good a walk there, I assure you, with the\r
+advantage of being of some use, and obliging her aunt: it is all her\r
+fault. If she would but have let us know she was going out but there is\r
+a something about Fanny, I have often observed it before--she likes to\r
+go her own way to work; she does not like to be dictated to; she takes\r
+her own independent walk whenever she can; she certainly has a little\r
+spirit of secrecy, and independence, and nonsense, about her, which I\r
+would advise her to get the better of."\r
+\r
+As a general reflection on Fanny, Sir Thomas thought nothing could be\r
+more unjust, though he had been so lately expressing the same sentiments\r
+himself, and he tried to turn the conversation: tried repeatedly\r
+before he could succeed; for Mrs. Norris had not discernment enough to\r
+perceive, either now, or at any other time, to what degree he thought\r
+well of his niece, or how very far he was from wishing to have his own\r
+children's merits set off by the depreciation of hers. She was talking\r
+_at_ Fanny, and resenting this private walk half through the dinner.\r
+\r
+It was over, however, at last; and the evening set in with more\r
+composure to Fanny, and more cheerfulness of spirits than she could\r
+have hoped for after so stormy a morning; but she trusted, in the first\r
+place, that she had done right: that her judgment had not misled her.\r
+For the purity of her intentions she could answer; and she was willing\r
+to hope, secondly, that her uncle's displeasure was abating, and would\r
+abate farther as he considered the matter with more impartiality, and\r
+felt, as a good man must feel, how wretched, and how unpardonable, how\r
+hopeless, and how wicked it was to marry without affection.\r
+\r
+When the meeting with which she was threatened for the morrow was past,\r
+she could not but flatter herself that the subject would be finally\r
+concluded, and Mr. Crawford once gone from Mansfield, that everything\r
+would soon be as if no such subject had existed. She would not, could\r
+not believe, that Mr. Crawford's affection for her could distress him\r
+long; his mind was not of that sort. London would soon bring its cure.\r
+In London he would soon learn to wonder at his infatuation, and be\r
+thankful for the right reason in her which had saved him from its evil\r
+consequences.\r
+\r
+While Fanny's mind was engaged in these sort of hopes, her uncle was,\r
+soon after tea, called out of the room; an occurrence too common to\r
+strike her, and she thought nothing of it till the butler reappeared ten\r
+minutes afterwards, and advancing decidedly towards herself, said,\r
+"Sir Thomas wishes to speak with you, ma'am, in his own room." Then it\r
+occurred to her what might be going on; a suspicion rushed over her mind\r
+which drove the colour from her cheeks; but instantly rising, she was\r
+preparing to obey, when Mrs. Norris called out, "Stay, stay, Fanny! what\r
+are you about? where are you going? don't be in such a hurry. Depend\r
+upon it, it is not you who are wanted; depend upon it, it is me"\r
+(looking at the butler); "but you are so very eager to put yourself\r
+forward. What should Sir Thomas want you for? It is me, Baddeley, you\r
+mean; I am coming this moment. You mean me, Baddeley, I am sure; Sir\r
+Thomas wants me, not Miss Price."\r
+\r
+But Baddeley was stout. "No, ma'am, it is Miss Price; I am certain of\r
+its being Miss Price." And there was a half-smile with the words, which\r
+meant, "I do not think you would answer the purpose at all."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris, much discontented, was obliged to compose herself to work\r
+again; and Fanny, walking off in agitating consciousness, found herself,\r
+as she anticipated, in another minute alone with Mr. Crawford.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII\r
+\r
+The conference was neither so short nor so conclusive as the lady had\r
+designed. The gentleman was not so easily satisfied. He had all the\r
+disposition to persevere that Sir Thomas could wish him. He had vanity,\r
+which strongly inclined him in the first place to think she did love\r
+him, though she might not know it herself; and which, secondly, when\r
+constrained at last to admit that she did know her own present feelings,\r
+convinced him that he should be able in time to make those feelings what\r
+he wished.\r
+\r
+He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating\r
+on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her\r
+affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and\r
+determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing\r
+her to love him.\r
+\r
+He would not despair: he would not desist. He had every well-grounded\r
+reason for solid attachment; he knew her to have all the worth that\r
+could justify the warmest hopes of lasting happiness with her; her\r
+conduct at this very time, by speaking the disinterestedness and\r
+delicacy of her character (qualities which he believed most rare\r
+indeed), was of a sort to heighten all his wishes, and confirm all his\r
+resolutions. He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack.\r
+Of _that_ he had no suspicion. He considered her rather as one who\r
+had never thought on the subject enough to be in danger; who had been\r
+guarded by youth, a youth of mind as lovely as of person; whose modesty\r
+had prevented her from understanding his attentions, and who was still\r
+overpowered by the suddenness of addresses so wholly unexpected, and the\r
+novelty of a situation which her fancy had never taken into account.\r
+\r
+Must it not follow of course, that, when he was understood, he should\r
+succeed? He believed it fully. Love such as his, in a man like himself,\r
+must with perseverance secure a return, and at no great distance; and\r
+he had so much delight in the idea of obliging her to love him in a very\r
+short time, that her not loving him now was scarcely regretted. A little\r
+difficulty to be overcome was no evil to Henry Crawford. He rather\r
+derived spirits from it. He had been apt to gain hearts too easily. His\r
+situation was new and animating.\r
+\r
+To Fanny, however, who had known too much opposition all her life to\r
+find any charm in it, all this was unintelligible. She found that he did\r
+mean to persevere; but how he could, after such language from her as she\r
+felt herself obliged to use, was not to be understood. She told him that\r
+she did not love him, could not love him, was sure she never should love\r
+him; that such a change was quite impossible; that the subject was most\r
+painful to her; that she must entreat him never to mention it again, to\r
+allow her to leave him at once, and let it be considered as concluded\r
+for ever. And when farther pressed, had added, that in her opinion their\r
+dispositions were so totally dissimilar as to make mutual affection\r
+incompatible; and that they were unfitted for each other by nature,\r
+education, and habit. All this she had said, and with the earnestness\r
+of sincerity; yet this was not enough, for he immediately denied there\r
+being anything uncongenial in their characters, or anything unfriendly\r
+in their situations; and positively declared, that he would still love,\r
+and still hope!\r
+\r
+Fanny knew her own meaning, but was no judge of her own manner. Her\r
+manner was incurably gentle; and she was not aware how much it concealed\r
+the sternness of her purpose. Her diffidence, gratitude, and softness\r
+made every expression of indifference seem almost an effort of\r
+self-denial; seem, at least, to be giving nearly as much pain to herself\r
+as to him. Mr. Crawford was no longer the Mr. Crawford who, as the\r
+clandestine, insidious, treacherous admirer of Maria Bertram, had been\r
+her abhorrence, whom she had hated to see or to speak to, in whom she\r
+could believe no good quality to exist, and whose power, even of being\r
+agreeable, she had barely acknowledged. He was now the Mr. Crawford who\r
+was addressing herself with ardent, disinterested love; whose feelings\r
+were apparently become all that was honourable and upright, whose views\r
+of happiness were all fixed on a marriage of attachment; who was\r
+pouring out his sense of her merits, describing and describing again his\r
+affection, proving as far as words could prove it, and in the language,\r
+tone, and spirit of a man of talent too, that he sought her for her\r
+gentleness and her goodness; and to complete the whole, he was now the\r
+Mr. Crawford who had procured William's promotion!\r
+\r
+Here was a change, and here were claims which could not but operate!\r
+She might have disdained him in all the dignity of angry virtue, in\r
+the grounds of Sotherton, or the theatre at Mansfield Park; but he\r
+approached her now with rights that demanded different treatment.\r
+She must be courteous, and she must be compassionate. She must have\r
+a sensation of being honoured, and whether thinking of herself or her\r
+brother, she must have a strong feeling of gratitude. The effect of the\r
+whole was a manner so pitying and agitated, and words intermingled with\r
+her refusal so expressive of obligation and concern, that to a temper of\r
+vanity and hope like Crawford's, the truth, or at least the strength\r
+of her indifference, might well be questionable; and he was not so\r
+irrational as Fanny considered him, in the professions of persevering,\r
+assiduous, and not desponding attachment which closed the interview.\r
+\r
+It was with reluctance that he suffered her to go; but there was no look\r
+of despair in parting to belie his words, or give her hopes of his being\r
+less unreasonable than he professed himself.\r
+\r
+Now she was angry. Some resentment did arise at a perseverance so\r
+selfish and ungenerous. Here was again a want of delicacy and regard for\r
+others which had formerly so struck and disgusted her. Here was again\r
+a something of the same Mr. Crawford whom she had so reprobated before.\r
+How evidently was there a gross want of feeling and humanity where his\r
+own pleasure was concerned; and alas! how always known no principle to\r
+supply as a duty what the heart was deficient in! Had her own affections\r
+been as free as perhaps they ought to have been, he never could have\r
+engaged them.\r
+\r
+So thought Fanny, in good truth and sober sadness, as she sat musing\r
+over that too great indulgence and luxury of a fire upstairs: wondering\r
+at the past and present; wondering at what was yet to come, and in a\r
+nervous agitation which made nothing clear to her but the persuasion of\r
+her being never under any circumstances able to love Mr. Crawford, and\r
+the felicity of having a fire to sit over and think of it.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas was obliged, or obliged himself, to wait till the morrow for\r
+a knowledge of what had passed between the young people. He then saw\r
+Mr. Crawford, and received his account. The first feeling was\r
+disappointment: he had hoped better things; he had thought that an\r
+hour's entreaty from a young man like Crawford could not have worked so\r
+little change on a gentle-tempered girl like Fanny; but there was speedy\r
+comfort in the determined views and sanguine perseverance of the lover;\r
+and when seeing such confidence of success in the principal, Sir Thomas\r
+was soon able to depend on it himself.\r
+\r
+Nothing was omitted, on his side, of civility, compliment, or kindness,\r
+that might assist the plan. Mr. Crawford's steadiness was honoured, and\r
+Fanny was praised, and the connexion was still the most desirable in the\r
+world. At Mansfield Park Mr. Crawford would always be welcome; he had\r
+only to consult his own judgment and feelings as to the frequency of his\r
+visits, at present or in future. In all his niece's family and friends,\r
+there could be but one opinion, one wish on the subject; the influence\r
+of all who loved her must incline one way.\r
+\r
+Everything was said that could encourage, every encouragement received\r
+with grateful joy, and the gentlemen parted the best of friends.\r
+\r
+Satisfied that the cause was now on a footing the most proper and\r
+hopeful, Sir Thomas resolved to abstain from all farther importunity\r
+with his niece, and to shew no open interference. Upon her disposition\r
+he believed kindness might be the best way of working. Entreaty should\r
+be from one quarter only. The forbearance of her family on a point,\r
+respecting which she could be in no doubt of their wishes, might be\r
+their surest means of forwarding it. Accordingly, on this principle, Sir\r
+Thomas took the first opportunity of saying to her, with a mild gravity,\r
+intended to be overcoming, "Well, Fanny, I have seen Mr. Crawford again,\r
+and learn from him exactly how matters stand between you. He is a most\r
+extraordinary young man, and whatever be the event, you must feel that\r
+you have created an attachment of no common character; though, young\r
+as you are, and little acquainted with the transient, varying, unsteady\r
+nature of love, as it generally exists, you cannot be struck as I\r
+am with all that is wonderful in a perseverance of this sort against\r
+discouragement. With him it is entirely a matter of feeling: he claims\r
+no merit in it; perhaps is entitled to none. Yet, having chosen so\r
+well, his constancy has a respectable stamp. Had his choice been less\r
+unexceptionable, I should have condemned his persevering."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, sir," said Fanny, "I am very sorry that Mr. Crawford should\r
+continue to know that it is paying me a very great compliment, and I\r
+feel most undeservedly honoured; but I am so perfectly convinced, and I\r
+have told him so, that it never will be in my power--"\r
+\r
+"My dear," interrupted Sir Thomas, "there is no occasion for this. Your\r
+feelings are as well known to me as my wishes and regrets must be\r
+to you. There is nothing more to be said or done. From this hour the\r
+subject is never to be revived between us. You will have nothing to\r
+fear, or to be agitated about. You cannot suppose me capable of trying\r
+to persuade you to marry against your inclinations. Your happiness and\r
+advantage are all that I have in view, and nothing is required of you\r
+but to bear with Mr. Crawford's endeavours to convince you that they may\r
+not be incompatible with his. He proceeds at his own risk. You are on\r
+safe ground. I have engaged for your seeing him whenever he calls, as\r
+you might have done had nothing of this sort occurred. You will see\r
+him with the rest of us, in the same manner, and, as much as you\r
+can, dismissing the recollection of everything unpleasant. He leaves\r
+Northamptonshire so soon, that even this slight sacrifice cannot be\r
+often demanded. The future must be very uncertain. And now, my dear\r
+Fanny, this subject is closed between us."\r
+\r
+The promised departure was all that Fanny could think of with much\r
+satisfaction. Her uncle's kind expressions, however, and forbearing\r
+manner, were sensibly felt; and when she considered how much of the\r
+truth was unknown to him, she believed she had no right to wonder at\r
+the line of conduct he pursued. He, who had married a daughter to Mr.\r
+Rushworth: romantic delicacy was certainly not to be expected from him.\r
+She must do her duty, and trust that time might make her duty easier\r
+than it now was.\r
+\r
+She could not, though only eighteen, suppose Mr. Crawford's attachment\r
+would hold out for ever; she could not but imagine that steady,\r
+unceasing discouragement from herself would put an end to it in time.\r
+How much time she might, in her own fancy, allot for its dominion, is\r
+another concern. It would not be fair to inquire into a young lady's\r
+exact estimate of her own perfections.\r
+\r
+In spite of his intended silence, Sir Thomas found himself once more\r
+obliged to mention the subject to his niece, to prepare her briefly for\r
+its being imparted to her aunts; a measure which he would still have\r
+avoided, if possible, but which became necessary from the totally\r
+opposite feelings of Mr. Crawford as to any secrecy of proceeding. He\r
+had no idea of concealment. It was all known at the Parsonage, where\r
+he loved to talk over the future with both his sisters, and it would be\r
+rather gratifying to him to have enlightened witnesses of the progress\r
+of his success. When Sir Thomas understood this, he felt the necessity\r
+of making his own wife and sister-in-law acquainted with the business\r
+without delay; though, on Fanny's account, he almost dreaded the\r
+effect of the communication to Mrs. Norris as much as Fanny herself. He\r
+deprecated her mistaken but well-meaning zeal. Sir Thomas, indeed, was,\r
+by this time, not very far from classing Mrs. Norris as one of those\r
+well-meaning people who are always doing mistaken and very disagreeable\r
+things.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris, however, relieved him. He pressed for the strictest\r
+forbearance and silence towards their niece; she not only promised, but\r
+did observe it. She only looked her increased ill-will. Angry she was:\r
+bitterly angry; but she was more angry with Fanny for having received\r
+such an offer than for refusing it. It was an injury and affront to\r
+Julia, who ought to have been Mr. Crawford's choice; and, independently\r
+of that, she disliked Fanny, because she had neglected her; and she\r
+would have grudged such an elevation to one whom she had been always\r
+trying to depress.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas gave her more credit for discretion on the occasion than she\r
+deserved; and Fanny could have blessed her for allowing her only to see\r
+her displeasure, and not to hear it.\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram took it differently. She had been a beauty, and a\r
+prosperous beauty, all her life; and beauty and wealth were all that\r
+excited her respect. To know Fanny to be sought in marriage by a man of\r
+fortune, raised her, therefore, very much in her opinion. By convincing\r
+her that Fanny _was_ very pretty, which she had been doubting about\r
+before, and that she would be advantageously married, it made her feel a\r
+sort of credit in calling her niece.\r
+\r
+"Well, Fanny," said she, as soon as they were alone together afterwards,\r
+and she really had known something like impatience to be alone with her,\r
+and her countenance, as she spoke, had extraordinary animation; "Well,\r
+Fanny, I have had a very agreeable surprise this morning. I must just\r
+speak of it _once_, I told Sir Thomas I must _once_, and then I\r
+shall have done. I give you joy, my dear niece." And looking at her\r
+complacently, she added, "Humph, we certainly are a handsome family!"\r
+\r
+Fanny coloured, and doubted at first what to say; when, hoping to assail\r
+her on her vulnerable side, she presently answered--\r
+\r
+"My dear aunt, _you_ cannot wish me to do differently from what I have\r
+done, I am sure. _You_ cannot wish me to marry; for you would miss me,\r
+should not you? Yes, I am sure you would miss me too much for that."\r
+\r
+"No, my dear, I should not think of missing you, when such an offer as\r
+this comes in your way. I could do very well without you, if you were\r
+married to a man of such good estate as Mr. Crawford. And you must be\r
+aware, Fanny, that it is every young woman's duty to accept such a very\r
+unexceptionable offer as this."\r
+\r
+This was almost the only rule of conduct, the only piece of advice,\r
+which Fanny had ever received from her aunt in the course of eight years\r
+and a half. It silenced her. She felt how unprofitable contention would\r
+be. If her aunt's feelings were against her, nothing could be hoped from\r
+attacking her understanding. Lady Bertram was quite talkative.\r
+\r
+"I will tell you what, Fanny," said she, "I am sure he fell in love with\r
+you at the ball; I am sure the mischief was done that evening. You did\r
+look remarkably well. Everybody said so. Sir Thomas said so. And you\r
+know you had Chapman to help you to dress. I am very glad I sent\r
+Chapman to you. I shall tell Sir Thomas that I am sure it was done\r
+that evening." And still pursuing the same cheerful thoughts, she soon\r
+afterwards added, "And will tell you what, Fanny, which is more than I\r
+did for Maria: the next time Pug has a litter you shall have a puppy."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV\r
+\r
+Edmund had great things to hear on his return. Many surprises were\r
+awaiting him. The first that occurred was not least in interest: the\r
+appearance of Henry Crawford and his sister walking together through the\r
+village as he rode into it. He had concluded--he had meant them to be\r
+far distant. His absence had been extended beyond a fortnight purposely\r
+to avoid Miss Crawford. He was returning to Mansfield with spirits ready\r
+to feed on melancholy remembrances, and tender associations, when her\r
+own fair self was before him, leaning on her brother's arm, and he found\r
+himself receiving a welcome, unquestionably friendly, from the woman\r
+whom, two moments before, he had been thinking of as seventy miles off,\r
+and as farther, much farther, from him in inclination than any distance\r
+could express.\r
+\r
+Her reception of him was of a sort which he could not have hoped\r
+for, had he expected to see her. Coming as he did from such a purport\r
+fulfilled as had taken him away, he would have expected anything rather\r
+than a look of satisfaction, and words of simple, pleasant meaning.\r
+It was enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the\r
+properest state for feeling the full value of the other joyful surprises\r
+at hand.\r
+\r
+William's promotion, with all its particulars, he was soon master of;\r
+and with such a secret provision of comfort within his own breast to\r
+help the joy, he found in it a source of most gratifying sensation and\r
+unvarying cheerfulness all dinner-time.\r
+\r
+After dinner, when he and his father were alone, he had Fanny's history;\r
+and then all the great events of the last fortnight, and the present\r
+situation of matters at Mansfield were known to him.\r
+\r
+Fanny suspected what was going on. They sat so much longer than usual in\r
+the dining-parlour, that she was sure they must be talking of her; and\r
+when tea at last brought them away, and she was to be seen by Edmund\r
+again, she felt dreadfully guilty. He came to her, sat down by her, took\r
+her hand, and pressed it kindly; and at that moment she thought that,\r
+but for the occupation and the scene which the tea-things afforded, she\r
+must have betrayed her emotion in some unpardonable excess.\r
+\r
+He was not intending, however, by such action, to be conveying to her\r
+that unqualified approbation and encouragement which her hopes drew\r
+from it. It was designed only to express his participation in all that\r
+interested her, and to tell her that he had been hearing what quickened\r
+every feeling of affection. He was, in fact, entirely on his father's\r
+side of the question. His surprise was not so great as his father's at\r
+her refusing Crawford, because, so far from supposing her to consider\r
+him with anything like a preference, he had always believed it to\r
+be rather the reverse, and could imagine her to be taken perfectly\r
+unprepared, but Sir Thomas could not regard the connexion as more\r
+desirable than he did. It had every recommendation to him; and while\r
+honouring her for what she had done under the influence of her present\r
+indifference, honouring her in rather stronger terms than Sir Thomas\r
+could quite echo, he was most earnest in hoping, and sanguine in\r
+believing, that it would be a match at last, and that, united by mutual\r
+affection, it would appear that their dispositions were as exactly\r
+fitted to make them blessed in each other, as he was now beginning\r
+seriously to consider them. Crawford had been too precipitate. He had\r
+not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end.\r
+With such powers as his, however, and such a disposition as hers, Edmund\r
+trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion. Meanwhile,\r
+he saw enough of Fanny's embarrassment to make him scrupulously guard\r
+against exciting it a second time, by any word, or look, or movement.\r
+\r
+Crawford called the next day, and on the score of Edmund's return, Sir\r
+Thomas felt himself more than licensed to ask him to stay dinner; it was\r
+really a necessary compliment. He staid of course, and Edmund had then\r
+ample opportunity for observing how he sped with Fanny, and what degree\r
+of immediate encouragement for him might be extracted from her manners;\r
+and it was so little, so very, very little--every chance, every\r
+possibility of it, resting upon her embarrassment only; if there was\r
+not hope in her confusion, there was hope in nothing else--that he was\r
+almost ready to wonder at his friend's perseverance. Fanny was worth it\r
+all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, every exertion of\r
+mind, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any woman\r
+breathing, without something more to warm his courage than his eyes\r
+could discern in hers. He was very willing to hope that Crawford saw\r
+clearer, and this was the most comfortable conclusion for his friend\r
+that he could come to from all that he observed to pass before, and at,\r
+and after dinner.\r
+\r
+In the evening a few circumstances occurred which he thought more\r
+promising. When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his mother\r
+and Fanny were sitting as intently and silently at work as if there\r
+were nothing else to care for. Edmund could not help noticing their\r
+apparently deep tranquillity.\r
+\r
+"We have not been so silent all the time," replied his mother. "Fanny\r
+has been reading to me, and only put the book down upon hearing you\r
+coming." And sure enough there was a book on the table which had the air\r
+of being very recently closed: a volume of Shakespeare. "She often\r
+reads to me out of those books; and she was in the middle of a very\r
+fine speech of that man's--what's his name, Fanny?--when we heard your\r
+footsteps."\r
+\r
+Crawford took the volume. "Let me have the pleasure of finishing that\r
+speech to your ladyship," said he. "I shall find it immediately." And by\r
+carefully giving way to the inclination of the leaves, he did find it,\r
+or within a page or two, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram, who\r
+assured him, as soon as he mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey, that\r
+he had got the very speech. Not a look or an offer of help had Fanny\r
+given; not a syllable for or against. All her attention was for her\r
+work. She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else. But taste\r
+was too strong in her. She could not abstract her mind five minutes: she\r
+was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her pleasure in good\r
+reading extreme. To _good_ reading, however, she had been long used:\r
+her uncle read well, her cousins all, Edmund very well, but in Mr.\r
+Crawford's reading there was a variety of excellence beyond what she had\r
+ever met with. The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all\r
+were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, the happiest power of\r
+jumping and guessing, he could always alight at will on the best scene,\r
+or the best speeches of each; and whether it were dignity, or pride, or\r
+tenderness, or remorse, or whatever were to be expressed, he could do\r
+it with equal beauty. It was truly dramatic. His acting had first taught\r
+Fanny what pleasure a play might give, and his reading brought all his\r
+acting before her again; nay, perhaps with greater enjoyment, for it\r
+came unexpectedly, and with no such drawback as she had been used to\r
+suffer in seeing him on the stage with Miss Bertram.\r
+\r
+Edmund watched the progress of her attention, and was amused and\r
+gratified by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needlework, which\r
+at the beginning seemed to occupy her totally: how it fell from her hand\r
+while she sat motionless over it, and at last, how the eyes which had\r
+appeared so studiously to avoid him throughout the day were turned and\r
+fixed on Crawford--fixed on him for minutes, fixed on him, in short,\r
+till the attraction drew Crawford's upon her, and the book was closed,\r
+and the charm was broken. Then she was shrinking again into herself,\r
+and blushing and working as hard as ever; but it had been enough to give\r
+Edmund encouragement for his friend, and as he cordially thanked him, he\r
+hoped to be expressing Fanny's secret feelings too.\r
+\r
+"That play must be a favourite with you," said he; "you read as if you\r
+knew it well."\r
+\r
+"It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour," replied Crawford;\r
+"but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand before\r
+since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I have heard\r
+of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare\r
+one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an\r
+Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread\r
+abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by\r
+instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his\r
+plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately."\r
+\r
+"No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree," said Edmund,\r
+"from one's earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted\r
+by everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk\r
+Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions; but\r
+this is totally distinct from giving his sense as you gave it. To know\r
+him in bits and scraps is common enough; to know him pretty thoroughly\r
+is, perhaps, not uncommon; but to read him well aloud is no everyday\r
+talent."\r
+\r
+"Sir, you do me honour," was Crawford's answer, with a bow of mock\r
+gravity.\r
+\r
+Both gentlemen had a glance at Fanny, to see if a word of accordant\r
+praise could be extorted from her; yet both feeling that it could not\r
+be. Her praise had been given in her attention; _that_ must content\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Lady Bertram's admiration was expressed, and strongly too. "It was\r
+really like being at a play," said she. "I wish Sir Thomas had been\r
+here."\r
+\r
+Crawford was excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her\r
+incompetency and languor, could feel this, the inference of what her\r
+niece, alive and enlightened as she was, must feel, was elevating.\r
+\r
+"You have a great turn for acting, I am sure, Mr. Crawford," said her\r
+ladyship soon afterwards; "and I will tell you what, I think you will\r
+have a theatre, some time or other, at your house in Norfolk. I mean\r
+when you are settled there. I do indeed. I think you will fit up a\r
+theatre at your house in Norfolk."\r
+\r
+"Do you, ma'am?" cried he, with quickness. "No, no, that will never be.\r
+Your ladyship is quite mistaken. No theatre at Everingham! Oh no!" And\r
+he looked at Fanny with an expressive smile, which evidently meant,\r
+"That lady will never allow a theatre at Everingham."\r
+\r
+Edmund saw it all, and saw Fanny so determined _not_ to see it, as to\r
+make it clear that the voice was enough to convey the full meaning of\r
+the protestation; and such a quick consciousness of compliment, such a\r
+ready comprehension of a hint, he thought, was rather favourable than\r
+not.\r
+\r
+The subject of reading aloud was farther discussed. The two young men\r
+were the only talkers, but they, standing by the fire, talked over the\r
+too common neglect of the qualification, the total inattention to it,\r
+in the ordinary school-system for boys, the consequently natural, yet in\r
+some instances almost unnatural, degree of ignorance and uncouthness\r
+of men, of sensible and well-informed men, when suddenly called to the\r
+necessity of reading aloud, which had fallen within their notice, giving\r
+instances of blunders, and failures with their secondary causes, the\r
+want of management of the voice, of proper modulation and emphasis, of\r
+foresight and judgment, all proceeding from the first cause: want of\r
+early attention and habit; and Fanny was listening again with great\r
+entertainment.\r
+\r
+"Even in my profession," said Edmund, with a smile, "how little the\r
+art of reading has been studied! how little a clear manner, and good\r
+delivery, have been attended to! I speak rather of the past, however,\r
+than the present. There is now a spirit of improvement abroad; but among\r
+those who were ordained twenty, thirty, forty years ago, the larger\r
+number, to judge by their performance, must have thought reading was\r
+reading, and preaching was preaching. It is different now. The subject\r
+is more justly considered. It is felt that distinctness and energy may\r
+have weight in recommending the most solid truths; and besides, there is\r
+more general observation and taste, a more critical knowledge diffused\r
+than formerly; in every congregation there is a larger proportion who\r
+know a little of the matter, and who can judge and criticise."\r
+\r
+Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination;\r
+and upon this being understood, he had a variety of questions from\r
+Crawford as to his feelings and success; questions, which being made,\r
+though with the vivacity of friendly interest and quick taste, without\r
+any touch of that spirit of banter or air of levity which Edmund knew to\r
+be most offensive to Fanny, he had true pleasure in satisfying; and\r
+when Crawford proceeded to ask his opinion and give his own as to the\r
+properest manner in which particular passages in the service should be\r
+delivered, shewing it to be a subject on which he had thought before,\r
+and thought with judgment, Edmund was still more and more pleased. This\r
+would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by all that\r
+gallantry and wit and good-nature together could do; or, at least,\r
+she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of\r
+sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects.\r
+\r
+"Our liturgy," observed Crawford, "has beauties, which not even a\r
+careless, slovenly style of reading can destroy; but it has also\r
+redundancies and repetitions which require good reading not to be felt.\r
+For myself, at least, I must confess being not always so attentive as I\r
+ought to be" (here was a glance at Fanny); "that nineteen times out of\r
+twenty I am thinking how such a prayer ought to be read, and longing to\r
+have it to read myself. Did you speak?" stepping eagerly to Fanny, and\r
+addressing her in a softened voice; and upon her saying "No," he added,\r
+"Are you sure you did not speak? I saw your lips move. I fancied you\r
+might be going to tell me I ought to be more attentive, and not _allow_\r
+my thoughts to wander. Are not you going to tell me so?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to--even supposing--"\r
+\r
+She stopt, felt herself getting into a puzzle, and could not be\r
+prevailed on to add another word, not by dint of several minutes of\r
+supplication and waiting. He then returned to his former station, and\r
+went on as if there had been no such tender interruption.\r
+\r
+"A sermon, well delivered, is more uncommon even than prayers well read.\r
+A sermon, good in itself, is no rare thing. It is more difficult\r
+to speak well than to compose well; that is, the rules and trick of\r
+composition are oftener an object of study. A thoroughly good sermon,\r
+thoroughly well delivered, is a capital gratification. I can never hear\r
+such a one without the greatest admiration and respect, and more than\r
+half a mind to take orders and preach myself. There is something in the\r
+eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled\r
+to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect\r
+such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long\r
+worn threadbare in all common hands; who can say anything new or\r
+striking, anything that rouses the attention without offending the\r
+taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one\r
+could not, in his public capacity, honour enough. I should like to be\r
+such a man."\r
+\r
+Edmund laughed.\r
+\r
+"I should indeed. I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my\r
+life without a sort of envy. But then, I must have a London audience.\r
+I could not preach but to the educated; to those who were capable of\r
+estimating my composition. And I do not know that I should be fond of\r
+preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice in the spring,\r
+after being anxiously expected for half a dozen Sundays together; but\r
+not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy."\r
+\r
+Here Fanny, who could not but listen, involuntarily shook her head,\r
+and Crawford was instantly by her side again, entreating to know her\r
+meaning; and as Edmund perceived, by his drawing in a chair, and sitting\r
+down close by her, that it was to be a very thorough attack, that looks\r
+and undertones were to be well tried, he sank as quietly as possible\r
+into a corner, turned his back, and took up a newspaper, very sincerely\r
+wishing that dear little Fanny might be persuaded into explaining away\r
+that shake of the head to the satisfaction of her ardent lover; and as\r
+earnestly trying to bury every sound of the business from himself in\r
+murmurs of his own, over the various advertisements of "A most desirable\r
+Estate in South Wales"; "To Parents and Guardians"; and a "Capital\r
+season'd Hunter."\r
+\r
+Fanny, meanwhile, vexed with herself for not having been as motionless\r
+as she was speechless, and grieved to the heart to see Edmund's\r
+arrangements, was trying by everything in the power of her modest,\r
+gentle nature, to repulse Mr. Crawford, and avoid both his looks and\r
+inquiries; and he, unrepulsable, was persisting in both.\r
+\r
+"What did that shake of the head mean?" said he. "What was it meant to\r
+express? Disapprobation, I fear. But of what? What had I been saying\r
+to displease you? Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly,\r
+irreverently on the subject? Only tell me if I was. Only tell me if\r
+I was wrong. I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you; for one\r
+moment put down your work. What did that shake of the head mean?"\r
+\r
+In vain was her "Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford," repeated twice\r
+over; and in vain did she try to move away. In the same low, eager\r
+voice, and the same close neighbourhood, he went on, reurging the same\r
+questions as before. She grew more agitated and displeased.\r
+\r
+"How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can--"\r
+\r
+"Do I astonish you?" said he. "Do you wonder? Is there anything in\r
+my present entreaty that you do not understand? I will explain to you\r
+instantly all that makes me urge you in this manner, all that gives me\r
+an interest in what you look and do, and excites my present curiosity. I\r
+will not leave you to wonder long."\r
+\r
+In spite of herself, she could not help half a smile, but she said\r
+nothing.\r
+\r
+"You shook your head at my acknowledging that I should not like to\r
+engage in the duties of a clergyman always for a constancy. Yes, that\r
+was the word. Constancy: I am not afraid of the word. I would spell it,\r
+read it, write it with anybody. I see nothing alarming in the word. Did\r
+you think I ought?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps, sir," said Fanny, wearied at last into speaking--"perhaps,\r
+sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as\r
+you seemed to do at that moment."\r
+\r
+Crawford, delighted to get her to speak at any rate, was determined\r
+to keep it up; and poor Fanny, who had hoped to silence him by such an\r
+extremity of reproof, found herself sadly mistaken, and that it was only\r
+a change from one object of curiosity and one set of words to another.\r
+He had always something to entreat the explanation of. The opportunity\r
+was too fair. None such had occurred since his seeing her in her uncle's\r
+room, none such might occur again before his leaving Mansfield. Lady\r
+Bertram's being just on the other side of the table was a trifle,\r
+for she might always be considered as only half-awake, and Edmund's\r
+advertisements were still of the first utility.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant\r
+answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly\r
+your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of\r
+the moment, easily tempted, easily put aside. With such an opinion, no\r
+wonder that. But we shall see. It is not by protestations that I shall\r
+endeavour to convince you I am wronged; it is not by telling you that my\r
+affections are steady. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance,\r
+time shall speak for me. _They_ shall prove that, as far as you can be\r
+deserved by anybody, I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior\r
+in merit; all _that_ I know. You have qualities which I had not before\r
+supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some\r
+touches of the angel in you beyond what--not merely beyond what one\r
+sees, because one never sees anything like it--but beyond what one\r
+fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality\r
+of merit that you can be won. That is out of the question. It is he\r
+who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most\r
+devotedly, that has the best right to a return. There I build my\r
+confidence. By that right I do and will deserve you; and when once\r
+convinced that my attachment is what I declare it, I know you too well\r
+not to entertain the warmest hopes. Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay"\r
+(seeing her draw back displeased), "forgive me. Perhaps I have as yet\r
+no right; but by what other name can I call you? Do you suppose you are\r
+ever present to my imagination under any other? No, it is 'Fanny' that\r
+I think of all day, and dream of all night. You have given the name such\r
+reality of sweetness, that nothing else can now be descriptive of you."\r
+\r
+Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, or have refrained from\r
+at least trying to get away in spite of all the too public opposition\r
+she foresaw to it, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief,\r
+the very sound which she had been long watching for, and long thinking\r
+strangely delayed.\r
+\r
+The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and\r
+cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her from a grievous\r
+imprisonment of body and mind. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was\r
+at liberty, she was busy, she was protected.\r
+\r
+Edmund was not sorry to be admitted again among the number of those who\r
+might speak and hear. But though the conference had seemed full long to\r
+him, and though on looking at Fanny he saw rather a flush of vexation,\r
+he inclined to hope that so much could not have been said and listened\r
+to without some profit to the speaker.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXV\r
+\r
+Edmund had determined that it belonged entirely to Fanny to chuse\r
+whether her situation with regard to Crawford should be mentioned\r
+between them or not; and that if she did not lead the way, it should\r
+never be touched on by him; but after a day or two of mutual reserve, he\r
+was induced by his father to change his mind, and try what his influence\r
+might do for his friend.\r
+\r
+A day, and a very early day, was actually fixed for the Crawfords'\r
+departure; and Sir Thomas thought it might be as well to make one\r
+more effort for the young man before he left Mansfield, that all his\r
+professions and vows of unshaken attachment might have as much hope to\r
+sustain them as possible.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas was most cordially anxious for the perfection of Mr.\r
+Crawford's character in that point. He wished him to be a model of\r
+constancy; and fancied the best means of effecting it would be by not\r
+trying him too long.\r
+\r
+Edmund was not unwilling to be persuaded to engage in the business; he\r
+wanted to know Fanny's feelings. She had been used to consult him in\r
+every difficulty, and he loved her too well to bear to be denied her\r
+confidence now; he hoped to be of service to her, he thought he must be\r
+of service to her; whom else had she to open her heart to? If she did\r
+not need counsel, she must need the comfort of communication. Fanny\r
+estranged from him, silent and reserved, was an unnatural state of\r
+things; a state which he must break through, and which he could easily\r
+learn to think she was wanting him to break through.\r
+\r
+"I will speak to her, sir: I will take the first opportunity of speaking\r
+to her alone," was the result of such thoughts as these; and upon Sir\r
+Thomas's information of her being at that very time walking alone in the\r
+shrubbery, he instantly joined her.\r
+\r
+"I am come to walk with you, Fanny," said he. "Shall I?" Drawing her\r
+arm within his. "It is a long while since we have had a comfortable walk\r
+together."\r
+\r
+She assented to it all rather by look than word. Her spirits were low.\r
+\r
+"But, Fanny," he presently added, "in order to have a comfortable walk,\r
+something more is necessary than merely pacing this gravel together. You\r
+must talk to me. I know you have something on your mind. I know what you\r
+are thinking of. You cannot suppose me uninformed. Am I to hear of it\r
+from everybody but Fanny herself?"\r
+\r
+Fanny, at once agitated and dejected, replied, "If you hear of it from\r
+everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell."\r
+\r
+"Not of facts, perhaps; but of feelings, Fanny. No one but you can tell\r
+me them. I do not mean to press you, however. If it is not what you wish\r
+yourself, I have done. I had thought it might be a relief."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid we think too differently for me to find any relief in\r
+talking of what I feel."\r
+\r
+"Do you suppose that we think differently? I have no idea of it. I dare\r
+say that, on a comparison of our opinions, they would be found as much\r
+alike as they have been used to be: to the point--I consider Crawford's\r
+proposals as most advantageous and desirable, if you could return his\r
+affection. I consider it as most natural that all your family should\r
+wish you could return it; but that, as you cannot, you have done exactly\r
+as you ought in refusing him. Can there be any disagreement between us\r
+here?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no! But I thought you blamed me. I thought you were against me. This\r
+is such a comfort!"\r
+\r
+"This comfort you might have had sooner, Fanny, had you sought it. But\r
+how could you possibly suppose me against you? How could you imagine me\r
+an advocate for marriage without love? Were I even careless in general\r
+on such matters, how could you imagine me so where your happiness was at\r
+stake?"\r
+\r
+"My uncle thought me wrong, and I knew he had been talking to you."\r
+\r
+"As far as you have gone, Fanny, I think you perfectly right. I may be\r
+sorry, I may be surprised--though hardly _that_, for you had not had\r
+time to attach yourself--but I think you perfectly right. Can it admit\r
+of a question? It is disgraceful to us if it does. You did not love him;\r
+nothing could have justified your accepting him."\r
+\r
+Fanny had not felt so comfortable for days and days.\r
+\r
+"So far your conduct has been faultless, and they were quite mistaken\r
+who wished you to do otherwise. But the matter does not end here.\r
+Crawford's is no common attachment; he perseveres, with the hope of\r
+creating that regard which had not been created before. This, we know,\r
+must be a work of time. But" (with an affectionate smile) "let him\r
+succeed at last, Fanny, let him succeed at last. You have proved\r
+yourself upright and disinterested, prove yourself grateful and\r
+tender-hearted; and then you will be the perfect model of a woman which\r
+I have always believed you born for."\r
+\r
+"Oh! never, never, never! he never will succeed with me." And she spoke\r
+with a warmth which quite astonished Edmund, and which she blushed at\r
+the recollection of herself, when she saw his look, and heard him\r
+reply, "Never! Fanny!--so very determined and positive! This is not like\r
+yourself, your rational self."\r
+\r
+"I mean," she cried, sorrowfully correcting herself, "that I _think_ I\r
+never shall, as far as the future can be answered for; I think I never\r
+shall return his regard."\r
+\r
+"I must hope better things. I am aware, more aware than Crawford can be,\r
+that the man who means to make you love him (you having due notice of\r
+his intentions) must have very uphill work, for there are all your early\r
+attachments and habits in battle array; and before he can get your heart\r
+for his own use he has to unfasten it from all the holds upon things\r
+animate and inanimate, which so many years' growth have confirmed, and\r
+which are considerably tightened for the moment by the very idea\r
+of separation. I know that the apprehension of being forced to quit\r
+Mansfield will for a time be arming you against him. I wish he had not\r
+been obliged to tell you what he was trying for. I wish he had known you\r
+as well as I do, Fanny. Between us, I think we should have won you. My\r
+theoretical and his practical knowledge together could not have failed.\r
+He should have worked upon my plans. I must hope, however, that time,\r
+proving him (as I firmly believe it will) to deserve you by his steady\r
+affection, will give him his reward. I cannot suppose that you have not\r
+the _wish_ to love him--the natural wish of gratitude. You must have\r
+some feeling of that sort. You must be sorry for your own indifference."\r
+\r
+"We are so totally unlike," said Fanny, avoiding a direct answer, "we\r
+are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that\r
+I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy\r
+together, even if I _could_ like him. There never were two people more\r
+dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable."\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken, Fanny. The dissimilarity is not so strong. You are\r
+quite enough alike. You _have_ tastes in common. You have moral and\r
+literary tastes in common. You have both warm hearts and benevolent\r
+feelings; and, Fanny, who that heard him read, and saw you listen to\r
+Shakespeare the other night, will think you unfitted as companions? You\r
+forget yourself: there is a decided difference in your tempers, I allow.\r
+He is lively, you are serious; but so much the better: his spirits will\r
+support yours. It is your disposition to be easily dejected and to fancy\r
+difficulties greater than they are. His cheerfulness will counteract\r
+this. He sees difficulties nowhere: and his pleasantness and gaiety will\r
+be a constant support to you. Your being so far unlike, Fanny, does not\r
+in the smallest degree make against the probability of your happiness\r
+together: do not imagine it. I am myself convinced that it is rather a\r
+favourable circumstance. I am perfectly persuaded that the tempers\r
+had better be unlike: I mean unlike in the flow of the spirits, in\r
+the manners, in the inclination for much or little company, in the\r
+propensity to talk or to be silent, to be grave or to be gay. Some\r
+opposition here is, I am thoroughly convinced, friendly to matrimonial\r
+happiness. I exclude extremes, of course; and a very close resemblance\r
+in all those points would be the likeliest way to produce an extreme.\r
+A counteraction, gentle and continual, is the best safeguard of manners\r
+and conduct."\r
+\r
+Full well could Fanny guess where his thoughts were now: Miss Crawford's\r
+power was all returning. He had been speaking of her cheerfully from the\r
+hour of his coming home. His avoiding her was quite at an end. He had\r
+dined at the Parsonage only the preceding day.\r
+\r
+After leaving him to his happier thoughts for some minutes, Fanny,\r
+feeling it due to herself, returned to Mr. Crawford, and said, "It\r
+is not merely in _temper_ that I consider him as totally unsuited to\r
+myself; though, in _that_ respect, I think the difference between us too\r
+great, infinitely too great: his spirits often oppress me; but there is\r
+something in him which I object to still more. I must say, cousin, that\r
+I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the\r
+time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared to me, so\r
+very improperly and unfeelingly--I may speak of it now because it is all\r
+over--so improperly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care how he\r
+exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which--in\r
+short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which will\r
+never be got over."\r
+\r
+"My dear Fanny," replied Edmund, scarcely hearing her to the end, "let\r
+us not, any of us, be judged by what we appeared at that period of\r
+general folly. The time of the play is a time which I hate to recollect.\r
+Maria was wrong, Crawford was wrong, we were all wrong together; but\r
+none so wrong as myself. Compared with me, all the rest were blameless.\r
+I was playing the fool with my eyes open."\r
+\r
+"As a bystander," said Fanny, "perhaps I saw more than you did; and I do\r
+think that Mr. Rushworth was sometimes very jealous."\r
+\r
+"Very possibly. No wonder. Nothing could be more improper than the whole\r
+business. I am shocked whenever I think that Maria could be capable of\r
+it; but, if she could undertake the part, we must not be surprised at\r
+the rest."\r
+\r
+"Before the play, I am much mistaken if _Julia_ did not think he was\r
+paying her attentions."\r
+\r
+"Julia! I have heard before from some one of his being in love with\r
+Julia; but I could never see anything of it. And, Fanny, though I hope I\r
+do justice to my sisters' good qualities, I think it very possible that\r
+they might, one or both, be more desirous of being admired by Crawford,\r
+and might shew that desire rather more unguardedly than was perfectly\r
+prudent. I can remember that they were evidently fond of his society;\r
+and with such encouragement, a man like Crawford, lively, and it may\r
+be, a little unthinking, might be led on to--there could be nothing very\r
+striking, because it is clear that he had no pretensions: his heart was\r
+reserved for you. And I must say, that its being for you has raised him\r
+inconceivably in my opinion. It does him the highest honour; it shews\r
+his proper estimation of the blessing of domestic happiness and pure\r
+attachment. It proves him unspoilt by his uncle. It proves him, in\r
+short, everything that I had been used to wish to believe him, and\r
+feared he was not."\r
+\r
+"I am persuaded that he does not think, as he ought, on serious\r
+subjects."\r
+\r
+"Say, rather, that he has not thought at all upon serious subjects,\r
+which I believe to be a good deal the case. How could it be otherwise,\r
+with such an education and adviser? Under the disadvantages, indeed,\r
+which both have had, is it not wonderful that they should be what they\r
+are? Crawford's _feelings_, I am ready to acknowledge, have hitherto\r
+been too much his guides. Happily, those feelings have generally been\r
+good. You will supply the rest; and a most fortunate man he is to attach\r
+himself to such a creature--to a woman who, firm as a rock in her own\r
+principles, has a gentleness of character so well adapted to recommend\r
+them. He has chosen his partner, indeed, with rare felicity. He will\r
+make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make\r
+him everything."\r
+\r
+"I would not engage in such a charge," cried Fanny, in a shrinking\r
+accent; "in such an office of high responsibility!"\r
+\r
+"As usual, believing yourself unequal to anything! fancying everything\r
+too much for you! Well, though I may not be able to persuade you into\r
+different feelings, you will be persuaded into them, I trust. I confess\r
+myself sincerely anxious that you may. I have no common interest in\r
+Crawford's well-doing. Next to your happiness, Fanny, his has the first\r
+claim on me. You are aware of my having no common interest in Crawford."\r
+\r
+Fanny was too well aware of it to have anything to say; and they walked\r
+on together some fifty yards in mutual silence and abstraction. Edmund\r
+first began again--\r
+\r
+"I was very much pleased by her manner of speaking of it yesterday,\r
+particularly pleased, because I had not depended upon her seeing\r
+everything in so just a light. I knew she was very fond of you; but yet\r
+I was afraid of her not estimating your worth to her brother quite as\r
+it deserved, and of her regretting that he had not rather fixed on\r
+some woman of distinction or fortune. I was afraid of the bias of those\r
+worldly maxims, which she has been too much used to hear. But it was\r
+very different. She spoke of you, Fanny, just as she ought. She desires\r
+the connexion as warmly as your uncle or myself. We had a long talk\r
+about it. I should not have mentioned the subject, though very anxious\r
+to know her sentiments; but I had not been in the room five minutes\r
+before she began introducing it with all that openness of heart, and\r
+sweet peculiarity of manner, that spirit and ingenuousness which are so\r
+much a part of herself. Mrs. Grant laughed at her for her rapidity."\r
+\r
+"Was Mrs. Grant in the room, then?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, when I reached the house I found the two sisters together by\r
+themselves; and when once we had begun, we had not done with you, Fanny,\r
+till Crawford and Dr. Grant came in."\r
+\r
+"It is above a week since I saw Miss Crawford."\r
+\r
+"Yes, she laments it; yet owns it may have been best. You will see her,\r
+however, before she goes. She is very angry with you, Fanny; you must be\r
+prepared for that. She calls herself very angry, but you can imagine her\r
+anger. It is the regret and disappointment of a sister, who thinks her\r
+brother has a right to everything he may wish for, at the first moment.\r
+She is hurt, as you would be for William; but she loves and esteems you\r
+with all her heart."\r
+\r
+"I knew she would be very angry with me."\r
+\r
+"My dearest Fanny," cried Edmund, pressing her arm closer to him, "do\r
+not let the idea of her anger distress you. It is anger to be talked\r
+of rather than felt. Her heart is made for love and kindness, not for\r
+resentment. I wish you could have overheard her tribute of praise;\r
+I wish you could have seen her countenance, when she said that you\r
+_should_ be Henry's wife. And I observed that she always spoke of you\r
+as 'Fanny,' which she was never used to do; and it had a sound of most\r
+sisterly cordiality."\r
+\r
+"And Mrs. Grant, did she say--did she speak; was she there all the\r
+time?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, she was agreeing exactly with her sister. The surprise of your\r
+refusal, Fanny, seems to have been unbounded. That you could refuse such\r
+a man as Henry Crawford seems more than they can understand. I said what\r
+I could for you; but in good truth, as they stated the case--you must\r
+prove yourself to be in your senses as soon as you can by a different\r
+conduct; nothing else will satisfy them. But this is teasing you. I have\r
+done. Do not turn away from me."\r
+\r
+"I _should_ have thought," said Fanny, after a pause of recollection and\r
+exertion, "that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man's\r
+not being approved, not being loved by some one of her sex at least, let\r
+him be ever so generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections\r
+in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man\r
+must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself. But,\r
+even supposing it is so, allowing Mr. Crawford to have all the claims\r
+which his sisters think he has, how was I to be prepared to meet him\r
+with any feeling answerable to his own? He took me wholly by surprise.\r
+I had not an idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning; and\r
+surely I was not to be teaching myself to like him only because he was\r
+taking what seemed very idle notice of me. In my situation, it would\r
+have been the extreme of vanity to be forming expectations on Mr.\r
+Crawford. I am sure his sisters, rating him as they do, must have\r
+thought it so, supposing he had meant nothing. How, then, was I to\r
+be--to be in love with him the moment he said he was with me? How was I\r
+to have an attachment at his service, as soon as it was asked for? His\r
+sisters should consider me as well as him. The higher his deserts, the\r
+more improper for me ever to have thought of him. And, and--we think\r
+very differently of the nature of women, if they can imagine a woman so\r
+very soon capable of returning an affection as this seems to imply."\r
+\r
+"My dear, dear Fanny, now I have the truth. I know this to be the truth;\r
+and most worthy of you are such feelings. I had attributed them to you\r
+before. I thought I could understand you. You have now given exactly\r
+the explanation which I ventured to make for you to your friend and Mrs.\r
+Grant, and they were both better satisfied, though your warm-hearted\r
+friend was still run away with a little by the enthusiasm of her\r
+fondness for Henry. I told them that you were of all human creatures the\r
+one over whom habit had most power and novelty least; and that the very\r
+circumstance of the novelty of Crawford's addresses was against him.\r
+Their being so new and so recent was all in their disfavour; that you\r
+could tolerate nothing that you were not used to; and a great deal more\r
+to the same purpose, to give them a knowledge of your character. Miss\r
+Crawford made us laugh by her plans of encouragement for her brother.\r
+She meant to urge him to persevere in the hope of being loved in time,\r
+and of having his addresses most kindly received at the end of about ten\r
+years' happy marriage."\r
+\r
+Fanny could with difficulty give the smile that was here asked for. Her\r
+feelings were all in revolt. She feared she had been doing wrong: saying\r
+too much, overacting the caution which she had been fancying necessary;\r
+in guarding against one evil, laying herself open to another; and to\r
+have Miss Crawford's liveliness repeated to her at such a moment, and on\r
+such a subject, was a bitter aggravation.\r
+\r
+Edmund saw weariness and distress in her face, and immediately resolved\r
+to forbear all farther discussion; and not even to mention the name\r
+of Crawford again, except as it might be connected with what _must_ be\r
+agreeable to her. On this principle, he soon afterwards observed--"They\r
+go on Monday. You are sure, therefore, of seeing your friend either\r
+to-morrow or Sunday. They really go on Monday; and I was within a trifle\r
+of being persuaded to stay at Lessingby till that very day! I had almost\r
+promised it. What a difference it might have made! Those five or six\r
+days more at Lessingby might have been felt all my life."\r
+\r
+"You were near staying there?"\r
+\r
+"Very. I was most kindly pressed, and had nearly consented. Had I\r
+received any letter from Mansfield, to tell me how you were all going\r
+on, I believe I should certainly have staid; but I knew nothing that\r
+had happened here for a fortnight, and felt that I had been away long\r
+enough."\r
+\r
+"You spent your time pleasantly there?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; that is, it was the fault of my own mind if I did not. They were\r
+all very pleasant. I doubt their finding me so. I took uneasiness with\r
+me, and there was no getting rid of it till I was in Mansfield again."\r
+\r
+"The Miss Owens--you liked them, did not you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very well. Pleasant, good-humoured, unaffected girls. But I am\r
+spoilt, Fanny, for common female society. Good-humoured, unaffected\r
+girls will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They\r
+are two distinct orders of being. You and Miss Crawford have made me too\r
+nice."\r
+\r
+Still, however, Fanny was oppressed and wearied; he saw it in her looks,\r
+it could not be talked away; and attempting it no more, he led her\r
+directly, with the kind authority of a privileged guardian, into the\r
+house.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVI\r
+\r
+Edmund now believed himself perfectly acquainted with all that Fanny\r
+could tell, or could leave to be conjectured of her sentiments, and he\r
+was satisfied. It had been, as he before presumed, too hasty a measure\r
+on Crawford's side, and time must be given to make the idea first\r
+familiar, and then agreeable to her. She must be used to the\r
+consideration of his being in love with her, and then a return of\r
+affection might not be very distant.\r
+\r
+He gave this opinion as the result of the conversation to his father;\r
+and recommended there being nothing more said to her: no farther\r
+attempts to influence or persuade; but that everything should be left to\r
+Crawford's assiduities, and the natural workings of her own mind.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas promised that it should be so. Edmund's account of Fanny's\r
+disposition he could believe to be just; he supposed she had all those\r
+feelings, but he must consider it as very unfortunate that she _had_;\r
+for, less willing than his son to trust to the future, he could not\r
+help fearing that if such very long allowances of time and habit were\r
+necessary for her, she might not have persuaded herself into receiving\r
+his addresses properly before the young man's inclination for paying\r
+them were over. There was nothing to be done, however, but to submit\r
+quietly and hope the best.\r
+\r
+The promised visit from "her friend," as Edmund called Miss Crawford,\r
+was a formidable threat to Fanny, and she lived in continual terror of\r
+it. As a sister, so partial and so angry, and so little scrupulous of\r
+what she said, and in another light so triumphant and secure, she was in\r
+every way an object of painful alarm. Her displeasure, her penetration,\r
+and her happiness were all fearful to encounter; and the dependence of\r
+having others present when they met was Fanny's only support in looking\r
+forward to it. She absented herself as little as possible from Lady\r
+Bertram, kept away from the East room, and took no solitary walk in the\r
+shrubbery, in her caution to avoid any sudden attack.\r
+\r
+She succeeded. She was safe in the breakfast-room, with her aunt, when\r
+Miss Crawford did come; and the first misery over, and Miss Crawford\r
+looking and speaking with much less particularity of expression than she\r
+had anticipated, Fanny began to hope there would be nothing worse to be\r
+endured than a half-hour of moderate agitation. But here she hoped too\r
+much; Miss Crawford was not the slave of opportunity. She was determined\r
+to see Fanny alone, and therefore said to her tolerably soon, in a low\r
+voice, "I must speak to you for a few minutes somewhere"; words that\r
+Fanny felt all over her, in all her pulses and all her nerves. Denial\r
+was impossible. Her habits of ready submission, on the contrary, made\r
+her almost instantly rise and lead the way out of the room. She did it\r
+with wretched feelings, but it was inevitable.\r
+\r
+They were no sooner in the hall than all restraint of countenance was\r
+over on Miss Crawford's side. She immediately shook her head at Fanny\r
+with arch, yet affectionate reproach, and taking her hand, seemed hardly\r
+able to help beginning directly. She said nothing, however, but, "Sad,\r
+sad girl! I do not know when I shall have done scolding you," and had\r
+discretion enough to reserve the rest till they might be secure of\r
+having four walls to themselves. Fanny naturally turned upstairs, and\r
+took her guest to the apartment which was now always fit for comfortable\r
+use; opening the door, however, with a most aching heart, and feeling\r
+that she had a more distressing scene before her than ever that spot had\r
+yet witnessed. But the evil ready to burst on her was at least delayed\r
+by the sudden change in Miss Crawford's ideas; by the strong effect on\r
+her mind which the finding herself in the East room again produced.\r
+\r
+"Ha!" she cried, with instant animation, "am I here again? The East\r
+room! Once only was I in this room before"; and after stopping to look\r
+about her, and seemingly to retrace all that had then passed, she added,\r
+"Once only before. Do you remember it? I came to rehearse. Your cousin\r
+came too; and we had a rehearsal. You were our audience and prompter.\r
+A delightful rehearsal. I shall never forget it. Here we were, just in\r
+this part of the room: here was your cousin, here was I, here were the\r
+chairs. Oh! why will such things ever pass away?"\r
+\r
+Happily for her companion, she wanted no answer. Her mind was entirely\r
+self-engrossed. She was in a reverie of sweet remembrances.\r
+\r
+"The scene we were rehearsing was so very remarkable! The subject of\r
+it so very--very--what shall I say? He was to be describing and\r
+recommending matrimony to me. I think I see him now, trying to be as\r
+demure and composed as Anhalt ought, through the two long speeches.\r
+'When two sympathetic hearts meet in the marriage state, matrimony\r
+may be called a happy life.' I suppose no time can ever wear out the\r
+impression I have of his looks and voice as he said those words. It was\r
+curious, very curious, that we should have such a scene to play! If I\r
+had the power of recalling any one week of my existence, it should be\r
+that week--that acting week. Say what you would, Fanny, it should be\r
+_that_; for I never knew such exquisite happiness in any other. His\r
+sturdy spirit to bend as it did! Oh! it was sweet beyond expression. But\r
+alas, that very evening destroyed it all. That very evening brought your\r
+most unwelcome uncle. Poor Sir Thomas, who was glad to see you? Yet,\r
+Fanny, do not imagine I would now speak disrespectfully of Sir Thomas,\r
+though I certainly did hate him for many a week. No, I do him justice\r
+now. He is just what the head of such a family should be. Nay, in sober\r
+sadness, I believe I now love you all." And having said so, with a\r
+degree of tenderness and consciousness which Fanny had never seen in her\r
+before, and now thought only too becoming, she turned away for a moment\r
+to recover herself. "I have had a little fit since I came into this\r
+room, as you may perceive," said she presently, with a playful smile,\r
+"but it is over now; so let us sit down and be comfortable; for as to\r
+scolding you, Fanny, which I came fully intending to do, I have not\r
+the heart for it when it comes to the point." And embracing her very\r
+affectionately, "Good, gentle Fanny! when I think of this being the\r
+last time of seeing you for I do not know how long, I feel it quite\r
+impossible to do anything but love you."\r
+\r
+Fanny was affected. She had not foreseen anything of this, and her\r
+feelings could seldom withstand the melancholy influence of the word\r
+"last." She cried as if she had loved Miss Crawford more than she\r
+possibly could; and Miss Crawford, yet farther softened by the sight of\r
+such emotion, hung about her with fondness, and said, "I hate to leave\r
+you. I shall see no one half so amiable where I am going. Who says we\r
+shall not be sisters? I know we shall. I feel that we are born to\r
+be connected; and those tears convince me that you feel it too, dear\r
+Fanny."\r
+\r
+Fanny roused herself, and replying only in part, said, "But you are\r
+only going from one set of friends to another. You are going to a very\r
+particular friend."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very true. Mrs. Fraser has been my intimate friend for years. But\r
+I have not the least inclination to go near her. I can think only of the\r
+friends I am leaving: my excellent sister, yourself, and the Bertrams in\r
+general. You have all so much more _heart_ among you than one finds in\r
+the world at large. You all give me a feeling of being able to trust and\r
+confide in you, which in common intercourse one knows nothing of. I wish\r
+I had settled with Mrs. Fraser not to go to her till after Easter, a\r
+much better time for the visit, but now I cannot put her off. And when\r
+I have done with her I must go to her sister, Lady Stornaway, because\r
+_she_ was rather my most particular friend of the two, but I have not\r
+cared much for _her_ these three years."\r
+\r
+After this speech the two girls sat many minutes silent, each\r
+thoughtful: Fanny meditating on the different sorts of friendship in the\r
+world, Mary on something of less philosophic tendency. _She_ first spoke\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"How perfectly I remember my resolving to look for you upstairs, and\r
+setting off to find my way to the East room, without having an idea\r
+whereabouts it was! How well I remember what I was thinking of as I came\r
+along, and my looking in and seeing you here sitting at this table at\r
+work; and then your cousin's astonishment, when he opened the door, at\r
+seeing me here! To be sure, your uncle's returning that very evening!\r
+There never was anything quite like it."\r
+\r
+Another short fit of abstraction followed, when, shaking it off, she\r
+thus attacked her companion.\r
+\r
+"Why, Fanny, you are absolutely in a reverie. Thinking, I hope, of one\r
+who is always thinking of you. Oh! that I could transport you for a\r
+short time into our circle in town, that you might understand how your\r
+power over Henry is thought of there! Oh! the envyings and heartburnings\r
+of dozens and dozens; the wonder, the incredulity that will be felt at\r
+hearing what you have done! For as to secrecy, Henry is quite the hero\r
+of an old romance, and glories in his chains. You should come to London\r
+to know how to estimate your conquest. If you were to see how he is\r
+courted, and how I am courted for his sake! Now, I am well aware that\r
+I shall not be half so welcome to Mrs. Fraser in consequence of his\r
+situation with you. When she comes to know the truth she will, very\r
+likely, wish me in Northamptonshire again; for there is a daughter of\r
+Mr. Fraser, by a first wife, whom she is wild to get married, and\r
+wants Henry to take. Oh! she has been trying for him to such a degree.\r
+Innocent and quiet as you sit here, you cannot have an idea of the\r
+_sensation_ that you will be occasioning, of the curiosity there will\r
+be to see you, of the endless questions I shall have to answer! Poor\r
+Margaret Fraser will be at me for ever about your eyes and your teeth,\r
+and how you do your hair, and who makes your shoes. I wish Margaret were\r
+married, for my poor friend's sake, for I look upon the Frasers to be\r
+about as unhappy as most other married people. And yet it was a most\r
+desirable match for Janet at the time. We were all delighted. She could\r
+not do otherwise than accept him, for he was rich, and she had nothing;\r
+but he turns out ill-tempered and _exigeant_, and wants a young woman,\r
+a beautiful young woman of five-and-twenty, to be as steady as himself.\r
+And my friend does not manage him well; she does not seem to know how\r
+to make the best of it. There is a spirit of irritation which, to say\r
+nothing worse, is certainly very ill-bred. In their house I shall call\r
+to mind the conjugal manners of Mansfield Parsonage with respect. Even\r
+Dr. Grant does shew a thorough confidence in my sister, and a certain\r
+consideration for her judgment, which makes one feel there _is_\r
+attachment; but of that I shall see nothing with the Frasers. I shall\r
+be at Mansfield for ever, Fanny. My own sister as a wife, Sir Thomas\r
+Bertram as a husband, are my standards of perfection. Poor Janet has\r
+been sadly taken in, and yet there was nothing improper on her side:\r
+she did not run into the match inconsiderately; there was no want of\r
+foresight. She took three days to consider of his proposals, and during\r
+those three days asked the advice of everybody connected with her whose\r
+opinion was worth having, and especially applied to my late dear aunt,\r
+whose knowledge of the world made her judgment very generally and\r
+deservedly looked up to by all the young people of her acquaintance, and\r
+she was decidedly in favour of Mr. Fraser. This seems as if nothing were\r
+a security for matrimonial comfort. I have not so much to say for my\r
+friend Flora, who jilted a very nice young man in the Blues for the sake\r
+of that horrid Lord Stornaway, who has about as much sense, Fanny, as\r
+Mr. Rushworth, but much worse-looking, and with a blackguard character.\r
+I _had_ my doubts at the time about her being right, for he has not even\r
+the air of a gentleman, and now I am sure she was wrong. By the bye,\r
+Flora Ross was dying for Henry the first winter she came out. But were I\r
+to attempt to tell you of all the women whom I have known to be in love\r
+with him, I should never have done. It is you, only you, insensible\r
+Fanny, who can think of him with anything like indifference. But are you\r
+so insensible as you profess yourself? No, no, I see you are not."\r
+\r
+There was, indeed, so deep a blush over Fanny's face at that moment as\r
+might warrant strong suspicion in a predisposed mind.\r
+\r
+"Excellent creature! I will not tease you. Everything shall take its\r
+course. But, dear Fanny, you must allow that you were not so absolutely\r
+unprepared to have the question asked as your cousin fancies. It is not\r
+possible but that you must have had some thoughts on the subject, some\r
+surmises as to what might be. You must have seen that he was trying to\r
+please you by every attention in his power. Was not he devoted to you\r
+at the ball? And then before the ball, the necklace! Oh! you received\r
+it just as it was meant. You were as conscious as heart could desire. I\r
+remember it perfectly."\r
+\r
+"Do you mean, then, that your brother knew of the necklace beforehand?\r
+Oh! Miss Crawford, _that_ was not fair."\r
+\r
+"Knew of it! It was his own doing entirely, his own thought. I am\r
+ashamed to say that it had never entered my head, but I was delighted to\r
+act on his proposal for both your sakes."\r
+\r
+"I will not say," replied Fanny, "that I was not half afraid at the time\r
+of its being so, for there was something in your look that frightened\r
+me, but not at first; I was as unsuspicious of it at first--indeed,\r
+indeed I was. It is as true as that I sit here. And had I had an idea\r
+of it, nothing should have induced me to accept the necklace. As to your\r
+brother's behaviour, certainly I was sensible of a particularity: I had\r
+been sensible of it some little time, perhaps two or three weeks; but\r
+then I considered it as meaning nothing: I put it down as simply being\r
+his way, and was as far from supposing as from wishing him to have any\r
+serious thoughts of me. I had not, Miss Crawford, been an inattentive\r
+observer of what was passing between him and some part of this family in\r
+the summer and autumn. I was quiet, but I was not blind. I could not\r
+but see that Mr. Crawford allowed himself in gallantries which did mean\r
+nothing."\r
+\r
+"Ah! I cannot deny it. He has now and then been a sad flirt, and\r
+cared very little for the havoc he might be making in young ladies'\r
+affections. I have often scolded him for it, but it is his only fault;\r
+and there is this to be said, that very few young ladies have any\r
+affections worth caring for. And then, Fanny, the glory of fixing one\r
+who has been shot at by so many; of having it in one's power to pay off\r
+the debts of one's sex! Oh! I am sure it is not in woman's nature to\r
+refuse such a triumph."\r
+\r
+Fanny shook her head. "I cannot think well of a man who sports with any\r
+woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than\r
+a stander-by can judge of."\r
+\r
+"I do not defend him. I leave him entirely to your mercy, and when he\r
+has got you at Everingham, I do not care how much you lecture him. But\r
+this I will say, that his fault, the liking to make girls a little\r
+in love with him, is not half so dangerous to a wife's happiness as a\r
+tendency to fall in love himself, which he has never been addicted to.\r
+And I do seriously and truly believe that he is attached to you in a way\r
+that he never was to any woman before; that he loves you with all his\r
+heart, and will love you as nearly for ever as possible. If any man ever\r
+loved a woman for ever, I think Henry will do as much for you."\r
+\r
+Fanny could not avoid a faint smile, but had nothing to say.\r
+\r
+"I cannot imagine Henry ever to have been happier," continued Mary\r
+presently, "than when he had succeeded in getting your brother's\r
+commission."\r
+\r
+She had made a sure push at Fanny's feelings here.\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes. How very, very kind of him."\r
+\r
+"I know he must have exerted himself very much, for I know the parties\r
+he had to move. The Admiral hates trouble, and scorns asking favours;\r
+and there are so many young men's claims to be attended to in the same\r
+way, that a friendship and energy, not very determined, is easily put\r
+by. What a happy creature William must be! I wish we could see him."\r
+\r
+Poor Fanny's mind was thrown into the most distressing of all its\r
+varieties. The recollection of what had been done for William was always\r
+the most powerful disturber of every decision against Mr. Crawford; and\r
+she sat thinking deeply of it till Mary, who had been first watching\r
+her complacently, and then musing on something else, suddenly called\r
+her attention by saying: "I should like to sit talking with you here all\r
+day, but we must not forget the ladies below, and so good-bye, my dear,\r
+my amiable, my excellent Fanny, for though we shall nominally part in\r
+the breakfast-parlour, I must take leave of you here. And I do take\r
+leave, longing for a happy reunion, and trusting that when we meet\r
+again, it will be under circumstances which may open our hearts to each\r
+other without any remnant or shadow of reserve."\r
+\r
+A very, very kind embrace, and some agitation of manner, accompanied\r
+these words.\r
+\r
+"I shall see your cousin in town soon: he talks of being there tolerably\r
+soon; and Sir Thomas, I dare say, in the course of the spring; and your\r
+eldest cousin, and the Rushworths, and Julia, I am sure of meeting again\r
+and again, and all but you. I have two favours to ask, Fanny: one is\r
+your correspondence. You must write to me. And the other, that you will\r
+often call on Mrs. Grant, and make her amends for my being gone."\r
+\r
+The first, at least, of these favours Fanny would rather not have been\r
+asked; but it was impossible for her to refuse the correspondence; it\r
+was impossible for her even not to accede to it more readily than\r
+her own judgment authorised. There was no resisting so much apparent\r
+affection. Her disposition was peculiarly calculated to value a fond\r
+treatment, and from having hitherto known so little of it, she was the\r
+more overcome by Miss Crawford's. Besides, there was gratitude towards\r
+her, for having made their _tete-a-tete_ so much less painful than her\r
+fears had predicted.\r
+\r
+It was over, and she had escaped without reproaches and without\r
+detection. Her secret was still her own; and while that was the case,\r
+she thought she could resign herself to almost everything.\r
+\r
+In the evening there was another parting. Henry Crawford came and\r
+sat some time with them; and her spirits not being previously in the\r
+strongest state, her heart was softened for a while towards him, because\r
+he really seemed to feel. Quite unlike his usual self, he scarcely said\r
+anything. He was evidently oppressed, and Fanny must grieve for him,\r
+though hoping she might never see him again till he were the husband of\r
+some other woman.\r
+\r
+When it came to the moment of parting, he would take her hand, he would\r
+not be denied it; he said nothing, however, or nothing that she heard,\r
+and when he had left the room, she was better pleased that such a token\r
+of friendship had passed.\r
+\r
+On the morrow the Crawfords were gone.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVII\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford gone, Sir Thomas's next object was that he should be\r
+missed; and he entertained great hope that his niece would find a blank\r
+in the loss of those attentions which at the time she had felt, or\r
+fancied, an evil. She had tasted of consequence in its most flattering\r
+form; and he did hope that the loss of it, the sinking again into\r
+nothing, would awaken very wholesome regrets in her mind. He watched her\r
+with this idea; but he could hardly tell with what success. He hardly\r
+knew whether there were any difference in her spirits or not. She\r
+was always so gentle and retiring that her emotions were beyond his\r
+discrimination. He did not understand her: he felt that he did not; and\r
+therefore applied to Edmund to tell him how she stood affected on the\r
+present occasion, and whether she were more or less happy than she had\r
+been.\r
+\r
+Edmund did not discern any symptoms of regret, and thought his father\r
+a little unreasonable in supposing the first three or four days could\r
+produce any.\r
+\r
+What chiefly surprised Edmund was, that Crawford's sister, the friend\r
+and companion who had been so much to her, should not be more visibly\r
+regretted. He wondered that Fanny spoke so seldom of _her_, and had so\r
+little voluntarily to say of her concern at this separation.\r
+\r
+Alas! it was this sister, this friend and companion, who was now the\r
+chief bane of Fanny's comfort. If she could have believed Mary's future\r
+fate as unconnected with Mansfield as she was determined the brother's\r
+should be, if she could have hoped her return thither to be as distant\r
+as she was much inclined to think his, she would have been light of\r
+heart indeed; but the more she recollected and observed, the more deeply\r
+was she convinced that everything was now in a fairer train for Miss\r
+Crawford's marrying Edmund than it had ever been before. On his side the\r
+inclination was stronger, on hers less equivocal. His objections, the\r
+scruples of his integrity, seemed all done away, nobody could tell\r
+how; and the doubts and hesitations of her ambition were equally got\r
+over--and equally without apparent reason. It could only be imputed to\r
+increasing attachment. His good and her bad feelings yielded to love,\r
+and such love must unite them. He was to go to town as soon as some\r
+business relative to Thornton Lacey were completed--perhaps within a\r
+fortnight; he talked of going, he loved to talk of it; and when once\r
+with her again, Fanny could not doubt the rest. Her acceptance must be\r
+as certain as his offer; and yet there were bad feelings still remaining\r
+which made the prospect of it most sorrowful to her, independently, she\r
+believed, independently of self.\r
+\r
+In their very last conversation, Miss Crawford, in spite of some amiable\r
+sensations, and much personal kindness, had still been Miss Crawford;\r
+still shewn a mind led astray and bewildered, and without any suspicion\r
+of being so; darkened, yet fancying itself light. She might love, but\r
+she did not deserve Edmund by any other sentiment. Fanny believed there\r
+was scarcely a second feeling in common between them; and she may be\r
+forgiven by older sages for looking on the chance of Miss Crawford's\r
+future improvement as nearly desperate, for thinking that if Edmund's\r
+influence in this season of love had already done so little in clearing\r
+her judgment, and regulating her notions, his worth would be finally\r
+wasted on her even in years of matrimony.\r
+\r
+Experience might have hoped more for any young people so circumstanced,\r
+and impartiality would not have denied to Miss Crawford's nature that\r
+participation of the general nature of women which would lead her to\r
+adopt the opinions of the man she loved and respected as her own. But\r
+as such were Fanny's persuasions, she suffered very much from them, and\r
+could never speak of Miss Crawford without pain.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas, meanwhile, went on with his own hopes and his own\r
+observations, still feeling a right, by all his knowledge of human\r
+nature, to expect to see the effect of the loss of power and consequence\r
+on his niece's spirits, and the past attentions of the lover producing a\r
+craving for their return; and he was soon afterwards able to account for\r
+his not yet completely and indubitably seeing all this, by the prospect\r
+of another visitor, whose approach he could allow to be quite enough to\r
+support the spirits he was watching. William had obtained a ten days'\r
+leave of absence, to be given to Northamptonshire, and was coming, the\r
+happiest of lieutenants, because the latest made, to shew his happiness\r
+and describe his uniform.\r
+\r
+He came; and he would have been delighted to shew his uniform there too,\r
+had not cruel custom prohibited its appearance except on duty. So the\r
+uniform remained at Portsmouth, and Edmund conjectured that before Fanny\r
+had any chance of seeing it, all its own freshness and all the freshness\r
+of its wearer's feelings must be worn away. It would be sunk into a\r
+badge of disgrace; for what can be more unbecoming, or more worthless,\r
+than the uniform of a lieutenant, who has been a lieutenant a year or\r
+two, and sees others made commanders before him? So reasoned Edmund,\r
+till his father made him the confidant of a scheme which placed Fanny's\r
+chance of seeing the second lieutenant of H.M.S. Thrush in all his glory\r
+in another light.\r
+\r
+This scheme was that she should accompany her brother back to\r
+Portsmouth, and spend a little time with her own family. It had occurred\r
+to Sir Thomas, in one of his dignified musings, as a right and desirable\r
+measure; but before he absolutely made up his mind, he consulted his\r
+son. Edmund considered it every way, and saw nothing but what was right.\r
+The thing was good in itself, and could not be done at a better time;\r
+and he had no doubt of it being highly agreeable to Fanny. This was\r
+enough to determine Sir Thomas; and a decisive "then so it shall be"\r
+closed that stage of the business; Sir Thomas retiring from it with some\r
+feelings of satisfaction, and views of good over and above what he had\r
+communicated to his son; for his prime motive in sending her away had\r
+very little to do with the propriety of her seeing her parents again,\r
+and nothing at all with any idea of making her happy. He certainly\r
+wished her to go willingly, but he as certainly wished her to be\r
+heartily sick of home before her visit ended; and that a little\r
+abstinence from the elegancies and luxuries of Mansfield Park would\r
+bring her mind into a sober state, and incline her to a juster estimate\r
+of the value of that home of greater permanence, and equal comfort, of\r
+which she had the offer.\r
+\r
+It was a medicinal project upon his niece's understanding, which he must\r
+consider as at present diseased. A residence of eight or nine years in\r
+the abode of wealth and plenty had a little disordered her powers of\r
+comparing and judging. Her father's house would, in all probability,\r
+teach her the value of a good income; and he trusted that she would be\r
+the wiser and happier woman, all her life, for the experiment he had\r
+devised.\r
+\r
+Had Fanny been at all addicted to raptures, she must have had a strong\r
+attack of them when she first understood what was intended, when her\r
+uncle first made her the offer of visiting the parents, and brothers,\r
+and sisters, from whom she had been divided almost half her life; of\r
+returning for a couple of months to the scenes of her infancy, with\r
+William for the protector and companion of her journey, and the\r
+certainty of continuing to see William to the last hour of his remaining\r
+on land. Had she ever given way to bursts of delight, it must have been\r
+then, for she was delighted, but her happiness was of a quiet, deep,\r
+heart-swelling sort; and though never a great talker, she was always\r
+more inclined to silence when feeling most strongly. At the moment she\r
+could only thank and accept. Afterwards, when familiarised with the\r
+visions of enjoyment so suddenly opened, she could speak more largely\r
+to William and Edmund of what she felt; but still there were emotions\r
+of tenderness that could not be clothed in words. The remembrance of all\r
+her earliest pleasures, and of what she had suffered in being torn from\r
+them, came over her with renewed strength, and it seemed as if to be\r
+at home again would heal every pain that had since grown out of the\r
+separation. To be in the centre of such a circle, loved by so many,\r
+and more loved by all than she had ever been before; to feel affection\r
+without fear or restraint; to feel herself the equal of those who\r
+surrounded her; to be at peace from all mention of the Crawfords, safe\r
+from every look which could be fancied a reproach on their account. This\r
+was a prospect to be dwelt on with a fondness that could be but half\r
+acknowledged.\r
+\r
+Edmund, too--to be two months from _him_ (and perhaps she might be\r
+allowed to make her absence three) must do her good. At a distance,\r
+unassailed by his looks or his kindness, and safe from the perpetual\r
+irritation of knowing his heart, and striving to avoid his confidence,\r
+she should be able to reason herself into a properer state; she should\r
+be able to think of him as in London, and arranging everything there,\r
+without wretchedness. What might have been hard to bear at Mansfield was\r
+to become a slight evil at Portsmouth.\r
+\r
+The only drawback was the doubt of her aunt Bertram's being comfortable\r
+without her. She was of use to no one else; but _there_ she might be\r
+missed to a degree that she did not like to think of; and that part of\r
+the arrangement was, indeed, the hardest for Sir Thomas to accomplish,\r
+and what only _he_ could have accomplished at all.\r
+\r
+But he was master at Mansfield Park. When he had really resolved on\r
+any measure, he could always carry it through; and now by dint of long\r
+talking on the subject, explaining and dwelling on the duty of Fanny's\r
+sometimes seeing her family, he did induce his wife to let her go;\r
+obtaining it rather from submission, however, than conviction, for Lady\r
+Bertram was convinced of very little more than that Sir Thomas thought\r
+Fanny ought to go, and therefore that she must. In the calmness of\r
+her own dressing-room, in the impartial flow of her own meditations,\r
+unbiassed by his bewildering statements, she could not acknowledge any\r
+necessity for Fanny's ever going near a father and mother who had done\r
+without her so long, while she was so useful to herself. And as to the\r
+not missing her, which under Mrs. Norris's discussion was the point\r
+attempted to be proved, she set herself very steadily against admitting\r
+any such thing.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas had appealed to her reason, conscience, and dignity. He\r
+called it a sacrifice, and demanded it of her goodness and self-command\r
+as such. But Mrs. Norris wanted to persuade her that Fanny could be very\r
+well spared--_she_ being ready to give up all her own time to her as\r
+requested--and, in short, could not really be wanted or missed.\r
+\r
+"That may be, sister," was all Lady Bertram's reply. "I dare say you are\r
+very right; but I am sure I shall miss her very much."\r
+\r
+The next step was to communicate with Portsmouth. Fanny wrote to offer\r
+herself; and her mother's answer, though short, was so kind--a few\r
+simple lines expressed so natural and motherly a joy in the prospect\r
+of seeing her child again, as to confirm all the daughter's views of\r
+happiness in being with her--convincing her that she should now find a\r
+warm and affectionate friend in the "mama" who had certainly shewn no\r
+remarkable fondness for her formerly; but this she could easily suppose\r
+to have been her own fault or her own fancy. She had probably alienated\r
+love by the helplessness and fretfulness of a fearful temper, or been\r
+unreasonable in wanting a larger share than any one among so many could\r
+deserve. Now, when she knew better how to be useful, and how to forbear,\r
+and when her mother could be no longer occupied by the incessant\r
+demands of a house full of little children, there would be leisure and\r
+inclination for every comfort, and they should soon be what mother and\r
+daughter ought to be to each other.\r
+\r
+William was almost as happy in the plan as his sister. It would be the\r
+greatest pleasure to him to have her there to the last moment before he\r
+sailed, and perhaps find her there still when he came in from his first\r
+cruise. And besides, he wanted her so very much to see the Thrush before\r
+she went out of harbour--the Thrush was certainly the finest sloop in\r
+the service--and there were several improvements in the dockyard, too,\r
+which he quite longed to shew her.\r
+\r
+He did not scruple to add that her being at home for a while would be a\r
+great advantage to everybody.\r
+\r
+"I do not know how it is," said he; "but we seem to want some of\r
+your nice ways and orderliness at my father's. The house is always in\r
+confusion. You will set things going in a better way, I am sure. You\r
+will tell my mother how it all ought to be, and you will be so useful to\r
+Susan, and you will teach Betsey, and make the boys love and mind you.\r
+How right and comfortable it will all be!"\r
+\r
+By the time Mrs. Price's answer arrived, there remained but a very few\r
+days more to be spent at Mansfield; and for part of one of those days\r
+the young travellers were in a good deal of alarm on the subject of\r
+their journey, for when the mode of it came to be talked of, and Mrs.\r
+Norris found that all her anxiety to save her brother-in-law's money\r
+was vain, and that in spite of her wishes and hints for a less expensive\r
+conveyance of Fanny, they were to travel post; when she saw Sir Thomas\r
+actually give William notes for the purpose, she was struck with the\r
+idea of there being room for a third in the carriage, and suddenly\r
+seized with a strong inclination to go with them, to go and see her poor\r
+dear sister Price. She proclaimed her thoughts. She must say that she\r
+had more than half a mind to go with the young people; it would be such\r
+an indulgence to her; she had not seen her poor dear sister Price for\r
+more than twenty years; and it would be a help to the young people in\r
+their journey to have her older head to manage for them; and she could\r
+not help thinking her poor dear sister Price would feel it very unkind\r
+of her not to come by such an opportunity.\r
+\r
+William and Fanny were horror-struck at the idea.\r
+\r
+All the comfort of their comfortable journey would be destroyed at\r
+once. With woeful countenances they looked at each other. Their suspense\r
+lasted an hour or two. No one interfered to encourage or dissuade. Mrs.\r
+Norris was left to settle the matter by herself; and it ended, to the\r
+infinite joy of her nephew and niece, in the recollection that she could\r
+not possibly be spared from Mansfield Park at present; that she was a\r
+great deal too necessary to Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram for her to\r
+be able to answer it to herself to leave them even for a week, and\r
+therefore must certainly sacrifice every other pleasure to that of being\r
+useful to them.\r
+\r
+It had, in fact, occurred to her, that though taken to Portsmouth for\r
+nothing, it would be hardly possible for her to avoid paying her own\r
+expenses back again. So her poor dear sister Price was left to all the\r
+disappointment of her missing such an opportunity, and another twenty\r
+years' absence, perhaps, begun.\r
+\r
+Edmund's plans were affected by this Portsmouth journey, this absence of\r
+Fanny's. He too had a sacrifice to make to Mansfield Park as well as his\r
+aunt. He had intended, about this time, to be going to London; but he\r
+could not leave his father and mother just when everybody else of most\r
+importance to their comfort was leaving them; and with an effort, felt\r
+but not boasted of, he delayed for a week or two longer a journey which\r
+he was looking forward to with the hope of its fixing his happiness for\r
+ever.\r
+\r
+He told Fanny of it. She knew so much already, that she must know\r
+everything. It made the substance of one other confidential discourse\r
+about Miss Crawford; and Fanny was the more affected from feeling it to\r
+be the last time in which Miss Crawford's name would ever be mentioned\r
+between them with any remains of liberty. Once afterwards she was\r
+alluded to by him. Lady Bertram had been telling her niece in the\r
+evening to write to her soon and often, and promising to be a good\r
+correspondent herself; and Edmund, at a convenient moment, then added\r
+in a whisper, "And _I_ shall write to you, Fanny, when I have anything\r
+worth writing about, anything to say that I think you will like to hear,\r
+and that you will not hear so soon from any other quarter." Had she\r
+doubted his meaning while she listened, the glow in his face, when she\r
+looked up at him, would have been decisive.\r
+\r
+For this letter she must try to arm herself. That a letter from Edmund\r
+should be a subject of terror! She began to feel that she had not yet\r
+gone through all the changes of opinion and sentiment which the progress\r
+of time and variation of circumstances occasion in this world of\r
+changes. The vicissitudes of the human mind had not yet been exhausted\r
+by her.\r
+\r
+Poor Fanny! though going as she did willingly and eagerly, the last\r
+evening at Mansfield Park must still be wretchedness. Her heart was\r
+completely sad at parting. She had tears for every room in the house,\r
+much more for every beloved inhabitant. She clung to her aunt, because\r
+she would miss her; she kissed the hand of her uncle with struggling\r
+sobs, because she had displeased him; and as for Edmund, she could\r
+neither speak, nor look, nor think, when the last moment came with\r
+_him_; and it was not till it was over that she knew he was giving her\r
+the affectionate farewell of a brother.\r
+\r
+All this passed overnight, for the journey was to begin very early in\r
+the morning; and when the small, diminished party met at breakfast,\r
+William and Fanny were talked of as already advanced one stage.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVIII\r
+\r
+The novelty of travelling, and the happiness of being with William, soon\r
+produced their natural effect on Fanny's spirits, when Mansfield Park\r
+was fairly left behind; and by the time their first stage was ended, and\r
+they were to quit Sir Thomas's carriage, she was able to take leave of\r
+the old coachman, and send back proper messages, with cheerful looks.\r
+\r
+Of pleasant talk between the brother and sister there was no end.\r
+Everything supplied an amusement to the high glee of William's mind, and\r
+he was full of frolic and joke in the intervals of their higher-toned\r
+subjects, all of which ended, if they did not begin, in praise of the\r
+Thrush, conjectures how she would be employed, schemes for an action\r
+with some superior force, which (supposing the first lieutenant out of\r
+the way, and William was not very merciful to the first lieutenant) was\r
+to give himself the next step as soon as possible, or speculations upon\r
+prize-money, which was to be generously distributed at home, with only\r
+the reservation of enough to make the little cottage comfortable,\r
+in which he and Fanny were to pass all their middle and later life\r
+together.\r
+\r
+Fanny's immediate concerns, as far as they involved Mr. Crawford, made\r
+no part of their conversation. William knew what had passed, and from\r
+his heart lamented that his sister's feelings should be so cold towards\r
+a man whom he must consider as the first of human characters; but he was\r
+of an age to be all for love, and therefore unable to blame; and knowing\r
+her wish on the subject, he would not distress her by the slightest\r
+allusion.\r
+\r
+She had reason to suppose herself not yet forgotten by Mr. Crawford. She\r
+had heard repeatedly from his sister within the three weeks which had\r
+passed since their leaving Mansfield, and in each letter there had been\r
+a few lines from himself, warm and determined like his speeches. It\r
+was a correspondence which Fanny found quite as unpleasant as she had\r
+feared. Miss Crawford's style of writing, lively and affectionate, was\r
+itself an evil, independent of what she was thus forced into reading\r
+from the brother's pen, for Edmund would never rest till she had read\r
+the chief of the letter to him; and then she had to listen to his\r
+admiration of her language, and the warmth of her attachments. There\r
+had, in fact, been so much of message, of allusion, of recollection, so\r
+much of Mansfield in every letter, that Fanny could not but suppose it\r
+meant for him to hear; and to find herself forced into a purpose of\r
+that kind, compelled into a correspondence which was bringing her the\r
+addresses of the man she did not love, and obliging her to administer\r
+to the adverse passion of the man she did, was cruelly mortifying. Here,\r
+too, her present removal promised advantage. When no longer under the\r
+same roof with Edmund, she trusted that Miss Crawford would have no\r
+motive for writing strong enough to overcome the trouble, and that at\r
+Portsmouth their correspondence would dwindle into nothing.\r
+\r
+With such thoughts as these, among ten hundred others, Fanny proceeded\r
+in her journey safely and cheerfully, and as expeditiously as could\r
+rationally be hoped in the dirty month of February. They entered Oxford,\r
+but she could take only a hasty glimpse of Edmund's college as they\r
+passed along, and made no stop anywhere till they reached Newbury, where\r
+a comfortable meal, uniting dinner and supper, wound up the enjoyments\r
+and fatigues of the day.\r
+\r
+The next morning saw them off again at an early hour; and with no\r
+events, and no delays, they regularly advanced, and were in the environs\r
+of Portsmouth while there was yet daylight for Fanny to look around her,\r
+and wonder at the new buildings. They passed the drawbridge, and\r
+entered the town; and the light was only beginning to fail as, guided\r
+by William's powerful voice, they were rattled into a narrow street,\r
+leading from the High Street, and drawn up before the door of a small\r
+house now inhabited by Mr. Price.\r
+\r
+Fanny was all agitation and flutter; all hope and apprehension. The\r
+moment they stopped, a trollopy-looking maidservant, seemingly in\r
+waiting for them at the door, stepped forward, and more intent on\r
+telling the news than giving them any help, immediately began with, "The\r
+Thrush is gone out of harbour, please sir, and one of the officers has\r
+been here to--" She was interrupted by a fine tall boy of eleven years\r
+old, who, rushing out of the house, pushed the maid aside, and while\r
+William was opening the chaise-door himself, called out, "You are just\r
+in time. We have been looking for you this half-hour. The Thrush went\r
+out of harbour this morning. I saw her. It was a beautiful sight. And\r
+they think she will have her orders in a day or two. And Mr. Campbell\r
+was here at four o'clock to ask for you: he has got one of the Thrush's\r
+boats, and is going off to her at six, and hoped you would be here in\r
+time to go with him."\r
+\r
+A stare or two at Fanny, as William helped her out of the carriage, was\r
+all the voluntary notice which this brother bestowed; but he made no\r
+objection to her kissing him, though still entirely engaged in detailing\r
+farther particulars of the Thrush's going out of harbour, in which\r
+he had a strong right of interest, being to commence his career of\r
+seamanship in her at this very time.\r
+\r
+Another moment and Fanny was in the narrow entrance-passage of the\r
+house, and in her mother's arms, who met her there with looks of true\r
+kindness, and with features which Fanny loved the more, because they\r
+brought her aunt Bertram's before her, and there were her two sisters:\r
+Susan, a well-grown fine girl of fourteen, and Betsey, the youngest of\r
+the family, about five--both glad to see her in their way, though with\r
+no advantage of manner in receiving her. But manner Fanny did not want.\r
+Would they but love her, she should be satisfied.\r
+\r
+She was then taken into a parlour, so small that her first conviction\r
+was of its being only a passage-room to something better, and she stood\r
+for a moment expecting to be invited on; but when she saw there was\r
+no other door, and that there were signs of habitation before her, she\r
+called back her thoughts, reproved herself, and grieved lest they should\r
+have been suspected. Her mother, however, could not stay long enough\r
+to suspect anything. She was gone again to the street-door, to welcome\r
+William. "Oh! my dear William, how glad I am to see you. But have you\r
+heard about the Thrush? She is gone out of harbour already; three days\r
+before we had any thought of it; and I do not know what I am to do about\r
+Sam's things, they will never be ready in time; for she may have her\r
+orders to-morrow, perhaps. It takes me quite unawares. And now you must\r
+be off for Spithead too. Campbell has been here, quite in a worry about\r
+you; and now what shall we do? I thought to have had such a comfortable\r
+evening with you, and here everything comes upon me at once."\r
+\r
+Her son answered cheerfully, telling her that everything was always for\r
+the best; and making light of his own inconvenience in being obliged to\r
+hurry away so soon.\r
+\r
+"To be sure, I had much rather she had stayed in harbour, that I might\r
+have sat a few hours with you in comfort; but as there is a boat ashore,\r
+I had better go off at once, and there is no help for it. Whereabouts\r
+does the Thrush lay at Spithead? Near the Canopus? But no matter; here's\r
+Fanny in the parlour, and why should we stay in the passage? Come,\r
+mother, you have hardly looked at your own dear Fanny yet."\r
+\r
+In they both came, and Mrs. Price having kindly kissed her daughter\r
+again, and commented a little on her growth, began with very natural\r
+solicitude to feel for their fatigues and wants as travellers.\r
+\r
+"Poor dears! how tired you must both be! and now, what will you have? I\r
+began to think you would never come. Betsey and I have been watching for\r
+you this half-hour. And when did you get anything to eat? And what would\r
+you like to have now? I could not tell whether you would be for some\r
+meat, or only a dish of tea, after your journey, or else I would have\r
+got something ready. And now I am afraid Campbell will be here before\r
+there is time to dress a steak, and we have no butcher at hand. It is\r
+very inconvenient to have no butcher in the street. We were better off\r
+in our last house. Perhaps you would like some tea as soon as it can be\r
+got."\r
+\r
+They both declared they should prefer it to anything. "Then, Betsey, my\r
+dear, run into the kitchen and see if Rebecca has put the water on; and\r
+tell her to bring in the tea-things as soon as she can. I wish we could\r
+get the bell mended; but Betsey is a very handy little messenger."\r
+\r
+Betsey went with alacrity, proud to shew her abilities before her fine\r
+new sister.\r
+\r
+"Dear me!" continued the anxious mother, "what a sad fire we have got,\r
+and I dare say you are both starved with cold. Draw your chair nearer,\r
+my dear. I cannot think what Rebecca has been about. I am sure I told\r
+her to bring some coals half an hour ago. Susan, you should have taken\r
+care of the fire."\r
+\r
+"I was upstairs, mama, moving my things," said Susan, in a fearless,\r
+self-defending tone, which startled Fanny. "You know you had but just\r
+settled that my sister Fanny and I should have the other room; and I\r
+could not get Rebecca to give me any help."\r
+\r
+Farther discussion was prevented by various bustles: first, the driver\r
+came to be paid; then there was a squabble between Sam and Rebecca about\r
+the manner of carrying up his sister's trunk, which he would manage all\r
+his own way; and lastly, in walked Mr. Price himself, his own loud voice\r
+preceding him, as with something of the oath kind he kicked away his\r
+son's port-manteau and his daughter's bandbox in the passage, and called\r
+out for a candle; no candle was brought, however, and he walked into the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+Fanny with doubting feelings had risen to meet him, but sank down again\r
+on finding herself undistinguished in the dusk, and unthought of. With\r
+a friendly shake of his son's hand, and an eager voice, he instantly\r
+began--"Ha! welcome back, my boy. Glad to see you. Have you heard the\r
+news? The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. Sharp is the\r
+word, you see! By G--, you are just in time! The doctor has been here\r
+inquiring for you: he has got one of the boats, and is to be off for\r
+Spithead by six, so you had better go with him. I have been to Turner's\r
+about your mess; it is all in a way to be done. I should not wonder if\r
+you had your orders to-morrow: but you cannot sail with this wind, if\r
+you are to cruise to the westward; and Captain Walsh thinks you will\r
+certainly have a cruise to the westward, with the Elephant. By G--, I\r
+wish you may! But old Scholey was saying, just now, that he thought you\r
+would be sent first to the Texel. Well, well, we are ready, whatever\r
+happens. But by G--, you lost a fine sight by not being here in the\r
+morning to see the Thrush go out of harbour! I would not have been out\r
+of the way for a thousand pounds. Old Scholey ran in at breakfast-time,\r
+to say she had slipped her moorings and was coming out, I jumped up, and\r
+made but two steps to the platform. If ever there was a perfect beauty\r
+afloat, she is one; and there she lays at Spithead, and anybody in\r
+England would take her for an eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform\r
+two hours this afternoon looking at her. She lays close to the Endymion,\r
+between her and the Cleopatra, just to the eastward of the sheer hulk."\r
+\r
+"Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have put her myself.\r
+It's the best berth at Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here is\r
+Fanny," turning and leading her forward; "it is so dark you do not see\r
+her."\r
+\r
+With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now\r
+received his daughter; and having given her a cordial hug, and observed\r
+that she was grown into a woman, and he supposed would be wanting a\r
+husband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again. Fanny\r
+shrunk back to her seat, with feelings sadly pained by his language and\r
+his smell of spirits; and he talked on only to his son, and only of the\r
+Thrush, though William, warmly interested as he was in that subject,\r
+more than once tried to make his father think of Fanny, and her long\r
+absence and long journey.\r
+\r
+After sitting some time longer, a candle was obtained; but as there was\r
+still no appearance of tea, nor, from Betsey's reports from the kitchen,\r
+much hope of any under a considerable period, William determined to\r
+go and change his dress, and make the necessary preparations for\r
+his removal on board directly, that he might have his tea in comfort\r
+afterwards.\r
+\r
+As he left the room, two rosy-faced boys, ragged and dirty, about eight\r
+and nine years old, rushed into it just released from school, and coming\r
+eagerly to see their sister, and tell that the Thrush was gone out of\r
+harbour; Tom and Charles. Charles had been born since Fanny's going\r
+away, but Tom she had often helped to nurse, and now felt a particular\r
+pleasure in seeing again. Both were kissed very tenderly, but Tom she\r
+wanted to keep by her, to try to trace the features of the baby she had\r
+loved, and talked to, of his infant preference of herself. Tom, however,\r
+had no mind for such treatment: he came home not to stand and be talked\r
+to, but to run about and make a noise; and both boys had soon burst from\r
+her, and slammed the parlour-door till her temples ached.\r
+\r
+She had now seen all that were at home; there remained only two brothers\r
+between herself and Susan, one of whom was a clerk in a public office\r
+in London, and the other midshipman on board an Indiaman. But though she\r
+had _seen_ all the members of the family, she had not yet _heard_ all\r
+the noise they could make. Another quarter of an hour brought her a\r
+great deal more. William was soon calling out from the landing-place of\r
+the second story for his mother and for Rebecca. He was in distress\r
+for something that he had left there, and did not find again. A key was\r
+mislaid, Betsey accused of having got at his new hat, and some slight,\r
+but essential alteration of his uniform waistcoat, which he had been\r
+promised to have done for him, entirely neglected.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Price, Rebecca, and Betsey all went up to defend themselves, all\r
+talking together, but Rebecca loudest, and the job was to be done as\r
+well as it could in a great hurry; William trying in vain to send Betsey\r
+down again, or keep her from being troublesome where she was; the whole\r
+of which, as almost every door in the house was open, could be plainly\r
+distinguished in the parlour, except when drowned at intervals by the\r
+superior noise of Sam, Tom, and Charles chasing each other up and down\r
+stairs, and tumbling about and hallooing.\r
+\r
+Fanny was almost stunned. The smallness of the house and thinness of the\r
+walls brought everything so close to her, that, added to the fatigue of\r
+her journey, and all her recent agitation, she hardly knew how to\r
+bear it. _Within_ the room all was tranquil enough, for Susan having\r
+disappeared with the others, there were soon only her father and herself\r
+remaining; and he, taking out a newspaper, the accustomary loan of a\r
+neighbour, applied himself to studying it, without seeming to recollect\r
+her existence. The solitary candle was held between himself and the\r
+paper, without any reference to her possible convenience; but she had\r
+nothing to do, and was glad to have the light screened from her aching\r
+head, as she sat in bewildered, broken, sorrowful contemplation.\r
+\r
+She was at home. But, alas! it was not such a home, she had not such a\r
+welcome, as--she checked herself; she was unreasonable. What right had\r
+she to be of importance to her family? She could have none, so long lost\r
+sight of! William's concerns must be dearest, they always had been, and\r
+he had every right. Yet to have so little said or asked about herself,\r
+to have scarcely an inquiry made after Mansfield! It did pain her to\r
+have Mansfield forgotten; the friends who had done so much--the dear,\r
+dear friends! But here, one subject swallowed up all the rest. Perhaps\r
+it must be so. The destination of the Thrush must be now preeminently\r
+interesting. A day or two might shew the difference. _She_ only was to\r
+blame. Yet she thought it would not have been so at Mansfield. No, in\r
+her uncle's house there would have been a consideration of times and\r
+seasons, a regulation of subject, a propriety, an attention towards\r
+everybody which there was not here.\r
+\r
+The only interruption which thoughts like these received for nearly half\r
+an hour was from a sudden burst of her father's, not at all calculated\r
+to compose them. At a more than ordinary pitch of thumping and hallooing\r
+in the passage, he exclaimed, "Devil take those young dogs! How they are\r
+singing out! Ay, Sam's voice louder than all the rest! That boy is fit\r
+for a boatswain. Holla, you there! Sam, stop your confounded pipe, or I\r
+shall be after you."\r
+\r
+This threat was so palpably disregarded, that though within five minutes\r
+afterwards the three boys all burst into the room together and sat down,\r
+Fanny could not consider it as a proof of anything more than their\r
+being for the time thoroughly fagged, which their hot faces and panting\r
+breaths seemed to prove, especially as they were still kicking each\r
+other's shins, and hallooing out at sudden starts immediately under\r
+their father's eye.\r
+\r
+The next opening of the door brought something more welcome: it was for\r
+the tea-things, which she had begun almost to despair of seeing that\r
+evening. Susan and an attendant girl, whose inferior appearance informed\r
+Fanny, to her great surprise, that she had previously seen the upper\r
+servant, brought in everything necessary for the meal; Susan looking, as\r
+she put the kettle on the fire and glanced at her sister, as if divided\r
+between the agreeable triumph of shewing her activity and usefulness,\r
+and the dread of being thought to demean herself by such an office. "She\r
+had been into the kitchen," she said, "to hurry Sally and help make the\r
+toast, and spread the bread and butter, or she did not know when they\r
+should have got tea, and she was sure her sister must want something\r
+after her journey."\r
+\r
+Fanny was very thankful. She could not but own that she should be very\r
+glad of a little tea, and Susan immediately set about making it, as if\r
+pleased to have the employment all to herself; and with only a little\r
+unnecessary bustle, and some few injudicious attempts at keeping her\r
+brothers in better order than she could, acquitted herself very well.\r
+Fanny's spirit was as much refreshed as her body; her head and heart\r
+were soon the better for such well-timed kindness. Susan had an open,\r
+sensible countenance; she was like William, and Fanny hoped to find her\r
+like him in disposition and goodwill towards herself.\r
+\r
+In this more placid state of things William reentered, followed not\r
+far behind by his mother and Betsey. He, complete in his lieutenant's\r
+uniform, looking and moving all the taller, firmer, and more graceful\r
+for it, and with the happiest smile over his face, walked up directly\r
+to Fanny, who, rising from her seat, looked at him for a moment in\r
+speechless admiration, and then threw her arms round his neck to sob out\r
+her various emotions of pain and pleasure.\r
+\r
+Anxious not to appear unhappy, she soon recovered herself; and wiping\r
+away her tears, was able to notice and admire all the striking parts\r
+of his dress; listening with reviving spirits to his cheerful hopes of\r
+being on shore some part of every day before they sailed, and even of\r
+getting her to Spithead to see the sloop.\r
+\r
+The next bustle brought in Mr. Campbell, the surgeon of the Thrush, a\r
+very well-behaved young man, who came to call for his friend, and for\r
+whom there was with some contrivance found a chair, and with some hasty\r
+washing of the young tea-maker's, a cup and saucer; and after another\r
+quarter of an hour of earnest talk between the gentlemen, noise rising\r
+upon noise, and bustle upon bustle, men and boys at last all in motion\r
+together, the moment came for setting off; everything was ready, William\r
+took leave, and all of them were gone; for the three boys, in spite\r
+of their mother's entreaty, determined to see their brother and Mr.\r
+Campbell to the sally-port; and Mr. Price walked off at the same time to\r
+carry back his neighbour's newspaper.\r
+\r
+Something like tranquillity might now be hoped for; and accordingly,\r
+when Rebecca had been prevailed on to carry away the tea-things,\r
+and Mrs. Price had walked about the room some time looking for a\r
+shirt-sleeve, which Betsey at last hunted out from a drawer in the\r
+kitchen, the small party of females were pretty well composed, and the\r
+mother having lamented again over the impossibility of getting Sam ready\r
+in time, was at leisure to think of her eldest daughter and the friends\r
+she had come from.\r
+\r
+A few inquiries began: but one of the earliest--"How did sister Bertram\r
+manage about her servants?" "Was she as much plagued as herself to get\r
+tolerable servants?"--soon led her mind away from Northamptonshire, and\r
+fixed it on her own domestic grievances, and the shocking character of\r
+all the Portsmouth servants, of whom she believed her own two were the\r
+very worst, engrossed her completely. The Bertrams were all forgotten\r
+in detailing the faults of Rebecca, against whom Susan had also much\r
+to depose, and little Betsey a great deal more, and who did seem so\r
+thoroughly without a single recommendation, that Fanny could not help\r
+modestly presuming that her mother meant to part with her when her year\r
+was up.\r
+\r
+"Her year!" cried Mrs. Price; "I am sure I hope I shall be rid of her\r
+before she has staid a year, for that will not be up till November.\r
+Servants are come to such a pass, my dear, in Portsmouth, that it is\r
+quite a miracle if one keeps them more than half a year. I have no hope\r
+of ever being settled; and if I was to part with Rebecca, I should\r
+only get something worse. And yet I do not think I am a very difficult\r
+mistress to please; and I am sure the place is easy enough, for there is\r
+always a girl under her, and I often do half the work myself."\r
+\r
+Fanny was silent; but not from being convinced that there might not be a\r
+remedy found for some of these evils. As she now sat looking at Betsey,\r
+she could not but think particularly of another sister, a very pretty\r
+little girl, whom she had left there not much younger when she went into\r
+Northamptonshire, who had died a few years afterwards. There had been\r
+something remarkably amiable about her. Fanny in those early days had\r
+preferred her to Susan; and when the news of her death had at last\r
+reached Mansfield, had for a short time been quite afflicted. The sight\r
+of Betsey brought the image of little Mary back again, but she would\r
+not have pained her mother by alluding to her for the world. While\r
+considering her with these ideas, Betsey, at a small distance, was\r
+holding out something to catch her eyes, meaning to screen it at the\r
+same time from Susan's.\r
+\r
+"What have you got there, my love?" said Fanny; "come and shew it to\r
+me."\r
+\r
+It was a silver knife. Up jumped Susan, claiming it as her own, and\r
+trying to get it away; but the child ran to her mother's protection,\r
+and Susan could only reproach, which she did very warmly, and evidently\r
+hoping to interest Fanny on her side. "It was very hard that she was not\r
+to have her _own_ knife; it was her own knife; little sister Mary had\r
+left it to her upon her deathbed, and she ought to have had it to keep\r
+herself long ago. But mama kept it from her, and was always letting\r
+Betsey get hold of it; and the end of it would be that Betsey would\r
+spoil it, and get it for her own, though mama had _promised_ her that\r
+Betsey should not have it in her own hands."\r
+\r
+Fanny was quite shocked. Every feeling of duty, honour, and tenderness\r
+was wounded by her sister's speech and her mother's reply.\r
+\r
+"Now, Susan," cried Mrs. Price, in a complaining voice, "now, how can\r
+you be so cross? You are always quarrelling about that knife. I wish you\r
+would not be so quarrelsome. Poor little Betsey; how cross Susan is to\r
+you! But you should not have taken it out, my dear, when I sent you to\r
+the drawer. You know I told you not to touch it, because Susan is so\r
+cross about it. I must hide it another time, Betsey. Poor Mary little\r
+thought it would be such a bone of contention when she gave it me to\r
+keep, only two hours before she died. Poor little soul! she could but\r
+just speak to be heard, and she said so prettily, 'Let sister Susan have\r
+my knife, mama, when I am dead and buried.' Poor little dear! she was so\r
+fond of it, Fanny, that she would have it lay by her in bed, all through\r
+her illness. It was the gift of her good godmother, old Mrs. Admiral\r
+Maxwell, only six weeks before she was taken for death. Poor little\r
+sweet creature! Well, she was taken away from evil to come. My own\r
+Betsey" (fondling her), "_you_ have not the luck of such a good\r
+godmother. Aunt Norris lives too far off to think of such little people\r
+as you."\r
+\r
+Fanny had indeed nothing to convey from aunt Norris, but a message to\r
+say she hoped that her god-daughter was a good girl, and learnt her\r
+book. There had been at one moment a slight murmur in the drawing-room\r
+at Mansfield Park about sending her a prayer-book; but no second sound\r
+had been heard of such a purpose. Mrs. Norris, however, had gone home\r
+and taken down two old prayer-books of her husband with that idea; but,\r
+upon examination, the ardour of generosity went off. One was found\r
+to have too small a print for a child's eyes, and the other to be too\r
+cumbersome for her to carry about.\r
+\r
+Fanny, fatigued and fatigued again, was thankful to accept the first\r
+invitation of going to bed; and before Betsey had finished her cry at\r
+being allowed to sit up only one hour extraordinary in honour of sister,\r
+she was off, leaving all below in confusion and noise again; the boys\r
+begging for toasted cheese, her father calling out for his rum and\r
+water, and Rebecca never where she ought to be.\r
+\r
+There was nothing to raise her spirits in the confined and scantily\r
+furnished chamber that she was to share with Susan. The smallness of\r
+the rooms above and below, indeed, and the narrowness of the passage and\r
+staircase, struck her beyond her imagination. She soon learned to think\r
+with respect of her own little attic at Mansfield Park, in _that_ house\r
+reckoned too small for anybody's comfort.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIX\r
+\r
+Could Sir Thomas have seen all his niece's feelings, when she wrote her\r
+first letter to her aunt, he would not have despaired; for though a good\r
+night's rest, a pleasant morning, the hope of soon seeing William again,\r
+and the comparatively quiet state of the house, from Tom and Charles\r
+being gone to school, Sam on some project of his own, and her father\r
+on his usual lounges, enabled her to express herself cheerfully on the\r
+subject of home, there were still, to her own perfect consciousness,\r
+many drawbacks suppressed. Could he have seen only half that she felt\r
+before the end of a week, he would have thought Mr. Crawford sure of\r
+her, and been delighted with his own sagacity.\r
+\r
+Before the week ended, it was all disappointment. In the first place,\r
+William was gone. The Thrush had had her orders, the wind had changed,\r
+and he was sailed within four days from their reaching Portsmouth; and\r
+during those days she had seen him only twice, in a short and\r
+hurried way, when he had come ashore on duty. There had been no free\r
+conversation, no walk on the ramparts, no visit to the dockyard, no\r
+acquaintance with the Thrush, nothing of all that they had planned and\r
+depended on. Everything in that quarter failed her, except William's\r
+affection. His last thought on leaving home was for her. He stepped back\r
+again to the door to say, "Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender,\r
+and not used to rough it like the rest of us. I charge you, take care of\r
+Fanny."\r
+\r
+William was gone: and the home he had left her in was, Fanny could not\r
+conceal it from herself, in almost every respect the very reverse of\r
+what she could have wished. It was the abode of noise, disorder, and\r
+impropriety. Nobody was in their right place, nothing was done as it\r
+ought to be. She could not respect her parents as she had hoped. On her\r
+father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but he was more negligent\r
+of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser, than\r
+she had been prepared for. He did not want abilities but he had no\r
+curiosity, and no information beyond his profession; he read only\r
+the newspaper and the navy-list; he talked only of the dockyard, the\r
+harbour, Spithead, and the Motherbank; he swore and he drank, he was\r
+dirty and gross. She had never been able to recall anything approaching\r
+to tenderness in his former treatment of herself. There had remained\r
+only a general impression of roughness and loudness; and now he scarcely\r
+ever noticed her, but to make her the object of a coarse joke.\r
+\r
+Her disappointment in her mother was greater: _there_ she had hoped\r
+much, and found almost nothing. Every flattering scheme of being of\r
+consequence to her soon fell to the ground. Mrs. Price was not unkind;\r
+but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming\r
+more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from\r
+her than on the first day of her arrival. The instinct of nature was\r
+soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price's attachment had no other source. Her\r
+heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor\r
+affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her.\r
+She was fond of her sons, especially of William, but Betsey was the\r
+first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most\r
+injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling;\r
+and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her\r
+maternal solicitude, alternately her worries and her comforts. These\r
+shared her heart: her time was given chiefly to her house and her\r
+servants. Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; all was busy\r
+without getting on, always behindhand and lamenting it, without altering\r
+her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity;\r
+dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and\r
+whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power\r
+of engaging their respect.\r
+\r
+Of her two sisters, Mrs. Price very much more resembled Lady Bertram\r
+than Mrs. Norris. She was a manager by necessity, without any of Mrs.\r
+Norris's inclination for it, or any of her activity. Her disposition\r
+was naturally easy and indolent, like Lady Bertram's; and a situation of\r
+similar affluence and do-nothingness would have been much more suited\r
+to her capacity than the exertions and self-denials of the one which her\r
+imprudent marriage had placed her in. She might have made just as good a\r
+woman of consequence as Lady Bertram, but Mrs. Norris would have been a\r
+more respectable mother of nine children on a small income.\r
+\r
+Much of all this Fanny could not but be sensible of. She might scruple\r
+to make use of the words, but she must and did feel that her mother was\r
+a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taught\r
+nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement\r
+and discomfort from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no\r
+conversation, no affection towards herself; no curiosity to know her\r
+better, no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for her company\r
+that could lessen her sense of such feelings.\r
+\r
+Fanny was very anxious to be useful, and not to appear above her home,\r
+or in any way disqualified or disinclined, by her foreign education,\r
+from contributing her help to its comforts, and therefore set about\r
+working for Sam immediately; and by working early and late, with\r
+perseverance and great despatch, did so much that the boy was shipped\r
+off at last, with more than half his linen ready. She had great pleasure\r
+in feeling her usefulness, but could not conceive how they would have\r
+managed without her.\r
+\r
+Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regretted when he went,\r
+for he was clever and intelligent, and glad to be employed in any errand\r
+in the town; and though spurning the remonstrances of Susan, given as\r
+they were, though very reasonable in themselves, with ill-timed and\r
+powerless warmth, was beginning to be influenced by Fanny's services\r
+and gentle persuasions; and she found that the best of the three younger\r
+ones was gone in him: Tom and Charles being at least as many years as\r
+they were his juniors distant from that age of feeling and reason, which\r
+might suggest the expediency of making friends, and of endeavouring to\r
+be less disagreeable. Their sister soon despaired of making the smallest\r
+impression on _them_; they were quite untameable by any means of address\r
+which she had spirits or time to attempt. Every afternoon brought a\r
+return of their riotous games all over the house; and she very early\r
+learned to sigh at the approach of Saturday's constant half-holiday.\r
+\r
+Betsey, too, a spoiled child, trained up to think the alphabet her\r
+greatest enemy, left to be with the servants at her pleasure, and\r
+then encouraged to report any evil of them, she was almost as ready to\r
+despair of being able to love or assist; and of Susan's temper she\r
+had many doubts. Her continual disagreements with her mother, her rash\r
+squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulance with Betsey, were at least\r
+so distressing to Fanny that, though admitting they were by no means\r
+without provocation, she feared the disposition that could push them to\r
+such length must be far from amiable, and from affording any repose to\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+Such was the home which was to put Mansfield out of her head, and\r
+teach her to think of her cousin Edmund with moderated feelings. On the\r
+contrary, she could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates,\r
+its happy ways. Everything where she now was in full contrast to it. The\r
+elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps, above all, the\r
+peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance\r
+every hour of the day, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them\r
+_here_.\r
+\r
+The living in incessant noise was, to a frame and temper delicate and\r
+nervous like Fanny's, an evil which no superadded elegance or harmony\r
+could have entirely atoned for. It was the greatest misery of all. At\r
+Mansfield, no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts,\r
+no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course\r
+of cheerful orderliness; everybody had their due importance; everybody's\r
+feelings were consulted. If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting,\r
+good sense and good breeding supplied its place; and as to the little\r
+irritations sometimes introduced by aunt Norris, they were short, they\r
+were trifling, they were as a drop of water to the ocean, compared with\r
+the ceaseless tumult of her present abode. Here everybody was noisy,\r
+every voice was loud (excepting, perhaps, her mother's, which resembled\r
+the soft monotony of Lady Bertram's, only worn into fretfulness).\r
+Whatever was wanted was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed out\r
+their excuses from the kitchen. The doors were in constant banging, the\r
+stairs were never at rest, nothing was done without a clatter, nobody\r
+sat still, and nobody could command attention when they spoke.\r
+\r
+In a review of the two houses, as they appeared to her before the end\r
+of a week, Fanny was tempted to apply to them Dr. Johnson's celebrated\r
+judgment as to matrimony and celibacy, and say, that though Mansfield\r
+Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XL\r
+\r
+Fanny was right enough in not expecting to hear from Miss Crawford now\r
+at the rapid rate in which their correspondence had begun; Mary's next\r
+letter was after a decidedly longer interval than the last, but she\r
+was not right in supposing that such an interval would be felt a great\r
+relief to herself. Here was another strange revolution of mind! She was\r
+really glad to receive the letter when it did come. In her present exile\r
+from good society, and distance from everything that had been wont to\r
+interest her, a letter from one belonging to the set where her heart\r
+lived, written with affection, and some degree of elegance, was\r
+thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of increasing engagements was made\r
+in excuse for not having written to her earlier; "And now that I have\r
+begun," she continued, "my letter will not be worth your reading, for\r
+there will be no little offering of love at the end, no three or four\r
+lines _passionnees_ from the most devoted H. C. in the world, for\r
+Henry is in Norfolk; business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or\r
+perhaps he only pretended to call, for the sake of being travelling\r
+at the same time that you were. But there he is, and, by the bye, his\r
+absence may sufficiently account for any remissness of his sister's in\r
+writing, for there has been no 'Well, Mary, when do you write to Fanny?\r
+Is not it time for you to write to Fanny?' to spur me on. At last, after\r
+various attempts at meeting, I have seen your cousins, 'dear Julia and\r
+dearest Mrs. Rushworth'; they found me at home yesterday, and we were\r
+glad to see each other again. We _seemed_ _very_ glad to see each other,\r
+and I do really think we were a little. We had a vast deal to say. Shall\r
+I tell you how Mrs. Rushworth looked when your name was mentioned? I did\r
+not use to think her wanting in self-possession, but she had not quite\r
+enough for the demands of yesterday. Upon the whole, Julia was in the\r
+best looks of the two, at least after you were spoken of. There was no\r
+recovering the complexion from the moment that I spoke of 'Fanny,' and\r
+spoke of her as a sister should. But Mrs. Rushworth's day of good looks\r
+will come; we have cards for her first party on the 28th. Then she\r
+will be in beauty, for she will open one of the best houses in Wimpole\r
+Street. I was in it two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle's, and\r
+prefer it to almost any I know in London, and certainly she will then\r
+feel, to use a vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworth for her\r
+penny. Henry could not have afforded her such a house. I hope she will\r
+recollect it, and be satisfied, as well as she may, with moving the\r
+queen of a palace, though the king may appear best in the background;\r
+and as I have no desire to tease her, I shall never _force_ your name\r
+upon her again. She will grow sober by degrees. From all that I hear\r
+and guess, Baron Wildenheim's attentions to Julia continue, but I do not\r
+know that he has any serious encouragement. She ought to do better.\r
+A poor honourable is no catch, and I cannot imagine any liking in the\r
+case, for take away his rants, and the poor baron has nothing. What a\r
+difference a vowel makes! If his rents were but equal to his rants! Your\r
+cousin Edmund moves slowly; detained, perchance, by parish duties. There\r
+may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted. I am unwilling\r
+to fancy myself neglected for a _young_ one. Adieu! my dear sweet Fanny,\r
+this is a long letter from London: write me a pretty one in reply to\r
+gladden Henry's eyes, when he comes back, and send me an account of all\r
+the dashing young captains whom you disdain for his sake."\r
+\r
+There was great food for meditation in this letter, and chiefly for\r
+unpleasant meditation; and yet, with all the uneasiness it supplied, it\r
+connected her with the absent, it told her of people and things about\r
+whom she had never felt so much curiosity as now, and she would\r
+have been glad to have been sure of such a letter every week. Her\r
+correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her only concern of higher\r
+interest.\r
+\r
+As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make amends for\r
+deficiencies at home, there were none within the circle of her father's\r
+and mother's acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction: she\r
+saw nobody in whose favour she could wish to overcome her own shyness\r
+and reserve. The men appeared to her all coarse, the women all pert,\r
+everybody underbred; and she gave as little contentment as she received\r
+from introductions either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies\r
+who approached her at first with some respect, in consideration of her\r
+coming from a baronet's family, were soon offended by what they termed\r
+"airs"; for, as she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore fine\r
+pelisses, they could, on farther observation, admit no right of\r
+superiority.\r
+\r
+The first solid consolation which Fanny received for the evils of home,\r
+the first which her judgment could entirely approve, and which gave any\r
+promise of durability, was in a better knowledge of Susan, and a hope of\r
+being of service to her. Susan had always behaved pleasantly to herself,\r
+but the determined character of her general manners had astonished\r
+and alarmed her, and it was at least a fortnight before she began to\r
+understand a disposition so totally different from her own. Susan saw\r
+that much was wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. That a girl of\r
+fourteen, acting only on her own unassisted reason, should err in the\r
+method of reform, was not wonderful; and Fanny soon became more disposed\r
+to admire the natural light of the mind which could so early distinguish\r
+justly, than to censure severely the faults of conduct to which it led.\r
+Susan was only acting on the same truths, and pursuing the same system,\r
+which her own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine and\r
+yielding temper would have shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be\r
+useful, where _she_ could only have gone away and cried; and that Susan\r
+was useful she could perceive; that things, bad as they were, would\r
+have been worse but for such interposition, and that both her mother and\r
+Betsey were restrained from some excesses of very offensive indulgence\r
+and vulgarity.\r
+\r
+In every argument with her mother, Susan had in point of reason the\r
+advantage, and never was there any maternal tenderness to buy her off.\r
+The blind fondness which was for ever producing evil around her she had\r
+never known. There was no gratitude for affection past or present to\r
+make her better bear with its excesses to the others.\r
+\r
+All this became gradually evident, and gradually placed Susan before her\r
+sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect. That her manner\r
+was wrong, however, at times very wrong, her measures often ill-chosen\r
+and ill-timed, and her looks and language very often indefensible, Fanny\r
+could not cease to feel; but she began to hope they might be rectified.\r
+Susan, she found, looked up to her and wished for her good opinion; and\r
+new as anything like an office of authority was to Fanny, new as it\r
+was to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one, she did\r
+resolve to give occasional hints to Susan, and endeavour to exercise for\r
+her advantage the juster notions of what was due to everybody, and what\r
+would be wisest for herself, which her own more favoured education had\r
+fixed in her.\r
+\r
+Her influence, or at least the consciousness and use of it, originated\r
+in an act of kindness by Susan, which, after many hesitations of\r
+delicacy, she at last worked herself up to. It had very early occurred\r
+to her that a small sum of money might, perhaps, restore peace for\r
+ever on the sore subject of the silver knife, canvassed as it now was\r
+continually, and the riches which she was in possession of herself,\r
+her uncle having given her 10 pounds at parting, made her as able as she was\r
+willing to be generous. But she was so wholly unused to confer favours,\r
+except on the very poor, so unpractised in removing evils, or bestowing\r
+kindnesses among her equals, and so fearful of appearing to elevate\r
+herself as a great lady at home, that it took some time to determine\r
+that it would not be unbecoming in her to make such a present. It\r
+was made, however, at last: a silver knife was bought for Betsey, and\r
+accepted with great delight, its newness giving it every advantage\r
+over the other that could be desired; Susan was established in the full\r
+possession of her own, Betsey handsomely declaring that now she had got\r
+one so much prettier herself, she should never want _that_ again; and\r
+no reproach seemed conveyed to the equally satisfied mother, which Fanny\r
+had almost feared to be impossible. The deed thoroughly answered: a\r
+source of domestic altercation was entirely done away, and it was the\r
+means of opening Susan's heart to her, and giving her something more to\r
+love and be interested in. Susan shewed that she had delicacy: pleased\r
+as she was to be mistress of property which she had been struggling for\r
+at least two years, she yet feared that her sister's judgment had been\r
+against her, and that a reproof was designed her for having so struggled\r
+as to make the purchase necessary for the tranquillity of the house.\r
+\r
+Her temper was open. She acknowledged her fears, blamed herself for\r
+having contended so warmly; and from that hour Fanny, understanding the\r
+worth of her disposition and perceiving how fully she was inclined to\r
+seek her good opinion and refer to her judgment, began to feel again the\r
+blessing of affection, and to entertain the hope of being useful to a\r
+mind so much in need of help, and so much deserving it. She gave advice,\r
+advice too sound to be resisted by a good understanding, and given so\r
+mildly and considerately as not to irritate an imperfect temper, and she\r
+had the happiness of observing its good effects not unfrequently.\r
+More was not expected by one who, while seeing all the obligation and\r
+expediency of submission and forbearance, saw also with sympathetic\r
+acuteness of feeling all that must be hourly grating to a girl like\r
+Susan. Her greatest wonder on the subject soon became--not that Susan\r
+should have been provoked into disrespect and impatience against her\r
+better knowledge--but that so much better knowledge, so many good\r
+notions should have been hers at all; and that, brought up in the midst\r
+of negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions\r
+of what ought to be; she, who had had no cousin Edmund to direct her\r
+thoughts or fix her principles.\r
+\r
+The intimacy thus begun between them was a material advantage to\r
+each. By sitting together upstairs, they avoided a great deal of the\r
+disturbance of the house; Fanny had peace, and Susan learned to think it\r
+no misfortune to be quietly employed. They sat without a fire; but\r
+that was a privation familiar even to Fanny, and she suffered the\r
+less because reminded by it of the East room. It was the only point of\r
+resemblance. In space, light, furniture, and prospect, there was\r
+nothing alike in the two apartments; and she often heaved a sigh at the\r
+remembrance of all her books and boxes, and various comforts there. By\r
+degrees the girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs, at\r
+first only in working and talking, but after a few days, the remembrance\r
+of the said books grew so potent and stimulative that Fanny found it\r
+impossible not to try for books again. There were none in her father's\r
+house; but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers found its\r
+way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber; amazed at being\r
+anything _in propria persona_, amazed at her own doings in every way, to\r
+be a renter, a chuser of books! And to be having any one's improvement\r
+in view in her choice! But so it was. Susan had read nothing, and Fanny\r
+longed to give her a share in her own first pleasures, and inspire a\r
+taste for the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself.\r
+\r
+In this occupation she hoped, moreover, to bury some of the\r
+recollections of Mansfield, which were too apt to seize her mind if her\r
+fingers only were busy; and, especially at this time, hoped it might\r
+be useful in diverting her thoughts from pursuing Edmund to London,\r
+whither, on the authority of her aunt's last letter, she knew he was\r
+gone. She had no doubt of what would ensue. The promised notification\r
+was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within the neighbourhood\r
+was beginning to bring its daily terrors, and if reading could banish\r
+the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLI\r
+\r
+A week was gone since Edmund might be supposed in town, and Fanny had\r
+heard nothing of him. There were three different conclusions to be drawn\r
+from his silence, between which her mind was in fluctuation; each of\r
+them at times being held the most probable. Either his going had been\r
+again delayed, or he had yet procured no opportunity of seeing Miss\r
+Crawford alone, or he was too happy for letter-writing!\r
+\r
+One morning, about this time, Fanny having now been nearly four weeks\r
+from Mansfield, a point which she never failed to think over and\r
+calculate every day, as she and Susan were preparing to remove, as\r
+usual, upstairs, they were stopped by the knock of a visitor, whom they\r
+felt they could not avoid, from Rebecca's alertness in going to the\r
+door, a duty which always interested her beyond any other.\r
+\r
+It was a gentleman's voice; it was a voice that Fanny was just turning\r
+pale about, when Mr. Crawford walked into the room.\r
+\r
+Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon; and she\r
+found that she had been able to name him to her mother, and recall her\r
+remembrance of the name, as that of "William's friend," though she could\r
+not previously have believed herself capable of uttering a syllable\r
+at such a moment. The consciousness of his being known there only as\r
+William's friend was some support. Having introduced him, however, and\r
+being all reseated, the terrors that occurred of what this visit might\r
+lead to were overpowering, and she fancied herself on the point of\r
+fainting away.\r
+\r
+While trying to keep herself alive, their visitor, who had at first\r
+approached her with as animated a countenance as ever, was wisely and\r
+kindly keeping his eyes away, and giving her time to recover, while he\r
+devoted himself entirely to her mother, addressing her, and attending\r
+to her with the utmost politeness and propriety, at the same time with\r
+a degree of friendliness, of interest at least, which was making his\r
+manner perfect.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Price's manners were also at their best. Warmed by the sight of\r
+such a friend to her son, and regulated by the wish of appearing to\r
+advantage before him, she was overflowing with gratitude--artless,\r
+maternal gratitude--which could not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out,\r
+which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recovered enough to\r
+feel that _she_ could not regret it; for to her many other sources of\r
+uneasiness was added the severe one of shame for the home in which he\r
+found her. She might scold herself for the weakness, but there was no\r
+scolding it away. She was ashamed, and she would have been yet more\r
+ashamed of her father than of all the rest.\r
+\r
+They talked of William, a subject on which Mrs. Price could never tire;\r
+and Mr. Crawford was as warm in his commendation as even her heart could\r
+wish. She felt that she had never seen so agreeable a man in her life;\r
+and was only astonished to find that, so great and so agreeable as he\r
+was, he should be come down to Portsmouth neither on a visit to the\r
+port-admiral, nor the commissioner, nor yet with the intention of going\r
+over to the island, nor of seeing the dockyard. Nothing of all that she\r
+had been used to think of as the proof of importance, or the employment\r
+of wealth, had brought him to Portsmouth. He had reached it late the\r
+night before, was come for a day or two, was staying at the Crown, had\r
+accidentally met with a navy officer or two of his acquaintance since\r
+his arrival, but had no object of that kind in coming.\r
+\r
+By the time he had given all this information, it was not unreasonable\r
+to suppose that Fanny might be looked at and spoken to; and she was\r
+tolerably able to bear his eye, and hear that he had spent half an hour\r
+with his sister the evening before his leaving London; that she had\r
+sent her best and kindest love, but had had no time for writing; that he\r
+thought himself lucky in seeing Mary for even half an hour, having spent\r
+scarcely twenty-four hours in London, after his return from Norfolk,\r
+before he set off again; that her cousin Edmund was in town, had been in\r
+town, he understood, a few days; that he had not seen him himself, but\r
+that he was well, had left them all well at Mansfield, and was to dine,\r
+as yesterday, with the Frasers.\r
+\r
+Fanny listened collectedly, even to the last-mentioned circumstance;\r
+nay, it seemed a relief to her worn mind to be at any certainty; and the\r
+words, "then by this time it is all settled," passed internally, without\r
+more evidence of emotion than a faint blush.\r
+\r
+After talking a little more about Mansfield, a subject in which her\r
+interest was most apparent, Crawford began to hint at the expediency of\r
+an early walk. "It was a lovely morning, and at that season of the year\r
+a fine morning so often turned off, that it was wisest for everybody\r
+not to delay their exercise"; and such hints producing nothing, he soon\r
+proceeded to a positive recommendation to Mrs. Price and her\r
+daughters to take their walk without loss of time. Now they came to an\r
+understanding. Mrs. Price, it appeared, scarcely ever stirred out of\r
+doors, except of a Sunday; she owned she could seldom, with her large\r
+family, find time for a walk. "Would she not, then, persuade her\r
+daughters to take advantage of such weather, and allow him the pleasure\r
+of attending them?" Mrs. Price was greatly obliged and very complying.\r
+"Her daughters were very much confined; Portsmouth was a sad place; they\r
+did not often get out; and she knew they had some errands in the town,\r
+which they would be very glad to do." And the consequence was, that\r
+Fanny, strange as it was--strange, awkward, and distressing--found\r
+herself and Susan, within ten minutes, walking towards the High Street\r
+with Mr. Crawford.\r
+\r
+It was soon pain upon pain, confusion upon confusion; for they were\r
+hardly in the High Street before they met her father, whose\r
+appearance was not the better from its being Saturday. He stopt; and,\r
+ungentlemanlike as he looked, Fanny was obliged to introduce him to Mr.\r
+Crawford. She could not have a doubt of the manner in which Mr. Crawford\r
+must be struck. He must be ashamed and disgusted altogether. He must\r
+soon give her up, and cease to have the smallest inclination for the\r
+match; and yet, though she had been so much wanting his affection to\r
+be cured, this was a sort of cure that would be almost as bad as the\r
+complaint; and I believe there is scarcely a young lady in the United\r
+Kingdoms who would not rather put up with the misfortune of being sought\r
+by a clever, agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarity\r
+of her nearest relations.\r
+\r
+Mr. Crawford probably could not regard his future father-in-law with any\r
+idea of taking him for a model in dress; but (as Fanny instantly, and to\r
+her great relief, discerned) her father was a very different man, a\r
+very different Mr. Price in his behaviour to this most highly respected\r
+stranger, from what he was in his own family at home. His manners\r
+now, though not polished, were more than passable: they were grateful,\r
+animated, manly; his expressions were those of an attached father, and\r
+a sensible man; his loud tones did very well in the open air, and there\r
+was not a single oath to be heard. Such was his instinctive compliment\r
+to the good manners of Mr. Crawford; and, be the consequence what it\r
+might, Fanny's immediate feelings were infinitely soothed.\r
+\r
+The conclusion of the two gentlemen's civilities was an offer of Mr.\r
+Price's to take Mr. Crawford into the dockyard, which Mr. Crawford,\r
+desirous of accepting as a favour what was intended as such, though\r
+he had seen the dockyard again and again, and hoping to be so much the\r
+longer with Fanny, was very gratefully disposed to avail himself of, if\r
+the Miss Prices were not afraid of the fatigue; and as it was somehow or\r
+other ascertained, or inferred, or at least acted upon, that they were\r
+not at all afraid, to the dockyard they were all to go; and but for\r
+Mr. Crawford, Mr. Price would have turned thither directly, without the\r
+smallest consideration for his daughters' errands in the High Street. He\r
+took care, however, that they should be allowed to go to the shops they\r
+came out expressly to visit; and it did not delay them long, for Fanny\r
+could so little bear to excite impatience, or be waited for, that before\r
+the gentlemen, as they stood at the door, could do more than begin upon\r
+the last naval regulations, or settle the number of three-deckers now in\r
+commission, their companions were ready to proceed.\r
+\r
+They were then to set forward for the dockyard at once, and the walk\r
+would have been conducted--according to Mr. Crawford's opinion--in a\r
+singular manner, had Mr. Price been allowed the entire regulation of it,\r
+as the two girls, he found, would have been left to follow, and keep up\r
+with them or not, as they could, while they walked on together at their\r
+own hasty pace. He was able to introduce some improvement occasionally,\r
+though by no means to the extent he wished; he absolutely would not walk\r
+away from them; and at any crossing or any crowd, when Mr. Price was\r
+only calling out, "Come, girls; come, Fan; come, Sue, take care of\r
+yourselves; keep a sharp lookout!" he would give them his particular\r
+attendance.\r
+\r
+Once fairly in the dockyard, he began to reckon upon some happy\r
+intercourse with Fanny, as they were very soon joined by a brother\r
+lounger of Mr. Price's, who was come to take his daily survey of how\r
+things went on, and who must prove a far more worthy companion than\r
+himself; and after a time the two officers seemed very well satisfied\r
+going about together, and discussing matters of equal and never-failing\r
+interest, while the young people sat down upon some timbers in the yard,\r
+or found a seat on board a vessel in the stocks which they all went to\r
+look at. Fanny was most conveniently in want of rest. Crawford could not\r
+have wished her more fatigued or more ready to sit down; but he could\r
+have wished her sister away. A quick-looking girl of Susan's age was the\r
+very worst third in the world: totally different from Lady Bertram, all\r
+eyes and ears; and there was no introducing the main point before her.\r
+He must content himself with being only generally agreeable, and letting\r
+Susan have her share of entertainment, with the indulgence, now and\r
+then, of a look or hint for the better-informed and conscious Fanny.\r
+Norfolk was what he had mostly to talk of: there he had been some time,\r
+and everything there was rising in importance from his present schemes.\r
+Such a man could come from no place, no society, without importing\r
+something to amuse; his journeys and his acquaintance were all of use,\r
+and Susan was entertained in a way quite new to her. For Fanny, somewhat\r
+more was related than the accidental agreeableness of the parties he had\r
+been in. For her approbation, the particular reason of his going into\r
+Norfolk at all, at this unusual time of year, was given. It had been\r
+real business, relative to the renewal of a lease in which the welfare\r
+of a large and--he believed--industrious family was at stake. He had\r
+suspected his agent of some underhand dealing; of meaning to bias\r
+him against the deserving; and he had determined to go himself, and\r
+thoroughly investigate the merits of the case. He had gone, had done\r
+even more good than he had foreseen, had been useful to more than his\r
+first plan had comprehended, and was now able to congratulate himself\r
+upon it, and to feel that in performing a duty, he had secured agreeable\r
+recollections for his own mind. He had introduced himself to some\r
+tenants whom he had never seen before; he had begun making acquaintance\r
+with cottages whose very existence, though on his own estate, had been\r
+hitherto unknown to him. This was aimed, and well aimed, at Fanny. It\r
+was pleasing to hear him speak so properly; here he had been acting as\r
+he ought to do. To be the friend of the poor and the oppressed! Nothing\r
+could be more grateful to her; and she was on the point of giving him an\r
+approving look, when it was all frightened off by his adding a something\r
+too pointed of his hoping soon to have an assistant, a friend, a guide\r
+in every plan of utility or charity for Everingham: a somebody that\r
+would make Everingham and all about it a dearer object than it had ever\r
+been yet.\r
+\r
+She turned away, and wished he would not say such things. She was\r
+willing to allow he might have more good qualities than she had been\r
+wont to suppose. She began to feel the possibility of his turning out\r
+well at last; but he was and must ever be completely unsuited to her,\r
+and ought not to think of her.\r
+\r
+He perceived that enough had been said of Everingham, and that it would\r
+be as well to talk of something else, and turned to Mansfield. He could\r
+not have chosen better; that was a topic to bring back her attention and\r
+her looks almost instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hear or\r
+to speak of Mansfield. Now so long divided from everybody who knew the\r
+place, she felt it quite the voice of a friend when he mentioned it,\r
+and led the way to her fond exclamations in praise of its beauties and\r
+comforts, and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowed her\r
+to gratify her own heart in the warmest eulogium, in speaking of her\r
+uncle as all that was clever and good, and her aunt as having the\r
+sweetest of all sweet tempers.\r
+\r
+He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself; he said so; he looked\r
+forward with the hope of spending much, very much, of his time there;\r
+always there, or in the neighbourhood. He particularly built upon a very\r
+happy summer and autumn there this year; he felt that it would be so: he\r
+depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superior to the last.\r
+As animated, as diversified, as social, but with circumstances of\r
+superiority undescribable.\r
+\r
+"Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey," he continued; "what a society\r
+will be comprised in those houses! And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth\r
+may be added: some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everything so\r
+dear; for as to any partnership in Thornton Lacey, as Edmund Bertram\r
+once good-humouredly proposed, I hope I foresee two objections: two\r
+fair, excellent, irresistible objections to that plan."\r
+\r
+Fanny was doubly silenced here; though when the moment was passed,\r
+could regret that she had not forced herself into the acknowledged\r
+comprehension of one half of his meaning, and encouraged him to say\r
+something more of his sister and Edmund. It was a subject which she must\r
+learn to speak of, and the weakness that shrunk from it would soon be\r
+quite unpardonable.\r
+\r
+When Mr. Price and his friend had seen all that they wished, or had time\r
+for, the others were ready to return; and in the course of their walk\r
+back, Mr. Crawford contrived a minute's privacy for telling Fanny that\r
+his only business in Portsmouth was to see her; that he was come down\r
+for a couple of days on her account, and hers only, and because he could\r
+not endure a longer total separation. She was sorry, really sorry; and\r
+yet in spite of this and the two or three other things which she wished\r
+he had not said, she thought him altogether improved since she had seen\r
+him; he was much more gentle, obliging, and attentive to other people's\r
+feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield; she had never seen him so\r
+agreeable--so _near_ being agreeable; his behaviour to her father could\r
+not offend, and there was something particularly kind and proper in the\r
+notice he took of Susan. He was decidedly improved. She wished the next\r
+day over, she wished he had come only for one day; but it was not\r
+so very bad as she would have expected: the pleasure of talking of\r
+Mansfield was so very great!\r
+\r
+Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure, and one\r
+of no trivial kind. Her father asked him to do them the honour of taking\r
+his mutton with them, and Fanny had time for only one thrill of horror,\r
+before he declared himself prevented by a prior engagement. He was\r
+engaged to dinner already both for that day and the next; he had met\r
+with some acquaintance at the Crown who would not be denied; he should\r
+have the honour, however, of waiting on them again on the morrow, etc.,\r
+and so they parted--Fanny in a state of actual felicity from escaping so\r
+horrible an evil!\r
+\r
+To have had him join their family dinner-party, and see all their\r
+deficiencies, would have been dreadful! Rebecca's cookery and Rebecca's\r
+waiting, and Betsey's eating at table without restraint, and pulling\r
+everything about as she chose, were what Fanny herself was not yet\r
+enough inured to for her often to make a tolerable meal. _She_ was nice\r
+only from natural delicacy, but _he_ had been brought up in a school of\r
+luxury and epicurism.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLII\r
+\r
+The Prices were just setting off for church the next day when Mr.\r
+Crawford appeared again. He came, not to stop, but to join them; he was\r
+asked to go with them to the Garrison chapel, which was exactly what he\r
+had intended, and they all walked thither together.\r
+\r
+The family were now seen to advantage. Nature had given them no\r
+inconsiderable share of beauty, and every Sunday dressed them in their\r
+cleanest skins and best attire. Sunday always brought this comfort to\r
+Fanny, and on this Sunday she felt it more than ever. Her poor mother\r
+now did not look so very unworthy of being Lady Bertram's sister as she\r
+was but too apt to look. It often grieved her to the heart to think of\r
+the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little\r
+difference, circumstances should have made so much, and that her mother,\r
+as handsome as Lady Bertram, and some years her junior, should have an\r
+appearance so much more worn and faded, so comfortless, so slatternly,\r
+so shabby. But Sunday made her a very creditable and tolerably\r
+cheerful-looking Mrs. Price, coming abroad with a fine family of\r
+children, feeling a little respite of her weekly cares, and only\r
+discomposed if she saw her boys run into danger, or Rebecca pass by with\r
+a flower in her hat.\r
+\r
+In chapel they were obliged to divide, but Mr. Crawford took care not to\r
+be divided from the female branch; and after chapel he still continued\r
+with them, and made one in the family party on the ramparts.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Price took her weekly walk on the ramparts every fine Sunday\r
+throughout the year, always going directly after morning service and\r
+staying till dinner-time. It was her public place: there she met her\r
+acquaintance, heard a little news, talked over the badness of the\r
+Portsmouth servants, and wound up her spirits for the six days ensuing.\r
+\r
+Thither they now went; Mr. Crawford most happy to consider the Miss\r
+Prices as his peculiar charge; and before they had been there long,\r
+somehow or other, there was no saying how, Fanny could not have believed\r
+it, but he was walking between them with an arm of each under his,\r
+and she did not know how to prevent or put an end to it. It made her\r
+uncomfortable for a time, but yet there were enjoyments in the day and\r
+in the view which would be felt.\r
+\r
+The day was uncommonly lovely. It was really March; but it was April in\r
+its mild air, brisk soft wind, and bright sun, occasionally clouded for\r
+a minute; and everything looked so beautiful under the influence of such\r
+a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each other on the ships at\r
+Spithead and the island beyond, with the ever-varying hues of the sea,\r
+now at high water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the ramparts\r
+with so fine a sound, produced altogether such a combination of charms\r
+for Fanny, as made her gradually almost careless of the circumstances\r
+under which she felt them. Nay, had she been without his arm, she would\r
+soon have known that she needed it, for she wanted strength for a two\r
+hours' saunter of this kind, coming, as it generally did, upon a week's\r
+previous inactivity. Fanny was beginning to feel the effect of being\r
+debarred from her usual regular exercise; she had lost ground as to\r
+health since her being in Portsmouth; and but for Mr. Crawford and the\r
+beauty of the weather would soon have been knocked up now.\r
+\r
+The loveliness of the day, and of the view, he felt like herself. They\r
+often stopt with the same sentiment and taste, leaning against the wall,\r
+some minutes, to look and admire; and considering he was not Edmund,\r
+Fanny could not but allow that he was sufficiently open to the charms\r
+of nature, and very well able to express his admiration. She had a few\r
+tender reveries now and then, which he could sometimes take advantage\r
+of to look in her face without detection; and the result of these looks\r
+was, that though as bewitching as ever, her face was less blooming than\r
+it ought to be. She _said_ she was very well, and did not like to be\r
+supposed otherwise; but take it all in all, he was convinced that her\r
+present residence could not be comfortable, and therefore could not\r
+be salutary for her, and he was growing anxious for her being again at\r
+Mansfield, where her own happiness, and his in seeing her, must be so\r
+much greater.\r
+\r
+"You have been here a month, I think?" said he.\r
+\r
+"No; not quite a month. It is only four weeks to-morrow since I left\r
+Mansfield."\r
+\r
+"You are a most accurate and honest reckoner. I should call that a\r
+month."\r
+\r
+"I did not arrive here till Tuesday evening."\r
+\r
+"And it is to be a two months' visit, is not?"\r
+\r
+"Yes. My uncle talked of two months. I suppose it will not be less."\r
+\r
+"And how are you to be conveyed back again? Who comes for you?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know. I have heard nothing about it yet from my aunt. Perhaps\r
+I may be to stay longer. It may not be convenient for me to be fetched\r
+exactly at the two months' end."\r
+\r
+After a moment's reflection, Mr. Crawford replied, "I know Mansfield, I\r
+know its way, I know its faults towards _you_. I know the danger of\r
+your being so far forgotten, as to have your comforts give way to the\r
+imaginary convenience of any single being in the family. I am aware\r
+that you may be left here week after week, if Sir Thomas cannot settle\r
+everything for coming himself, or sending your aunt's maid for you,\r
+without involving the slightest alteration of the arrangements which he\r
+may have laid down for the next quarter of a year. This will not do. Two\r
+months is an ample allowance; I should think six weeks quite enough.\r
+I am considering your sister's health," said he, addressing himself to\r
+Susan, "which I think the confinement of Portsmouth unfavourable to. She\r
+requires constant air and exercise. When you know her as well as I do,\r
+I am sure you will agree that she does, and that she ought never to\r
+be long banished from the free air and liberty of the country. If,\r
+therefore" (turning again to Fanny), "you find yourself growing unwell,\r
+and any difficulties arise about your returning to Mansfield, without\r
+waiting for the two months to be ended, _that_ must not be regarded\r
+as of any consequence, if you feel yourself at all less strong or\r
+comfortable than usual, and will only let my sister know it, give her\r
+only the slightest hint, she and I will immediately come down, and take\r
+you back to Mansfield. You know the ease and the pleasure with which\r
+this would be done. You know all that would be felt on the occasion."\r
+\r
+Fanny thanked him, but tried to laugh it off.\r
+\r
+"I am perfectly serious," he replied, "as you perfectly know. And I\r
+hope you will not be cruelly concealing any tendency to indisposition.\r
+Indeed, you shall _not_; it shall not be in your power; for so long only\r
+as you positively say, in every letter to Mary, 'I am well,' and I\r
+know you cannot speak or write a falsehood, so long only shall you be\r
+considered as well."\r
+\r
+Fanny thanked him again, but was affected and distressed to a degree\r
+that made it impossible for her to say much, or even to be certain of\r
+what she ought to say. This was towards the close of their walk. He\r
+attended them to the last, and left them only at the door of their own\r
+house, when he knew them to be going to dinner, and therefore pretended\r
+to be waited for elsewhere.\r
+\r
+"I wish you were not so tired," said he, still detaining Fanny after all\r
+the others were in the house--"I wish I left you in stronger health. Is\r
+there anything I can do for you in town? I have half an idea of going\r
+into Norfolk again soon. I am not satisfied about Maddison. I am sure\r
+he still means to impose on me if possible, and get a cousin of his own\r
+into a certain mill, which I design for somebody else. I must come to an\r
+understanding with him. I must make him know that I will not be tricked\r
+on the south side of Everingham, any more than on the north: that I will\r
+be master of my own property. I was not explicit enough with him before.\r
+The mischief such a man does on an estate, both as to the credit of his\r
+employer and the welfare of the poor, is inconceivable. I have a great\r
+mind to go back into Norfolk directly, and put everything at once on\r
+such a footing as cannot be afterwards swerved from. Maddison is a\r
+clever fellow; I do not wish to displace him, provided he does not try\r
+to displace _me_; but it would be simple to be duped by a man who has no\r
+right of creditor to dupe me, and worse than simple to let him give me a\r
+hard-hearted, griping fellow for a tenant, instead of an honest man,\r
+to whom I have given half a promise already. Would it not be worse than\r
+simple? Shall I go? Do you advise it?"\r
+\r
+"I advise! You know very well what is right."\r
+\r
+"Yes. When you give me your opinion, I always know what is right. Your\r
+judgment is my rule of right."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no! do not say so. We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we\r
+would attend to it, than any other person can be. Good-bye; I wish you a\r
+pleasant journey to-morrow."\r
+\r
+"Is there nothing I can do for you in town?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing; I am much obliged to you."\r
+\r
+"Have you no message for anybody?"\r
+\r
+"My love to your sister, if you please; and when you see my cousin, my\r
+cousin Edmund, I wish you would be so good as to say that I suppose I\r
+shall soon hear from him."\r
+\r
+"Certainly; and if he is lazy or negligent, I will write his excuses\r
+myself."\r
+\r
+He could say no more, for Fanny would be no longer detained. He pressed\r
+her hand, looked at her, and was gone. _He_ went to while away the next\r
+three hours as he could, with his other acquaintance, till the best\r
+dinner that a capital inn afforded was ready for their enjoyment, and\r
+_she_ turned in to her more simple one immediately.\r
+\r
+Their general fare bore a very different character; and could he have\r
+suspected how many privations, besides that of exercise, she endured in\r
+her father's house, he would have wondered that her looks were not much\r
+more affected than he found them. She was so little equal to Rebecca's\r
+puddings and Rebecca's hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with\r
+such accompaniments of half-cleaned plates, and not half-cleaned knives\r
+and forks, that she was very often constrained to defer her heartiest\r
+meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and\r
+buns. After being nursed up at Mansfield, it was too late in the day\r
+to be hardened at Portsmouth; and though Sir Thomas, had he known all,\r
+might have thought his niece in the most promising way of being starved,\r
+both mind and body, into a much juster value for Mr. Crawford's good\r
+company and good fortune, he would probably have feared to push his\r
+experiment farther, lest she might die under the cure.\r
+\r
+Fanny was out of spirits all the rest of the day. Though tolerably\r
+secure of not seeing Mr. Crawford again, she could not help being low.\r
+It was parting with somebody of the nature of a friend; and though, in\r
+one light, glad to have him gone, it seemed as if she was now deserted\r
+by everybody; it was a sort of renewed separation from Mansfield; and\r
+she could not think of his returning to town, and being frequently with\r
+Mary and Edmund, without feelings so near akin to envy as made her hate\r
+herself for having them.\r
+\r
+Her dejection had no abatement from anything passing around her; a\r
+friend or two of her father's, as always happened if he was not with\r
+them, spent the long, long evening there; and from six o'clock till\r
+half-past nine, there was little intermission of noise or grog. She\r
+was very low. The wonderful improvement which she still fancied in Mr.\r
+Crawford was the nearest to administering comfort of anything within the\r
+current of her thoughts. Not considering in how different a circle she\r
+had been just seeing him, nor how much might be owing to contrast, she\r
+was quite persuaded of his being astonishingly more gentle and regardful\r
+of others than formerly. And, if in little things, must it not be so in\r
+great? So anxious for her health and comfort, so very feeling as he now\r
+expressed himself, and really seemed, might not it be fairly supposed\r
+that he would not much longer persevere in a suit so distressing to her?\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLIII\r
+\r
+It was presumed that Mr. Crawford was travelling back, to London, on the\r
+morrow, for nothing more was seen of him at Mr. Price's; and two days\r
+afterwards, it was a fact ascertained to Fanny by the following letter\r
+from his sister, opened and read by her, on another account, with the\r
+most anxious curiosity:--\r
+\r
+"I have to inform you, my dearest Fanny, that Henry has been down to\r
+Portsmouth to see you; that he had a delightful walk with you to the\r
+dockyard last Saturday, and one still more to be dwelt on the next day,\r
+on the ramparts; when the balmy air, the sparkling sea, and your sweet\r
+looks and conversation were altogether in the most delicious harmony,\r
+and afforded sensations which are to raise ecstasy even in retrospect.\r
+This, as well as I understand, is to be the substance of my information.\r
+He makes me write, but I do not know what else is to be communicated,\r
+except this said visit to Portsmouth, and these two said walks, and his\r
+introduction to your family, especially to a fair sister of yours, a\r
+fine girl of fifteen, who was of the party on the ramparts, taking her\r
+first lesson, I presume, in love. I have not time for writing much, but\r
+it would be out of place if I had, for this is to be a mere letter of\r
+business, penned for the purpose of conveying necessary information,\r
+which could not be delayed without risk of evil. My dear, dear Fanny,\r
+if I had you here, how I would talk to you! You should listen to me till\r
+you were tired, and advise me till you were still tired more; but it is\r
+impossible to put a hundredth part of my great mind on paper, so I will\r
+abstain altogether, and leave you to guess what you like. I have no news\r
+for you. You have politics, of course; and it would be too bad to plague\r
+you with the names of people and parties that fill up my time. I ought\r
+to have sent you an account of your cousin's first party, but I was\r
+lazy, and now it is too long ago; suffice it, that everything was just\r
+as it ought to be, in a style that any of her connexions must have been\r
+gratified to witness, and that her own dress and manners did her the\r
+greatest credit. My friend, Mrs. Fraser, is mad for such a house, and it\r
+would not make _me_ miserable. I go to Lady Stornaway after Easter;\r
+she seems in high spirits, and very happy. I fancy Lord S. is very\r
+good-humoured and pleasant in his own family, and I do not think him so\r
+very ill-looking as I did--at least, one sees many worse. He will not\r
+do by the side of your cousin Edmund. Of the last-mentioned hero, what\r
+shall I say? If I avoided his name entirely, it would look suspicious.\r
+I will say, then, that we have seen him two or three times, and that\r
+my friends here are very much struck with his gentlemanlike appearance.\r
+Mrs. Fraser (no bad judge) declares she knows but three men in town\r
+who have so good a person, height, and air; and I must confess, when he\r
+dined here the other day, there were none to compare with him, and\r
+we were a party of sixteen. Luckily there is no distinction of dress\r
+nowadays to tell tales, but--but--but Yours affectionately."\r
+\r
+"I had almost forgot (it was Edmund's fault: he gets into my head more\r
+than does me good) one very material thing I had to say from Henry and\r
+myself--I mean about our taking you back into Northamptonshire. My dear\r
+little creature, do not stay at Portsmouth to lose your pretty looks.\r
+Those vile sea-breezes are the ruin of beauty and health. My poor aunt\r
+always felt affected if within ten miles of the sea, which the Admiral\r
+of course never believed, but I know it was so. I am at your service\r
+and Henry's, at an hour's notice. I should like the scheme, and we would\r
+make a little circuit, and shew you Everingham in our way, and perhaps\r
+you would not mind passing through London, and seeing the inside of St.\r
+George's, Hanover Square. Only keep your cousin Edmund from me at such\r
+a time: I should not like to be tempted. What a long letter! one word\r
+more. Henry, I find, has some idea of going into Norfolk again upon\r
+some business that _you_ approve; but this cannot possibly be permitted\r
+before the middle of next week; that is, he cannot anyhow be spared till\r
+after the 14th, for _we_ have a party that evening. The value of a man\r
+like Henry, on such an occasion, is what you can have no conception\r
+of; so you must take it upon my word to be inestimable. He will see the\r
+Rushworths, which own I am not sorry for--having a little curiosity, and\r
+so I think has he--though he will not acknowledge it."\r
+\r
+This was a letter to be run through eagerly, to be read deliberately,\r
+to supply matter for much reflection, and to leave everything in greater\r
+suspense than ever. The only certainty to be drawn from it was, that\r
+nothing decisive had yet taken place. Edmund had not yet spoken. How\r
+Miss Crawford really felt, how she meant to act, or might act without\r
+or against her meaning; whether his importance to her were quite what\r
+it had been before the last separation; whether, if lessened, it were\r
+likely to lessen more, or to recover itself, were subjects for endless\r
+conjecture, and to be thought of on that day and many days to come,\r
+without producing any conclusion. The idea that returned the oftenest\r
+was that Miss Crawford, after proving herself cooled and staggered by\r
+a return to London habits, would yet prove herself in the end too much\r
+attached to him to give him up. She would try to be more ambitious than\r
+her heart would allow. She would hesitate, she would tease, she would\r
+condition, she would require a great deal, but she would finally accept.\r
+\r
+This was Fanny's most frequent expectation. A house in town--that, she\r
+thought, must be impossible. Yet there was no saying what Miss Crawford\r
+might not ask. The prospect for her cousin grew worse and worse. The\r
+woman who could speak of him, and speak only of his appearance! What an\r
+unworthy attachment! To be deriving support from the commendations of\r
+Mrs. Fraser! _She_ who had known him intimately half a year! Fanny was\r
+ashamed of her. Those parts of the letter which related only to Mr.\r
+Crawford and herself, touched her, in comparison, slightly. Whether Mr.\r
+Crawford went into Norfolk before or after the 14th was certainly no\r
+concern of hers, though, everything considered, she thought he _would_\r
+go without delay. That Miss Crawford should endeavour to secure a\r
+meeting between him and Mrs. Rushworth, was all in her worst line of\r
+conduct, and grossly unkind and ill-judged; but she hoped _he_ would\r
+not be actuated by any such degrading curiosity. He acknowledged no such\r
+inducement, and his sister ought to have given him credit for better\r
+feelings than her own.\r
+\r
+She was yet more impatient for another letter from town after receiving\r
+this than she had been before; and for a few days was so unsettled by\r
+it altogether, by what had come, and what might come, that her usual\r
+readings and conversation with Susan were much suspended. She could\r
+not command her attention as she wished. If Mr. Crawford remembered her\r
+message to her cousin, she thought it very likely, most likely, that he\r
+would write to her at all events; it would be most consistent with his\r
+usual kindness; and till she got rid of this idea, till it gradually\r
+wore off, by no letters appearing in the course of three or four days\r
+more, she was in a most restless, anxious state.\r
+\r
+At length, a something like composure succeeded. Suspense must be\r
+submitted to, and must not be allowed to wear her out, and make her\r
+useless. Time did something, her own exertions something more, and she\r
+resumed her attentions to Susan, and again awakened the same interest in\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Susan was growing very fond of her, and though without any of the early\r
+delight in books which had been so strong in Fanny, with a disposition\r
+much less inclined to sedentary pursuits, or to information for\r
+information's sake, she had so strong a desire of not _appearing_\r
+ignorant, as, with a good clear understanding, made her a most\r
+attentive, profitable, thankful pupil. Fanny was her oracle. Fanny's\r
+explanations and remarks were a most important addition to every essay,\r
+or every chapter of history. What Fanny told her of former times dwelt\r
+more on her mind than the pages of Goldsmith; and she paid her sister\r
+the compliment of preferring her style to that of any printed author.\r
+The early habit of reading was wanting.\r
+\r
+Their conversations, however, were not always on subjects so high as\r
+history or morals. Others had their hour; and of lesser matters, none\r
+returned so often, or remained so long between them, as Mansfield Park,\r
+a description of the people, the manners, the amusements, the ways\r
+of Mansfield Park. Susan, who had an innate taste for the genteel and\r
+well-appointed, was eager to hear, and Fanny could not but indulge\r
+herself in dwelling on so beloved a theme. She hoped it was not wrong;\r
+though, after a time, Susan's very great admiration of everything\r
+said or done in her uncle's house, and earnest longing to go into\r
+Northamptonshire, seemed almost to blame her for exciting feelings which\r
+could not be gratified.\r
+\r
+Poor Susan was very little better fitted for home than her elder sister;\r
+and as Fanny grew thoroughly to understand this, she began to feel that\r
+when her own release from Portsmouth came, her happiness would have a\r
+material drawback in leaving Susan behind. That a girl so capable of\r
+being made everything good should be left in such hands, distressed her\r
+more and more. Were _she_ likely to have a home to invite her to, what\r
+a blessing it would be! And had it been possible for her to return Mr.\r
+Crawford's regard, the probability of his being very far from objecting\r
+to such a measure would have been the greatest increase of all her own\r
+comforts. She thought he was really good-tempered, and could fancy his\r
+entering into a plan of that sort most pleasantly.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLIV\r
+\r
+Seven weeks of the two months were very nearly gone, when the one\r
+letter, the letter from Edmund, so long expected, was put into Fanny's\r
+hands. As she opened, and saw its length, she prepared herself for a\r
+minute detail of happiness and a profusion of love and praise towards\r
+the fortunate creature who was now mistress of his fate. These were the\r
+contents--\r
+\r
+"My Dear Fanny,--Excuse me that I have not written before. Crawford told\r
+me that you were wishing to hear from me, but I found it impossible to\r
+write from London, and persuaded myself that you would understand my\r
+silence. Could I have sent a few happy lines, they should not have been\r
+wanting, but nothing of that nature was ever in my power. I am returned\r
+to Mansfield in a less assured state than when I left it. My hopes are\r
+much weaker. You are probably aware of this already. So very fond of you\r
+as Miss Crawford is, it is most natural that she should tell you enough\r
+of her own feelings to furnish a tolerable guess at mine. I will not be\r
+prevented, however, from making my own communication. Our confidences in\r
+you need not clash. I ask no questions. There is something soothing\r
+in the idea that we have the same friend, and that whatever unhappy\r
+differences of opinion may exist between us, we are united in our love\r
+of you. It will be a comfort to me to tell you how things now are, and\r
+what are my present plans, if plans I can be said to have. I have been\r
+returned since Saturday. I was three weeks in London, and saw her (for\r
+London) very often. I had every attention from the Frasers that could be\r
+reasonably expected. I dare say I was not reasonable in carrying with\r
+me hopes of an intercourse at all like that of Mansfield. It was her\r
+manner, however, rather than any unfrequency of meeting. Had she been\r
+different when I did see her, I should have made no complaint, but from\r
+the very first she was altered: my first reception was so unlike what I\r
+had hoped, that I had almost resolved on leaving London again directly.\r
+I need not particularise. You know the weak side of her character, and\r
+may imagine the sentiments and expressions which were torturing me. She\r
+was in high spirits, and surrounded by those who were giving all the\r
+support of their own bad sense to her too lively mind. I do not like\r
+Mrs. Fraser. She is a cold-hearted, vain woman, who has married entirely\r
+from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage,\r
+places her disappointment not to faults of judgment, or temper, or\r
+disproportion of age, but to her being, after all, less affluent than\r
+many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister, Lady Stornaway,\r
+and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary and ambitious,\r
+provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough. I look upon her\r
+intimacy with those two sisters as the greatest misfortune of her life\r
+and mine. They have been leading her astray for years. Could she be\r
+detached from them!--and sometimes I do not despair of it, for the\r
+affection appears to me principally on their side. They are very fond of\r
+her; but I am sure she does not love them as she loves you. When I think\r
+of her great attachment to you, indeed, and the whole of her judicious,\r
+upright conduct as a sister, she appears a very different creature,\r
+capable of everything noble, and I am ready to blame myself for a too\r
+harsh construction of a playful manner. I cannot give her up, Fanny. She\r
+is the only woman in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife. If\r
+I did not believe that she had some regard for me, of course I should\r
+not say this, but I do believe it. I am convinced that she is not\r
+without a decided preference. I have no jealousy of any individual. It\r
+is the influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous\r
+of. It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her ideas are not higher\r
+than her own fortune may warrant, but they are beyond what our incomes\r
+united could authorise. There is comfort, however, even here. I could\r
+better bear to lose her because not rich enough, than because of my\r
+profession. That would only prove her affection not equal to sacrifices,\r
+which, in fact, I am scarcely justified in asking; and, if I am refused,\r
+that, I think, will be the honest motive. Her prejudices, I trust, are\r
+not so strong as they were. You have my thoughts exactly as they arise,\r
+my dear Fanny; perhaps they are sometimes contradictory, but it will\r
+not be a less faithful picture of my mind. Having once begun, it is a\r
+pleasure to me to tell you all I feel. I cannot give her up. Connected\r
+as we already are, and, I hope, are to be, to give up Mary Crawford\r
+would be to give up the society of some of those most dear to me; to\r
+banish myself from the very houses and friends whom, under any other\r
+distress, I should turn to for consolation. The loss of Mary I must\r
+consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and of Fanny. Were it a\r
+decided thing, an actual refusal, I hope I should know how to bear it,\r
+and how to endeavour to weaken her hold on my heart, and in the course\r
+of a few years--but I am writing nonsense. Were I refused, I must bear\r
+it; and till I am, I can never cease to try for her. This is the truth.\r
+The only question is _how_? What may be the likeliest means? I have\r
+sometimes thought of going to London again after Easter, and sometimes\r
+resolved on doing nothing till she returns to Mansfield. Even now, she\r
+speaks with pleasure of being in Mansfield in June; but June is at\r
+a great distance, and I believe I shall write to her. I have nearly\r
+determined on explaining myself by letter. To be at an early certainty\r
+is a material object. My present state is miserably irksome. Considering\r
+everything, I think a letter will be decidedly the best method of\r
+explanation. I shall be able to write much that I could not say, and\r
+shall be giving her time for reflection before she resolves on her\r
+answer, and I am less afraid of the result of reflection than of an\r
+immediate hasty impulse; I think I am. My greatest danger would lie in\r
+her consulting Mrs. Fraser, and I at a distance unable to help my own\r
+cause. A letter exposes to all the evil of consultation, and where\r
+the mind is anything short of perfect decision, an adviser may, in an\r
+unlucky moment, lead it to do what it may afterwards regret. I must\r
+think this matter over a little. This long letter, full of my own\r
+concerns alone, will be enough to tire even the friendship of a Fanny.\r
+The last time I saw Crawford was at Mrs. Fraser's party. I am more\r
+and more satisfied with all that I see and hear of him. There is not a\r
+shadow of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind, and acts up to his\r
+resolutions: an inestimable quality. I could not see him and my eldest\r
+sister in the same room without recollecting what you once told me,\r
+and I acknowledge that they did not meet as friends. There was\r
+marked coolness on her side. They scarcely spoke. I saw him draw back\r
+surprised, and I was sorry that Mrs. Rushworth should resent any former\r
+supposed slight to Miss Bertram. You will wish to hear my opinion\r
+of Maria's degree of comfort as a wife. There is no appearance of\r
+unhappiness. I hope they get on pretty well together. I dined twice in\r
+Wimpole Street, and might have been there oftener, but it is mortifying\r
+to be with Rushworth as a brother. Julia seems to enjoy London\r
+exceedingly. I had little enjoyment there, but have less here. We are\r
+not a lively party. You are very much wanted. I miss you more than I\r
+can express. My mother desires her best love, and hopes to hear from\r
+you soon. She talks of you almost every hour, and I am sorry to find\r
+how many weeks more she is likely to be without you. My father means\r
+to fetch you himself, but it will not be till after Easter, when he has\r
+business in town. You are happy at Portsmouth, I hope, but this must\r
+not be a yearly visit. I want you at home, that I may have your opinion\r
+about Thornton Lacey. I have little heart for extensive improvements\r
+till I know that it will ever have a mistress. I think I shall certainly\r
+write. It is quite settled that the Grants go to Bath; they leave\r
+Mansfield on Monday. I am glad of it. I am not comfortable enough to be\r
+fit for anybody; but your aunt seems to feel out of luck that such an\r
+article of Mansfield news should fall to my pen instead of hers.--Yours\r
+ever, my dearest Fanny."\r
+\r
+"I never will, no, I certainly never will wish for a letter again," was\r
+Fanny's secret declaration as she finished this. "What do they bring but\r
+disappointment and sorrow? Not till after Easter! How shall I bear it?\r
+And my poor aunt talking of me every hour!"\r
+\r
+Fanny checked the tendency of these thoughts as well as she could, but\r
+she was within half a minute of starting the idea that Sir Thomas was\r
+quite unkind, both to her aunt and to herself. As for the main subject\r
+of the letter, there was nothing in that to soothe irritation. She was\r
+almost vexed into displeasure and anger against Edmund. "There is no\r
+good in this delay," said she. "Why is not it settled? He is blinded,\r
+and nothing will open his eyes; nothing can, after having had truths\r
+before him so long in vain. He will marry her, and be poor and\r
+miserable. God grant that her influence do not make him cease to be\r
+respectable!" She looked over the letter again. "'So very fond of me!'\r
+'tis nonsense all. She loves nobody but herself and her brother. Her\r
+friends leading her astray for years! She is quite as likely to have led\r
+_them_ astray. They have all, perhaps, been corrupting one another; but\r
+if they are so much fonder of her than she is of them, she is the less\r
+likely to have been hurt, except by their flattery. 'The only woman in\r
+the world whom he could ever think of as a wife.' I firmly believe it.\r
+It is an attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused, his\r
+heart is wedded to her for ever. 'The loss of Mary I must consider as\r
+comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny.' Edmund, you do not know\r
+me. The families would never be connected if you did not connect\r
+them! Oh! write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this\r
+suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself."\r
+\r
+Such sensations, however, were too near akin to resentment to be long\r
+guiding Fanny's soliloquies. She was soon more softened and sorrowful.\r
+His warm regard, his kind expressions, his confidential treatment,\r
+touched her strongly. He was only too good to everybody. It was a\r
+letter, in short, which she would not but have had for the world, and\r
+which could never be valued enough. This was the end of it.\r
+\r
+Everybody at all addicted to letter-writing, without having much to say,\r
+which will include a large proportion of the female world at least, must\r
+feel with Lady Bertram that she was out of luck in having such a capital\r
+piece of Mansfield news as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath,\r
+occur at a time when she could make no advantage of it, and will admit\r
+that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the\r
+share of her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at the\r
+end of a long letter, instead of having it to spread over the largest\r
+part of a page of her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the\r
+epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want of other\r
+employment, and the circumstance of Sir Thomas's being in Parliament,\r
+got into the way of making and keeping correspondents, and formed for\r
+herself a very creditable, common-place, amplifying style, so that a\r
+very little matter was enough for her: she could not do entirely without\r
+any; she must have something to write about, even to her niece; and\r
+being so soon to lose all the benefit of Dr. Grant's gouty symptoms and\r
+Mrs. Grant's morning calls, it was very hard upon her to be deprived of\r
+one of the last epistolary uses she could put them to.\r
+\r
+There was a rich amends, however, preparing for her. Lady Bertram's\r
+hour of good luck came. Within a few days from the receipt of Edmund's\r
+letter, Fanny had one from her aunt, beginning thus--\r
+\r
+"My Dear Fanny,--I take up my pen to communicate some very alarming\r
+intelligence, which I make no doubt will give you much concern".\r
+\r
+This was a great deal better than to have to take up the pen to acquaint\r
+her with all the particulars of the Grants' intended journey, for the\r
+present intelligence was of a nature to promise occupation for the pen\r
+for many days to come, being no less than the dangerous illness of her\r
+eldest son, of which they had received notice by express a few hours\r
+before.\r
+\r
+Tom had gone from London with a party of young men to Newmarket, where\r
+a neglected fall and a good deal of drinking had brought on a fever; and\r
+when the party broke up, being unable to move, had been left by himself\r
+at the house of one of these young men to the comforts of sickness and\r
+solitude, and the attendance only of servants. Instead of being soon\r
+well enough to follow his friends, as he had then hoped, his disorder\r
+increased considerably, and it was not long before he thought so ill of\r
+himself as to be as ready as his physician to have a letter despatched\r
+to Mansfield.\r
+\r
+"This distressing intelligence, as you may suppose," observed\r
+her ladyship, after giving the substance of it, "has agitated us\r
+exceedingly, and we cannot prevent ourselves from being greatly alarmed\r
+and apprehensive for the poor invalid, whose state Sir Thomas fears\r
+may be very critical; and Edmund kindly proposes attending his brother\r
+immediately, but I am happy to add that Sir Thomas will not leave me on\r
+this distressing occasion, as it would be too trying for me. We shall\r
+greatly miss Edmund in our small circle, but I trust and hope he\r
+will find the poor invalid in a less alarming state than might be\r
+apprehended, and that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly,\r
+which Sir Thomas proposes should be done, and thinks best on every\r
+account, and I flatter myself the poor sufferer will soon be able to\r
+bear the removal without material inconvenience or injury. As I\r
+have little doubt of your feeling for us, my dear Fanny, under these\r
+distressing circumstances, I will write again very soon."\r
+\r
+Fanny's feelings on the occasion were indeed considerably more warm and\r
+genuine than her aunt's style of writing. She felt truly for them all.\r
+Tom dangerously ill, Edmund gone to attend him, and the sadly small\r
+party remaining at Mansfield, were cares to shut out every other care,\r
+or almost every other. She could just find selfishness enough to wonder\r
+whether Edmund _had_ written to Miss Crawford before this summons came,\r
+but no sentiment dwelt long with her that was not purely affectionate\r
+and disinterestedly anxious. Her aunt did not neglect her: she wrote\r
+again and again; they were receiving frequent accounts from Edmund,\r
+and these accounts were as regularly transmitted to Fanny, in the same\r
+diffuse style, and the same medley of trusts, hopes, and fears, all\r
+following and producing each other at haphazard. It was a sort of\r
+playing at being frightened. The sufferings which Lady Bertram did not\r
+see had little power over her fancy; and she wrote very comfortably\r
+about agitation, and anxiety, and poor invalids, till Tom was actually\r
+conveyed to Mansfield, and her own eyes had beheld his altered\r
+appearance. Then a letter which she had been previously preparing for\r
+Fanny was finished in a different style, in the language of real feeling\r
+and alarm; then she wrote as she might have spoken. "He is just come, my\r
+dear Fanny, and is taken upstairs; and I am so shocked to see him, that\r
+I do not know what to do. I am sure he has been very ill. Poor Tom! I am\r
+quite grieved for him, and very much frightened, and so is Sir Thomas;\r
+and how glad I should be if you were here to comfort me. But Sir\r
+Thomas hopes he will be better to-morrow, and says we must consider his\r
+journey."\r
+\r
+The real solicitude now awakened in the maternal bosom was not\r
+soon over. Tom's extreme impatience to be removed to Mansfield, and\r
+experience those comforts of home and family which had been little\r
+thought of in uninterrupted health, had probably induced his being\r
+conveyed thither too early, as a return of fever came on, and for a week\r
+he was in a more alarming state than ever. They were all very seriously\r
+frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her daily terrors to her niece, who\r
+might now be said to live upon letters, and pass all her time between\r
+suffering from that of to-day and looking forward to to-morrow's.\r
+Without any particular affection for her eldest cousin, her tenderness\r
+of heart made her feel that she could not spare him, and the purity of\r
+her principles added yet a keener solicitude, when she considered how\r
+little useful, how little self-denying his life had (apparently) been.\r
+\r
+Susan was her only companion and listener on this, as on more common\r
+occasions. Susan was always ready to hear and to sympathise. Nobody else\r
+could be interested in so remote an evil as illness in a family above an\r
+hundred miles off; not even Mrs. Price, beyond a brief question or two,\r
+if she saw her daughter with a letter in her hand, and now and then the\r
+quiet observation of, "My poor sister Bertram must be in a great deal of\r
+trouble."\r
+\r
+So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were\r
+little more than nothing. An attachment, originally as tranquil as their\r
+tempers, was now become a mere name. Mrs. Price did quite as much for\r
+Lady Bertram as Lady Bertram would have done for Mrs. Price. Three or\r
+four Prices might have been swept away, any or all except Fanny and\r
+William, and Lady Bertram would have thought little about it; or perhaps\r
+might have caught from Mrs. Norris's lips the cant of its being a very\r
+happy thing and a great blessing to their poor dear sister Price to have\r
+them so well provided for.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLV\r
+\r
+At about the week's end from his return to Mansfield, Tom's immediate\r
+danger was over, and he was so far pronounced safe as to make his mother\r
+perfectly easy; for being now used to the sight of him in his suffering,\r
+helpless state, and hearing only the best, and never thinking beyond\r
+what she heard, with no disposition for alarm and no aptitude at a hint,\r
+Lady Bertram was the happiest subject in the world for a little medical\r
+imposition. The fever was subdued; the fever had been his complaint;\r
+of course he would soon be well again. Lady Bertram could think nothing\r
+less, and Fanny shared her aunt's security, till she received a few\r
+lines from Edmund, written purposely to give her a clearer idea of his\r
+brother's situation, and acquaint her with the apprehensions which\r
+he and his father had imbibed from the physician with respect to some\r
+strong hectic symptoms, which seemed to seize the frame on the departure\r
+of the fever. They judged it best that Lady Bertram should not be\r
+harassed by alarms which, it was to be hoped, would prove unfounded;\r
+but there was no reason why Fanny should not know the truth. They were\r
+apprehensive for his lungs.\r
+\r
+A very few lines from Edmund shewed her the patient and the sickroom\r
+in a juster and stronger light than all Lady Bertram's sheets of paper\r
+could do. There was hardly any one in the house who might not have\r
+described, from personal observation, better than herself; not one who\r
+was not more useful at times to her son. She could do nothing but glide\r
+in quietly and look at him; but when able to talk or be talked to, or\r
+read to, Edmund was the companion he preferred. His aunt worried him by\r
+her cares, and Sir Thomas knew not how to bring down his conversation or\r
+his voice to the level of irritation and feebleness. Edmund was all in\r
+all. Fanny would certainly believe him so at least, and must find that\r
+her estimation of him was higher than ever when he appeared as the\r
+attendant, supporter, cheerer of a suffering brother. There was not only\r
+the debility of recent illness to assist: there was also, as she now\r
+learnt, nerves much affected, spirits much depressed to calm and raise,\r
+and her own imagination added that there must be a mind to be properly\r
+guided.\r
+\r
+The family were not consumptive, and she was more inclined to hope than\r
+fear for her cousin, except when she thought of Miss Crawford; but Miss\r
+Crawford gave her the idea of being the child of good luck, and to her\r
+selfishness and vanity it would be good luck to have Edmund the only\r
+son.\r
+\r
+Even in the sick chamber the fortunate Mary was not forgotten. Edmund's\r
+letter had this postscript. "On the subject of my last, I had actually\r
+begun a letter when called away by Tom's illness, but I have now changed\r
+my mind, and fear to trust the influence of friends. When Tom is better,\r
+I shall go."\r
+\r
+Such was the state of Mansfield, and so it continued, with scarcely any\r
+change, till Easter. A line occasionally added by Edmund to his\r
+mother's letter was enough for Fanny's information. Tom's amendment was\r
+alarmingly slow.\r
+\r
+Easter came particularly late this year, as Fanny had most sorrowfully\r
+considered, on first learning that she had no chance of leaving\r
+Portsmouth till after it. It came, and she had yet heard nothing of her\r
+return--nothing even of the going to London, which was to precede\r
+her return. Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no\r
+notice, no message from the uncle on whom all depended. She supposed\r
+he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, a terrible delay\r
+to her. The end of April was coming on; it would soon be almost three\r
+months, instead of two, that she had been absent from them all, and that\r
+her days had been passing in a state of penance, which she loved them\r
+too well to hope they would thoroughly understand; and who could yet say\r
+when there might be leisure to think of or fetch her?\r
+\r
+Her eagerness, her impatience, her longings to be with them, were such\r
+as to bring a line or two of Cowper's Tirocinium for ever before her.\r
+"With what intense desire she wants her home," was continually on her\r
+tongue, as the truest description of a yearning which she could not\r
+suppose any schoolboy's bosom to feel more keenly.\r
+\r
+When she had been coming to Portsmouth, she had loved to call it her\r
+home, had been fond of saying that she was going home; the word had\r
+been very dear to her, and so it still was, but it must be applied to\r
+Mansfield. _That_ was now the home. Portsmouth was Portsmouth; Mansfield\r
+was home. They had been long so arranged in the indulgence of her secret\r
+meditations, and nothing was more consolatory to her than to find her\r
+aunt using the same language: "I cannot but say I much regret your being\r
+from home at this distressing time, so very trying to my spirits. I\r
+trust and hope, and sincerely wish you may never be absent from home so\r
+long again," were most delightful sentences to her. Still, however, it\r
+was her private regale. Delicacy to her parents made her careful not to\r
+betray such a preference of her uncle's house. It was always: "When I go\r
+back into Northamptonshire, or when I return to Mansfield, I shall do\r
+so and so." For a great while it was so, but at last the longing grew\r
+stronger, it overthrew caution, and she found herself talking of what\r
+she should do when she went home before she was aware. She reproached\r
+herself, coloured, and looked fearfully towards her father and mother.\r
+She need not have been uneasy. There was no sign of displeasure, or even\r
+of hearing her. They were perfectly free from any jealousy of Mansfield.\r
+She was as welcome to wish herself there as to be there.\r
+\r
+It was sad to Fanny to lose all the pleasures of spring. She had not\r
+known before what pleasures she _had_ to lose in passing March and April\r
+in a town. She had not known before how much the beginnings and progress\r
+of vegetation had delighted her. What animation, both of body and mind,\r
+she had derived from watching the advance of that season which cannot,\r
+in spite of its capriciousness, be unlovely, and seeing its increasing\r
+beauties from the earliest flowers in the warmest divisions of her\r
+aunt's garden, to the opening of leaves of her uncle's plantations, and\r
+the glory of his woods. To be losing such pleasures was no trifle; to\r
+be losing them, because she was in the midst of closeness and noise,\r
+to have confinement, bad air, bad smells, substituted for liberty,\r
+freshness, fragrance, and verdure, was infinitely worse: but even these\r
+incitements to regret were feeble, compared with what arose from the\r
+conviction of being missed by her best friends, and the longing to be\r
+useful to those who were wanting her!\r
+\r
+Could she have been at home, she might have been of service to every\r
+creature in the house. She felt that she must have been of use to all.\r
+To all she must have saved some trouble of head or hand; and were it\r
+only in supporting the spirits of her aunt Bertram, keeping her from\r
+the evil of solitude, or the still greater evil of a restless, officious\r
+companion, too apt to be heightening danger in order to enhance her own\r
+importance, her being there would have been a general good. She loved to\r
+fancy how she could have read to her aunt, how she could have talked to\r
+her, and tried at once to make her feel the blessing of what was, and\r
+prepare her mind for what might be; and how many walks up and down\r
+stairs she might have saved her, and how many messages she might have\r
+carried.\r
+\r
+It astonished her that Tom's sisters could be satisfied with remaining\r
+in London at such a time, through an illness which had now, under\r
+different degrees of danger, lasted several weeks. _They_ might return\r
+to Mansfield when they chose; travelling could be no difficulty to\r
+_them_, and she could not comprehend how both could still keep away.\r
+If Mrs. Rushworth could imagine any interfering obligations, Julia was\r
+certainly able to quit London whenever she chose. It appeared from one\r
+of her aunt's letters that Julia had offered to return if wanted, but\r
+this was all. It was evident that she would rather remain where she was.\r
+\r
+Fanny was disposed to think the influence of London very much at war\r
+with all respectable attachments. She saw the proof of it in Miss\r
+Crawford, as well as in her cousins; _her_ attachment to Edmund had been\r
+respectable, the most respectable part of her character; her friendship\r
+for herself had at least been blameless. Where was either sentiment now?\r
+It was so long since Fanny had had any letter from her, that she had\r
+some reason to think lightly of the friendship which had been so dwelt\r
+on. It was weeks since she had heard anything of Miss Crawford or of\r
+her other connexions in town, except through Mansfield, and she was\r
+beginning to suppose that she might never know whether Mr. Crawford had\r
+gone into Norfolk again or not till they met, and might never hear from\r
+his sister any more this spring, when the following letter was received\r
+to revive old and create some new sensations--\r
+\r
+"Forgive me, my dear Fanny, as soon as you can, for my long silence, and\r
+behave as if you could forgive me directly. This is my modest request\r
+and expectation, for you are so good, that I depend upon being treated\r
+better than I deserve, and I write now to beg an immediate answer. I\r
+want to know the state of things at Mansfield Park, and you, no doubt,\r
+are perfectly able to give it. One should be a brute not to feel for the\r
+distress they are in; and from what I hear, poor Mr. Bertram has a bad\r
+chance of ultimate recovery. I thought little of his illness at first.\r
+I looked upon him as the sort of person to be made a fuss with, and to\r
+make a fuss himself in any trifling disorder, and was chiefly concerned\r
+for those who had to nurse him; but now it is confidently asserted that\r
+he is really in a decline, that the symptoms are most alarming, and that\r
+part of the family, at least, are aware of it. If it be so, I am sure\r
+you must be included in that part, that discerning part, and therefore\r
+entreat you to let me know how far I have been rightly informed. I need\r
+not say how rejoiced I shall be to hear there has been any mistake, but\r
+the report is so prevalent that I confess I cannot help trembling. To\r
+have such a fine young man cut off in the flower of his days is most\r
+melancholy. Poor Sir Thomas will feel it dreadfully. I really am quite\r
+agitated on the subject. Fanny, Fanny, I see you smile and look cunning,\r
+but, upon my honour, I never bribed a physician in my life. Poor young\r
+man! If he is to die, there will be _two_ poor young men less in the\r
+world; and with a fearless face and bold voice would I say to any one,\r
+that wealth and consequence could fall into no hands more deserving of\r
+them. It was a foolish precipitation last Christmas, but the evil of\r
+a few days may be blotted out in part. Varnish and gilding hide many\r
+stains. It will be but the loss of the Esquire after his name. With real\r
+affection, Fanny, like mine, more might be overlooked. Write to me by\r
+return of post, judge of my anxiety, and do not trifle with it. Tell me\r
+the real truth, as you have it from the fountainhead. And now, do\r
+not trouble yourself to be ashamed of either my feelings or your own.\r
+Believe me, they are not only natural, they are philanthropic and\r
+virtuous. I put it to your conscience, whether 'Sir Edmund' would not do\r
+more good with all the Bertram property than any other possible 'Sir.'\r
+Had the Grants been at home I would not have troubled you, but you are\r
+now the only one I can apply to for the truth, his sisters not being\r
+within my reach. Mrs. R. has been spending the Easter with the Aylmers\r
+at Twickenham (as to be sure you know), and is not yet returned; and\r
+Julia is with the cousins who live near Bedford Square, but I forget\r
+their name and street. Could I immediately apply to either, however, I\r
+should still prefer you, because it strikes me that they have all along\r
+been so unwilling to have their own amusements cut up, as to shut their\r
+eyes to the truth. I suppose Mrs. R.'s Easter holidays will not last\r
+much longer; no doubt they are thorough holidays to her. The Aylmers\r
+are pleasant people; and her husband away, she can have nothing but\r
+enjoyment. I give her credit for promoting his going dutifully down to\r
+Bath, to fetch his mother; but how will she and the dowager agree in one\r
+house? Henry is not at hand, so I have nothing to say from him. Do not\r
+you think Edmund would have been in town again long ago, but for this\r
+illness?--Yours ever, Mary."\r
+\r
+"I had actually begun folding my letter when Henry walked in, but he\r
+brings no intelligence to prevent my sending it. Mrs. R. knows a decline\r
+is apprehended; he saw her this morning: she returns to Wimpole Street\r
+to-day; the old lady is come. Now do not make yourself uneasy with any\r
+queer fancies because he has been spending a few days at Richmond. He\r
+does it every spring. Be assured he cares for nobody but you. At this\r
+very moment he is wild to see you, and occupied only in contriving the\r
+means for doing so, and for making his pleasure conduce to yours. In\r
+proof, he repeats, and more eagerly, what he said at Portsmouth about\r
+our conveying you home, and I join him in it with all my soul. Dear\r
+Fanny, write directly, and tell us to come. It will do us all good.\r
+He and I can go to the Parsonage, you know, and be no trouble to our\r
+friends at Mansfield Park. It would really be gratifying to see them\r
+all again, and a little addition of society might be of infinite use to\r
+them; and as to yourself, you must feel yourself to be so wanted there,\r
+that you cannot in conscience--conscientious as you are--keep away, when\r
+you have the means of returning. I have not time or patience to give\r
+half Henry's messages; be satisfied that the spirit of each and every\r
+one is unalterable affection."\r
+\r
+Fanny's disgust at the greater part of this letter, with her extreme\r
+reluctance to bring the writer of it and her cousin Edmund together,\r
+would have made her (as she felt) incapable of judging impartially\r
+whether the concluding offer might be accepted or not. To herself,\r
+individually, it was most tempting. To be finding herself, perhaps\r
+within three days, transported to Mansfield, was an image of the\r
+greatest felicity, but it would have been a material drawback to be\r
+owing such felicity to persons in whose feelings and conduct, at the\r
+present moment, she saw so much to condemn: the sister's feelings,\r
+the brother's conduct, _her_ cold-hearted ambition, _his_ thoughtless\r
+vanity. To have him still the acquaintance, the flirt perhaps, of Mrs.\r
+Rushworth! She was mortified. She had thought better of him. Happily,\r
+however, she was not left to weigh and decide between opposite\r
+inclinations and doubtful notions of right; there was no occasion to\r
+determine whether she ought to keep Edmund and Mary asunder or not. She\r
+had a rule to apply to, which settled everything. Her awe of her uncle,\r
+and her dread of taking a liberty with him, made it instantly plain to\r
+her what she had to do. She must absolutely decline the proposal. If he\r
+wanted, he would send for her; and even to offer an early return was\r
+a presumption which hardly anything would have seemed to justify. She\r
+thanked Miss Crawford, but gave a decided negative. "Her uncle,\r
+she understood, meant to fetch her; and as her cousin's illness had\r
+continued so many weeks without her being thought at all necessary,\r
+she must suppose her return would be unwelcome at present, and that she\r
+should be felt an encumbrance."\r
+\r
+Her representation of her cousin's state at this time was exactly\r
+according to her own belief of it, and such as she supposed would convey\r
+to the sanguine mind of her correspondent the hope of everything she was\r
+wishing for. Edmund would be forgiven for being a clergyman, it seemed,\r
+under certain conditions of wealth; and this, she suspected, was all\r
+the conquest of prejudice which he was so ready to congratulate himself\r
+upon. She had only learnt to think nothing of consequence but money.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLVI\r
+\r
+As Fanny could not doubt that her answer was conveying a real\r
+disappointment, she was rather in expectation, from her knowledge of\r
+Miss Crawford's temper, of being urged again; and though no second\r
+letter arrived for the space of a week, she had still the same feeling\r
+when it did come.\r
+\r
+On receiving it, she could instantly decide on its containing little\r
+writing, and was persuaded of its having the air of a letter of haste\r
+and business. Its object was unquestionable; and two moments were enough\r
+to start the probability of its being merely to give her notice that\r
+they should be in Portsmouth that very day, and to throw her into all\r
+the agitation of doubting what she ought to do in such a case. If two\r
+moments, however, can surround with difficulties, a third can disperse\r
+them; and before she had opened the letter, the possibility of Mr. and\r
+Miss Crawford's having applied to her uncle and obtained his permission\r
+was giving her ease. This was the letter--\r
+\r
+"A most scandalous, ill-natured rumour has just reached me, and I write,\r
+dear Fanny, to warn you against giving the least credit to it, should it\r
+spread into the country. Depend upon it, there is some mistake, and that\r
+a day or two will clear it up; at any rate, that Henry is blameless, and\r
+in spite of a moment's _etourderie_, thinks of nobody but you. Say not a\r
+word of it; hear nothing, surmise nothing, whisper nothing till I\r
+write again. I am sure it will be all hushed up, and nothing proved but\r
+Rushworth's folly. If they are gone, I would lay my life they are only\r
+gone to Mansfield Park, and Julia with them. But why would not you let\r
+us come for you? I wish you may not repent it.--Yours, etc."\r
+\r
+Fanny stood aghast. As no scandalous, ill-natured rumour had reached\r
+her, it was impossible for her to understand much of this strange\r
+letter. She could only perceive that it must relate to Wimpole Street\r
+and Mr. Crawford, and only conjecture that something very imprudent had\r
+just occurred in that quarter to draw the notice of the world, and to\r
+excite her jealousy, in Miss Crawford's apprehension, if she heard it.\r
+Miss Crawford need not be alarmed for her. She was only sorry for the\r
+parties concerned and for Mansfield, if the report should spread so far;\r
+but she hoped it might not. If the Rushworths were gone themselves to\r
+Mansfield, as was to be inferred from what Miss Crawford said, it was\r
+not likely that anything unpleasant should have preceded them, or at\r
+least should make any impression.\r
+\r
+As to Mr. Crawford, she hoped it might give him a knowledge of his own\r
+disposition, convince him that he was not capable of being steadily\r
+attached to any one woman in the world, and shame him from persisting\r
+any longer in addressing herself.\r
+\r
+It was very strange! She had begun to think he really loved her, and to\r
+fancy his affection for her something more than common; and his sister\r
+still said that he cared for nobody else. Yet there must have been some\r
+marked display of attentions to her cousin, there must have been some\r
+strong indiscretion, since her correspondent was not of a sort to regard\r
+a slight one.\r
+\r
+Very uncomfortable she was, and must continue, till she heard from\r
+Miss Crawford again. It was impossible to banish the letter from her\r
+thoughts, and she could not relieve herself by speaking of it to any\r
+human being. Miss Crawford need not have urged secrecy with so much\r
+warmth; she might have trusted to her sense of what was due to her\r
+cousin.\r
+\r
+The next day came and brought no second letter. Fanny was disappointed.\r
+She could still think of little else all the morning; but, when her\r
+father came back in the afternoon with the daily newspaper as usual, she\r
+was so far from expecting any elucidation through such a channel that\r
+the subject was for a moment out of her head.\r
+\r
+She was deep in other musing. The remembrance of her first evening in\r
+that room, of her father and his newspaper, came across her. No candle\r
+was now wanted. The sun was yet an hour and half above the horizon. She\r
+felt that she had, indeed, been three months there; and the sun's rays\r
+falling strongly into the parlour, instead of cheering, made her still\r
+more melancholy, for sunshine appeared to her a totally different\r
+thing in a town and in the country. Here, its power was only a glare:\r
+a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring forward stains and dirt\r
+that might otherwise have slept. There was neither health nor gaiety in\r
+sunshine in a town. She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud\r
+of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the walls, marked by\r
+her father's head, to the table cut and notched by her brothers, where\r
+stood the tea-board never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped\r
+in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the\r
+bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca's\r
+hands had first produced it. Her father read his newspaper, and her\r
+mother lamented over the ragged carpet as usual, while the tea was\r
+in preparation, and wished Rebecca would mend it; and Fanny was first\r
+roused by his calling out to her, after humphing and considering over\r
+a particular paragraph: "What's the name of your great cousins in town,\r
+Fan?"\r
+\r
+A moment's recollection enabled her to say, "Rushworth, sir."\r
+\r
+"And don't they live in Wimpole Street?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Then, there's the devil to pay among them, that's all! There" (holding\r
+out the paper to her); "much good may such fine relations do you. I\r
+don't know what Sir Thomas may think of such matters; he may be too much\r
+of the courtier and fine gentleman to like his daughter the less. But,\r
+by G--! if she belonged to _me_, I'd give her the rope's end as long as\r
+I could stand over her. A little flogging for man and woman too would be\r
+the best way of preventing such things."\r
+\r
+Fanny read to herself that "it was with infinite concern the newspaper\r
+had to announce to the world a matrimonial _fracas_ in the family of\r
+Mr. R. of Wimpole Street; the beautiful Mrs. R., whose name had not long\r
+been enrolled in the lists of Hymen, and who had promised to become\r
+so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world, having quitted her\r
+husband's roof in company with the well-known and captivating Mr. C.,\r
+the intimate friend and associate of Mr. R., and it was not known even\r
+to the editor of the newspaper whither they were gone."\r
+\r
+"It is a mistake, sir," said Fanny instantly; "it must be a mistake, it\r
+cannot be true; it must mean some other people."\r
+\r
+She spoke from the instinctive wish of delaying shame; she spoke with\r
+a resolution which sprung from despair, for she spoke what she did not,\r
+could not believe herself. It had been the shock of conviction as she\r
+read. The truth rushed on her; and how she could have spoken at all,\r
+how she could even have breathed, was afterwards matter of wonder to\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+Mr. Price cared too little about the report to make her much answer.\r
+"It might be all a lie," he acknowledged; "but so many fine ladies were\r
+going to the devil nowadays that way, that there was no answering for\r
+anybody."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I hope it is not true," said Mrs. Price plaintively; "it would\r
+be so very shocking! If I have spoken once to Rebecca about that carpet,\r
+I am sure I have spoke at least a dozen times; have not I, Betsey? And\r
+it would not be ten minutes' work."\r
+\r
+The horror of a mind like Fanny's, as it received the conviction of such\r
+guilt, and began to take in some part of the misery that must ensue, can\r
+hardly be described. At first, it was a sort of stupefaction; but every\r
+moment was quickening her perception of the horrible evil. She could not\r
+doubt, she dared not indulge a hope, of the paragraph being false. Miss\r
+Crawford's letter, which she had read so often as to make every line\r
+her own, was in frightful conformity with it. Her eager defence of her\r
+brother, her hope of its being _hushed_ _up_, her evident agitation,\r
+were all of a piece with something very bad; and if there was a woman\r
+of character in existence, who could treat as a trifle this sin of the\r
+first magnitude, who would try to gloss it over, and desire to have it\r
+unpunished, she could believe Miss Crawford to be the woman! Now she\r
+could see her own mistake as to _who_ were gone, or _said_ to be\r
+gone. It was not Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth; it was Mrs. Rushworth and Mr.\r
+Crawford.\r
+\r
+Fanny seemed to herself never to have been shocked before. There was no\r
+possibility of rest. The evening passed without a pause of misery, the\r
+night was totally sleepless. She passed only from feelings of sickness\r
+to shudderings of horror; and from hot fits of fever to cold. The event\r
+was so shocking, that there were moments even when her heart revolted\r
+from it as impossible: when she thought it could not be. A woman married\r
+only six months ago; a man professing himself devoted, even _engaged_ to\r
+another; that other her near relation; the whole family, both families\r
+connected as they were by tie upon tie; all friends, all intimate\r
+together! It was too horrible a confusion of guilt, too gross a\r
+complication of evil, for human nature, not in a state of utter\r
+barbarism, to be capable of! yet her judgment told her it was so.\r
+_His_ unsettled affections, wavering with his vanity, _Maria's_\r
+decided attachment, and no sufficient principle on either side, gave it\r
+possibility: Miss Crawford's letter stampt it a fact.\r
+\r
+What would be the consequence? Whom would it not injure? Whose views\r
+might it not affect? Whose peace would it not cut up for ever? Miss\r
+Crawford, herself, Edmund; but it was dangerous, perhaps, to tread\r
+such ground. She confined herself, or tried to confine herself, to the\r
+simple, indubitable family misery which must envelop all, if it were\r
+indeed a matter of certified guilt and public exposure. The mother's\r
+sufferings, the father's; there she paused. Julia's, Tom's, Edmund's;\r
+there a yet longer pause. They were the two on whom it would fall most\r
+horribly. Sir Thomas's parental solicitude and high sense of honour and\r
+decorum, Edmund's upright principles, unsuspicious temper, and genuine\r
+strength of feeling, made her think it scarcely possible for them to\r
+support life and reason under such disgrace; and it appeared to her\r
+that, as far as this world alone was concerned, the greatest blessing to\r
+every one of kindred with Mrs. Rushworth would be instant annihilation.\r
+\r
+Nothing happened the next day, or the next, to weaken her terrors. Two\r
+posts came in, and brought no refutation, public or private. There was\r
+no second letter to explain away the first from Miss Crawford; there was\r
+no intelligence from Mansfield, though it was now full time for her\r
+to hear again from her aunt. This was an evil omen. She had, indeed,\r
+scarcely the shadow of a hope to soothe her mind, and was reduced to so\r
+low and wan and trembling a condition, as no mother, not unkind, except\r
+Mrs. Price could have overlooked, when the third day did bring the\r
+sickening knock, and a letter was again put into her hands. It bore the\r
+London postmark, and came from Edmund.\r
+\r
+"Dear Fanny,--You know our present wretchedness. May God support you\r
+under your share! We have been here two days, but there is nothing to\r
+be done. They cannot be traced. You may not have heard of the last\r
+blow--Julia's elopement; she is gone to Scotland with Yates. She left\r
+London a few hours before we entered it. At any other time this would\r
+have been felt dreadfully. Now it seems nothing; yet it is an heavy\r
+aggravation. My father is not overpowered. More cannot be hoped. He is\r
+still able to think and act; and I write, by his desire, to propose your\r
+returning home. He is anxious to get you there for my mother's sake. I\r
+shall be at Portsmouth the morning after you receive this, and hope to\r
+find you ready to set off for Mansfield. My father wishes you to invite\r
+Susan to go with you for a few months. Settle it as you like; say what\r
+is proper; I am sure you will feel such an instance of his kindness at\r
+such a moment! Do justice to his meaning, however I may confuse it. You\r
+may imagine something of my present state. There is no end of the evil\r
+let loose upon us. You will see me early by the mail.--Yours, etc."\r
+\r
+Never had Fanny more wanted a cordial. Never had she felt such a one\r
+as this letter contained. To-morrow! to leave Portsmouth to-morrow!\r
+She was, she felt she was, in the greatest danger of being exquisitely\r
+happy, while so many were miserable. The evil which brought such good\r
+to her! She dreaded lest she should learn to be insensible of it. To be\r
+going so soon, sent for so kindly, sent for as a comfort, and with leave\r
+to take Susan, was altogether such a combination of blessings as set her\r
+heart in a glow, and for a time seemed to distance every pain, and\r
+make her incapable of suitably sharing the distress even of those\r
+whose distress she thought of most. Julia's elopement could affect her\r
+comparatively but little; she was amazed and shocked; but it could not\r
+occupy her, could not dwell on her mind. She was obliged to call herself\r
+to think of it, and acknowledge it to be terrible and grievous, or it\r
+was escaping her, in the midst of all the agitating pressing joyful\r
+cares attending this summons to herself.\r
+\r
+There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for\r
+relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy,\r
+and her occupations were hopeful. She had so much to do, that not even\r
+the horrible story of Mrs. Rushworth--now fixed to the last point of\r
+certainty could affect her as it had done before. She had not time to\r
+be miserable. Within twenty-four hours she was hoping to be gone; her\r
+father and mother must be spoken to, Susan prepared, everything got\r
+ready. Business followed business; the day was hardly long enough. The\r
+happiness she was imparting, too, happiness very little alloyed by the\r
+black communication which must briefly precede it--the joyful consent\r
+of her father and mother to Susan's going with her--the general\r
+satisfaction with which the going of both seemed regarded, and the\r
+ecstasy of Susan herself, was all serving to support her spirits.\r
+\r
+The affliction of the Bertrams was little felt in the family. Mrs. Price\r
+talked of her poor sister for a few minutes, but how to find anything to\r
+hold Susan's clothes, because Rebecca took away all the boxes and spoilt\r
+them, was much more in her thoughts: and as for Susan, now unexpectedly\r
+gratified in the first wish of her heart, and knowing nothing personally\r
+of those who had sinned, or of those who were sorrowing--if she could\r
+help rejoicing from beginning to end, it was as much as ought to be\r
+expected from human virtue at fourteen.\r
+\r
+As nothing was really left for the decision of Mrs. Price, or the good\r
+offices of Rebecca, everything was rationally and duly accomplished,\r
+and the girls were ready for the morrow. The advantage of much sleep\r
+to prepare them for their journey was impossible. The cousin who was\r
+travelling towards them could hardly have less than visited their\r
+agitated spirits--one all happiness, the other all varying and\r
+indescribable perturbation.\r
+\r
+By eight in the morning Edmund was in the house. The girls heard his\r
+entrance from above, and Fanny went down. The idea of immediately seeing\r
+him, with the knowledge of what he must be suffering, brought back all\r
+her own first feelings. He so near her, and in misery. She was ready to\r
+sink as she entered the parlour. He was alone, and met her instantly;\r
+and she found herself pressed to his heart with only these words, just\r
+articulate, "My Fanny, my only sister; my only comfort now!" She could\r
+say nothing; nor for some minutes could he say more.\r
+\r
+He turned away to recover himself, and when he spoke again, though his\r
+voice still faltered, his manner shewed the wish of self-command, and\r
+the resolution of avoiding any farther allusion. "Have you breakfasted?\r
+When shall you be ready? Does Susan go?" were questions following each\r
+other rapidly. His great object was to be off as soon as possible. When\r
+Mansfield was considered, time was precious; and the state of his own\r
+mind made him find relief only in motion. It was settled that he should\r
+order the carriage to the door in half an hour. Fanny answered for their\r
+having breakfasted and being quite ready in half an hour. He had already\r
+ate, and declined staying for their meal. He would walk round the\r
+ramparts, and join them with the carriage. He was gone again; glad to\r
+get away even from Fanny.\r
+\r
+He looked very ill; evidently suffering under violent emotions, which he\r
+was determined to suppress. She knew it must be so, but it was terrible\r
+to her.\r
+\r
+The carriage came; and he entered the house again at the same\r
+moment, just in time to spend a few minutes with the family, and be a\r
+witness--but that he saw nothing--of the tranquil manner in which the\r
+daughters were parted with, and just in time to prevent their sitting\r
+down to the breakfast-table, which, by dint of much unusual activity,\r
+was quite and completely ready as the carriage drove from the door.\r
+Fanny's last meal in her father's house was in character with her first:\r
+she was dismissed from it as hospitably as she had been welcomed.\r
+\r
+How her heart swelled with joy and gratitude as she passed the barriers\r
+of Portsmouth, and how Susan's face wore its broadest smiles, may be\r
+easily conceived. Sitting forwards, however, and screened by her bonnet,\r
+those smiles were unseen.\r
+\r
+The journey was likely to be a silent one. Edmund's deep sighs often\r
+reached Fanny. Had he been alone with her, his heart must have opened\r
+in spite of every resolution; but Susan's presence drove him quite into\r
+himself, and his attempts to talk on indifferent subjects could never be\r
+long supported.\r
+\r
+Fanny watched him with never-failing solicitude, and sometimes catching\r
+his eye, revived an affectionate smile, which comforted her; but the\r
+first day's journey passed without her hearing a word from him on the\r
+subjects that were weighing him down. The next morning produced a\r
+little more. Just before their setting out from Oxford, while Susan was\r
+stationed at a window, in eager observation of the departure of a\r
+large family from the inn, the other two were standing by the fire; and\r
+Edmund, particularly struck by the alteration in Fanny's looks, and from\r
+his ignorance of the daily evils of her father's house, attributing an\r
+undue share of the change, attributing _all_ to the recent event, took\r
+her hand, and said in a low, but very expressive tone, "No wonder--you\r
+must feel it--you must suffer. How a man who had once loved, could\r
+desert you! But _yours_--your regard was new compared with----Fanny,\r
+think of _me_!"\r
+\r
+The first division of their journey occupied a long day, and brought\r
+them, almost knocked up, to Oxford; but the second was over at a much\r
+earlier hour. They were in the environs of Mansfield long before the\r
+usual dinner-time, and as they approached the beloved place, the hearts\r
+of both sisters sank a little. Fanny began to dread the meeting with her\r
+aunts and Tom, under so dreadful a humiliation; and Susan to feel\r
+with some anxiety, that all her best manners, all her lately acquired\r
+knowledge of what was practised here, was on the point of being called\r
+into action. Visions of good and ill breeding, of old vulgarisms and new\r
+gentilities, were before her; and she was meditating much upon silver\r
+forks, napkins, and finger-glasses. Fanny had been everywhere awake to\r
+the difference of the country since February; but when they entered the\r
+Park her perceptions and her pleasures were of the keenest sort. It was\r
+three months, full three months, since her quitting it, and the\r
+change was from winter to summer. Her eye fell everywhere on lawns\r
+and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees, though not fully\r
+clothed, were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to\r
+be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more\r
+yet remains for the imagination. Her enjoyment, however, was for herself\r
+alone. Edmund could not share it. She looked at him, but he was leaning\r
+back, sunk in a deeper gloom than ever, and with eyes closed, as if the\r
+view of cheerfulness oppressed him, and the lovely scenes of home must\r
+be shut out.\r
+\r
+It made her melancholy again; and the knowledge of what must be enduring\r
+there, invested even the house, modern, airy, and well situated as it\r
+was, with a melancholy aspect.\r
+\r
+By one of the suffering party within they were expected with such\r
+impatience as she had never known before. Fanny had scarcely passed the\r
+solemn-looking servants, when Lady Bertram came from the drawing-room\r
+to meet her; came with no indolent step; and falling on her neck, said,\r
+"Dear Fanny! now I shall be comfortable."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLVII\r
+\r
+It had been a miserable party, each of the three believing themselves\r
+most miserable. Mrs. Norris, however, as most attached to Maria, was\r
+really the greatest sufferer. Maria was her first favourite, the dearest\r
+of all; the match had been her own contriving, as she had been wont with\r
+such pride of heart to feel and say, and this conclusion of it almost\r
+overpowered her.\r
+\r
+She was an altered creature, quieted, stupefied, indifferent to\r
+everything that passed. The being left with her sister and nephew, and\r
+all the house under her care, had been an advantage entirely thrown\r
+away; she had been unable to direct or dictate, or even fancy herself\r
+useful. When really touched by affliction, her active powers had been\r
+all benumbed; and neither Lady Bertram nor Tom had received from her the\r
+smallest support or attempt at support. She had done no more for them\r
+than they had done for each other. They had been all solitary, helpless,\r
+and forlorn alike; and now the arrival of the others only established\r
+her superiority in wretchedness. Her companions were relieved, but there\r
+was no good for _her_. Edmund was almost as welcome to his brother\r
+as Fanny to her aunt; but Mrs. Norris, instead of having comfort from\r
+either, was but the more irritated by the sight of the person whom, in\r
+the blindness of her anger, she could have charged as the daemon of the\r
+piece. Had Fanny accepted Mr. Crawford this could not have happened.\r
+\r
+Susan too was a grievance. She had not spirits to notice her in more\r
+than a few repulsive looks, but she felt her as a spy, and an intruder,\r
+and an indigent niece, and everything most odious. By her other aunt,\r
+Susan was received with quiet kindness. Lady Bertram could not give her\r
+much time, or many words, but she felt her, as Fanny's sister, to have\r
+a claim at Mansfield, and was ready to kiss and like her; and Susan\r
+was more than satisfied, for she came perfectly aware that nothing but\r
+ill-humour was to be expected from aunt Norris; and was so provided\r
+with happiness, so strong in that best of blessings, an escape from\r
+many certain evils, that she could have stood against a great deal more\r
+indifference than she met with from the others.\r
+\r
+She was now left a good deal to herself, to get acquainted with the\r
+house and grounds as she could, and spent her days very happily in so\r
+doing, while those who might otherwise have attended to her were shut\r
+up, or wholly occupied each with the person quite dependent on them, at\r
+this time, for everything like comfort; Edmund trying to bury his own\r
+feelings in exertions for the relief of his brother's, and Fanny devoted\r
+to her aunt Bertram, returning to every former office with more than\r
+former zeal, and thinking she could never do enough for one who seemed\r
+so much to want her.\r
+\r
+To talk over the dreadful business with Fanny, talk and lament, was all\r
+Lady Bertram's consolation. To be listened to and borne with, and hear\r
+the voice of kindness and sympathy in return, was everything that could\r
+be done for her. To be otherwise comforted was out of the question. The\r
+case admitted of no comfort. Lady Bertram did not think deeply, but,\r
+guided by Sir Thomas, she thought justly on all important points; and\r
+she saw, therefore, in all its enormity, what had happened, and neither\r
+endeavoured herself, nor required Fanny to advise her, to think little\r
+of guilt and infamy.\r
+\r
+Her affections were not acute, nor was her mind tenacious. After a time,\r
+Fanny found it not impossible to direct her thoughts to other subjects,\r
+and revive some interest in the usual occupations; but whenever Lady\r
+Bertram _was_ fixed on the event, she could see it only in one light, as\r
+comprehending the loss of a daughter, and a disgrace never to be wiped\r
+off.\r
+\r
+Fanny learnt from her all the particulars which had yet transpired. Her\r
+aunt was no very methodical narrator, but with the help of some letters\r
+to and from Sir Thomas, and what she already knew herself, and could\r
+reasonably combine, she was soon able to understand quite as much as she\r
+wished of the circumstances attending the story.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Rushworth had gone, for the Easter holidays, to Twickenham, with\r
+a family whom she had just grown intimate with: a family of lively,\r
+agreeable manners, and probably of morals and discretion to suit, for to\r
+_their_ house Mr. Crawford had constant access at all times. His having\r
+been in the same neighbourhood Fanny already knew. Mr. Rushworth had\r
+been gone at this time to Bath, to pass a few days with his mother, and\r
+bring her back to town, and Maria was with these friends without any\r
+restraint, without even Julia; for Julia had removed from Wimpole Street\r
+two or three weeks before, on a visit to some relations of Sir Thomas;\r
+a removal which her father and mother were now disposed to attribute\r
+to some view of convenience on Mr. Yates's account. Very soon after the\r
+Rushworths' return to Wimpole Street, Sir Thomas had received a letter\r
+from an old and most particular friend in London, who hearing and\r
+witnessing a good deal to alarm him in that quarter, wrote to recommend\r
+Sir Thomas's coming to London himself, and using his influence with his\r
+daughter to put an end to the intimacy which was already exposing her to\r
+unpleasant remarks, and evidently making Mr. Rushworth uneasy.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas was preparing to act upon this letter, without communicating\r
+its contents to any creature at Mansfield, when it was followed by\r
+another, sent express from the same friend, to break to him the almost\r
+desperate situation in which affairs then stood with the young people.\r
+Mrs. Rushworth had left her husband's house: Mr. Rushworth had been\r
+in great anger and distress to _him_ (Mr. Harding) for his advice; Mr.\r
+Harding feared there had been _at_ _least_ very flagrant indiscretion.\r
+The maidservant of Mrs. Rushworth, senior, threatened alarmingly. He\r
+was doing all in his power to quiet everything, with the hope of Mrs.\r
+Rushworth's return, but was so much counteracted in Wimpole Street by\r
+the influence of Mr. Rushworth's mother, that the worst consequences\r
+might be apprehended.\r
+\r
+This dreadful communication could not be kept from the rest of the\r
+family. Sir Thomas set off, Edmund would go with him, and the others had\r
+been left in a state of wretchedness, inferior only to what followed\r
+the receipt of the next letters from London. Everything was by that time\r
+public beyond a hope. The servant of Mrs. Rushworth, the mother, had\r
+exposure in her power, and supported by her mistress, was not to be\r
+silenced. The two ladies, even in the short time they had been\r
+together, had disagreed; and the bitterness of the elder against her\r
+daughter-in-law might perhaps arise almost as much from the personal\r
+disrespect with which she had herself been treated as from sensibility\r
+for her son.\r
+\r
+However that might be, she was unmanageable. But had she been less\r
+obstinate, or of less weight with her son, who was always guided by the\r
+last speaker, by the person who could get hold of and shut him up, the\r
+case would still have been hopeless, for Mrs. Rushworth did not appear\r
+again, and there was every reason to conclude her to be concealed\r
+somewhere with Mr. Crawford, who had quitted his uncle's house, as for a\r
+journey, on the very day of her absenting herself.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas, however, remained yet a little longer in town, in the hope\r
+of discovering and snatching her from farther vice, though all was lost\r
+on the side of character.\r
+\r
+_His_ present state Fanny could hardly bear to think of. There was but\r
+one of his children who was not at this time a source of misery to\r
+him. Tom's complaints had been greatly heightened by the shock of his\r
+sister's conduct, and his recovery so much thrown back by it, that even\r
+Lady Bertram had been struck by the difference, and all her alarms were\r
+regularly sent off to her husband; and Julia's elopement, the additional\r
+blow which had met him on his arrival in London, though its force had\r
+been deadened at the moment, must, she knew, be sorely felt. She saw\r
+that it was. His letters expressed how much he deplored it. Under any\r
+circumstances it would have been an unwelcome alliance; but to have it\r
+so clandestinely formed, and such a period chosen for its completion,\r
+placed Julia's feelings in a most unfavourable light, and severely\r
+aggravated the folly of her choice. He called it a bad thing, done in\r
+the worst manner, and at the worst time; and though Julia was yet as\r
+more pardonable than Maria as folly than vice, he could not but\r
+regard the step she had taken as opening the worst probabilities of a\r
+conclusion hereafter like her sister's. Such was his opinion of the set\r
+into which she had thrown herself.\r
+\r
+Fanny felt for him most acutely. He could have no comfort but in Edmund.\r
+Every other child must be racking his heart. His displeasure against\r
+herself she trusted, reasoning differently from Mrs. Norris, would now\r
+be done away. _She_ should be justified. Mr. Crawford would have fully\r
+acquitted her conduct in refusing him; but this, though most material\r
+to herself, would be poor consolation to Sir Thomas. Her uncle's\r
+displeasure was terrible to her; but what could her justification or her\r
+gratitude and attachment do for him? His stay must be on Edmund alone.\r
+\r
+She was mistaken, however, in supposing that Edmund gave his father no\r
+present pain. It was of a much less poignant nature than what the others\r
+excited; but Sir Thomas was considering his happiness as very deeply\r
+involved in the offence of his sister and friend; cut off by it, as\r
+he must be, from the woman whom he had been pursuing with undoubted\r
+attachment and strong probability of success; and who, in everything but\r
+this despicable brother, would have been so eligible a connexion. He was\r
+aware of what Edmund must be suffering on his own behalf, in addition\r
+to all the rest, when they were in town: he had seen or conjectured\r
+his feelings; and, having reason to think that one interview with Miss\r
+Crawford had taken place, from which Edmund derived only increased\r
+distress, had been as anxious on that account as on others to get him\r
+out of town, and had engaged him in taking Fanny home to her aunt, with\r
+a view to his relief and benefit, no less than theirs. Fanny was not in\r
+the secret of her uncle's feelings, Sir Thomas not in the secret of Miss\r
+Crawford's character. Had he been privy to her conversation with his\r
+son, he would not have wished her to belong to him, though her twenty\r
+thousand pounds had been forty.\r
+\r
+That Edmund must be for ever divided from Miss Crawford did not admit\r
+of a doubt with Fanny; and yet, till she knew that he felt the same, her\r
+own conviction was insufficient. She thought he did, but she wanted to\r
+be assured of it. If he would now speak to her with the unreserve which\r
+had sometimes been too much for her before, it would be most consoling;\r
+but _that_ she found was not to be. She seldom saw him: never alone. He\r
+probably avoided being alone with her. What was to be inferred? That\r
+his judgment submitted to all his own peculiar and bitter share of this\r
+family affliction, but that it was too keenly felt to be a subject of\r
+the slightest communication. This must be his state. He yielded, but it\r
+was with agonies which did not admit of speech. Long, long would it be\r
+ere Miss Crawford's name passed his lips again, or she could hope for a\r
+renewal of such confidential intercourse as had been.\r
+\r
+It _was_ long. They reached Mansfield on Thursday, and it was not till\r
+Sunday evening that Edmund began to talk to her on the subject. Sitting\r
+with her on Sunday evening--a wet Sunday evening--the very time of\r
+all others when, if a friend is at hand, the heart must be opened, and\r
+everything told; no one else in the room, except his mother, who,\r
+after hearing an affecting sermon, had cried herself to sleep, it was\r
+impossible not to speak; and so, with the usual beginnings, hardly to\r
+be traced as to what came first, and the usual declaration that if she\r
+would listen to him for a few minutes, he should be very brief, and\r
+certainly never tax her kindness in the same way again; she need not\r
+fear a repetition; it would be a subject prohibited entirely: he entered\r
+upon the luxury of relating circumstances and sensations of the first\r
+interest to himself, to one of whose affectionate sympathy he was quite\r
+convinced.\r
+\r
+How Fanny listened, with what curiosity and concern, what pain and what\r
+delight, how the agitation of his voice was watched, and how carefully\r
+her own eyes were fixed on any object but himself, may be imagined. The\r
+opening was alarming. He had seen Miss Crawford. He had been invited to\r
+see her. He had received a note from Lady Stornaway to beg him to call;\r
+and regarding it as what was meant to be the last, last interview\r
+of friendship, and investing her with all the feelings of shame and\r
+wretchedness which Crawford's sister ought to have known, he had gone to\r
+her in such a state of mind, so softened, so devoted, as made it for a\r
+few moments impossible to Fanny's fears that it should be the last. But\r
+as he proceeded in his story, these fears were over. She had met him,\r
+he said, with a serious--certainly a serious--even an agitated air;\r
+but before he had been able to speak one intelligible sentence, she had\r
+introduced the subject in a manner which he owned had shocked him. "'I\r
+heard you were in town,' said she; 'I wanted to see you. Let us talk\r
+over this sad business. What can equal the folly of our two relations?'\r
+I could not answer, but I believe my looks spoke. She felt reproved.\r
+Sometimes how quick to feel! With a graver look and voice she then\r
+added, 'I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister's expense.' So\r
+she began, but how she went on, Fanny, is not fit, is hardly fit to be\r
+repeated to you. I cannot recall all her words. I would not dwell upon\r
+them if I could. Their substance was great anger at the _folly_ of each.\r
+She reprobated her brother's folly in being drawn on by a woman whom he\r
+had never cared for, to do what must lose him the woman he adored; but\r
+still more the folly of poor Maria, in sacrificing such a situation,\r
+plunging into such difficulties, under the idea of being really loved\r
+by a man who had long ago made his indifference clear. Guess what I must\r
+have felt. To hear the woman whom--no harsher name than folly given!\r
+So voluntarily, so freely, so coolly to canvass it! No reluctance, no\r
+horror, no feminine, shall I say, no modest loathings? This is what the\r
+world does. For where, Fanny, shall we find a woman whom nature had so\r
+richly endowed? Spoilt, spoilt!"\r
+\r
+After a little reflection, he went on with a sort of desperate calmness.\r
+"I will tell you everything, and then have done for ever. She saw it\r
+only as folly, and that folly stamped only by exposure. The want of\r
+common discretion, of caution: his going down to Richmond for the whole\r
+time of her being at Twickenham; her putting herself in the power of\r
+a servant; it was the detection, in short--oh, Fanny! it was the\r
+detection, not the offence, which she reprobated. It was the imprudence\r
+which had brought things to extremity, and obliged her brother to give\r
+up every dearer plan in order to fly with her."\r
+\r
+He stopt. "And what," said Fanny (believing herself required to speak),\r
+"what could you say?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing, nothing to be understood. I was like a man stunned. She\r
+went on, began to talk of you; yes, then she began to talk of you,\r
+regretting, as well she might, the loss of such a--. There she spoke\r
+very rationally. But she has always done justice to you. 'He has thrown\r
+away,' said she, 'such a woman as he will never see again. She would\r
+have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever.' My dearest\r
+Fanny, I am giving you, I hope, more pleasure than pain by this\r
+retrospect of what might have been--but what never can be now. You do\r
+not wish me to be silent? If you do, give me but a look, a word, and I\r
+have done."\r
+\r
+No look or word was given.\r
+\r
+"Thank God," said he. "We were all disposed to wonder, but it seems to\r
+have been the merciful appointment of Providence that the heart which\r
+knew no guile should not suffer. She spoke of you with high praise and\r
+warm affection; yet, even here, there was alloy, a dash of evil; for in\r
+the midst of it she could exclaim, 'Why would not she have him? It is\r
+all her fault. Simple girl! I shall never forgive her. Had she accepted\r
+him as she ought, they might now have been on the point of marriage, and\r
+Henry would have been too happy and too busy to want any other object.\r
+He would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs. Rushworth again.\r
+It would have all ended in a regular standing flirtation, in yearly\r
+meetings at Sotherton and Everingham.' Could you have believed it\r
+possible? But the charm is broken. My eyes are opened."\r
+\r
+"Cruel!" said Fanny, "quite cruel. At such a moment to give way to\r
+gaiety, to speak with lightness, and to you! Absolute cruelty."\r
+\r
+"Cruelty, do you call it? We differ there. No, hers is not a cruel\r
+nature. I do not consider her as meaning to wound my feelings. The evil\r
+lies yet deeper: in her total ignorance, unsuspiciousness of there being\r
+such feelings; in a perversion of mind which made it natural to her to\r
+treat the subject as she did. She was speaking only as she had been used\r
+to hear others speak, as she imagined everybody else would speak. Hers\r
+are not faults of temper. She would not voluntarily give unnecessary\r
+pain to any one, and though I may deceive myself, I cannot but think\r
+that for me, for my feelings, she would--Hers are faults of principle,\r
+Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind. Perhaps it\r
+is best for me, since it leaves me so little to regret. Not so, however.\r
+Gladly would I submit to all the increased pain of losing her, rather\r
+than have to think of her as I do. I told her so."\r
+\r
+"Did you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; when I left her I told her so."\r
+\r
+"How long were you together?"\r
+\r
+"Five-and-twenty minutes. Well, she went on to say that what remained\r
+now to be done was to bring about a marriage between them. She spoke of\r
+it, Fanny, with a steadier voice than I can." He was obliged to pause\r
+more than once as he continued. "'We must persuade Henry to marry\r
+her,' said she; 'and what with honour, and the certainty of having shut\r
+himself out for ever from Fanny, I do not despair of it. Fanny he must\r
+give up. I do not think that even _he_ could now hope to succeed with\r
+one of her stamp, and therefore I hope we may find no insuperable\r
+difficulty. My influence, which is not small shall all go that way; and\r
+when once married, and properly supported by her own family, people of\r
+respectability as they are, she may recover her footing in society to a\r
+certain degree. In some circles, we know, she would never be admitted,\r
+but with good dinners, and large parties, there will always be those\r
+who will be glad of her acquaintance; and there is, undoubtedly, more\r
+liberality and candour on those points than formerly. What I advise\r
+is, that your father be quiet. Do not let him injure his own cause by\r
+interference. Persuade him to let things take their course. If by any\r
+officious exertions of his, she is induced to leave Henry's protection,\r
+there will be much less chance of his marrying her than if she remain\r
+with him. I know how he is likely to be influenced. Let Sir Thomas trust\r
+to his honour and compassion, and it may all end well; but if he get his\r
+daughter away, it will be destroying the chief hold.'"\r
+\r
+After repeating this, Edmund was so much affected that Fanny, watching\r
+him with silent, but most tender concern, was almost sorry that the\r
+subject had been entered on at all. It was long before he could speak\r
+again. At last, "Now, Fanny," said he, "I shall soon have done. I have\r
+told you the substance of all that she said. As soon as I could speak,\r
+I replied that I had not supposed it possible, coming in such a state of\r
+mind into that house as I had done, that anything could occur to make\r
+me suffer more, but that she had been inflicting deeper wounds in almost\r
+every sentence. That though I had, in the course of our acquaintance,\r
+been often sensible of some difference in our opinions, on points,\r
+too, of some moment, it had not entered my imagination to conceive the\r
+difference could be such as she had now proved it. That the manner in\r
+which she treated the dreadful crime committed by her brother and my\r
+sister (with whom lay the greater seduction I pretended not to say),\r
+but the manner in which she spoke of the crime itself, giving it every\r
+reproach but the right; considering its ill consequences only as they\r
+were to be braved or overborne by a defiance of decency and impudence in\r
+wrong; and last of all, and above all, recommending to us a compliance,\r
+a compromise, an acquiescence in the continuance of the sin, on the\r
+chance of a marriage which, thinking as I now thought of her brother,\r
+should rather be prevented than sought; all this together most\r
+grievously convinced me that I had never understood her before, and\r
+that, as far as related to mind, it had been the creature of my own\r
+imagination, not Miss Crawford, that I had been too apt to dwell on\r
+for many months past. That, perhaps, it was best for me; I had less to\r
+regret in sacrificing a friendship, feelings, hopes which must, at any\r
+rate, have been torn from me now. And yet, that I must and would confess\r
+that, could I have restored her to what she had appeared to me before,\r
+I would infinitely prefer any increase of the pain of parting, for the\r
+sake of carrying with me the right of tenderness and esteem. This is\r
+what I said, the purport of it; but, as you may imagine, not spoken\r
+so collectedly or methodically as I have repeated it to you. She was\r
+astonished, exceedingly astonished--more than astonished. I saw her\r
+change countenance. She turned extremely red. I imagined I saw a\r
+mixture of many feelings: a great, though short struggle; half a wish of\r
+yielding to truths, half a sense of shame, but habit, habit carried\r
+it. She would have laughed if she could. It was a sort of laugh, as she\r
+answered, 'A pretty good lecture, upon my word. Was it part of your last\r
+sermon? At this rate you will soon reform everybody at Mansfield and\r
+Thornton Lacey; and when I hear of you next, it may be as a celebrated\r
+preacher in some great society of Methodists, or as a missionary into\r
+foreign parts.' She tried to speak carelessly, but she was not so\r
+careless as she wanted to appear. I only said in reply, that from my\r
+heart I wished her well, and earnestly hoped that she might soon learn\r
+to think more justly, and not owe the most valuable knowledge we could\r
+any of us acquire, the knowledge of ourselves and of our duty, to the\r
+lessons of affliction, and immediately left the room. I had gone a few\r
+steps, Fanny, when I heard the door open behind me. 'Mr. Bertram,' said\r
+she. I looked back. 'Mr. Bertram,' said she, with a smile; but it was\r
+a smile ill-suited to the conversation that had passed, a saucy playful\r
+smile, seeming to invite in order to subdue me; at least it appeared so\r
+to me. I resisted; it was the impulse of the moment to resist, and still\r
+walked on. I have since, sometimes, for a moment, regretted that I did\r
+not go back, but I know I was right, and such has been the end of our\r
+acquaintance. And what an acquaintance has it been! How have I been\r
+deceived! Equally in brother and sister deceived! I thank you for your\r
+patience, Fanny. This has been the greatest relief, and now we will have\r
+done."\r
+\r
+And such was Fanny's dependence on his words, that for five minutes\r
+she thought they _had_ done. Then, however, it all came on again, or\r
+something very like it, and nothing less than Lady Bertram's rousing\r
+thoroughly up could really close such a conversation. Till that\r
+happened, they continued to talk of Miss Crawford alone, and how she had\r
+attached him, and how delightful nature had made her, and how excellent\r
+she would have been, had she fallen into good hands earlier. Fanny, now\r
+at liberty to speak openly, felt more than justified in adding to\r
+his knowledge of her real character, by some hint of what share his\r
+brother's state of health might be supposed to have in her wish for a\r
+complete reconciliation. This was not an agreeable intimation. Nature\r
+resisted it for a while. It would have been a vast deal pleasanter to\r
+have had her more disinterested in her attachment; but his vanity was\r
+not of a strength to fight long against reason. He submitted to believe\r
+that Tom's illness had influenced her, only reserving for himself this\r
+consoling thought, that considering the many counteractions of opposing\r
+habits, she had certainly been _more_ attached to him than could have\r
+been expected, and for his sake been more near doing right. Fanny\r
+thought exactly the same; and they were also quite agreed in their\r
+opinion of the lasting effect, the indelible impression, which such\r
+a disappointment must make on his mind. Time would undoubtedly abate\r
+somewhat of his sufferings, but still it was a sort of thing which he\r
+never could get entirely the better of; and as to his ever meeting with\r
+any other woman who could--it was too impossible to be named but with\r
+indignation. Fanny's friendship was all that he had to cling to.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLVIII\r
+\r
+Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects\r
+as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault\r
+themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.\r
+\r
+My Fanny, indeed, at this very time, I have the satisfaction of knowing,\r
+must have been happy in spite of everything. She must have been a happy\r
+creature in spite of all that she felt, or thought she felt, for the\r
+distress of those around her. She had sources of delight that must force\r
+their way. She was returned to Mansfield Park, she was useful, she was\r
+beloved; she was safe from Mr. Crawford; and when Sir Thomas came back\r
+she had every proof that could be given in his then melancholy state of\r
+spirits, of his perfect approbation and increased regard; and happy as\r
+all this must make her, she would still have been happy without any of\r
+it, for Edmund was no longer the dupe of Miss Crawford.\r
+\r
+It is true that Edmund was very far from happy himself. He was suffering\r
+from disappointment and regret, grieving over what was, and wishing for\r
+what could never be. She knew it was so, and was sorry; but it was with\r
+a sorrow so founded on satisfaction, so tending to ease, and so much in\r
+harmony with every dearest sensation, that there are few who might not\r
+have been glad to exchange their greatest gaiety for it.\r
+\r
+Sir Thomas, poor Sir Thomas, a parent, and conscious of errors in his\r
+own conduct as a parent, was the longest to suffer. He felt that he\r
+ought not to have allowed the marriage; that his daughter's sentiments\r
+had been sufficiently known to him to render him culpable in authorising\r
+it; that in so doing he had sacrificed the right to the expedient, and\r
+been governed by motives of selfishness and worldly wisdom. These were\r
+reflections that required some time to soften; but time will do almost\r
+everything; and though little comfort arose on Mrs. Rushworth's side for\r
+the misery she had occasioned, comfort was to be found greater than\r
+he had supposed in his other children. Julia's match became a less\r
+desperate business than he had considered it at first. She was humble,\r
+and wishing to be forgiven; and Mr. Yates, desirous of being really\r
+received into the family, was disposed to look up to him and be guided.\r
+He was not very solid; but there was a hope of his becoming less\r
+trifling, of his being at least tolerably domestic and quiet; and at any\r
+rate, there was comfort in finding his estate rather more, and his debts\r
+much less, than he had feared, and in being consulted and treated as\r
+the friend best worth attending to. There was comfort also in Tom, who\r
+gradually regained his health, without regaining the thoughtlessness and\r
+selfishness of his previous habits. He was the better for ever for his\r
+illness. He had suffered, and he had learned to think: two advantages\r
+that he had never known before; and the self-reproach arising from the\r
+deplorable event in Wimpole Street, to which he felt himself accessory\r
+by all the dangerous intimacy of his unjustifiable theatre, made an\r
+impression on his mind which, at the age of six-and-twenty, with no want\r
+of sense or good companions, was durable in its happy effects. He became\r
+what he ought to be: useful to his father, steady and quiet, and not\r
+living merely for himself.\r
+\r
+Here was comfort indeed! and quite as soon as Sir Thomas could place\r
+dependence on such sources of good, Edmund was contributing to his\r
+father's ease by improvement in the only point in which he had given\r
+him pain before--improvement in his spirits. After wandering about and\r
+sitting under trees with Fanny all the summer evenings, he had so well\r
+talked his mind into submission as to be very tolerably cheerful again.\r
+\r
+These were the circumstances and the hopes which gradually brought their\r
+alleviation to Sir Thomas, deadening his sense of what was lost, and\r
+in part reconciling him to himself; though the anguish arising from the\r
+conviction of his own errors in the education of his daughters was never\r
+to be entirely done away.\r
+\r
+Too late he became aware how unfavourable to the character of any young\r
+people must be the totally opposite treatment which Maria and Julia had\r
+been always experiencing at home, where the excessive indulgence and\r
+flattery of their aunt had been continually contrasted with his own\r
+severity. He saw how ill he had judged, in expecting to counteract what\r
+was wrong in Mrs. Norris by its reverse in himself; clearly saw that he\r
+had but increased the evil by teaching them to repress their spirits in\r
+his presence so as to make their real disposition unknown to him, and\r
+sending them for all their indulgences to a person who had been able to\r
+attach them only by the blindness of her affection, and the excess of\r
+her praise.\r
+\r
+Here had been grievous mismanagement; but, bad as it was, he gradually\r
+grew to feel that it had not been the most direful mistake in his plan\r
+of education. Something must have been wanting _within_, or time would\r
+have worn away much of its ill effect. He feared that principle, active\r
+principle, had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught\r
+to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which can\r
+alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion,\r
+but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished\r
+for elegance and accomplishments, the authorised object of their youth,\r
+could have had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the\r
+mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to\r
+the understanding and manners, not the disposition; and of the necessity\r
+of self-denial and humility, he feared they had never heard from any\r
+lips that could profit them.\r
+\r
+Bitterly did he deplore a deficiency which now he could scarcely\r
+comprehend to have been possible. Wretchedly did he feel, that with all\r
+the cost and care of an anxious and expensive education, he had brought\r
+up his daughters without their understanding their first duties, or his\r
+being acquainted with their character and temper.\r
+\r
+The high spirit and strong passions of Mrs. Rushworth, especially, were\r
+made known to him only in their sad result. She was not to be prevailed\r
+on to leave Mr. Crawford. She hoped to marry him, and they continued\r
+together till she was obliged to be convinced that such hope was vain,\r
+and till the disappointment and wretchedness arising from the conviction\r
+rendered her temper so bad, and her feelings for him so like hatred,\r
+as to make them for a while each other's punishment, and then induce a\r
+voluntary separation.\r
+\r
+She had lived with him to be reproached as the ruin of all his happiness\r
+in Fanny, and carried away no better consolation in leaving him than\r
+that she _had_ divided them. What can exceed the misery of such a mind\r
+in such a situation?\r
+\r
+Mr. Rushworth had no difficulty in procuring a divorce; and so ended a\r
+marriage contracted under such circumstances as to make any better end\r
+the effect of good luck not to be reckoned on. She had despised him,\r
+and loved another; and he had been very much aware that it was so. The\r
+indignities of stupidity, and the disappointments of selfish passion,\r
+can excite little pity. His punishment followed his conduct, as did a\r
+deeper punishment the deeper guilt of his wife. _He_ was released from\r
+the engagement to be mortified and unhappy, till some other pretty girl\r
+could attract him into matrimony again, and he might set forward on a\r
+second, and, it is to be hoped, more prosperous trial of the state: if\r
+duped, to be duped at least with good humour and good luck; while she\r
+must withdraw with infinitely stronger feelings to a retirement and\r
+reproach which could allow no second spring of hope or character.\r
+\r
+Where she could be placed became a subject of most melancholy and\r
+momentous consultation. Mrs. Norris, whose attachment seemed to augment\r
+with the demerits of her niece, would have had her received at home\r
+and countenanced by them all. Sir Thomas would not hear of it; and Mrs.\r
+Norris's anger against Fanny was so much the greater, from considering\r
+_her_ residence there as the motive. She persisted in placing his\r
+scruples to _her_ account, though Sir Thomas very solemnly assured her\r
+that, had there been no young woman in question, had there been no young\r
+person of either sex belonging to him, to be endangered by the society\r
+or hurt by the character of Mrs. Rushworth, he would never have offered\r
+so great an insult to the neighbourhood as to expect it to notice her.\r
+As a daughter, he hoped a penitent one, she should be protected by him,\r
+and secured in every comfort, and supported by every encouragement to do\r
+right, which their relative situations admitted; but farther than _that_\r
+he could not go. Maria had destroyed her own character, and he would\r
+not, by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored, by\r
+affording his sanction to vice, or in seeking to lessen its disgrace, be\r
+anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family as\r
+he had known himself.\r
+\r
+It ended in Mrs. Norris's resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself\r
+to her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them\r
+in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with\r
+little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment,\r
+it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual\r
+punishment.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Norris's removal from Mansfield was the great supplementary comfort\r
+of Sir Thomas's life. His opinion of her had been sinking from the day\r
+of his return from Antigua: in every transaction together from that\r
+period, in their daily intercourse, in business, or in chat, she had\r
+been regularly losing ground in his esteem, and convincing him that\r
+either time had done her much disservice, or that he had considerably\r
+over-rated her sense, and wonderfully borne with her manners before. He\r
+had felt her as an hourly evil, which was so much the worse, as there\r
+seemed no chance of its ceasing but with life; she seemed a part of\r
+himself that must be borne for ever. To be relieved from her, therefore,\r
+was so great a felicity that, had she not left bitter remembrances\r
+behind her, there might have been danger of his learning almost to\r
+approve the evil which produced such a good.\r
+\r
+She was regretted by no one at Mansfield. She had never been able to\r
+attach even those she loved best; and since Mrs. Rushworth's elopement,\r
+her temper had been in a state of such irritation as to make her\r
+everywhere tormenting. Not even Fanny had tears for aunt Norris, not\r
+even when she was gone for ever.\r
+\r
+That Julia escaped better than Maria was owing, in some measure, to a\r
+favourable difference of disposition and circumstance, but in a greater\r
+to her having been less the darling of that very aunt, less flattered\r
+and less spoilt. Her beauty and acquirements had held but a second\r
+place. She had been always used to think herself a little inferior to\r
+Maria. Her temper was naturally the easiest of the two; her feelings,\r
+though quick, were more controllable, and education had not given her so\r
+very hurtful a degree of self-consequence.\r
+\r
+She had submitted the best to the disappointment in Henry Crawford.\r
+After the first bitterness of the conviction of being slighted was over,\r
+she had been tolerably soon in a fair way of not thinking of him again;\r
+and when the acquaintance was renewed in town, and Mr. Rushworth's house\r
+became Crawford's object, she had had the merit of withdrawing herself\r
+from it, and of chusing that time to pay a visit to her other friends,\r
+in order to secure herself from being again too much attracted. This had\r
+been her motive in going to her cousin's. Mr. Yates's convenience had\r
+had nothing to do with it. She had been allowing his attentions some\r
+time, but with very little idea of ever accepting him; and had not her\r
+sister's conduct burst forth as it did, and her increased dread of her\r
+father and of home, on that event, imagining its certain consequence\r
+to herself would be greater severity and restraint, made her hastily\r
+resolve on avoiding such immediate horrors at all risks, it is probable\r
+that Mr. Yates would never have succeeded. She had not eloped with any\r
+worse feelings than those of selfish alarm. It had appeared to her the\r
+only thing to be done. Maria's guilt had induced Julia's folly.\r
+\r
+Henry Crawford, ruined by early independence and bad domestic example,\r
+indulged in the freaks of a cold-blooded vanity a little too long. Once\r
+it had, by an opening undesigned and unmerited, led him into the way of\r
+happiness. Could he have been satisfied with the conquest of one\r
+amiable woman's affections, could he have found sufficient exultation\r
+in overcoming the reluctance, in working himself into the esteem and\r
+tenderness of Fanny Price, there would have been every probability of\r
+success and felicity for him. His affection had already done something.\r
+Her influence over him had already given him some influence over her.\r
+Would he have deserved more, there can be no doubt that more would have\r
+been obtained, especially when that marriage had taken place, which\r
+would have given him the assistance of her conscience in subduing her\r
+first inclination, and brought them very often together. Would he have\r
+persevered, and uprightly, Fanny must have been his reward, and a reward\r
+very voluntarily bestowed, within a reasonable period from Edmund's\r
+marrying Mary.\r
+\r
+Had he done as he intended, and as he knew he ought, by going down to\r
+Everingham after his return from Portsmouth, he might have been deciding\r
+his own happy destiny. But he was pressed to stay for Mrs. Fraser's\r
+party; his staying was made of flattering consequence, and he was to\r
+meet Mrs. Rushworth there. Curiosity and vanity were both engaged, and\r
+the temptation of immediate pleasure was too strong for a mind unused to\r
+make any sacrifice to right: he resolved to defer his Norfolk journey,\r
+resolved that writing should answer the purpose of it, or that its\r
+purpose was unimportant, and staid. He saw Mrs. Rushworth, was received\r
+by her with a coldness which ought to have been repulsive, and have\r
+established apparent indifference between them for ever; but he was\r
+mortified, he could not bear to be thrown off by the woman whose smiles\r
+had been so wholly at his command: he must exert himself to subdue so\r
+proud a display of resentment; it was anger on Fanny's account; he must\r
+get the better of it, and make Mrs. Rushworth Maria Bertram again in her\r
+treatment of himself.\r
+\r
+In this spirit he began the attack, and by animated perseverance had\r
+soon re-established the sort of familiar intercourse, of gallantry,\r
+of flirtation, which bounded his views; but in triumphing over the\r
+discretion which, though beginning in anger, might have saved them both,\r
+he had put himself in the power of feelings on her side more strong\r
+than he had supposed. She loved him; there was no withdrawing attentions\r
+avowedly dear to her. He was entangled by his own vanity, with as little\r
+excuse of love as possible, and without the smallest inconstancy of mind\r
+towards her cousin. To keep Fanny and the Bertrams from a knowledge of\r
+what was passing became his first object. Secrecy could not have been\r
+more desirable for Mrs. Rushworth's credit than he felt it for his own.\r
+When he returned from Richmond, he would have been glad to see Mrs.\r
+Rushworth no more. All that followed was the result of her imprudence;\r
+and he went off with her at last, because he could not help it,\r
+regretting Fanny even at the moment, but regretting her infinitely more\r
+when all the bustle of the intrigue was over, and a very few months had\r
+taught him, by the force of contrast, to place a yet higher value on the\r
+sweetness of her temper, the purity of her mind, and the excellence of\r
+her principles.\r
+\r
+That punishment, the public punishment of disgrace, should in a just\r
+measure attend _his_ share of the offence is, we know, not one of the\r
+barriers which society gives to virtue. In this world the penalty is\r
+less equal than could be wished; but without presuming to look forward\r
+to a juster appointment hereafter, we may fairly consider a man of\r
+sense, like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself no small\r
+portion of vexation and regret: vexation that must rise sometimes\r
+to self-reproach, and regret to wretchedness, in having so requited\r
+hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best, most\r
+estimable, and endeared acquaintance, and so lost the woman whom he had\r
+rationally as well as passionately loved.\r
+\r
+After what had passed to wound and alienate the two families, the\r
+continuance of the Bertrams and Grants in such close neighbourhood would\r
+have been most distressing; but the absence of the latter, for some\r
+months purposely lengthened, ended very fortunately in the necessity, or\r
+at least the practicability, of a permanent removal. Dr. Grant, through\r
+an interest on which he had almost ceased to form hopes, succeeded to\r
+a stall in Westminster, which, as affording an occasion for leaving\r
+Mansfield, an excuse for residence in London, and an increase of income\r
+to answer the expenses of the change, was highly acceptable to those who\r
+went and those who staid.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Grant, with a temper to love and be loved, must have gone with some\r
+regret from the scenes and people she had been used to; but the same\r
+happiness of disposition must in any place, and any society, secure her\r
+a great deal to enjoy, and she had again a home to offer Mary; and Mary\r
+had had enough of her own friends, enough of vanity, ambition, love, and\r
+disappointment in the course of the last half-year, to be in need of the\r
+true kindness of her sister's heart, and the rational tranquillity\r
+of her ways. They lived together; and when Dr. Grant had brought on\r
+apoplexy and death, by three great institutionary dinners in one week,\r
+they still lived together; for Mary, though perfectly resolved against\r
+ever attaching herself to a younger brother again, was long in finding\r
+among the dashing representatives, or idle heir-apparents, who were at\r
+the command of her beauty, and her £20,000, any one who could satisfy the\r
+better taste she had acquired at Mansfield, whose character and manners\r
+could authorise a hope of the domestic happiness she had there learned\r
+to estimate, or put Edmund Bertram sufficiently out of her head.\r
+\r
+Edmund had greatly the advantage of her in this respect. He had not to\r
+wait and wish with vacant affections for an object worthy to succeed her\r
+in them. Scarcely had he done regretting Mary Crawford, and observing to\r
+Fanny how impossible it was that he should ever meet with such another\r
+woman, before it began to strike him whether a very different kind of\r
+woman might not do just as well, or a great deal better: whether Fanny\r
+herself were not growing as dear, as important to him in all her smiles\r
+and all her ways, as Mary Crawford had ever been; and whether it might\r
+not be a possible, an hopeful undertaking to persuade her that her warm\r
+and sisterly regard for him would be foundation enough for wedded love.\r
+\r
+I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that every one may\r
+be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable\r
+passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as\r
+to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that\r
+exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and\r
+not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and\r
+became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.\r
+\r
+With such a regard for her, indeed, as his had long been, a regard\r
+founded on the most endearing claims of innocence and helplessness, and\r
+completed by every recommendation of growing worth, what could be more\r
+natural than the change? Loving, guiding, protecting her, as he had been\r
+doing ever since her being ten years old, her mind in so great a degree\r
+formed by his care, and her comfort depending on his kindness, an\r
+object to him of such close and peculiar interest, dearer by all his own\r
+importance with her than any one else at Mansfield, what was there now\r
+to add, but that he should learn to prefer soft light eyes to sparkling\r
+dark ones. And being always with her, and always talking confidentially,\r
+and his feelings exactly in that favourable state which a recent\r
+disappointment gives, those soft light eyes could not be very long in\r
+obtaining the pre-eminence.\r
+\r
+Having once set out, and felt that he had done so on this road to\r
+happiness, there was nothing on the side of prudence to stop him or make\r
+his progress slow; no doubts of her deserving, no fears of opposition of\r
+taste, no need of drawing new hopes of happiness from dissimilarity\r
+of temper. Her mind, disposition, opinions, and habits wanted no\r
+half-concealment, no self-deception on the present, no reliance on\r
+future improvement. Even in the midst of his late infatuation, he had\r
+acknowledged Fanny's mental superiority. What must be his sense of it\r
+now, therefore? She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody\r
+minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in\r
+the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement\r
+from her should be long wanting. Timid, anxious, doubting as she was, it\r
+was still impossible that such tenderness as hers should not, at times,\r
+hold out the strongest hope of success, though it remained for a later\r
+period to tell him the whole delightful and astonishing truth. His\r
+happiness in knowing himself to have been so long the beloved of such a\r
+heart, must have been great enough to warrant any strength of language\r
+in which he could clothe it to her or to himself; it must have been\r
+a delightful happiness. But there was happiness elsewhere which no\r
+description can reach. Let no one presume to give the feelings of a\r
+young woman on receiving the assurance of that affection of which she\r
+has scarcely allowed herself to entertain a hope.\r
+\r
+Their own inclinations ascertained, there were no difficulties behind,\r
+no drawback of poverty or parent. It was a match which Sir Thomas's\r
+wishes had even forestalled. Sick of ambitious and mercenary connexions,\r
+prizing more and more the sterling good of principle and temper, and\r
+chiefly anxious to bind by the strongest securities all that remained to\r
+him of domestic felicity, he had pondered with genuine satisfaction on\r
+the more than possibility of the two young friends finding their natural\r
+consolation in each other for all that had occurred of disappointment to\r
+either; and the joyful consent which met Edmund's application, the high\r
+sense of having realised a great acquisition in the promise of Fanny for\r
+a daughter, formed just such a contrast with his early opinion on the\r
+subject when the poor little girl's coming had been first agitated, as\r
+time is for ever producing between the plans and decisions of mortals,\r
+for their own instruction, and their neighbours' entertainment.\r
+\r
+Fanny was indeed the daughter that he wanted. His charitable kindness\r
+had been rearing a prime comfort for himself. His liberality had a rich\r
+repayment, and the general goodness of his intentions by her deserved\r
+it. He might have made her childhood happier; but it had been an error\r
+of judgment only which had given him the appearance of harshness, and\r
+deprived him of her early love; and now, on really knowing each other,\r
+their mutual attachment became very strong. After settling her at\r
+Thornton Lacey with every kind attention to her comfort, the object of\r
+almost every day was to see her there, or to get her away from it.\r
+\r
+Selfishly dear as she had long been to Lady Bertram, she could not be\r
+parted with willingly by _her_. No happiness of son or niece could make\r
+her wish the marriage. But it was possible to part with her, because\r
+Susan remained to supply her place. Susan became the stationary niece,\r
+delighted to be so; and equally well adapted for it by a readiness of\r
+mind, and an inclination for usefulness, as Fanny had been by sweetness\r
+of temper, and strong feelings of gratitude. Susan could never be\r
+spared. First as a comfort to Fanny, then as an auxiliary, and last as\r
+her substitute, she was established at Mansfield, with every appearance\r
+of equal permanency. Her more fearless disposition and happier nerves\r
+made everything easy to her there. With quickness in understanding\r
+the tempers of those she had to deal with, and no natural timidity to\r
+restrain any consequent wishes, she was soon welcome and useful to all;\r
+and after Fanny's removal succeeded so naturally to her influence over\r
+the hourly comfort of her aunt, as gradually to become, perhaps, the\r
+most beloved of the two. In _her_ usefulness, in Fanny's excellence,\r
+in William's continued good conduct and rising fame, and in the general\r
+well-doing and success of the other members of the family, all assisting\r
+to advance each other, and doing credit to his countenance and aid, Sir\r
+Thomas saw repeated, and for ever repeated, reason to rejoice in what he\r
+had done for them all, and acknowledge the advantages of early hardship\r
+and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and\r
+endure.\r
+\r
+With so much true merit and true love, and no want of fortune and\r
+friends, the happiness of the married cousins must appear as secure as\r
+earthly happiness can be. Equally formed for domestic life, and attached\r
+to country pleasures, their home was the home of affection and comfort;\r
+and to complete the picture of good, the acquisition of Mansfield\r
+living, by the death of Dr. Grant, occurred just after they had been\r
+married long enough to begin to want an increase of income, and feel\r
+their distance from the paternal abode an inconvenience.\r
+\r
+On that event they removed to Mansfield; and the Parsonage there,\r
+which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able\r
+to approach but with some painful sensation of restraint or alarm, soon\r
+grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as\r
+everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park had long\r
+been.\r
+\r
+\r
+THE END\r
--- /dev/null
+\r
+EMMA\r
+\r
+By Jane Austen\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+VOLUME I\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home\r
+and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of\r
+existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very\r
+little to distress or vex her.\r
+\r
+She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate,\r
+indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been\r
+mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died\r
+too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of\r
+her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as\r
+governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.\r
+\r
+Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse’s family, less as a\r
+governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly\r
+of Emma. Between _them_ it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before\r
+Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the\r
+mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint;\r
+and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been\r
+living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma\r
+doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but\r
+directed chiefly by her own.\r
+\r
+The real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having\r
+rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too\r
+well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to\r
+her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived,\r
+that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.\r
+\r
+Sorrow came--a gentle sorrow--but not at all in the shape of any\r
+disagreeable consciousness.--Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor’s\r
+loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this\r
+beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any\r
+continuance. The wedding over, and the bride-people gone, her father and\r
+herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to cheer\r
+a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after dinner, as\r
+usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost.\r
+\r
+The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston\r
+was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and\r
+pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering\r
+with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and\r
+promoted the match; but it was a black morning’s work for her. The want\r
+of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her\r
+past kindness--the kindness, the affection of sixteen years--how she had\r
+taught and how she had played with her from five years old--how she had\r
+devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in health--and how\r
+nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of\r
+gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the last seven\r
+years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed\r
+Isabella’s marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a\r
+dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such\r
+as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing\r
+all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and\r
+peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of\r
+hers--one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had\r
+such an affection for her as could never find fault.\r
+\r
+How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was going\r
+only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the\r
+difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss\r
+Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic,\r
+she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She\r
+dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not\r
+meet her in conversation, rational or playful.\r
+\r
+The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had\r
+not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits;\r
+for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of\r
+mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though\r
+everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable\r
+temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time.\r
+\r
+Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being\r
+settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily\r
+reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled\r
+through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from\r
+Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house,\r
+and give her pleasant society again.\r
+\r
+Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town,\r
+to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and\r
+name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses\r
+were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many\r
+acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but\r
+not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even\r
+half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over\r
+it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it\r
+necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous\r
+man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and\r
+hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the\r
+origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet\r
+reconciled to his own daughter’s marrying, nor could ever speak of her\r
+but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection,\r
+when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his\r
+habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that\r
+other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much\r
+disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for\r
+them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the\r
+rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully\r
+as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was\r
+impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,\r
+\r
+“Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that\r
+Mr. Weston ever thought of her!”\r
+\r
+“I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such\r
+a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves\r
+a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for\r
+ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her\r
+own?”\r
+\r
+“A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own?\r
+This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my\r
+dear.”\r
+\r
+“How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We\r
+shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding\r
+visit very soon.”\r
+\r
+“My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could\r
+not walk half so far.”\r
+\r
+“No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage,\r
+to be sure.”\r
+\r
+“The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a\r
+little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our\r
+visit?”\r
+\r
+“They are to be put into Mr. Weston’s stable, papa. You know we have\r
+settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last\r
+night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going\r
+to Randalls, because of his daughter’s being housemaid there. I only\r
+doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing,\r
+papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you\r
+mentioned her--James is so obliged to you!”\r
+\r
+“I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not\r
+have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am\r
+sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken\r
+girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always\r
+curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you\r
+have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock\r
+of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an\r
+excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor\r
+to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes\r
+over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will\r
+be able to tell her how we all are.”\r
+\r
+Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and\r
+hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably\r
+through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The\r
+backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards walked\r
+in and made it unnecessary.\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not\r
+only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly\r
+connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived\r
+about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome,\r
+and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their\r
+mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after\r
+some days’ absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were\r
+well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated\r
+Mr. Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which\r
+always did him good; and his many inquiries after “poor Isabella” and\r
+her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr.\r
+Woodhouse gratefully observed, “It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley,\r
+to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must have\r
+had a shocking walk.”\r
+\r
+“Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I\r
+must draw back from your great fire.”\r
+\r
+“But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not\r
+catch cold.”\r
+\r
+“Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them.”\r
+\r
+“Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain\r
+here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at\r
+breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding.”\r
+\r
+“By the bye--I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what\r
+sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my\r
+congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you\r
+all behave? Who cried most?”\r
+\r
+“Ah! poor Miss Taylor! ‘Tis a sad business.”\r
+\r
+“Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say\r
+‘poor Miss Taylor.’ I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it\r
+comes to the question of dependence or independence!--At any rate, it\r
+must be better to have only one to please than two.”\r
+\r
+“Especially when _one_ of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome\r
+creature!” said Emma playfully. “That is what you have in your head, I\r
+know--and what you would certainly say if my father were not by.”\r
+\r
+“I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse, with a\r
+sigh. “I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”\r
+\r
+“My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean _you_, or suppose Mr.\r
+Knightley to mean _you_. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only\r
+myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know--in a\r
+joke--it is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults\r
+in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and\r
+though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew\r
+it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him\r
+really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by\r
+every body.\r
+\r
+“Emma knows I never flatter her,” said Mr. Knightley, “but I meant no\r
+reflection on any body. Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons\r
+to please; she will now have but one. The chances are that she must be a\r
+gainer.”\r
+\r
+“Well,” said Emma, willing to let it pass--“you want to hear about\r
+the wedding; and I shall be happy to tell you, for we all behaved\r
+charmingly. Every body was punctual, every body in their best looks: not\r
+a tear, and hardly a long face to be seen. Oh no; we all felt that we\r
+were going to be only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting every\r
+day.”\r
+\r
+“Dear Emma bears every thing so well,” said her father. “But, Mr.\r
+Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am\r
+sure she _will_ miss her more than she thinks for.”\r
+\r
+Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. “It\r
+is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion,” said Mr.\r
+Knightley. “We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could\r
+suppose it; but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor’s\r
+advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor’s\r
+time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to\r
+her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow\r
+herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor\r
+must be glad to have her so happily married.”\r
+\r
+“And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very\r
+considerable one--that I made the match myself. I made the match, you\r
+know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the\r
+right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may\r
+comfort me for any thing.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, “Ah!\r
+my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for\r
+whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more\r
+matches.”\r
+\r
+“I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for\r
+other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such\r
+success, you know!--Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry\r
+again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who\r
+seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly occupied\r
+either in his business in town or among his friends here, always\r
+acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful--Mr. Weston need not spend\r
+a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh no! Mr.\r
+Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a\r
+promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of the son and the\r
+uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the\r
+subject, but I believed none of it.\r
+\r
+“Ever since the day--about four years ago--that Miss Taylor and I met\r
+with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted\r
+away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from\r
+Farmer Mitchell’s, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match\r
+from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this instance,\r
+dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match-making.”\r
+\r
+“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success,’” said Mr. Knightley.\r
+“Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately\r
+spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring\r
+about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady’s mind! But\r
+if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means\r
+only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, ‘I think it\r
+would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry\r
+her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why\r
+do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You\r
+made a lucky guess; and _that_ is all that can be said.”\r
+\r
+“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?--I\r
+pity you.--I thought you cleverer--for, depend upon it a lucky guess is\r
+never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my\r
+poor word ‘success,’ which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so\r
+entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty pictures;\r
+but I think there may be a third--a something between the do-nothing and\r
+the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston’s visits here, and given\r
+many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might\r
+not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield\r
+enough to comprehend that.”\r
+\r
+“A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational,\r
+unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their\r
+own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than\r
+good to them, by interference.”\r
+\r
+“Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others,” rejoined\r
+Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not\r
+make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one’s family\r
+circle grievously.”\r
+\r
+“Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr.\r
+Elton, papa,--I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in\r
+Highbury who deserves him--and he has been here a whole year, and has\r
+fitted up his house so comfortably, that it would be a shame to have him\r
+single any longer--and I thought when he was joining their hands to-day,\r
+he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office\r
+done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is the only way I\r
+have of doing him a service.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man, to be sure, and a very good young\r
+man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any\r
+attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will\r
+be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to\r
+meet him.”\r
+\r
+“With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley,\r
+laughing, “and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better\r
+thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish\r
+and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a\r
+man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family,\r
+which for the last two or three generations had been rising into\r
+gentility and property. He had received a good education, but, on\r
+succeeding early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed\r
+for any of the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged,\r
+and had satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering\r
+into the militia of his county, then embodied.\r
+\r
+Captain Weston was a general favourite; and when the chances of his\r
+military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire\r
+family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprized,\r
+except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were\r
+full of pride and importance, which the connexion would offend.\r
+\r
+Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of her\r
+fortune--though her fortune bore no proportion to the family-estate--was\r
+not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the\r
+infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with\r
+due decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much\r
+happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found more in it, for she had a\r
+husband whose warm heart and sweet temper made him think every thing due\r
+to her in return for the great goodness of being in love with him;\r
+but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the best. She had\r
+resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother,\r
+but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother’s\r
+unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home.\r
+They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing in comparison\r
+of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her husband, but she wanted at\r
+once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe.\r
+\r
+Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills,\r
+as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of\r
+the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years’ marriage, he\r
+was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain.\r
+From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy\r
+had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his\r
+mother’s, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature\r
+of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the\r
+little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance\r
+the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were\r
+overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and\r
+the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek,\r
+and his own situation to improve as he could.\r
+\r
+A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and\r
+engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in\r
+London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which\r
+brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury,\r
+where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation\r
+and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his\r
+life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy\r
+competence--enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining\r
+Highbury, which he had always longed for--enough to marry a woman as\r
+portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of\r
+his own friendly and social disposition.\r
+\r
+It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his\r
+schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth,\r
+it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could\r
+purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to;\r
+but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were\r
+accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained\r
+his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every\r
+probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had\r
+never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that,\r
+even in his first marriage; but his second must shew him how delightful\r
+a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the\r
+pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be\r
+chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.\r
+\r
+He had only himself to please in his choice: his fortune was his own;\r
+for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his\r
+uncle’s heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume\r
+the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely, therefore,\r
+that he should ever want his father’s assistance. His father had no\r
+apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her\r
+husband entirely; but it was not in Mr. Weston’s nature to imagine that\r
+any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and, as he\r
+believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and\r
+was proud of him; and his fond report of him as a very fine young man\r
+had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as\r
+sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a\r
+kind of common concern.\r
+\r
+Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively\r
+curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little\r
+returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit\r
+his father had been often talked of but never achieved.\r
+\r
+Now, upon his father’s marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a\r
+most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a\r
+dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with\r
+Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now\r
+was the time for Mr. Frank Churchill to come among them; and the hope\r
+strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new\r
+mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury\r
+included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs. Weston had received.\r
+“I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill\r
+has written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter,\r
+indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and\r
+he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life.”\r
+\r
+It was, indeed, a highly prized letter. Mrs. Weston had, of course,\r
+formed a very favourable idea of the young man; and such a pleasing\r
+attention was an irresistible proof of his great good sense, and a most\r
+welcome addition to every source and every expression of congratulation\r
+which her marriage had already secured. She felt herself a most\r
+fortunate woman; and she had lived long enough to know how fortunate\r
+she might well be thought, where the only regret was for a partial\r
+separation from friends whose friendship for her had never cooled, and\r
+who could ill bear to part with her.\r
+\r
+She knew that at times she must be missed; and could not think, without\r
+pain, of Emma’s losing a single pleasure, or suffering an hour’s ennui,\r
+from the want of her companionableness: but dear Emma was of no feeble\r
+character; she was more equal to her situation than most girls would\r
+have been, and had sense, and energy, and spirits that might be hoped\r
+would bear her well and happily through its little difficulties and\r
+privations. And then there was such comfort in the very easy distance of\r
+Randalls from Hartfield, so convenient for even solitary female walking,\r
+and in Mr. Weston’s disposition and circumstances, which would make the\r
+approaching season no hindrance to their spending half the evenings in\r
+the week together.\r
+\r
+Her situation was altogether the subject of hours of gratitude to Mrs.\r
+Weston, and of moments only of regret; and her satisfaction--her more\r
+than satisfaction--her cheerful enjoyment, was so just and so apparent,\r
+that Emma, well as she knew her father, was sometimes taken by surprize\r
+at his being still able to pity ‘poor Miss Taylor,’ when they left her\r
+at Randalls in the centre of every domestic comfort, or saw her go away\r
+in the evening attended by her pleasant husband to a carriage of her\r
+own. But never did she go without Mr. Woodhouse’s giving a gentle sigh,\r
+and saying, “Ah, poor Miss Taylor! She would be very glad to stay.”\r
+\r
+There was no recovering Miss Taylor--nor much likelihood of ceasing to\r
+pity her; but a few weeks brought some alleviation to Mr. Woodhouse.\r
+The compliments of his neighbours were over; he was no longer teased by\r
+being wished joy of so sorrowful an event; and the wedding-cake, which\r
+had been a great distress to him, was all eat up. His own stomach\r
+could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be\r
+different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit\r
+for any body; and he had, therefore, earnestly tried to dissuade them\r
+from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proved vain, as\r
+earnestly tried to prevent any body’s eating it. He had been at the\r
+pains of consulting Mr. Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. Mr. Perry\r
+was an intelligent, gentlemanlike man, whose frequent visits were one\r
+of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouse’s life; and upon being applied to, he\r
+could not but acknowledge (though it seemed rather against the bias\r
+of inclination) that wedding-cake might certainly disagree with\r
+many--perhaps with most people, unless taken moderately. With such an\r
+opinion, in confirmation of his own, Mr. Woodhouse hoped to influence\r
+every visitor of the newly married pair; but still the cake was eaten;\r
+and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone.\r
+\r
+There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being\r
+seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston’s wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr.\r
+Woodhouse would never believe it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to\r
+have his friends come and see him; and from various united causes, from\r
+his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune,\r
+his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his\r
+own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much\r
+intercourse with any families beyond that circle; his horror of late\r
+hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit for any acquaintance but\r
+such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury,\r
+including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish\r
+adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such. Not\r
+unfrequently, through Emma’s persuasion, he had some of the chosen and\r
+the best to dine with him: but evening parties were what he preferred;\r
+and, unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there\r
+was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a\r
+card-table for him.\r
+\r
+Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley; and by\r
+Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege\r
+of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the\r
+elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse’s drawing-room, and the smiles\r
+of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away.\r
+\r
+After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom were\r
+Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at\r
+the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and\r
+carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for\r
+either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it\r
+would have been a grievance.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old\r
+lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her\r
+single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the\r
+regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward\r
+circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree\r
+of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married.\r
+Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having\r
+much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to\r
+make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into\r
+outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her\r
+youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted\r
+to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small\r
+income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman\r
+whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal good-will\r
+and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body,\r
+was interested in every body’s happiness, quicksighted to every body’s\r
+merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with\r
+blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours\r
+and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and\r
+cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a\r
+recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was\r
+a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse,\r
+full of trivial communications and harmless gossip.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or an\r
+establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of\r
+refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality,\r
+upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous\r
+pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real,\r
+honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of\r
+accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might\r
+be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little\r
+education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard’s\r
+school was in high repute--and very deservedly; for Highbury was\r
+reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and garden,\r
+gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great\r
+deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own\r
+hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked\r
+after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who\r
+had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the\r
+occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr.\r
+Woodhouse’s kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat\r
+parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose\r
+a few sixpences by his fireside.\r
+\r
+These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to\r
+collect; and happy was she, for her father’s sake, in the power; though,\r
+as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of\r
+Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and\r
+very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well; but the\r
+quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so\r
+spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated.\r
+\r
+As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the\r
+present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in most\r
+respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her; a most\r
+welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew\r
+very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of\r
+her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no\r
+longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion.\r
+\r
+Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed\r
+her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s school, and somebody\r
+had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of\r
+parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history.\r
+She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and\r
+was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young\r
+ladies who had been at school there with her.\r
+\r
+She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort\r
+which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a\r
+fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great\r
+sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased\r
+with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the\r
+acquaintance.\r
+\r
+She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s\r
+conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not\r
+inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing,\r
+shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly\r
+grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed\r
+by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had\r
+been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement.\r
+Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those\r
+natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury\r
+and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were\r
+unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though very\r
+good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were a family of the\r
+name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large\r
+farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell--very\r
+creditably, she believed--she knew Mr. Knightley thought highly of\r
+them--but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the\r
+intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance\r
+to be quite perfect. _She_ would notice her; she would improve her; she\r
+would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good\r
+society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an\r
+interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her\r
+own situation in life, her leisure, and powers.\r
+\r
+She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and\r
+listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the\r
+evening flew away at a very unusual rate; and the supper-table, which\r
+always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and\r
+watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the\r
+fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse\r
+of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every\r
+thing well and attentively, with the real good-will of a mind delighted\r
+with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and\r
+help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an\r
+urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil\r
+scruples of their guests.\r
+\r
+Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse’s feelings were in sad warfare.\r
+He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his\r
+youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him\r
+rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and while his hospitality would\r
+have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his care for their health\r
+made him grieve that they would eat.\r
+\r
+Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could,\r
+with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain\r
+himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to\r
+say:\r
+\r
+“Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg\r
+boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg\r
+better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body\r
+else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of\r
+our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a\r
+_little_ bit of tart--a _very_ little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You\r
+need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the\r
+custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to _half_ a glass of wine? A\r
+_small_ half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could\r
+disagree with you.”\r
+\r
+Emma allowed her father to talk--but supplied her visitors in a much\r
+more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular\r
+pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith was\r
+quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a personage\r
+in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had given as much\r
+panic as pleasure; but the humble, grateful little girl went off with\r
+highly gratified feelings, delighted with the affability with which Miss\r
+Woodhouse had treated her all the evening, and actually shaken hands\r
+with her at last!\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+\r
+Harriet Smith’s intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick\r
+and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and\r
+telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so\r
+did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had\r
+very early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect\r
+Mrs. Weston’s loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the\r
+shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long\r
+walk, or his short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston’s marriage\r
+her exercise had been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to\r
+Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore,\r
+one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable\r
+addition to her privileges. But in every respect, as she saw more of\r
+her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs.\r
+\r
+Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful\r
+disposition, was totally free from conceit, and only desiring to be\r
+guided by any one she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself\r
+was very amiable; and her inclination for good company, and power of\r
+appreciating what was elegant and clever, shewed that there was no\r
+want of taste, though strength of understanding must not be expected.\r
+Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith’s being exactly the\r
+young friend she wanted--exactly the something which her home required.\r
+Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the question. Two such could\r
+never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite a different\r
+sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the\r
+object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet\r
+would be loved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there\r
+was nothing to be done; for Harriet every thing.\r
+\r
+Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who\r
+were the parents, but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell\r
+every thing in her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma\r
+was obliged to fancy what she liked--but she could never believe that in\r
+the same situation _she_ should not have discovered the truth. Harriet\r
+had no penetration. She had been satisfied to hear and believe just what\r
+Mrs. Goddard chose to tell her; and looked no farther.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls and the affairs of\r
+the school in general, formed naturally a great part of the\r
+conversation--and but for her acquaintance with the Martins of\r
+Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied\r
+her thoughts a good deal; she had spent two very happy months with them,\r
+and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe\r
+the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma encouraged her\r
+talkativeness--amused by such a picture of another set of beings,\r
+and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so much\r
+exultation of Mrs. Martin’s having “_two_ parlours, two very good\r
+parlours, indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard’s\r
+drawing-room; and of her having an upper maid who had lived\r
+five-and-twenty years with her; and of their having eight cows, two of\r
+them Alderneys, and one a little Welch cow, a very pretty little Welch\r
+cow indeed; and of Mrs. Martin’s saying as she was so fond of it,\r
+it should be called _her_ cow; and of their having a very handsome\r
+summer-house in their garden, where some day next year they were all to\r
+drink tea:--a very handsome summer-house, large enough to hold a dozen\r
+people.”\r
+\r
+For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate\r
+cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings\r
+arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and\r
+daughter, a son and son’s wife, who all lived together; but when it\r
+appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was\r
+always mentioned with approbation for his great good-nature in doing\r
+something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs.\r
+Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect danger to her poor little\r
+friend from all this hospitality and kindness, and that, if she were not\r
+taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever.\r
+\r
+With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and\r
+meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin,\r
+and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to\r
+speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening\r
+games; and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and\r
+obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her\r
+some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in\r
+every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd’s son into\r
+the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond\r
+of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very\r
+clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while\r
+she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in\r
+the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and\r
+sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and\r
+there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body\r
+to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he\r
+would make a good husband. Not that she _wanted_ him to marry. She was\r
+in no hurry at all.\r
+\r
+“Well done, Mrs. Martin!” thought Emma. “You know what you are about.”\r
+\r
+“And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send\r
+Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose--the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever\r
+seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three\r
+teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with\r
+her.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of\r
+his own business? He does not read?”\r
+\r
+“Oh yes!--that is, no--I do not know--but I believe he has read a\r
+good deal--but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the\r
+Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window\r
+seats--but he reads all _them_ to himself. But sometimes of an evening,\r
+before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the\r
+Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of\r
+Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of\r
+the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but\r
+he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can.”\r
+\r
+The next question was--\r
+\r
+“What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! not handsome--not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at\r
+first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know,\r
+after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and\r
+then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston.\r
+He has passed you very often.”\r
+\r
+“That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having\r
+any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot,\r
+is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are\r
+precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do.\r
+A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me;\r
+I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But\r
+a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as\r
+much above my notice as in every other he is below it.”\r
+\r
+“To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him;\r
+but he knows you very well indeed--I mean by sight.”\r
+\r
+“I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know,\r
+indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine\r
+his age to be?”\r
+\r
+“He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the\r
+23rd just a fortnight and a day’s difference--which is very odd.”\r
+\r
+“Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is\r
+perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they\r
+are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably\r
+repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young\r
+woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very\r
+desirable.”\r
+\r
+“Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!”\r
+\r
+“Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not\r
+born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely\r
+to make--cannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he\r
+might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family\r
+property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and\r
+so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in\r
+time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing\r
+yet.”\r
+\r
+“To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no\r
+indoors man, else they do not want for any thing; and Mrs. Martin talks\r
+of taking a boy another year.”\r
+\r
+“I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does\r
+marry;--I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife--for though his\r
+sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected\r
+to, it does not follow that he might marry any body at all fit for you\r
+to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly\r
+careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a\r
+gentleman’s daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by\r
+every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who\r
+would take pleasure in degrading you.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield,\r
+and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any\r
+body can do.”\r
+\r
+“You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would\r
+have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent\r
+even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently\r
+well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd\r
+acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still\r
+be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn\r
+in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife,\r
+who will probably be some mere farmer’s daughter, without education.”\r
+\r
+“To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry any body\r
+but what had had some education--and been very well brought up. However,\r
+I do not mean to set up my opinion against yours--and I am sure I shall\r
+not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great\r
+regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very\r
+sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But\r
+if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not\r
+visit her, if I can help it.”\r
+\r
+Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no\r
+alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but\r
+she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious\r
+difficulty, on Harriet’s side, to oppose any friendly arrangement of her\r
+own.\r
+\r
+They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the\r
+Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at\r
+her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was\r
+not sorry to have such an opportunity of survey; and walking a few\r
+yards forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye\r
+sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very\r
+neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no\r
+other advantage; and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen,\r
+she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet’s\r
+inclination. Harriet was not insensible of manner; she had voluntarily\r
+noticed her father’s gentleness with admiration as well as wonder. Mr.\r
+Martin looked as if he did not know what manner was.\r
+\r
+They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not be\r
+kept waiting; and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face,\r
+and in a flutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to\r
+compose.\r
+\r
+“Only think of our happening to meet him!--How very odd! It was quite\r
+a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not\r
+think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls\r
+most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet.\r
+He was so busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it,\r
+but he goes again to-morrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well,\r
+Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him?\r
+Do you think him so very plain?”\r
+\r
+“He is very plain, undoubtedly--remarkably plain:--but that is nothing\r
+compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect\r
+much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so\r
+very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a\r
+degree or two nearer gentility.”\r
+\r
+“To be sure,” said Harriet, in a mortified voice, “he is not so genteel\r
+as real gentlemen.”\r
+\r
+“I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been\r
+repeatedly in the company of some such very real gentlemen, that you\r
+must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield,\r
+you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I\r
+should be surprized if, after seeing them, you could be in company\r
+with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior\r
+creature--and rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him\r
+at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not\r
+you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and\r
+abrupt manner, and the uncouthness of a voice which I heard to be wholly\r
+unmodulated as I stood here.”\r
+\r
+“Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and\r
+way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But\r
+Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man!”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Knightley’s air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to\r
+compare Mr. Martin with _him_. You might not see one in a hundred with\r
+_gentleman_ so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the\r
+only gentleman you have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston\r
+and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of _them_. Compare their\r
+manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent.\r
+You must see the difference.”\r
+\r
+“Oh yes!--there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old\r
+man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty.”\r
+\r
+“Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person\r
+grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not\r
+be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or\r
+awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later\r
+age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr.\r
+Weston’s time of life?”\r
+\r
+“There is no saying, indeed,” replied Harriet rather solemnly.\r
+\r
+“But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross,\r
+vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of\r
+nothing but profit and loss.”\r
+\r
+“Will he, indeed? That will be very bad.”\r
+\r
+“How much his business engrosses him already is very plain from the\r
+circumstance of his forgetting to inquire for the book you recommended.\r
+He was a great deal too full of the market to think of any thing\r
+else--which is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to\r
+do with books? And I have no doubt that he _will_ thrive, and be a very\r
+rich man in time--and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb\r
+_us_.”\r
+\r
+“I wonder he did not remember the book”--was all Harriet’s answer, and\r
+spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be\r
+safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her\r
+next beginning was,\r
+\r
+“In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton’s manners are superior to Mr.\r
+Knightley’s or Mr. Weston’s. They have more gentleness. They might be\r
+more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness,\r
+almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in _him_,\r
+because there is so much good-humour with it--but that would not do to\r
+be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley’s downright, decided, commanding\r
+sort of manner, though it suits _him_ very well; his figure, and look,\r
+and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set\r
+about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think\r
+a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a\r
+model. Mr. Elton is good-humoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle.\r
+He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know\r
+whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us,\r
+Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are\r
+softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it must be to please\r
+you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?”\r
+\r
+She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr.\r
+Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and\r
+said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable.\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young\r
+farmer out of Harriet’s head. She thought it would be an excellent\r
+match; and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her\r
+to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body\r
+else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that any\r
+body should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had\r
+entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet’s coming to\r
+Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the greater was her sense\r
+of its expediency. Mr. Elton’s situation was most suitable, quite the\r
+gentleman himself, and without low connexions; at the same time, not of\r
+any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of Harriet.\r
+He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very sufficient\r
+income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known\r
+to have some independent property; and she thought very highly of him\r
+as a good-humoured, well-meaning, respectable young man, without any\r
+deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world.\r
+\r
+She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful\r
+girl, which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was\r
+foundation enough on his side; and on Harriet’s there could be little\r
+doubt that the idea of being preferred by him would have all the usual\r
+weight and efficacy. And he was really a very pleasing young man, a\r
+young man whom any woman not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very\r
+handsome; his person much admired in general, though not by her,\r
+there being a want of elegance of feature which she could not dispense\r
+with:--but the girl who could be gratified by a Robert Martin’s riding\r
+about the country to get walnuts for her might very well be conquered by\r
+Mr. Elton’s admiration.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+\r
+“I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr.\r
+Knightley, “of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I\r
+think it a bad thing.”\r
+\r
+“A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing?--why so?”\r
+\r
+“I think they will neither of them do the other any good.”\r
+\r
+“You surprize me! Emma must do Harriet good: and by supplying her with a\r
+new object of interest, Harriet may be said to do Emma good. I have been\r
+seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently\r
+we feel!--Not think they will do each other any good! This will\r
+certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr.\r
+Knightley.”\r
+\r
+“Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing\r
+Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks\r
+exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday,\r
+and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a\r
+girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not\r
+allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live\r
+alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps no\r
+man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of\r
+one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life. I can imagine\r
+your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman\r
+which Emma’s friend ought to be. But on the other hand, as Emma wants\r
+to see her better informed, it will be an inducement to her to read more\r
+herself. They will read together. She means it, I know.”\r
+\r
+“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.\r
+I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of\r
+books that she meant to read regularly through--and very good lists\r
+they were--very well chosen, and very neatly arranged--sometimes\r
+alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew\r
+up when only fourteen--I remember thinking it did her judgment so much\r
+credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made\r
+out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of\r
+steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing\r
+requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the\r
+understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely\r
+affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing.--You never could persuade her\r
+to read half so much as you wished.--You know you could not.”\r
+\r
+“I dare say,” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “that I thought so\r
+_then_;--but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma’s omitting\r
+to do any thing I wished.”\r
+\r
+“There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as _that_,”--said\r
+Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. “But I,”\r
+ he soon added, “who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must\r
+still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest\r
+of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to\r
+answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always\r
+quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she\r
+was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her\r
+mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her\r
+mother’s talents, and must have been under subjection to her.”\r
+\r
+“I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on _your_\r
+recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse’s family and wanted another\r
+situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to\r
+any body. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said he, smiling. “You are better placed _here_; very fit for a\r
+wife, but not at all for a governess. But you were preparing yourself to\r
+be an excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might\r
+not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to\r
+promise; but you were receiving a very good education from _her_, on the\r
+very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing\r
+as you were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I\r
+should certainly have named Miss Taylor.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to\r
+such a man as Mr. Weston.”\r
+\r
+“Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that\r
+with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We\r
+will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of\r
+comfort, or his son may plague him.”\r
+\r
+“I hope not _that_.--It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not\r
+foretell vexation from that quarter.”\r
+\r
+“Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma’s\r
+genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the\r
+young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.--But\r
+Harriet Smith--I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think her the\r
+very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows\r
+nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing. She is a\r
+flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned.\r
+Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has any\r
+thing to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful\r
+inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that _she_ cannot\r
+gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit\r
+with all the other places she belongs to. She will grow just refined\r
+enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances\r
+have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma’s doctrines give any\r
+strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally\r
+to the varieties of her situation in life.--They only give a little\r
+polish.”\r
+\r
+“I either depend more upon Emma’s good sense than you do, or am more\r
+anxious for her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance.\r
+How well she looked last night!”\r
+\r
+“Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very\r
+well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma’s being pretty.”\r
+\r
+“Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect\r
+beauty than Emma altogether--face and figure?”\r
+\r
+“I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom\r
+seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial\r
+old friend.”\r
+\r
+“Such an eye!--the true hazle eye--and so brilliant! regular features,\r
+open countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health,\r
+and such a pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure!\r
+There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her\r
+glance. One hears sometimes of a child being ‘the picture of health;’\r
+now, Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of\r
+grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?”\r
+\r
+“I have not a fault to find with her person,” he replied. “I think her\r
+all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise,\r
+that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome\r
+she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies\r
+another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of\r
+Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm.”\r
+\r
+“And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not\r
+doing them any harm. With all dear Emma’s little faults, she is an\r
+excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder\r
+sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which may be\r
+trusted; she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no\r
+lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred\r
+times.”\r
+\r
+“Very well; I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and\r
+I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella.\r
+John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection,\r
+and Isabella always thinks as he does; except when he is not quite\r
+frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions\r
+with me.”\r
+\r
+“I know that you all love her really too well to be unjust or unkind;\r
+but excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if I take the liberty (I consider myself,\r
+you know, as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that Emma’s\r
+mother might have had) the liberty of hinting that I do not think any\r
+possible good can arise from Harriet Smith’s intimacy being made a\r
+matter of much discussion among you. Pray excuse me; but supposing any\r
+little inconvenience may be apprehended from the intimacy, it cannot be\r
+expected that Emma, accountable to nobody but her father, who perfectly\r
+approves the acquaintance, should put an end to it, so long as it is a\r
+source of pleasure to herself. It has been so many years my province to\r
+give advice, that you cannot be surprized, Mr. Knightley, at this little\r
+remains of office.”\r
+\r
+“Not at all,” cried he; “I am much obliged to you for it. It is very\r
+good advice, and it shall have a better fate than your advice has often\r
+found; for it shall be attended to.”\r
+\r
+“Mrs. John Knightley is easily alarmed, and might be made unhappy about\r
+her sister.”\r
+\r
+“Be satisfied,” said he, “I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my\r
+ill-humour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella\r
+does not seem more my sister; has never excited a greater interest;\r
+perhaps hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one\r
+feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her!”\r
+\r
+“So do I,” said Mrs. Weston gently, “very much.”\r
+\r
+“She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just\r
+nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she\r
+cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love\r
+with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some\r
+doubt of a return; it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts\r
+to attach her; and she goes so seldom from home.”\r
+\r
+“There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution\r
+at present,” said Mrs. Weston, “as can well be; and while she is so\r
+happy at Hartfield, I cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which\r
+would be creating such difficulties on poor Mr. Woodhouse’s account. I\r
+do not recommend matrimony at present to Emma, though I mean no slight\r
+to the state, I assure you.”\r
+\r
+Part of her meaning was to conceal some favourite thoughts of her own\r
+and Mr. Weston’s on the subject, as much as possible. There were wishes\r
+at Randalls respecting Emma’s destiny, but it was not desirable to\r
+have them suspected; and the quiet transition which Mr. Knightley soon\r
+afterwards made to “What does Weston think of the weather; shall we have\r
+rain?” convinced her that he had nothing more to say or surmise about\r
+Hartfield.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma could not feel a doubt of having given Harriet’s fancy a proper\r
+direction and raised the gratitude of her young vanity to a very good\r
+purpose, for she found her decidedly more sensible than before of Mr.\r
+Elton’s being a remarkably handsome man, with most agreeable manners;\r
+and as she had no hesitation in following up the assurance of his\r
+admiration by agreeable hints, she was soon pretty confident of creating\r
+as much liking on Harriet’s side, as there could be any occasion for.\r
+She was quite convinced of Mr. Elton’s being in the fairest way of\r
+falling in love, if not in love already. She had no scruple with regard\r
+to him. He talked of Harriet, and praised her so warmly, that she could\r
+not suppose any thing wanting which a little time would not add. His\r
+perception of the striking improvement of Harriet’s manner, since her\r
+introduction at Hartfield, was not one of the least agreeable proofs of\r
+his growing attachment.\r
+\r
+“You have given Miss Smith all that she required,” said he; “you have\r
+made her graceful and easy. She was a beautiful creature when she\r
+came to you, but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are\r
+infinitely superior to what she received from nature.”\r
+\r
+“I am glad you think I have been useful to her; but Harriet only wanted\r
+drawing out, and receiving a few, very few hints. She had all the\r
+natural grace of sweetness of temper and artlessness in herself. I have\r
+done very little.”\r
+\r
+“If it were admissible to contradict a lady,” said the gallant Mr.\r
+Elton--\r
+\r
+“I have perhaps given her a little more decision of character, have\r
+taught her to think on points which had not fallen in her way before.”\r
+\r
+“Exactly so; that is what principally strikes me. So much superadded\r
+decision of character! Skilful has been the hand!”\r
+\r
+“Great has been the pleasure, I am sure. I never met with a disposition\r
+more truly amiable.”\r
+\r
+“I have no doubt of it.” And it was spoken with a sort of sighing\r
+animation, which had a vast deal of the lover. She was not less pleased\r
+another day with the manner in which he seconded a sudden wish of hers,\r
+to have Harriet’s picture.\r
+\r
+“Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet?” said she: “did you\r
+ever sit for your picture?”\r
+\r
+Harriet was on the point of leaving the room, and only stopt to say,\r
+with a very interesting naivete,\r
+\r
+“Oh! dear, no, never.”\r
+\r
+No sooner was she out of sight, than Emma exclaimed,\r
+\r
+“What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would\r
+give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself.\r
+You do not know it I dare say, but two or three years ago I had a great\r
+passion for taking likenesses, and attempted several of my friends, and\r
+was thought to have a tolerable eye in general. But from one cause or\r
+another, I gave it up in disgust. But really, I could almost venture,\r
+if Harriet would sit to me. It would be such a delight to have her\r
+picture!”\r
+\r
+“Let me entreat you,” cried Mr. Elton; “it would indeed be a delight!\r
+Let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent\r
+in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are. How could\r
+you suppose me ignorant? Is not this room rich in specimens of your\r
+landscapes and flowers; and has not Mrs. Weston some inimitable\r
+figure-pieces in her drawing-room, at Randalls?”\r
+\r
+Yes, good man!--thought Emma--but what has all that to do with taking\r
+likenesses? You know nothing of drawing. Don’t pretend to be in raptures\r
+about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet’s face. “Well, if you give me\r
+such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do.\r
+Harriet’s features are very delicate, which makes a likeness difficult;\r
+and yet there is a peculiarity in the shape of the eye and the lines\r
+about the mouth which one ought to catch.”\r
+\r
+“Exactly so--The shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth--I have\r
+not a doubt of your success. Pray, pray attempt it. As you will do it,\r
+it will indeed, to use your own words, be an exquisite possession.”\r
+\r
+“But I am afraid, Mr. Elton, Harriet will not like to sit. She thinks\r
+so little of her own beauty. Did not you observe her manner of answering\r
+me? How completely it meant, ‘why should my picture be drawn?’”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes, I observed it, I assure you. It was not lost on me. But still\r
+I cannot imagine she would not be persuaded.”\r
+\r
+Harriet was soon back again, and the proposal almost immediately made;\r
+and she had no scruples which could stand many minutes against the\r
+earnest pressing of both the others. Emma wished to go to work directly,\r
+and therefore produced the portfolio containing her various attempts at\r
+portraits, for not one of them had ever been finished, that they might\r
+decide together on the best size for Harriet. Her many beginnings were\r
+displayed. Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and\r
+water-colours had been all tried in turn. She had always wanted to do\r
+every thing, and had made more progress both in drawing and music than\r
+many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to.\r
+She played and sang;--and drew in almost every style; but steadiness\r
+had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of\r
+excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to\r
+have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill either\r
+as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others\r
+deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often\r
+higher than it deserved.\r
+\r
+There was merit in every drawing--in the least finished, perhaps the\r
+most; her style was spirited; but had there been much less, or had there\r
+been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions\r
+would have been the same. They were both in ecstasies. A likeness\r
+pleases every body; and Miss Woodhouse’s performances must be capital.\r
+\r
+“No great variety of faces for you,” said Emma. “I had only my own\r
+family to study from. There is my father--another of my father--but the\r
+idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only\r
+take him by stealth; neither of them very like therefore. Mrs. Weston\r
+again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston! always my\r
+kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her.\r
+There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure!--and\r
+the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she\r
+would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw\r
+her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my\r
+attempts at three of those four children;--there they are, Henry and\r
+John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of\r
+them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them\r
+drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three\r
+or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take\r
+any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are\r
+coarser featured than any of mama’s children ever were. Here is my\r
+sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on\r
+the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would\r
+wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That’s very\r
+like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very\r
+good. Then here is my last,”--unclosing a pretty sketch of a gentleman\r
+in small size, whole-length--“my last and my best--my brother, Mr. John\r
+Knightley.--This did not want much of being finished, when I put it away\r
+in a pet, and vowed I would never take another likeness. I could not\r
+help being provoked; for after all my pains, and when I had really made\r
+a very good likeness of it--(Mrs. Weston and I were quite agreed in\r
+thinking it _very_ like)--only too handsome--too flattering--but\r
+that was a fault on the right side”--after all this, came poor dear\r
+Isabella’s cold approbation of--“Yes, it was a little like--but to be\r
+sure it did not do him justice. We had had a great deal of trouble\r
+in persuading him to sit at all. It was made a great favour of; and\r
+altogether it was more than I could bear; and so I never would finish\r
+it, to have it apologised over as an unfavourable likeness, to every\r
+morning visitor in Brunswick Square;--and, as I said, I did then\r
+forswear ever drawing any body again. But for Harriet’s sake, or rather\r
+for my own, and as there are no husbands and wives in the case _at_\r
+_present_, I will break my resolution now.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton seemed very properly struck and delighted by the idea, and was\r
+repeating, “No husbands and wives in the case at present indeed, as\r
+you observe. Exactly so. No husbands and wives,” with so interesting a\r
+consciousness, that Emma began to consider whether she had not better\r
+leave them together at once. But as she wanted to be drawing, the\r
+declaration must wait a little longer.\r
+\r
+She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait. It was to be\r
+a whole-length in water-colours, like Mr. John Knightley’s, and was\r
+destined, if she could please herself, to hold a very honourable station\r
+over the mantelpiece.\r
+\r
+The sitting began; and Harriet, smiling and blushing, and afraid of not\r
+keeping her attitude and countenance, presented a very sweet mixture of\r
+youthful expression to the steady eyes of the artist. But there was no\r
+doing any thing, with Mr. Elton fidgeting behind her and watching every\r
+touch. She gave him credit for stationing himself where he might gaze\r
+and gaze again without offence; but was really obliged to put an end to\r
+it, and request him to place himself elsewhere. It then occurred to her\r
+to employ him in reading.\r
+\r
+“If he would be so good as to read to them, it would be a kindness\r
+indeed! It would amuse away the difficulties of her part, and lessen the\r
+irksomeness of Miss Smith’s.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton was only too happy. Harriet listened, and Emma drew in peace.\r
+She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look; any thing less\r
+would certainly have been too little in a lover; and he was ready at the\r
+smallest intermission of the pencil, to jump up and see the progress,\r
+and be charmed.--There was no being displeased with such an encourager,\r
+for his admiration made him discern a likeness almost before it\r
+was possible. She could not respect his eye, but his love and his\r
+complaisance were unexceptionable.\r
+\r
+The sitting was altogether very satisfactory; she was quite enough\r
+pleased with the first day’s sketch to wish to go on. There was no want\r
+of likeness, she had been fortunate in the attitude, and as she meant\r
+to throw in a little improvement to the figure, to give a little more\r
+height, and considerably more elegance, she had great confidence of\r
+its being in every way a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling\r
+its destined place with credit to them both--a standing memorial of the\r
+beauty of one, the skill of the other, and the friendship of both;\r
+with as many other agreeable associations as Mr. Elton’s very promising\r
+attachment was likely to add.\r
+\r
+Harriet was to sit again the next day; and Mr. Elton, just as he ought,\r
+entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them again.\r
+\r
+“By all means. We shall be most happy to consider you as one of the\r
+party.”\r
+\r
+The same civilities and courtesies, the same success and satisfaction,\r
+took place on the morrow, and accompanied the whole progress of the\r
+picture, which was rapid and happy. Every body who saw it was pleased,\r
+but Mr. Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every\r
+criticism.\r
+\r
+“Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she\r
+wanted,”--observed Mrs. Weston to him--not in the least suspecting that\r
+she was addressing a lover.--“The expression of the eye is most correct,\r
+but Miss Smith has not those eyebrows and eyelashes. It is the fault of\r
+her face that she has them not.”\r
+\r
+“Do you think so?” replied he. “I cannot agree with you. It appears\r
+to me a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a\r
+likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know.”\r
+\r
+“You have made her too tall, Emma,” said Mr. Knightley.\r
+\r
+Emma knew that she had, but would not own it; and Mr. Elton warmly\r
+added,\r
+\r
+“Oh no! certainly not too tall; not in the least too tall. Consider, she\r
+is sitting down--which naturally presents a different--which in short\r
+gives exactly the idea--and the proportions must be preserved, you know.\r
+Proportions, fore-shortening.--Oh no! it gives one exactly the idea of\r
+such a height as Miss Smith’s. Exactly so indeed!”\r
+\r
+“It is very pretty,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “So prettily done! Just as your\r
+drawings always are, my dear. I do not know any body who draws so well\r
+as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems\r
+to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her\r
+shoulders--and it makes one think she must catch cold.”\r
+\r
+“But, my dear papa, it is supposed to be summer; a warm day in summer.\r
+Look at the tree.”\r
+\r
+“But it is never safe to sit out of doors, my dear.”\r
+\r
+“You, sir, may say any thing,” cried Mr. Elton, “but I must confess that\r
+I regard it as a most happy thought, the placing of Miss Smith out of\r
+doors; and the tree is touched with such inimitable spirit! Any other\r
+situation would have been much less in character. The naivete of Miss\r
+Smith’s manners--and altogether--Oh, it is most admirable! I cannot keep\r
+my eyes from it. I never saw such a likeness.”\r
+\r
+The next thing wanted was to get the picture framed; and here were a few\r
+difficulties. It must be done directly; it must be done in London; the\r
+order must go through the hands of some intelligent person whose taste\r
+could be depended on; and Isabella, the usual doer of all commissions,\r
+must not be applied to, because it was December, and Mr. Woodhouse\r
+could not bear the idea of her stirring out of her house in the fogs of\r
+December. But no sooner was the distress known to Mr. Elton, than it\r
+was removed. His gallantry was always on the alert. “Might he be trusted\r
+with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing\r
+it! he could ride to London at any time. It was impossible to say how\r
+much he should be gratified by being employed on such an errand.”\r
+\r
+“He was too good!--she could not endure the thought!--she would not give\r
+him such a troublesome office for the world,”--brought on the desired\r
+repetition of entreaties and assurances,--and a very few minutes settled\r
+the business.\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton was to take the drawing to London, chuse the frame, and give\r
+the directions; and Emma thought she could so pack it as to ensure its\r
+safety without much incommoding him, while he seemed mostly fearful of\r
+not being incommoded enough.\r
+\r
+“What a precious deposit!” said he with a tender sigh, as he received\r
+it.\r
+\r
+“This man is almost too gallant to be in love,” thought Emma. “I should\r
+say so, but that I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of\r
+being in love. He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet\r
+exactly; it will be an ‘Exactly so,’ as he says himself; but he does\r
+sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could\r
+endure as a principal. I come in for a pretty good share as a second.\r
+But it is his gratitude on Harriet’s account.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+\r
+The very day of Mr. Elton’s going to London produced a fresh occasion\r
+for Emma’s services towards her friend. Harriet had been at Hartfield,\r
+as usual, soon after breakfast; and, after a time, had gone home to\r
+return again to dinner: she returned, and sooner than had been\r
+talked of, and with an agitated, hurried look, announcing something\r
+extraordinary to have happened which she was longing to tell. Half a\r
+minute brought it all out. She had heard, as soon as she got back to\r
+Mrs. Goddard’s, that Mr. Martin had been there an hour before, and\r
+finding she was not at home, nor particularly expected, had left a\r
+little parcel for her from one of his sisters, and gone away; and on\r
+opening this parcel, she had actually found, besides the two songs which\r
+she had lent Elizabeth to copy, a letter to herself; and this letter was\r
+from him, from Mr. Martin, and contained a direct proposal of marriage.\r
+“Who could have thought it? She was so surprized she did not know what\r
+to do. Yes, quite a proposal of marriage; and a very good letter,\r
+at least she thought so. And he wrote as if he really loved her very\r
+much--but she did not know--and so, she was come as fast as she could to\r
+ask Miss Woodhouse what she should do.--” Emma was half-ashamed of her\r
+friend for seeming so pleased and so doubtful.\r
+\r
+“Upon my word,” she cried, “the young man is determined not to lose any\r
+thing for want of asking. He will connect himself well if he can.”\r
+\r
+“Will you read the letter?” cried Harriet. “Pray do. I’d rather you\r
+would.”\r
+\r
+Emma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprized. The style\r
+of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no\r
+grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a\r
+gentleman; the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and\r
+the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was\r
+short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety,\r
+even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood\r
+anxiously watching for her opinion, with a “Well, well,” and was at last\r
+forced to add, “Is it a good letter? or is it too short?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, indeed, a very good letter,” replied Emma rather slowly--“so\r
+good a letter, Harriet, that every thing considered, I think one of his\r
+sisters must have helped him. I can hardly imagine the young man whom\r
+I saw talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if\r
+left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman;\r
+no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough for a\r
+woman. No doubt he is a sensible man, and I suppose may have a natural\r
+talent for--thinks strongly and clearly--and when he takes a pen in\r
+hand, his thoughts naturally find proper words. It is so with some men.\r
+Yes, I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments\r
+to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet\r
+(returning it,) than I had expected.”\r
+\r
+“Well,” said the still waiting Harriet;--“well--and--and what shall I\r
+do?”\r
+\r
+“What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this\r
+letter?”\r
+\r
+“Yes.”\r
+\r
+“But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of course--and\r
+speedily.”\r
+\r
+“Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me.”\r
+\r
+“Oh no, no! the letter had much better be all your own. You will express\r
+yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not\r
+being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be\r
+unequivocal; no doubts or demurs: and such expressions of gratitude\r
+and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will\r
+present themselves unbidden to _your_ mind, I am persuaded. You need\r
+not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his\r
+disappointment.”\r
+\r
+“You think I ought to refuse him then,” said Harriet, looking down.\r
+\r
+“Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any\r
+doubt as to that? I thought--but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been\r
+under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel\r
+in doubt as to the _purport_ of your answer. I had imagined you were\r
+consulting me only as to the wording of it.”\r
+\r
+Harriet was silent. With a little reserve of manner, Emma continued:\r
+\r
+“You mean to return a favourable answer, I collect.”\r
+\r
+“No, I do not; that is, I do not mean--What shall I do? What would you\r
+advise me to do? Pray, dear Miss Woodhouse, tell me what I ought to do.”\r
+\r
+“I shall not give you any advice, Harriet. I will have nothing to do\r
+with it. This is a point which you must settle with your feelings.”\r
+\r
+“I had no notion that he liked me so very much,” said Harriet,\r
+contemplating the letter. For a little while Emma persevered in her\r
+silence; but beginning to apprehend the bewitching flattery of that\r
+letter might be too powerful, she thought it best to say,\r
+\r
+“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman _doubts_ as\r
+to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse\r
+him. If she can hesitate as to ‘Yes,’ she ought to say ‘No’ directly.\r
+It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with\r
+half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself,\r
+to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence\r
+you.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no, I am sure you are a great deal too kind to--but if you would\r
+just advise me what I had best do--No, no, I do not mean that--As\r
+you say, one’s mind ought to be quite made up--One should not be\r
+hesitating--It is a very serious thing.--It will be safer to say ‘No,’\r
+perhaps.--Do you think I had better say ‘No?’”\r
+\r
+“Not for the world,” said Emma, smiling graciously, “would I advise you\r
+either way. You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you\r
+prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most\r
+agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you\r
+hesitate? You blush, Harriet.--Does any body else occur to you at\r
+this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive\r
+yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. At this\r
+moment whom are you thinking of?”\r
+\r
+The symptoms were favourable.--Instead of answering, Harriet turned away\r
+confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire; and though the letter was\r
+still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard.\r
+Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At\r
+last, with some hesitation, Harriet said--\r
+\r
+“Miss Woodhouse, as you will not give me your opinion, I must do as well\r
+as I can by myself; and I have now quite determined, and really almost\r
+made up my mind--to refuse Mr. Martin. Do you think I am right?”\r
+\r
+“Perfectly, perfectly right, my dearest Harriet; you are doing just\r
+what you ought. While you were at all in suspense I kept my feelings to\r
+myself, but now that you are so completely decided I have no hesitation\r
+in approving. Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would\r
+have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the\r
+consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin. While you were in the smallest\r
+degree wavering, I said nothing about it, because I would not influence;\r
+but it would have been the loss of a friend to me. I could not have\r
+visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm. Now I am secure of you\r
+for ever.”\r
+\r
+Harriet had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her\r
+forcibly.\r
+\r
+“You could not have visited me!” she cried, looking aghast. “No, to be\r
+sure you could not; but I never thought of that before. That would have\r
+been too dreadful!--What an escape!--Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not\r
+give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing\r
+in the world.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed, Harriet, it would have been a severe pang to lose you; but it\r
+must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society.\r
+I must have given you up.”\r
+\r
+“Dear me!--How should I ever have borne it! It would have killed me\r
+never to come to Hartfield any more!”\r
+\r
+“Dear affectionate creature!--_You_ banished to Abbey-Mill Farm!--_You_\r
+confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I\r
+wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must\r
+have a pretty good opinion of himself.”\r
+\r
+“I do not think he is conceited either, in general,” said Harriet, her\r
+conscience opposing such censure; “at least, he is very good natured,\r
+and I shall always feel much obliged to him, and have a great regard\r
+for--but that is quite a different thing from--and you know, though\r
+he may like me, it does not follow that I should--and certainly I must\r
+confess that since my visiting here I have seen people--and if one comes\r
+to compare them, person and manners, there is no comparison at all,\r
+_one_ is so very handsome and agreeable. However, I do really think Mr.\r
+Martin a very amiable young man, and have a great opinion of him; and\r
+his being so much attached to me--and his writing such a letter--but as\r
+to leaving you, it is what I would not do upon any consideration.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you, thank you, my own sweet little friend. We will not be\r
+parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or\r
+because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.”\r
+\r
+“Oh no;--and it is but a short letter too.”\r
+\r
+Emma felt the bad taste of her friend, but let it pass with a “very\r
+true; and it would be a small consolation to her, for the clownish\r
+manner which might be offending her every hour of the day, to know that\r
+her husband could write a good letter.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes, very. Nobody cares for a letter; the thing is, to be always\r
+happy with pleasant companions. I am quite determined to refuse him. But\r
+how shall I do? What shall I say?”\r
+\r
+Emma assured her there would be no difficulty in the answer, and advised\r
+its being written directly, which was agreed to, in the hope of her\r
+assistance; and though Emma continued to protest against any assistance\r
+being wanted, it was in fact given in the formation of every sentence.\r
+The looking over his letter again, in replying to it, had such a\r
+softening tendency, that it was particularly necessary to brace her up\r
+with a few decisive expressions; and she was so very much concerned at\r
+the idea of making him unhappy, and thought so much of what his mother\r
+and sisters would think and say, and was so anxious that they should not\r
+fancy her ungrateful, that Emma believed if the young man had come in\r
+her way at that moment, he would have been accepted after all.\r
+\r
+This letter, however, was written, and sealed, and sent. The business\r
+was finished, and Harriet safe. She was rather low all the evening, but\r
+Emma could allow for her amiable regrets, and sometimes relieved them by\r
+speaking of her own affection, sometimes by bringing forward the idea of\r
+Mr. Elton.\r
+\r
+“I shall never be invited to Abbey-Mill again,” was said in rather a\r
+sorrowful tone.\r
+\r
+“Nor, if you were, could I ever bear to part with you, my Harriet. You\r
+are a great deal too necessary at Hartfield to be spared to Abbey-Mill.”\r
+\r
+“And I am sure I should never want to go there; for I am never happy but\r
+at Hartfield.”\r
+\r
+Some time afterwards it was, “I think Mrs. Goddard would be very much\r
+surprized if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash would--for\r
+Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a\r
+linen-draper.”\r
+\r
+“One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher\r
+of a school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an\r
+opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear\r
+valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she\r
+is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be\r
+among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I\r
+are the only people to whom his looks and manners have explained\r
+themselves.”\r
+\r
+Harriet blushed and smiled, and said something about wondering that\r
+people should like her so much. The idea of Mr. Elton was certainly\r
+cheering; but still, after a time, she was tender-hearted again towards\r
+the rejected Mr. Martin.\r
+\r
+“Now he has got my letter,” said she softly. “I wonder what they are all\r
+doing--whether his sisters know--if he is unhappy, they will be unhappy\r
+too. I hope he will not mind it so very much.”\r
+\r
+“Let us think of those among our absent friends who are more cheerfully\r
+employed,” cried Emma. “At this moment, perhaps, Mr. Elton is shewing\r
+your picture to his mother and sisters, telling how much more beautiful\r
+is the original, and after being asked for it five or six times,\r
+allowing them to hear your name, your own dear name.”\r
+\r
+“My picture!--But he has left my picture in Bond-street.”\r
+\r
+“Has he so!--Then I know nothing of Mr. Elton. No, my dear little modest\r
+Harriet, depend upon it the picture will not be in Bond-street till\r
+just before he mounts his horse to-morrow. It is his companion all this\r
+evening, his solace, his delight. It opens his designs to his family,\r
+it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those\r
+pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm\r
+prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how suspicious, how busy\r
+their imaginations all are!”\r
+\r
+Harriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Harriet slept at Hartfield that night. For some weeks past she had been\r
+spending more than half her time there, and gradually getting to have\r
+a bed-room appropriated to herself; and Emma judged it best in every\r
+respect, safest and kindest, to keep her with them as much as possible\r
+just at present. She was obliged to go the next morning for an hour or\r
+two to Mrs. Goddard’s, but it was then to be settled that she should\r
+return to Hartfield, to make a regular visit of some days.\r
+\r
+While she was gone, Mr. Knightley called, and sat some time with Mr.\r
+Woodhouse and Emma, till Mr. Woodhouse, who had previously made up his\r
+mind to walk out, was persuaded by his daughter not to defer it, and was\r
+induced by the entreaties of both, though against the scruples of his\r
+own civility, to leave Mr. Knightley for that purpose. Mr. Knightley,\r
+who had nothing of ceremony about him, was offering by his short,\r
+decided answers, an amusing contrast to the protracted apologies and\r
+civil hesitations of the other.\r
+\r
+“Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not\r
+consider me as doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma’s advice and\r
+go out for a quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had\r
+better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony,\r
+Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people.”\r
+\r
+“My dear sir, do not make a stranger of me.”\r
+\r
+“I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to\r
+entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse and take my\r
+three turns--my winter walk.”\r
+\r
+“You cannot do better, sir.”\r
+\r
+“I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a\r
+very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you; and, besides, you\r
+have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you, sir, thank you; I am going this moment myself; and I think\r
+the sooner _you_ go the better. I will fetch your greatcoat and open the\r
+garden door for you.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse at last was off; but Mr. Knightley, instead of being\r
+immediately off likewise, sat down again, seemingly inclined for more\r
+chat. He began speaking of Harriet, and speaking of her with more\r
+voluntary praise than Emma had ever heard before.\r
+\r
+“I cannot rate her beauty as you do,” said he; “but she is a\r
+pretty little creature, and I am inclined to think very well of her\r
+disposition. Her character depends upon those she is with; but in good\r
+hands she will turn out a valuable woman.”\r
+\r
+“I am glad you think so; and the good hands, I hope, may not be\r
+wanting.”\r
+\r
+“Come,” said he, “you are anxious for a compliment, so I will tell you\r
+that you have improved her. You have cured her of her school-girl’s\r
+giggle; she really does you credit.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you. I should be mortified indeed if I did not believe I had been\r
+of some use; but it is not every body who will bestow praise where they\r
+may. _You_ do not often overpower me with it.”\r
+\r
+“You are expecting her again, you say, this morning?”\r
+\r
+“Almost every moment. She has been gone longer already than she\r
+intended.”\r
+\r
+“Something has happened to delay her; some visitors perhaps.”\r
+\r
+“Highbury gossips!--Tiresome wretches!”\r
+\r
+“Harriet may not consider every body tiresome that you would.”\r
+\r
+Emma knew this was too true for contradiction, and therefore said\r
+nothing. He presently added, with a smile,\r
+\r
+“I do not pretend to fix on times or places, but I must tell you that\r
+I have good reason to believe your little friend will soon hear of\r
+something to her advantage.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed! how so? of what sort?”\r
+\r
+“A very serious sort, I assure you;” still smiling.\r
+\r
+“Very serious! I can think of but one thing--Who is in love with her?\r
+Who makes you their confidant?”\r
+\r
+Emma was more than half in hopes of Mr. Elton’s having dropt a hint.\r
+Mr. Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr.\r
+Elton looked up to him.\r
+\r
+“I have reason to think,” he replied, “that Harriet Smith will soon have\r
+an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter:--Robert\r
+Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey-Mill, this summer, seems to have\r
+done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her.”\r
+\r
+“He is very obliging,” said Emma; “but is he sure that Harriet means to\r
+marry him?”\r
+\r
+“Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to\r
+the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows\r
+I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe,\r
+considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether\r
+I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early; whether\r
+I thought her too young: in short, whether I approved his choice\r
+altogether; having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered\r
+(especially since _your_ making so much of her) as in a line of society\r
+above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear\r
+better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the\r
+purpose; open, straightforward, and very well judging. He told me every\r
+thing; his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in\r
+the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and\r
+brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me\r
+that he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he\r
+could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent\r
+him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he\r
+would have thought highly of me then; and, I dare say, left the house\r
+thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had. This happened\r
+the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow\r
+much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear\r
+to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should be at Mrs.\r
+Goddard’s to-day; and she may be detained by a visitor, without thinking\r
+him at all a tiresome wretch.”\r
+\r
+“Pray, Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, who had been smiling to herself\r
+through a great part of this speech, “how do you know that Mr. Martin\r
+did not speak yesterday?”\r
+\r
+“Certainly,” replied he, surprized, “I do not absolutely know it; but it\r
+may be inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?”\r
+\r
+“Come,” said she, “I will tell you something, in return for what\r
+you have told me. He did speak yesterday--that is, he wrote, and was\r
+refused.”\r
+\r
+This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr.\r
+Knightley actually looked red with surprize and displeasure, as he stood\r
+up, in tall indignation, and said,\r
+\r
+“Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the\r
+foolish girl about?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! to be sure,” cried Emma, “it is always incomprehensible to a man\r
+that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always\r
+imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”\r
+\r
+“Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the\r
+meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? madness, if it is\r
+so; but I hope you are mistaken.”\r
+\r
+“I saw her answer!--nothing could be clearer.”\r
+\r
+“You saw her answer!--you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your\r
+doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.”\r
+\r
+“And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing) I should not\r
+feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man,\r
+but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal; and am rather surprized\r
+indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he\r
+does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever\r
+got over.”\r
+\r
+“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and\r
+with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is\r
+not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in\r
+situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are\r
+Harriet Smith’s claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any\r
+connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of\r
+nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and\r
+certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder\r
+at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any\r
+information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and\r
+too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have\r
+no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have\r
+any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and\r
+that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account,\r
+as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that,\r
+as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as\r
+to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I\r
+could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there\r
+being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in\r
+good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well.\r
+The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the\r
+smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out\r
+upon her extreme good luck. Even _your_ satisfaction I made sure of.\r
+It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend’s\r
+leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember\r
+saying to myself, ‘Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will\r
+think this a good match.’”\r
+\r
+“I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any\r
+such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his\r
+merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend!\r
+Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom\r
+I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should\r
+think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are\r
+very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are\r
+not just to Harriet’s claims. They would be estimated very differently\r
+by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two,\r
+but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.--The sphere in\r
+which she moves is much above his.--It would be a degradation.”\r
+\r
+“A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a\r
+respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!”\r
+\r
+“As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may\r
+be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay\r
+for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with\r
+whom she is brought up.--There can scarcely be a doubt that her father\r
+is a gentleman--and a gentleman of fortune.--Her allowance is\r
+very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or\r
+comfort.--That she is a gentleman’s daughter, is indubitable to me; that\r
+she associates with gentlemen’s daughters, no one, I apprehend, will\r
+deny.--She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin.”\r
+\r
+“Whoever might be her parents,” said Mr. Knightley, “whoever may have\r
+had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of\r
+their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After\r
+receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs. Goddard’s\r
+hands to shift as she can;--to move, in short, in Mrs. Goddard’s line,\r
+to have Mrs. Goddard’s acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought\r
+this good enough for her; and it _was_ good enough. She desired nothing\r
+better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had\r
+no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as\r
+happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of\r
+superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no\r
+friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded\r
+so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to\r
+him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any\r
+woman on the haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is\r
+the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it he had\r
+encouragement.”\r
+\r
+It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this\r
+assertion; she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject\r
+again.\r
+\r
+“You are a very warm friend to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before,\r
+are unjust to Harriet. Harriet’s claims to marry well are not so\r
+contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she\r
+has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her\r
+understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point, however, and\r
+supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good-natured,\r
+let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not\r
+trivial recommendations to the world in general, for she is, in fact, a\r
+beautiful girl, and must be thought so by ninety-nine people out of an\r
+hundred; and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the\r
+subject of beauty than they are generally supposed; till they do fall\r
+in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with\r
+such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought\r
+after, of having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a\r
+claim to be nice. Her good-nature, too, is not so very slight a claim,\r
+comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and\r
+manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to\r
+be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in\r
+general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims\r
+a woman could possess.”\r
+\r
+“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost\r
+enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply\r
+it as you do.”\r
+\r
+“To be sure!” cried she playfully. “I know _that_ is the feeling of\r
+you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every\r
+man delights in--what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his\r
+judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to\r
+marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just\r
+entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at\r
+because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No--pray let\r
+her have time to look about her.”\r
+\r
+“I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,” said Mr. Knightley\r
+presently, “though I have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive\r
+that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up\r
+with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that,\r
+in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her.\r
+Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief. Nothing\r
+so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss\r
+Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though\r
+she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to\r
+say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of\r
+connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity--and most prudent\r
+men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be\r
+involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let\r
+her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable, and happy for\r
+ever; but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her\r
+to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large\r
+fortune, she may be a parlour-boarder at Mrs. Goddard’s all the rest\r
+of her life--or, at least, (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry\r
+somebody or other,) till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the\r
+old writing-master’s son.”\r
+\r
+“We think so very differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there\r
+can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more\r
+angry. But as to my _letting_ her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible;\r
+she has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any\r
+second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him,\r
+whatever it may be; and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to\r
+say that I might not influence her a little; but I assure you there\r
+was very little for me or for any body to do. His appearance is so much\r
+against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to\r
+favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen\r
+any body superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her\r
+friends, and he took pains to please her; and altogether, having seen\r
+nobody better (that must have been his great assistant) she might not,\r
+while she was at Abbey-Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case\r
+is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a\r
+gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.”\r
+\r
+“Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked!” cried Mr.\r
+Knightley.--“Robert Martin’s manners have sense, sincerity, and\r
+good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than\r
+Harriet Smith could understand.”\r
+\r
+Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was\r
+really feeling uncomfortable and wanting him very much to be gone. She\r
+did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better\r
+judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be;\r
+but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general,\r
+which made her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him\r
+sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable.\r
+Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt\r
+on Emma’s side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was\r
+thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words.\r
+\r
+“Robert Martin has no great loss--if he can but think so; and I hope it\r
+will not be long before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known\r
+to yourself; but as you make no secret of your love of match-making, it\r
+is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have;--and as\r
+a friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think it\r
+will be all labour in vain.”\r
+\r
+Emma laughed and disclaimed. He continued,\r
+\r
+“Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a very good sort of man,\r
+and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make\r
+an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as any\r
+body. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally. He is\r
+as well acquainted with his own claims, as you can be with Harriet’s.\r
+He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great favourite\r
+wherever he goes; and from his general way of talking in unreserved\r
+moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does\r
+not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak with great\r
+animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are\r
+intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece.”\r
+\r
+“I am very much obliged to you,” said Emma, laughing again. “If I had\r
+set my heart on Mr. Elton’s marrying Harriet, it would have been very\r
+kind to open my eyes; but at present I only want to keep Harriet to\r
+myself. I have done with match-making indeed. I could never hope to\r
+equal my own doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well.”\r
+\r
+“Good morning to you,”--said he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was\r
+very much vexed. He felt the disappointment of the young man, and was\r
+mortified to have been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had\r
+given; and the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair,\r
+was provoking him exceedingly.\r
+\r
+Emma remained in a state of vexation too; but there was more\r
+indistinctness in the causes of her’s, than in his. She did not always\r
+feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that\r
+her opinions were right and her adversary’s wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He\r
+walked off in more complete self-approbation than he left for her. She\r
+was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and\r
+the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet’s staying\r
+away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the\r
+young man’s coming to Mrs. Goddard’s that morning, and meeting with\r
+Harriet and pleading his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread\r
+of such a failure after all became the prominent uneasiness; and when\r
+Harriet appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any\r
+such reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which\r
+settled her with her own mind, and convinced her, that let Mr.\r
+Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which woman’s\r
+friendship and woman’s feelings would not justify.\r
+\r
+He had frightened her a little about Mr. Elton; but when she considered\r
+that Mr. Knightley could not have observed him as she had done, neither\r
+with the interest, nor (she must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of\r
+Mr. Knightley’s pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such\r
+a question as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she\r
+was able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully\r
+to be true, than what he knew any thing about. He certainly might have\r
+heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and\r
+Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to\r
+money matters; he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise\r
+to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the\r
+influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives. Mr.\r
+Knightley saw no such passion, and of course thought nothing of its\r
+effects; but she saw too much of it to feel a doubt of its overcoming\r
+any hesitations that a reasonable prudence might originally suggest; and\r
+more than a reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure\r
+did not belong to Mr. Elton.\r
+\r
+Harriet’s cheerful look and manner established hers: she came back, not\r
+to think of Mr. Martin, but to talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been\r
+telling her something, which she repeated immediately with great\r
+delight. Mr. Perry had been to Mrs. Goddard’s to attend a sick child,\r
+and Miss Nash had seen him, and he had told Miss Nash, that as he was\r
+coming back yesterday from Clayton Park, he had met Mr. Elton, and\r
+found to his great surprize, that Mr. Elton was actually on his road\r
+to London, and not meaning to return till the morrow, though it was the\r
+whist-club night, which he had been never known to miss before; and Mr.\r
+Perry had remonstrated with him about it, and told him how shabby it\r
+was in him, their best player, to absent himself, and tried very much to\r
+persuade him to put off his journey only one day; but it would not\r
+do; Mr. Elton had been determined to go on, and had said in a _very_\r
+_particular_ way indeed, that he was going on business which he would\r
+not put off for any inducement in the world; and something about a\r
+very enviable commission, and being the bearer of something exceedingly\r
+precious. Mr. Perry could not quite understand him, but he was very sure\r
+there must be a _lady_ in the case, and he told him so; and Mr. Elton\r
+only looked very conscious and smiling, and rode off in great spirits.\r
+Miss Nash had told her all this, and had talked a great deal more about\r
+Mr. Elton; and said, looking so very significantly at her, “that she did\r
+not pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only\r
+knew that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer, she should think the\r
+luckiest woman in the world; for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not his\r
+equal for beauty or agreeableness.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley might quarrel with her, but Emma could not quarrel with\r
+herself. He was so much displeased, that it was longer than usual before\r
+he came to Hartfield again; and when they did meet, his grave looks\r
+shewed that she was not forgiven. She was sorry, but could not repent.\r
+On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified\r
+and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days.\r
+\r
+The Picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr.\r
+Elton’s return, and being hung over the mantelpiece of the common\r
+sitting-room, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences\r
+of admiration just as he ought; and as for Harriet’s feelings, they were\r
+visibly forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment as\r
+her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied\r
+of Mr. Martin’s being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished a\r
+contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter.\r
+\r
+Her views of improving her little friend’s mind, by a great deal of\r
+useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few\r
+first chapters, and the intention of going on to-morrow. It was much\r
+easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination\r
+range and work at Harriet’s fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge\r
+her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts; and the only literary\r
+pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision she\r
+was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing\r
+all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin\r
+quarto of hot-pressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with\r
+ciphers and trophies.\r
+\r
+In this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale are\r
+not uncommon. Miss Nash, head-teacher at Mrs. Goddard’s, had written out\r
+at least three hundred; and Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it\r
+from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse’s help, to get a great many more.\r
+Emma assisted with her invention, memory and taste; and as Harriet wrote\r
+a very pretty hand, it was likely to be an arrangement of the first\r
+order, in form as well as quantity.\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the\r
+girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting\r
+in. “So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he\r
+wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time.”\r
+ And it always ended in “Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.”\r
+\r
+His good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject,\r
+did not at present recollect any thing of the riddle kind; but he\r
+had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about so much,\r
+something, he thought, might come from that quarter.\r
+\r
+It was by no means his daughter’s wish that the intellects of Highbury\r
+in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one\r
+whose assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good\r
+enigmas, charades, or conundrums that he might recollect; and she had\r
+the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his recollections;\r
+and at the same time, as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that\r
+nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the\r
+sex should pass his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest\r
+puzzles; and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled, and\r
+rather sentimentally recited, that well-known charade,\r
+\r
+ My first doth affliction denote,\r
+ Which my second is destin’d to feel\r
+ And my whole is the best antidote\r
+ That affliction to soften and heal.--\r
+\r
+made her quite sorry to acknowledge that they had transcribed it some\r
+pages ago already.\r
+\r
+“Why will not you write one yourself for us, Mr. Elton?” said she; “that\r
+is the only security for its freshness; and nothing could be easier to\r
+you.”\r
+\r
+“Oh no! he had never written, hardly ever, any thing of the kind in his\r
+life. The stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhouse”--he\r
+stopt a moment--“or Miss Smith could inspire him.”\r
+\r
+The very next day however produced some proof of inspiration. He\r
+called for a few moments, just to leave a piece of paper on the table\r
+containing, as he said, a charade, which a friend of his had addressed\r
+to a young lady, the object of his admiration, but which, from his\r
+manner, Emma was immediately convinced must be his own.\r
+\r
+“I do not offer it for Miss Smith’s collection,” said he. “Being my\r
+friend’s, I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye,\r
+but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it.”\r
+\r
+The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could\r
+understand. There was deep consciousness about him, and he found\r
+it easier to meet her eye than her friend’s. He was gone the next\r
+moment:--after another moment’s pause,\r
+\r
+“Take it,” said Emma, smiling, and pushing the paper towards\r
+Harriet--“it is for you. Take your own.”\r
+\r
+But Harriet was in a tremor, and could not touch it; and Emma, never\r
+loth to be first, was obliged to examine it herself.\r
+\r
+ To Miss--\r
+\r
+ CHARADE.\r
+\r
+ My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,\r
+ Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.\r
+ Another view of man, my second brings,\r
+ Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!\r
+\r
+ But ah! united, what reverse we have!\r
+ Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown;\r
+ Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,\r
+ And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.\r
+\r
+ Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,\r
+ May its approval beam in that soft eye!\r
+\r
+She cast her eye over it, pondered, caught the meaning, read it through\r
+again to be quite certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then\r
+passing it to Harriet, sat happily smiling, and saying to herself, while\r
+Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and\r
+dulness, “Very well, Mr. Elton, very well indeed. I have read worse\r
+charades. _Courtship_--a very good hint. I give you credit for it. This\r
+is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly--‘Pray, Miss Smith,\r
+give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade and my\r
+intentions in the same glance.’\r
+\r
+ May its approval beam in that soft eye!\r
+\r
+Harriet exactly. Soft is the very word for her eye--of all epithets, the\r
+justest that could be given.\r
+\r
+ Thy ready wit the word will soon supply.\r
+\r
+Humph--Harriet’s ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in\r
+love, indeed, to describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the\r
+benefit of this; I think this would convince you. For once in your life\r
+you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade\r
+indeed! and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis soon\r
+now.”\r
+\r
+She was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations,\r
+which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the\r
+eagerness of Harriet’s wondering questions.\r
+\r
+“What can it be, Miss Woodhouse?--what can it be? I have not an idea--I\r
+cannot guess it in the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find\r
+it out, Miss Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw any thing so hard. Is it\r
+kingdom? I wonder who the friend was--and who could be the young lady.\r
+Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman?\r
+\r
+ And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.\r
+\r
+Can it be Neptune?\r
+\r
+ Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!\r
+\r
+Or a trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh, no! shark is only one\r
+syllable. It must be very clever, or he would not have brought it. Oh!\r
+Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever find it out?”\r
+\r
+“Mermaids and sharks! Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking\r
+of? Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend\r
+upon a mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper and listen.\r
+\r
+For Miss ------, read Miss Smith.\r
+\r
+ My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,\r
+ Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.\r
+\r
+That is _court_.\r
+\r
+ Another view of man, my second brings;\r
+ Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!\r
+\r
+That is _ship_;--plain as it can be.--Now for the cream.\r
+\r
+ But ah! united, (_courtship_, you know,) what reverse we have!\r
+ Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown.\r
+ Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,\r
+ And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.\r
+\r
+A very proper compliment!--and then follows the application, which\r
+I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty in\r
+comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of\r
+its being written for you and to you.”\r
+\r
+Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion. She read\r
+the concluding lines, and was all flutter and happiness. She could not\r
+speak. But she was not wanted to speak. It was enough for her to feel.\r
+Emma spoke for her.\r
+\r
+“There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment,”\r
+ said she, “that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr. Elton’s intentions. You\r
+are his object--and you will soon receive the completest proof of it. I\r
+thought it must be so. I thought I could not be so deceived; but now, it\r
+is clear; the state of his mind is as clear and decided, as my wishes on\r
+the subject have been ever since I knew you. Yes, Harriet, just so long\r
+have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen that has happened.\r
+I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr. Elton were\r
+most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have\r
+really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my\r
+dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may\r
+well feel pride in creating. This is a connexion which offers nothing\r
+but good. It will give you every thing that you want--consideration,\r
+independence, a proper home--it will fix you in the centre of all your\r
+real friends, close to Hartfield and to me, and confirm our intimacy\r
+for ever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in\r
+either of us.”\r
+\r
+“Dear Miss Woodhouse!”--and “Dear Miss Woodhouse,” was all that Harriet,\r
+with many tender embraces could articulate at first; but when they did\r
+arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to\r
+her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she\r
+ought. Mr. Elton’s superiority had very ample acknowledgment.\r
+\r
+“Whatever you say is always right,” cried Harriet, “and therefore I\r
+suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so; but otherwise I could not\r
+have imagined it. It is so much beyond any thing I deserve. Mr. Elton,\r
+who might marry any body! There cannot be two opinions about _him_. He\r
+is so very superior. Only think of those sweet verses--‘To Miss ------.’\r
+Dear me, how clever!--Could it really be meant for me?”\r
+\r
+“I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a\r
+certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to\r
+the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by\r
+matter-of-fact prose.”\r
+\r
+“It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected. I am sure,\r
+a month ago, I had no more idea myself!--The strangest things do take\r
+place!”\r
+\r
+“When Miss Smiths and Mr. Eltons get acquainted--they do indeed--and\r
+really it is strange; it is out of the common course that what is so\r
+evidently, so palpably desirable--what courts the pre-arrangement of\r
+other people, should so immediately shape itself into the proper form.\r
+You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together; you belong to one\r
+another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying\r
+will be equal to the match at Randalls. There does seem to be a\r
+something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right\r
+direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow.\r
+\r
+ The course of true love never did run smooth--\r
+\r
+A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that\r
+passage.”\r
+\r
+“That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,--me, of all people,\r
+who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! And he, the very\r
+handsomest man that ever was, and a man that every body looks up to,\r
+quite like Mr. Knightley! His company so sought after, that every body\r
+says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not chuse it;\r
+that he has more invitations than there are days in the week. And so\r
+excellent in the Church! Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has\r
+ever preached from since he came to Highbury. Dear me! When I look back\r
+to the first time I saw him! How little did I think!--The two Abbots and\r
+I ran into the front room and peeped through the blind when we heard he\r
+was going by, and Miss Nash came and scolded us away, and staid to look\r
+through herself; however, she called me back presently, and let me\r
+look too, which was very good-natured. And how beautiful we thought he\r
+looked! He was arm-in-arm with Mr. Cole.”\r
+\r
+“This is an alliance which, whoever--whatever your friends may be, must\r
+be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense; and we\r
+are not to be addressing our conduct to fools. If they are anxious to\r
+see you _happily_ married, here is a man whose amiable character gives\r
+every assurance of it;--if they wish to have you settled in the same\r
+country and circle which they have chosen to place you in, here it will\r
+be accomplished; and if their only object is that you should, in the\r
+common phrase, be _well_ married, here is the comfortable fortune, the\r
+respectable establishment, the rise in the world which must satisfy\r
+them.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, very true. How nicely you talk; I love to hear you. You understand\r
+every thing. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever as the other. This\r
+charade!--If I had studied a twelvemonth, I could never have made any\r
+thing like it.”\r
+\r
+“I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining it\r
+yesterday.”\r
+\r
+“I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read.”\r
+\r
+“I never read one more to the purpose, certainly.”\r
+\r
+“It is as long again as almost all we have had before.”\r
+\r
+“I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour. Such things\r
+in general cannot be too short.”\r
+\r
+Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory\r
+comparisons were rising in her mind.\r
+\r
+“It is one thing,” said she, presently--her cheeks in a glow--“to have\r
+very good sense in a common way, like every body else, and if there is\r
+any thing to say, to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you\r
+must, in a short way; and another, to write verses and charades like\r
+this.”\r
+\r
+Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin’s\r
+prose.\r
+\r
+“Such sweet lines!” continued Harriet--“these two last!--But how shall I\r
+ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found it out?--Oh! Miss\r
+Woodhouse, what can we do about that?”\r
+\r
+“Leave it to me. You do nothing. He will be here this evening, I dare\r
+say, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense or other will\r
+pass between us, and you shall not be committed.--Your soft eyes shall\r
+chuse their own time for beaming. Trust to me.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful\r
+charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good.”\r
+\r
+“Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you should not\r
+write it into your book.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! but those two lines are”--\r
+\r
+--“The best of all. Granted;--for private enjoyment; and for private\r
+enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know,\r
+because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does its\r
+meaning change. But take it away, and all _appropriation_ ceases, and a\r
+very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon\r
+it, he would not like to have his charade slighted, much better than his\r
+passion. A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or\r
+neither. Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be\r
+no possible reflection on you.”\r
+\r
+Harriet submitted, though her mind could hardly separate the parts,\r
+so as to feel quite sure that her friend were not writing down a\r
+declaration of love. It seemed too precious an offering for any degree\r
+of publicity.\r
+\r
+“I shall never let that book go out of my own hands,” said she.\r
+\r
+“Very well,” replied Emma; “a most natural feeling; and the longer it\r
+lasts, the better I shall be pleased. But here is my father coming: you\r
+will not object to my reading the charade to him. It will be giving him\r
+so much pleasure! He loves any thing of the sort, and especially any\r
+thing that pays woman a compliment. He has the tenderest spirit of\r
+gallantry towards us all!--You must let me read it to him.”\r
+\r
+Harriet looked grave.\r
+\r
+“My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.--You\r
+will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too\r
+quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning\r
+which may be affixed to it. Do not be overpowered by such a little\r
+tribute of admiration. If he had been anxious for secrecy, he would not\r
+have left the paper while I was by; but he rather pushed it towards me\r
+than towards you. Do not let us be too solemn on the business. He has\r
+encouragement enough to proceed, without our sighing out our souls over\r
+this charade.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no--I hope I shall not be ridiculous about it. Do as you please.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse came in, and very soon led to the subject again, by the\r
+recurrence of his very frequent inquiry of “Well, my dears, how does\r
+your book go on?--Have you got any thing fresh?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, papa; we have something to read you, something quite fresh. A\r
+piece of paper was found on the table this morning--(dropt, we suppose,\r
+by a fairy)--containing a very pretty charade, and we have just copied\r
+it in.”\r
+\r
+She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and\r
+distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every\r
+part as she proceeded--and he was very much pleased, and, as she had\r
+foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion.\r
+\r
+“Aye, that’s very just, indeed, that’s very properly said. Very true.\r
+‘Woman, lovely woman.’ It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I\r
+can easily guess what fairy brought it.--Nobody could have written so\r
+prettily, but you, Emma.”\r
+\r
+Emma only nodded, and smiled.--After a little thinking, and a very\r
+tender sigh, he added,\r
+\r
+“Ah! it is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother\r
+was so clever at all those things! If I had but her memory! But I can\r
+remember nothing;--not even that particular riddle which you have\r
+heard me mention; I can only recollect the first stanza; and there are\r
+several.\r
+\r
+ Kitty, a fair but frozen maid,\r
+ Kindled a flame I yet deplore,\r
+ The hood-wink’d boy I called to aid,\r
+ Though of his near approach afraid,\r
+ So fatal to my suit before.\r
+\r
+And that is all that I can recollect of it--but it is very clever all\r
+the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, papa, it is written out in our second page. We copied it from the\r
+Elegant Extracts. It was Garrick’s, you know.”\r
+\r
+“Aye, very true.--I wish I could recollect more of it.\r
+\r
+ Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.\r
+\r
+The name makes me think of poor Isabella; for she was very near being\r
+christened Catherine after her grandmama. I hope we shall have her here\r
+next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put her--and what\r
+room there will be for the children?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes--she will have her own room, of course; the room she always\r
+has;--and there is the nursery for the children,--just as usual, you\r
+know. Why should there be any change?”\r
+\r
+“I do not know, my dear--but it is so long since she was here!--not\r
+since last Easter, and then only for a few days.--Mr. John Knightley’s\r
+being a lawyer is very inconvenient.--Poor Isabella!--she is sadly taken\r
+away from us all!--and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see\r
+Miss Taylor here!”\r
+\r
+“She will not be surprized, papa, at least.”\r
+\r
+“I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprized when I\r
+first heard she was going to be married.”\r
+\r
+“We must ask Mr. and Mrs. Weston to dine with us, while Isabella is\r
+here.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, my dear, if there is time.--But--(in a very depressed tone)--she\r
+is coming for only one week. There will not be time for any thing.”\r
+\r
+“It is unfortunate that they cannot stay longer--but it seems a case of\r
+necessity. Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the 28th, and we\r
+ought to be thankful, papa, that we are to have the whole of the time\r
+they can give to the country, that two or three days are not to be taken\r
+out for the Abbey. Mr. Knightley promises to give up his claim this\r
+Christmas--though you know it is longer since they were with him, than\r
+with us.”\r
+\r
+“It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be\r
+anywhere but at Hartfield.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse could never allow for Mr. Knightley’s claims on his\r
+brother, or any body’s claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing\r
+a little while, and then said,\r
+\r
+“But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so\r
+soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to\r
+stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! papa--that is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I\r
+do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her\r
+husband.”\r
+\r
+This was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse\r
+could only give a submissive sigh; and as Emma saw his spirits affected\r
+by the idea of his daughter’s attachment to her husband, she immediately\r
+led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them.\r
+\r
+“Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother\r
+and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children.\r
+We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she\r
+will think the handsomest, Henry or John?”\r
+\r
+“Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be\r
+to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet.”\r
+\r
+“I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not.”\r
+\r
+“Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the\r
+eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second,\r
+is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that\r
+the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I\r
+thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They\r
+are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will\r
+come and stand by my chair, and say, ‘Grandpapa, can you give me a bit\r
+of string?’ and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives\r
+were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with\r
+them very often.”\r
+\r
+“He appears rough to you,” said Emma, “because you are so very gentle\r
+yourself; but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not\r
+think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy; and if\r
+they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then; but he is an\r
+affectionate father--certainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate\r
+father. The children are all fond of him.”\r
+\r
+“And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a\r
+very frightful way!”\r
+\r
+“But they like it, papa; there is nothing they like so much. It is such\r
+enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of\r
+their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other.”\r
+\r
+“Well, I cannot understand it.”\r
+\r
+“That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot\r
+understand the pleasures of the other.”\r
+\r
+Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate\r
+in preparation for the regular four o’clock dinner, the hero of this\r
+inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away; but Emma could\r
+receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in\r
+his the consciousness of having made a push--of having thrown a die;\r
+and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible\r
+reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse’s party could be made\r
+up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest\r
+degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, every thing else must give\r
+way; but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his\r
+dining with him--had made such a point of it, that he had promised him\r
+conditionally to come.\r
+\r
+Emma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend\r
+on their account; her father was sure of his rubber. He re-urged--she\r
+re-declined; and he seemed then about to make his bow, when taking the\r
+paper from the table, she returned it--\r
+\r
+“Oh! here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us; thank\r
+you for the sight of it. We admired it so much, that I have ventured\r
+to write it into Miss Smith’s collection. Your friend will not take it\r
+amiss I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the first eight\r
+lines.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather\r
+doubtingly--rather confused; said something about “honour,”--glanced at\r
+Emma and at Harriet, and then seeing the book open on the table, took\r
+it up, and examined it very attentively. With the view of passing off an\r
+awkward moment, Emma smilingly said,\r
+\r
+“You must make my apologies to your friend; but so good a charade\r
+must not be confined to one or two. He may be sure of every woman’s\r
+approbation while he writes with such gallantry.”\r
+\r
+“I have no hesitation in saying,” replied Mr. Elton, though hesitating\r
+a good deal while he spoke; “I have no hesitation in saying--at least\r
+if my friend feels at all as _I_ do--I have not the smallest doubt that,\r
+could he see his little effusion honoured as _I_ see it, (looking at the\r
+book again, and replacing it on the table), he would consider it as the\r
+proudest moment of his life.”\r
+\r
+After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think\r
+it too soon; for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was\r
+a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to\r
+laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and\r
+the sublime of pleasure to Harriet’s share.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+\r
+Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to\r
+prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the\r
+morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who\r
+lived a little way out of Highbury.\r
+\r
+Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane\r
+leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of\r
+the place; and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr.\r
+Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about\r
+a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not\r
+very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had\r
+no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up by the\r
+present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility\r
+of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing\r
+eyes.--Emma’s remark was--\r
+\r
+“There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these\r
+days.”--Harriet’s was--\r
+\r
+“Oh, what a sweet house!--How very beautiful!--There are the yellow\r
+curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.”\r
+\r
+“I do not often walk this way _now_,” said Emma, as they proceeded, “but\r
+_then_ there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately\r
+acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part\r
+of Highbury.”\r
+\r
+Harriet, she found, had never in her life been inside the Vicarage,\r
+and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors\r
+and probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with\r
+Mr. Elton’s seeing ready wit in her.\r
+\r
+“I wish we could contrive it,” said she; “but I cannot think of any\r
+tolerable pretence for going in;--no servant that I want to inquire\r
+about of his housekeeper--no message from my father.”\r
+\r
+She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some\r
+minutes, Harriet thus began again--\r
+\r
+“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or\r
+going to be married! so charming as you are!”--\r
+\r
+Emma laughed, and replied,\r
+\r
+“My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry;\r
+I must find other people charming--one other person at least. And I\r
+am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little\r
+intention of ever marrying at all.”\r
+\r
+“Ah!--so you say; but I cannot believe it.”\r
+\r
+“I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be\r
+tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the\r
+question: and I do _not_ wish to see any such person. I would rather not\r
+be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I\r
+must expect to repent it.”\r
+\r
+“Dear me!--it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”--\r
+\r
+“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall\r
+in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in\r
+love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.\r
+And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a\r
+situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want;\r
+consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much\r
+mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never\r
+could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and\r
+always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”\r
+\r
+“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”\r
+\r
+“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if\r
+I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly--so satisfied--so\r
+smiling--so prosing--so undistinguishing and unfastidious--and so apt\r
+to tell every thing relative to every body about me, I would marry\r
+to-morrow. But between _us_, I am convinced there never can be any\r
+likeness, except in being unmarried.”\r
+\r
+“But still, you will be an old maid! and that’s so dreadful!”\r
+\r
+“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty\r
+only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single\r
+woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old\r
+maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good\r
+fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant\r
+as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the\r
+candour and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very\r
+narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper.\r
+Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and\r
+generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This\r
+does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and\r
+too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste\r
+of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not\r
+contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the\r
+world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it; and nobody\r
+is afraid of her: that is a great charm.”\r
+\r
+“Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you\r
+grow old?”\r
+\r
+“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great\r
+many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more\r
+in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman’s\r
+usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they\r
+are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read\r
+more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for\r
+objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the\r
+great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil\r
+to be avoided in _not_ marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the\r
+children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough\r
+of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that\r
+declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every\r
+fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it\r
+suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My\r
+nephews and nieces!--I shall often have a niece with me.”\r
+\r
+“Do you know Miss Bates’s niece? That is, I know you must have seen her\r
+a hundred times--but are you acquainted?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to\r
+Highbury. By the bye, _that_ is almost enough to put one out of conceit\r
+with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people\r
+half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane\r
+Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from\r
+her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round\r
+and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a\r
+stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of\r
+nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires\r
+me to death.”\r
+\r
+They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were\r
+superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor\r
+were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her\r
+counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways,\r
+could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic\r
+expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had\r
+done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and\r
+always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In\r
+the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she\r
+came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give\r
+comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of\r
+the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,\r
+\r
+“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make\r
+every thing else appear!--I feel now as if I could think of nothing but\r
+these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how\r
+soon it may all vanish from my mind?”\r
+\r
+“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing\r
+else.”\r
+\r
+“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said\r
+Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended\r
+the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them\r
+into the lane again. “I do not think it will,” stopping to look once\r
+more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still\r
+greater within.\r
+\r
+“Oh! dear, no,” said her companion.\r
+\r
+They walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was\r
+passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma\r
+time only to say farther,\r
+\r
+“Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good\r
+thoughts. Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion\r
+has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that\r
+is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can\r
+for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.”\r
+\r
+Harriet could just answer, “Oh! dear, yes,” before the gentleman joined\r
+them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the\r
+first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit\r
+he would now defer; but they had a very interesting parley about\r
+what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to\r
+accompany them.\r
+\r
+“To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,” thought Emma;\r
+“to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase\r
+of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the\r
+declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else.”\r
+\r
+Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon\r
+afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one\r
+side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had\r
+not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet’s habits of\r
+dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short,\r
+they would both be soon after her. This would not do; she immediately\r
+stopped, under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing\r
+of her half-boot, and stooping down in complete occupation of the\r
+footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would\r
+follow in half a minute. They did as they were desired; and by the time\r
+she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort\r
+of farther delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the\r
+cottage, setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch\r
+broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child, and talk to\r
+and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or would have\r
+been the most natural, had she been acting just then without design;\r
+and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without\r
+any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however,\r
+involuntarily: the child’s pace was quick, and theirs rather slow;\r
+and she was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in\r
+a conversation which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with\r
+animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma,\r
+having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might draw back\r
+a little more, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail;\r
+and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only\r
+giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday’s party at his\r
+friend Cole’s, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese,\r
+the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the\r
+dessert.\r
+\r
+“This would soon have led to something better, of course,” was her\r
+consoling reflection; “any thing interests between those who love; and\r
+any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I\r
+could but have kept longer away!”\r
+\r
+They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage\r
+pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the\r
+house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and\r
+fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short,\r
+and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to\r
+entreat them to stop, and acknowledged her inability to put herself to\r
+rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort.\r
+\r
+“Part of my lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to\r
+contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I\r
+hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop\r
+at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string,\r
+or any thing just to keep my boot on.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could\r
+exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and\r
+endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage. The room they were\r
+taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind\r
+it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between\r
+them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive\r
+her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave\r
+the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton\r
+should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but\r
+by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make\r
+it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining\r
+room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be\r
+protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her\r
+appearance.\r
+\r
+The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most\r
+favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having\r
+schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point.\r
+He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet that\r
+he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little\r
+gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious.\r
+\r
+“Cautious, very cautious,” thought Emma; “he advances inch by inch, and\r
+will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.”\r
+\r
+Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her\r
+ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been\r
+the occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them\r
+forward to the great event.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma’s power\r
+to superintend his happiness or quicken his measures. The coming of her\r
+sister’s family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation,\r
+and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest;\r
+and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be\r
+expected--she did not herself expect--that any thing beyond occasional,\r
+fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers. They might\r
+advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or\r
+other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure\r
+for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they\r
+will do for themselves.\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent\r
+from Surry, were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest.\r
+Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been\r
+divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey; but all the holidays of\r
+this autumn had been given to sea-bathing for the children, and it was\r
+therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their\r
+Surry connexions, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be\r
+induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella’s sake; and\r
+who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in\r
+forestalling this too short visit.\r
+\r
+He thought much of the evils of the journey for her, and not a little\r
+of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some\r
+of the party the last half of the way; but his alarms were needless;\r
+the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs. John\r
+Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nursery-maids,\r
+all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival,\r
+the many to be talked to, welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed\r
+and disposed of, produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could\r
+not have borne under any other cause, nor have endured much longer even\r
+for this; but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father\r
+were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley, that in spite of maternal\r
+solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones, and for their\r
+having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and\r
+drinking, and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for,\r
+without the smallest delay, the children were never allowed to be long\r
+a disturbance to him, either in themselves or in any restless attendance\r
+on them.\r
+\r
+Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet\r
+manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt\r
+up in her family; a devoted wife, a doating mother, and so tenderly\r
+attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a\r
+warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault\r
+in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any\r
+quickness; and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also\r
+much of his constitution; was delicate in her own health, over-careful\r
+of that of her children, had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond\r
+of her own Mr. Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry.\r
+They were alike too, in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong\r
+habit of regard for every old acquaintance.\r
+\r
+Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man;\r
+rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private\r
+character; but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally\r
+pleasing; and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an\r
+ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a\r
+reproach; but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with\r
+such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects\r
+in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper\r
+must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she\r
+wanted, and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing.\r
+\r
+He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong\r
+in him escaped her. She was quick in feeling the little injuries to\r
+Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself. Perhaps she might have\r
+passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella’s sister,\r
+but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without\r
+praise and without blindness; but hardly any degree of personal\r
+compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of\r
+all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful\r
+forbearance towards her father. There he had not always the patience\r
+that could have been wished. Mr. Woodhouse’s peculiarities and\r
+fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or\r
+sharp retort equally ill-bestowed. It did not often happen; for Mr. John\r
+Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally\r
+a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma’s\r
+charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently\r
+to be endured, though the offence came not. The beginning, however, of\r
+every visit displayed none but the properest feelings, and this being of\r
+necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality.\r
+They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a\r
+melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter’s attention\r
+to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last.\r
+\r
+“Ah, my dear,” said he, “poor Miss Taylor--It is a grievous business.”\r
+\r
+“Oh yes, sir,” cried she with ready sympathy, “how you must miss her!\r
+And dear Emma, too!--What a dreadful loss to you both!--I have been so\r
+grieved for you.--I could not imagine how you could possibly do without\r
+her.--It is a sad change indeed.--But I hope she is pretty well, sir.”\r
+\r
+“Pretty well, my dear--I hope--pretty well.--I do not know but that the\r
+place agrees with her tolerably.”\r
+\r
+Mr. John Knightley here asked Emma quietly whether there were any doubts\r
+of the air of Randalls.\r
+\r
+“Oh! no--none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my\r
+life--never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret.”\r
+\r
+“Very much to the honour of both,” was the handsome reply.\r
+\r
+“And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?” asked Isabella in the\r
+plaintive tone which just suited her father.\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse hesitated.--“Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they\r
+married. Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one,\r
+have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both,\r
+either at Randalls or here--and as you may suppose, Isabella, most\r
+frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston\r
+is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way,\r
+you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Every body must be\r
+aware that Miss Taylor must be missed, but every body ought also to be\r
+assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by\r
+any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated--which is the exact\r
+truth.”\r
+\r
+“Just as it should be,” said Mr. John Knightley, “and just as I hoped\r
+it was from your letters. Her wish of shewing you attention could not be\r
+doubted, and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I\r
+have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change\r
+being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have\r
+Emma’s account, I hope you will be satisfied.”\r
+\r
+“Why, to be sure,” said Mr. Woodhouse--“yes, certainly--I cannot\r
+deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty\r
+often--but then--she is always obliged to go away again.”\r
+\r
+“It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.--You quite\r
+forget poor Mr. Weston.”\r
+\r
+“I think, indeed,” said John Knightley pleasantly, “that Mr. Weston has\r
+some little claim. You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the\r
+poor husband. I, being a husband, and you not being a wife, the claims\r
+of the man may very likely strike us with equal force. As for Isabella,\r
+she has been married long enough to see the convenience of putting all\r
+the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can.”\r
+\r
+“Me, my love,” cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part.--\r
+“Are you talking about me?--I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a\r
+greater advocate for matrimony than I am; and if it had not been for\r
+the misery of her leaving Hartfield, I should never have thought of Miss\r
+Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world; and as to slighting\r
+Mr. Weston, that excellent Mr. Weston, I think there is nothing he does\r
+not deserve. I believe he is one of the very best-tempered men that ever\r
+existed. Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal\r
+for temper. I shall never forget his flying Henry’s kite for him that\r
+very windy day last Easter--and ever since his particular kindness last\r
+September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o’clock at night,\r
+on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I\r
+have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better\r
+man in existence.--If any body can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor.”\r
+\r
+“Where is the young man?” said John Knightley. “Has he been here on this\r
+occasion--or has he not?”\r
+\r
+“He has not been here yet,” replied Emma. “There was a strong\r
+expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in\r
+nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately.”\r
+\r
+“But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,” said her father.\r
+“He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very\r
+proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very\r
+well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one\r
+cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps--”\r
+\r
+“My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.”\r
+\r
+“Three-and-twenty!--is he indeed?--Well, I could not have thought\r
+it--and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well,\r
+time does fly indeed!--and my memory is very bad. However, it was an\r
+exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal\r
+of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept.\r
+28th--and began, ‘My dear Madam,’ but I forget how it went on; and it\r
+was signed ‘F. C. Weston Churchill.’--I remember that perfectly.”\r
+\r
+“How very pleasing and proper of him!” cried the good-hearted Mrs. John\r
+Knightley. “I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But\r
+how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is\r
+something so shocking in a child’s being taken away from his parents and\r
+natural home! I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with\r
+him. To give up one’s child! I really never could think well of any body\r
+who proposed such a thing to any body else.”\r
+\r
+“Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy,” observed Mr.\r
+John Knightley coolly. “But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt\r
+what you would feel in giving up Henry or John. Mr. Weston is rather\r
+an easy, cheerful-tempered man, than a man of strong feelings; he takes\r
+things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other,\r
+depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his\r
+comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing\r
+whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection,\r
+or any thing that home affords.”\r
+\r
+Emma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had\r
+half a mind to take it up; but she struggled, and let it pass. She\r
+would keep the peace if possible; and there was something honourable and\r
+valuable in the strong domestic habits, the all-sufficiency of home to\r
+himself, whence resulted her brother’s disposition to look down on\r
+the common rate of social intercourse, and those to whom it was\r
+important.--It had a high claim to forbearance.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley was to dine with them--rather against the inclination of\r
+Mr. Woodhouse, who did not like that any one should share with him in\r
+Isabella’s first day. Emma’s sense of right however had decided it;\r
+and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had\r
+particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement\r
+between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper\r
+invitation.\r
+\r
+She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time\r
+to make up. Making-up indeed would not do. _She_ certainly had not been\r
+in the wrong, and _he_ would never own that he had. Concession must be\r
+out of the question; but it was time to appear to forget that they had\r
+ever quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of\r
+friendship, that when he came into the room she had one of the children\r
+with her--the youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who\r
+was now making her first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced\r
+about in her aunt’s arms. It did assist; for though he began with grave\r
+looks and short questions, he was soon led on to talk of them all in\r
+the usual way, and to take the child out of her arms with all the\r
+unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were friends again;\r
+and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and then\r
+a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the\r
+baby,\r
+\r
+“What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces.\r
+As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with\r
+regard to these children, I observe we never disagree.”\r
+\r
+“If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women,\r
+and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with\r
+them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always\r
+think alike.”\r
+\r
+“To be sure--our discordancies must always arise from my being in the\r
+wrong.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said he, smiling--“and reason good. I was sixteen years old when\r
+you were born.”\r
+\r
+“A material difference then,” she replied--“and no doubt you were much\r
+my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the\r
+lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal\r
+nearer?”\r
+\r
+“Yes--a good deal _nearer_.”\r
+\r
+“But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we\r
+think differently.”\r
+\r
+“I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years’ experience, and by\r
+not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma,\r
+let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little\r
+Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old\r
+grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now.”\r
+\r
+“That’s true,” she cried--“very true. Little Emma, grow up a better\r
+woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited.\r
+Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good\r
+intentions went, we were _both_ right, and I must say that no effects on\r
+my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that\r
+Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed.”\r
+\r
+“A man cannot be more so,” was his short, full answer.\r
+\r
+“Ah!--Indeed I am very sorry.--Come, shake hands with me.”\r
+\r
+This had just taken place and with great cordiality, when John Knightley\r
+made his appearance, and “How d’ye do, George?” and “John, how are\r
+you?” succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that\r
+seemed all but indifference, the real attachment which would have led\r
+either of them, if requisite, to do every thing for the good of the\r
+other.\r
+\r
+The evening was quiet and conversable, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards\r
+entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and\r
+the little party made two natural divisions; on one side he and his\r
+daughter; on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally\r
+distinct, or very rarely mixing--and Emma only occasionally joining in\r
+one or the other.\r
+\r
+The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally\r
+of those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative,\r
+and who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally\r
+some point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious\r
+anecdote to give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at\r
+Donwell, he had to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to\r
+give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting\r
+to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his\r
+life, and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change\r
+of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for\r
+wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered into with as much equality\r
+of interest by John, as his cooler manners rendered possible; and if his\r
+willing brother ever left him any thing to inquire about, his inquiries\r
+even approached a tone of eagerness.\r
+\r
+While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a\r
+full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.\r
+\r
+“My poor dear Isabella,” said he, fondly taking her hand, and\r
+interrupting, for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her\r
+five children--“How long it is, how terribly long since you were here!\r
+And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early,\r
+my dear--and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.--You and\r
+I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all\r
+have a little gruel.”\r
+\r
+Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing as she did, that both the\r
+Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself;--and\r
+two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of\r
+gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every\r
+body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,\r
+\r
+“It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South\r
+End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir--or we should not\r
+have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for\r
+the weakness in little Bella’s throat,--both sea air and bathing.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any\r
+good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though\r
+perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use\r
+to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once.”\r
+\r
+“Come, come,” cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, “I must\r
+beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable;--I\r
+who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear\r
+Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr. Perry yet; and\r
+he never forgets you.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! good Mr. Perry--how is he, sir?”\r
+\r
+“Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has\r
+not time to take care of himself--he tells me he has not time to take\r
+care of himself--which is very sad--but he is always wanted all round\r
+the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But\r
+then there is not so clever a man any where.”\r
+\r
+“And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? do the children grow?\r
+I have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He\r
+will be so pleased to see my little ones.”\r
+\r
+“I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask\r
+him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes,\r
+you had better let him look at little Bella’s throat.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any\r
+uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to\r
+her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr.\r
+Wingfield’s, which we have been applying at times ever since August.”\r
+\r
+“It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use\r
+to her--and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have\r
+spoken to--\r
+\r
+“You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates,” said Emma, “I\r
+have not heard one inquiry after them.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! the good Bateses--I am quite ashamed of myself--but you mention\r
+them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs.\r
+Bates--I will call upon her to-morrow, and take my children.--They\r
+are always so pleased to see my children.--And that excellent Miss\r
+Bates!--such thorough worthy people!--How are they, sir?”\r
+\r
+“Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a\r
+bad cold about a month ago.”\r
+\r
+“How sorry I am! But colds were never so prevalent as they have been\r
+this autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he has never known them more\r
+general or heavy--except when it has been quite an influenza.”\r
+\r
+“That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you\r
+mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy\r
+as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it\r
+altogether a sickly season.”\r
+\r
+“No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it _very_ sickly\r
+except--\r
+\r
+“Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always\r
+a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a\r
+dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!--and the\r
+air so bad!”\r
+\r
+“No, indeed--_we_ are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is\r
+very superior to most others!--You must not confound us with London\r
+in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very\r
+different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be\r
+unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town;--there is\r
+hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in:\r
+but _we_ are so remarkably airy!--Mr. Wingfield thinks the vicinity of\r
+Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it--but\r
+after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different\r
+creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think\r
+you are any of you looking well at present.”\r
+\r
+“I am sorry to hear you say so, sir; but I assure you, excepting those\r
+little nervous head-aches and palpitations which I am never entirely\r
+free from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were\r
+rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a\r
+little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of\r
+coming. I hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow; for I\r
+assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever\r
+sent us off altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that\r
+you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill,” turning her eyes with\r
+affectionate anxiety towards her husband.\r
+\r
+“Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley\r
+very far from looking well.”\r
+\r
+“What is the matter, sir?--Did you speak to me?” cried Mr. John\r
+Knightley, hearing his own name.\r
+\r
+“I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking\r
+well--but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have\r
+wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you\r
+left home.”\r
+\r
+“My dear Isabella,”--exclaimed he hastily--“pray do not concern yourself\r
+about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and\r
+the children, and let me look as I chuse.”\r
+\r
+“I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,”\r
+ cried Emma, “about your friend Mr. Graham’s intending to have a bailiff\r
+from Scotland, to look after his new estate. What will it answer? Will\r
+not the old prejudice be too strong?”\r
+\r
+And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to\r
+give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing\r
+worse to hear than Isabella’s kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane\r
+Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was at that\r
+moment very happy to assist in praising.\r
+\r
+“That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!” said Mrs. John Knightley.--“It\r
+is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment\r
+accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old\r
+grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always\r
+regret excessively on dear Emma’s account that she cannot be more at\r
+Highbury; but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs.\r
+Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a\r
+delightful companion for Emma.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added,\r
+\r
+“Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty\r
+kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a\r
+better companion than Harriet.”\r
+\r
+“I am most happy to hear it--but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so\r
+very accomplished and superior!--and exactly Emma’s age.”\r
+\r
+This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar\r
+moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not\r
+close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied\r
+a great deal to be said--much praise and many comments--undoubting\r
+decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty\r
+severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with\r
+tolerably;--but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter\r
+had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in\r
+her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never\r
+had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth\r
+gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered\r
+it, she had never been able to get any thing tolerable. Here was a\r
+dangerous opening.\r
+\r
+“Ah!” said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her\r
+with tender concern.--The ejaculation in Emma’s ear expressed, “Ah!\r
+there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It\r
+does not bear talking of.” And for a little while she hoped he would not\r
+talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to\r
+the relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes,\r
+however, he began with,\r
+\r
+“I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn,\r
+instead of coming here.”\r
+\r
+“But why should you be sorry, sir?--I assure you, it did the children a\r
+great deal of good.”\r
+\r
+“And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been\r
+to South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprized to\r
+hear you had fixed upon South End.”\r
+\r
+“I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite\r
+a mistake, sir.--We all had our health perfectly well there, never\r
+found the least inconvenience from the mud; and Mr. Wingfield says it is\r
+entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may\r
+be depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and\r
+his own brother and family have been there repeatedly.”\r
+\r
+“You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.--Perry\r
+was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the\r
+sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by\r
+what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from\r
+the sea--a quarter of a mile off--very comfortable. You should have\r
+consulted Perry.”\r
+\r
+“But, my dear sir, the difference of the journey;--only consider how\r
+great it would have been.--An hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else\r
+should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to\r
+chuse between forty miles and an hundred.--Better not move at all,\r
+better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into\r
+a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very\r
+ill-judged measure.”\r
+\r
+Emma’s attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he\r
+had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her\r
+brother-in-law’s breaking out.\r
+\r
+“Mr. Perry,” said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, “would do\r
+as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it\r
+any business of his, to wonder at what I do?--at my taking my family to\r
+one part of the coast or another?--I may be allowed, I hope, the use of\r
+my judgment as well as Mr. Perry.--I want his directions no more than\r
+his drugs.” He paused--and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only\r
+sarcastic dryness, “If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and\r
+five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater\r
+expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as\r
+willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself.”\r
+\r
+“True, true,” cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition--“very\r
+true. That’s a consideration indeed.--But John, as to what I was telling\r
+you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the\r
+right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive\r
+any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of\r
+inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly\r
+the present line of the path.... The only way of proving it, however,\r
+will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow\r
+morning I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me\r
+your opinion.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his\r
+friend Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been\r
+attributing many of his own feelings and expressions;--but the soothing\r
+attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and\r
+the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the\r
+other, prevented any renewal of it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+\r
+There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs. John\r
+Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning\r
+among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what\r
+she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing\r
+to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a\r
+delightful visit;--perfect, in being much too short.\r
+\r
+In general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their\r
+mornings; but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too,\r
+there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr. Weston would take no\r
+denial; they must all dine at Randalls one day;--even Mr. Woodhouse was\r
+persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of\r
+the party.\r
+\r
+How they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difficulty if he\r
+could, but as his son and daughter’s carriage and horses were actually\r
+at Hartfield, he was not able to make more than a simple question on\r
+that head; it hardly amounted to a doubt; nor did it occupy Emma long\r
+to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for\r
+Harriet also.\r
+\r
+Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the\r
+only persons invited to meet them;--the hours were to be early, as\r
+well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse’s habits and inclination being\r
+consulted in every thing.\r
+\r
+The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that\r
+Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December) had been spent\r
+by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with\r
+a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs.\r
+Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called\r
+on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to\r
+Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat: Mrs. Goddard\r
+was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet\r
+herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her\r
+from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss\r
+without many tears.\r
+\r
+Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard’s\r
+unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr.\r
+Elton’s would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last\r
+tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most\r
+comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not\r
+advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard’s door, when she was met by Mr.\r
+Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly\r
+together in conversation about the invalid--of whom he, on the rumour\r
+of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might\r
+carry some report of her to Hartfield--they were overtaken by Mr. John\r
+Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest\r
+boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country\r
+run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice\r
+pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and\r
+proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend’s\r
+complaint;--“a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat\r
+about her, a quick, low pulse, &c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs.\r
+Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore-throats, and had often\r
+alarmed her with them.” Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as\r
+he exclaimed,\r
+\r
+“A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid\r
+infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of\r
+yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks.\r
+Why does not Perry see her?”\r
+\r
+Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this\r
+excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard’s experience and\r
+care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she\r
+could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist\r
+than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject,\r
+\r
+“It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like\r
+snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I\r
+should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from\r
+venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the\r
+cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great\r
+a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton,\r
+in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a\r
+little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and\r
+what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than\r
+common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make;\r
+which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind\r
+care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her’s,\r
+he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma,\r
+too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him\r
+impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with\r
+his muttering acknowledgment of its being “very cold, certainly very\r
+cold,” and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls,\r
+and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour\r
+of the evening.\r
+\r
+“You do quite right,” said she;--“we will make your apologies to Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Weston.”\r
+\r
+But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly\r
+offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton’s only\r
+objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt\r
+satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had\r
+his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment;\r
+never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when\r
+he next looked at her.\r
+\r
+“Well,” said she to herself, “this is most strange!--After I had got\r
+him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill\r
+behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men,\r
+especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining\r
+out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures,\r
+their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any\r
+thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most\r
+valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love\r
+with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine\r
+out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready\r
+wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her.”\r
+\r
+Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him\r
+the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his\r
+manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while\r
+assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard’s for news of her fair\r
+friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting\r
+her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and\r
+he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of\r
+approbation much in his favour.\r
+\r
+After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began\r
+with--\r
+\r
+“I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr.\r
+Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With\r
+men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please,\r
+every feature works.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Elton’s manners are not perfect,” replied Emma; “but where there is\r
+a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great\r
+deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will\r
+have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect\r
+good-temper and good-will in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, “he seems\r
+to have a great deal of good-will towards you.”\r
+\r
+“Me!” she replied with a smile of astonishment, “are you imagining me to\r
+be Mr. Elton’s object?”\r
+\r
+“Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never\r
+occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Elton in love with me!--What an idea!”\r
+\r
+“I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it\r
+is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your\r
+manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better\r
+look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do.”\r
+\r
+“I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and\r
+I are very good friends, and nothing more;” and she walked on, amusing\r
+herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a\r
+partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high\r
+pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well\r
+pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in\r
+want of counsel. He said no more.\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in\r
+spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking\r
+from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest\r
+daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the\r
+weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own\r
+going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was\r
+cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe;\r
+and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow\r
+were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so\r
+overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world\r
+in a very short time.\r
+\r
+Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The\r
+preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of\r
+his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least,\r
+which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like; he anticipated\r
+nothing in the visit that could be at all worth the purchase; and the\r
+whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his\r
+discontent.\r
+\r
+“A man,” said he, “must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks\r
+people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as\r
+this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most\r
+agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest\r
+absurdity--Actually snowing at this moment!--The folly of not allowing\r
+people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people’s not staying\r
+comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such\r
+an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we\r
+should deem it;--and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing\r
+than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of\r
+the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view\r
+or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter\r
+that he can;--here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in\r
+another man’s house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said\r
+and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow.\r
+Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;--four horses and\r
+four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering\r
+creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had\r
+at home.”\r
+\r
+Emma did not find herself equal to give the pleased assent, which no\r
+doubt he was in the habit of receiving, to emulate the “Very true,\r
+my love,” which must have been usually administered by his travelling\r
+companion; but she had resolution enough to refrain from making\r
+any answer at all. She could not be complying, she dreaded being\r
+quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence. She allowed him to\r
+talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening\r
+her lips.\r
+\r
+They arrived, the carriage turned, the step was let down, and Mr. Elton,\r
+spruce, black, and smiling, was with them instantly. Emma thought with\r
+pleasure of some change of subject. Mr. Elton was all obligation and\r
+cheerfulness; he was so very cheerful in his civilities indeed, that she\r
+began to think he must have received a different account of Harriet from\r
+what had reached her. She had sent while dressing, and the answer had\r
+been, “Much the same--not better.”\r
+\r
+“_My_ report from Mrs. Goddard’s,” said she presently, “was not so\r
+pleasant as I had hoped--‘Not better’ was _my_ answer.”\r
+\r
+His face lengthened immediately; and his voice was the voice of\r
+sentiment as he answered.\r
+\r
+“Oh! no--I am grieved to find--I was on the point of telling you that\r
+when I called at Mrs. Goddard’s door, which I did the very last thing\r
+before I returned to dress, I was told that Miss Smith was not better,\r
+by no means better, rather worse. Very much grieved and concerned--I\r
+had flattered myself that she must be better after such a cordial as I\r
+knew had been given her in the morning.”\r
+\r
+Emma smiled and answered--“My visit was of use to the nervous part of\r
+her complaint, I hope; but not even I can charm away a sore throat;\r
+it is a most severe cold indeed. Mr. Perry has been with her, as you\r
+probably heard.”\r
+\r
+“Yes--I imagined--that is--I did not--”\r
+\r
+“He has been used to her in these complaints, and I hope to-morrow\r
+morning will bring us both a more comfortable report. But it is\r
+impossible not to feel uneasiness. Such a sad loss to our party to-day!”\r
+\r
+“Dreadful!--Exactly so, indeed.--She will be missed every moment.”\r
+\r
+This was very proper; the sigh which accompanied it was really\r
+estimable; but it should have lasted longer. Emma was rather in dismay\r
+when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things,\r
+and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment.\r
+\r
+“What an excellent device,” said he, “the use of a sheepskin for\r
+carriages. How very comfortable they make it;--impossible to feel cold\r
+with such precautions. The contrivances of modern days indeed have\r
+rendered a gentleman’s carriage perfectly complete. One is so fenced\r
+and guarded from the weather, that not a breath of air can find its way\r
+unpermitted. Weather becomes absolutely of no consequence. It is a very\r
+cold afternoon--but in this carriage we know nothing of the matter.--Ha!\r
+snows a little I see.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said John Knightley, “and I think we shall have a good deal of\r
+it.”\r
+\r
+“Christmas weather,” observed Mr. Elton. “Quite seasonable; and\r
+extremely fortunate we may think ourselves that it did not begin\r
+yesterday, and prevent this day’s party, which it might very possibly\r
+have done, for Mr. Woodhouse would hardly have ventured had there been\r
+much snow on the ground; but now it is of no consequence. This is quite\r
+the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites\r
+their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst\r
+weather. I was snowed up at a friend’s house once for a week. Nothing\r
+could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away\r
+till that very day se’nnight.”\r
+\r
+Mr. John Knightley looked as if he did not comprehend the pleasure, but\r
+said only, coolly,\r
+\r
+“I cannot wish to be snowed up a week at Randalls.”\r
+\r
+At another time Emma might have been amused, but she was too much\r
+astonished now at Mr. Elton’s spirits for other feelings. Harriet seemed\r
+quite forgotten in the expectation of a pleasant party.\r
+\r
+“We are sure of excellent fires,” continued he, “and every thing in the\r
+greatest comfort. Charming people, Mr. and Mrs. Weston;--Mrs. Weston\r
+indeed is much beyond praise, and he is exactly what one values, so\r
+hospitable, and so fond of society;--it will be a small party, but where\r
+small parties are select, they are perhaps the most agreeable of any.\r
+Mr. Weston’s dining-room does not accommodate more than ten comfortably;\r
+and for my part, I would rather, under such circumstances, fall short by\r
+two than exceed by two. I think you will agree with me, (turning with\r
+a soft air to Emma,) I think I shall certainly have your approbation,\r
+though Mr. Knightley perhaps, from being used to the large parties of\r
+London, may not quite enter into our feelings.”\r
+\r
+“I know nothing of the large parties of London, sir--I never dine with\r
+any body.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed! (in a tone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had\r
+been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will\r
+be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great\r
+enjoyment.”\r
+\r
+“My first enjoyment,” replied John Knightley, as they passed through the\r
+sweep-gate, “will be to find myself safe at Hartfield again.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+\r
+Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they\r
+walked into Mrs. Weston’s drawing-room;--Mr. Elton must compose his\r
+joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his ill-humour. Mr.\r
+Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the\r
+place.--Emma only might be as nature prompted, and shew herself just as\r
+happy as she was. To her it was real enjoyment to be with the Westons.\r
+Mr. Weston was a great favourite, and there was not a creature in the\r
+world to whom she spoke with such unreserve, as to his wife; not any\r
+one, to whom she related with such conviction of being listened to and\r
+understood, of being always interesting and always intelligible, the\r
+little affairs, arrangements, perplexities, and pleasures of her father\r
+and herself. She could tell nothing of Hartfield, in which Mrs. Weston\r
+had not a lively concern; and half an hour’s uninterrupted communication\r
+of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life\r
+depends, was one of the first gratifications of each.\r
+\r
+This was a pleasure which perhaps the whole day’s visit might not\r
+afford, which certainly did not belong to the present half-hour; but the\r
+very sight of Mrs. Weston, her smile, her touch, her voice was grateful\r
+to Emma, and she determined to think as little as possible of Mr.\r
+Elton’s oddities, or of any thing else unpleasant, and enjoy all that\r
+was enjoyable to the utmost.\r
+\r
+The misfortune of Harriet’s cold had been pretty well gone through\r
+before her arrival. Mr. Woodhouse had been safely seated long enough\r
+to give the history of it, besides all the history of his own and\r
+Isabella’s coming, and of Emma’s being to follow, and had indeed just\r
+got to the end of his satisfaction that James should come and see his\r
+daughter, when the others appeared, and Mrs. Weston, who had been almost\r
+wholly engrossed by her attentions to him, was able to turn away and\r
+welcome her dear Emma.\r
+\r
+Emma’s project of forgetting Mr. Elton for a while made her rather sorry\r
+to find, when they had all taken their places, that he was close to her.\r
+The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards\r
+Harriet, from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but\r
+was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and\r
+solicitously addressing her upon every occasion. Instead of forgetting\r
+him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal\r
+suggestion of “Can it really be as my brother imagined? can it be\r
+possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from\r
+Harriet to me?--Absurd and insufferable!”--Yet he would be so anxious\r
+for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father,\r
+and so delighted with Mrs. Weston; and at last would begin admiring her\r
+drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly\r
+like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her\r
+good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet’s,\r
+in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively\r
+civil; but it was an effort; especially as something was going on\r
+amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr. Elton’s\r
+nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to. She heard enough\r
+to know that Mr. Weston was giving some information about his son; she\r
+heard the words “my son,” and “Frank,” and “my son,” repeated several\r
+times over; and, from a few other half-syllables very much suspected\r
+that he was announcing an early visit from his son; but before she could\r
+quiet Mr. Elton, the subject was so completely past that any reviving\r
+question from her would have been awkward.\r
+\r
+Now, it so happened that in spite of Emma’s resolution of never\r
+marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea of Mr.\r
+Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently\r
+thought--especially since his father’s marriage with Miss Taylor--that\r
+if she _were_ to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age,\r
+character and condition. He seemed by this connexion between the\r
+families, quite to belong to her. She could not but suppose it to be\r
+a match that every body who knew them must think of. That Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Weston did think of it, she was very strongly persuaded; and though\r
+not meaning to be induced by him, or by any body else, to give up a\r
+situation which she believed more replete with good than any she could\r
+change it for, she had a great curiosity to see him, a decided intention\r
+of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a certain degree, and\r
+a sort of pleasure in the idea of their being coupled in their friends’\r
+imaginations.\r
+\r
+With such sensations, Mr. Elton’s civilities were dreadfully ill-timed;\r
+but she had the comfort of appearing very polite, while feeling very\r
+cross--and of thinking that the rest of the visit could not possibly\r
+pass without bringing forward the same information again, or the\r
+substance of it, from the open-hearted Mr. Weston.--So it proved;--for\r
+when happily released from Mr. Elton, and seated by Mr. Weston,\r
+at dinner, he made use of the very first interval in the cares of\r
+hospitality, the very first leisure from the saddle of mutton, to say to\r
+her,\r
+\r
+“We want only two more to be just the right number. I should like to see\r
+two more here,--your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my son--and\r
+then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me\r
+telling the others in the drawing-room that we are expecting Frank.\r
+I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a\r
+fortnight.”\r
+\r
+Emma spoke with a very proper degree of pleasure; and fully assented to\r
+his proposition of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Smith making their party\r
+quite complete.\r
+\r
+“He has been wanting to come to us,” continued Mr. Weston, “ever since\r
+September: every letter has been full of it; but he cannot command his\r
+own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between\r
+ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices.\r
+But now I have no doubt of seeing him here about the second week in\r
+January.”\r
+\r
+“What a very great pleasure it will be to you! and Mrs. Weston is so\r
+anxious to be acquainted with him, that she must be almost as happy as\r
+yourself.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another put-off.\r
+She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do: but she does not\r
+know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is--(but this is\r
+quite between ourselves: I did not mention a syllable of it in the other\r
+room. There are secrets in all families, you know)--The case is, that a\r
+party of friends are invited to pay a visit at Enscombe in January; and\r
+that Frank’s coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not\r
+put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family\r
+that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular\r
+dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in\r
+two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point.\r
+I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing\r
+Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself:\r
+but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table)\r
+has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at\r
+Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been\r
+long in the practice of doing.”\r
+\r
+“I am sorry there should be any thing like doubt in the case,” replied\r
+Emma; “but am disposed to side with you, Mr. Weston. If you think he\r
+will come, I shall think so too; for you know Enscombe.”\r
+\r
+“Yes--I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been at\r
+the place in my life.--She is an odd woman!--But I never allow myself\r
+to speak ill of her, on Frank’s account; for I do believe her to be very\r
+fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of\r
+any body, except herself: but she has always been kind to him (in her\r
+way--allowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting every thing\r
+to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him,\r
+that he should excite such an affection; for, though I would not say\r
+it to any body else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in\r
+general; and the devil of a temper.”\r
+\r
+Emma liked the subject so well, that she began upon it, to Mrs. Weston,\r
+very soon after their moving into the drawing-room: wishing her joy--yet\r
+observing, that she knew the first meeting must be rather alarming.--\r
+Mrs. Weston agreed to it; but added, that she should be very glad to be\r
+secure of undergoing the anxiety of a first meeting at the time talked\r
+of: “for I cannot depend upon his coming. I cannot be so sanguine as\r
+Mr. Weston. I am very much afraid that it will all end in nothing. Mr.\r
+Weston, I dare say, has been telling you exactly how the matter stands?”\r
+\r
+“Yes--it seems to depend upon nothing but the ill-humour of Mrs.\r
+Churchill, which I imagine to be the most certain thing in the world.”\r
+\r
+“My Emma!” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “what is the certainty\r
+of caprice?” Then turning to Isabella, who had not been attending\r
+before--“You must know, my dear Mrs. Knightley, that we are by no means\r
+so sure of seeing Mr. Frank Churchill, in my opinion, as his father\r
+thinks. It depends entirely upon his aunt’s spirits and pleasure; in\r
+short, upon her temper. To you--to my two daughters--I may venture on\r
+the truth. Mrs. Churchill rules at Enscombe, and is a very odd-tempered\r
+woman; and his coming now, depends upon her being willing to spare him.”\r
+\r
+“Oh, Mrs. Churchill; every body knows Mrs. Churchill,” replied Isabella:\r
+“and I am sure I never think of that poor young man without the greatest\r
+compassion. To be constantly living with an ill-tempered person, must\r
+be dreadful. It is what we happily have never known any thing of; but\r
+it must be a life of misery. What a blessing, that she never had any\r
+children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them!”\r
+\r
+Emma wished she had been alone with Mrs. Weston. She should then have\r
+heard more: Mrs. Weston would speak to her, with a degree of unreserve\r
+which she would not hazard with Isabella; and, she really believed,\r
+would scarcely try to conceal any thing relative to the Churchills\r
+from her, excepting those views on the young man, of which her own\r
+imagination had already given her such instinctive knowledge. But at\r
+present there was nothing more to be said. Mr. Woodhouse very soon\r
+followed them into the drawing-room. To be sitting long after\r
+dinner, was a confinement that he could not endure. Neither wine nor\r
+conversation was any thing to him; and gladly did he move to those with\r
+whom he was always comfortable.\r
+\r
+While he talked to Isabella, however, Emma found an opportunity of\r
+saying,\r
+\r
+“And so you do not consider this visit from your son as by any means\r
+certain. I am sorry for it. The introduction must be unpleasant,\r
+whenever it takes place; and the sooner it could be over, the better.”\r
+\r
+“Yes; and every delay makes one more apprehensive of other delays. Even\r
+if this family, the Braithwaites, are put off, I am still afraid that\r
+some excuse may be found for disappointing us. I cannot bear to imagine\r
+any reluctance on his side; but I am sure there is a great wish on\r
+the Churchills’ to keep him to themselves. There is jealousy. They\r
+are jealous even of his regard for his father. In short, I can feel no\r
+dependence on his coming, and I wish Mr. Weston were less sanguine.”\r
+\r
+“He ought to come,” said Emma. “If he could stay only a couple of days,\r
+he ought to come; and one can hardly conceive a young man’s not having\r
+it in his power to do as much as that. A young _woman_, if she fall into\r
+bad hands, may be teased, and kept at a distance from those she wants\r
+to be with; but one cannot comprehend a young _man_‘s being under such\r
+restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he\r
+likes it.”\r
+\r
+“One ought to be at Enscombe, and know the ways of the family, before\r
+one decides upon what he can do,” replied Mrs. Weston. “One ought to\r
+use the same caution, perhaps, in judging of the conduct of any one\r
+individual of any one family; but Enscombe, I believe, certainly must\r
+not be judged by general rules: _she_ is so very unreasonable; and every\r
+thing gives way to her.”\r
+\r
+“But she is so fond of the nephew: he is so very great a favourite. Now,\r
+according to my idea of Mrs. Churchill, it would be most natural, that\r
+while she makes no sacrifice for the comfort of the husband, to whom she\r
+owes every thing, while she exercises incessant caprice towards _him_,\r
+she should frequently be governed by the nephew, to whom she owes\r
+nothing at all.”\r
+\r
+“My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand\r
+a bad one, or to lay down rules for it: you must let it go its own way.\r
+I have no doubt of his having, at times, considerable influence; but it\r
+may be perfectly impossible for him to know beforehand _when_ it will\r
+be.”\r
+\r
+Emma listened, and then coolly said, “I shall not be satisfied, unless\r
+he comes.”\r
+\r
+“He may have a great deal of influence on some points,” continued Mrs.\r
+Weston, “and on others, very little: and among those, on which she is\r
+beyond his reach, it is but too likely, may be this very circumstance of\r
+his coming away from them to visit us.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his\r
+tea he was quite ready to go home; and it was as much as his three\r
+companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness of\r
+the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was chatty and\r
+convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort; but at last\r
+the drawing-room party did receive an augmentation. Mr. Elton, in very\r
+good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma\r
+were sitting together on a sofa. He joined them immediately, and, with\r
+scarcely an invitation, seated himself between them.\r
+\r
+Emma, in good spirits too, from the amusement afforded her mind by\r
+the expectation of Mr. Frank Churchill, was willing to forget his late\r
+improprieties, and be as well satisfied with him as before, and on his\r
+making Harriet his very first subject, was ready to listen with most\r
+friendly smiles.\r
+\r
+He professed himself extremely anxious about her fair friend--her fair,\r
+lovely, amiable friend. “Did she know?--had she heard any thing about\r
+her, since their being at Randalls?--he felt much anxiety--he must\r
+confess that the nature of her complaint alarmed him considerably.”\r
+ And in this style he talked on for some time very properly, not much\r
+attending to any answer, but altogether sufficiently awake to the terror\r
+of a bad sore throat; and Emma was quite in charity with him.\r
+\r
+But at last there seemed a perverse turn; it seemed all at once as if he\r
+were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account, than on\r
+Harriet’s--more anxious that she should escape the infection, than\r
+that there should be no infection in the complaint. He began with great\r
+earnestness to entreat her to refrain from visiting the sick-chamber\r
+again, for the present--to entreat her to _promise_ _him_ not to venture\r
+into such hazard till he had seen Mr. Perry and learnt his opinion; and\r
+though she tried to laugh it off and bring the subject back into its\r
+proper course, there was no putting an end to his extreme solicitude\r
+about her. She was vexed. It did appear--there was no concealing\r
+it--exactly like the pretence of being in love with her, instead of\r
+Harriet; an inconstancy, if real, the most contemptible and abominable!\r
+and she had difficulty in behaving with temper. He turned to Mrs. Weston\r
+to implore her assistance, “Would not she give him her support?--would\r
+not she add her persuasions to his, to induce Miss Woodhouse not to go\r
+to Mrs. Goddard’s till it were certain that Miss Smith’s disorder had\r
+no infection? He could not be satisfied without a promise--would not she\r
+give him her influence in procuring it?”\r
+\r
+“So scrupulous for others,” he continued, “and yet so careless for\r
+herself! She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home to-day, and\r
+yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore\r
+throat herself. Is this fair, Mrs. Weston?--Judge between us. Have not I\r
+some right to complain? I am sure of your kind support and aid.”\r
+\r
+Emma saw Mrs. Weston’s surprize, and felt that it must be great, at an\r
+address which, in words and manner, was assuming to himself the right of\r
+first interest in her; and as for herself, she was too much provoked and\r
+offended to have the power of directly saying any thing to the purpose.\r
+She could only give him a look; but it was such a look as she thought\r
+must restore him to his senses, and then left the sofa, removing to a\r
+seat by her sister, and giving her all her attention.\r
+\r
+She had not time to know how Mr. Elton took the reproof, so rapidly did\r
+another subject succeed; for Mr. John Knightley now came into the room\r
+from examining the weather, and opened on them all with the information\r
+of the ground being covered with snow, and of its still snowing\r
+fast, with a strong drifting wind; concluding with these words to Mr.\r
+Woodhouse:\r
+\r
+“This will prove a spirited beginning of your winter engagements,\r
+sir. Something new for your coachman and horses to be making their way\r
+through a storm of snow.”\r
+\r
+Poor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation; but every body else\r
+had something to say; every body was either surprized or not surprized,\r
+and had some question to ask, or some comfort to offer. Mrs. Weston\r
+and Emma tried earnestly to cheer him and turn his attention from his\r
+son-in-law, who was pursuing his triumph rather unfeelingly.\r
+\r
+“I admired your resolution very much, sir,” said he, “in venturing out\r
+in such weather, for of course you saw there would be snow very soon.\r
+Every body must have seen the snow coming on. I admired your spirit; and\r
+I dare say we shall get home very well. Another hour or two’s snow can\r
+hardly make the road impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is\r
+blown over in the bleak part of the common field there will be the other\r
+at hand. I dare say we shall be all safe at Hartfield before midnight.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston, with triumph of a different sort, was confessing that he\r
+had known it to be snowing some time, but had not said a word, lest\r
+it should make Mr. Woodhouse uncomfortable, and be an excuse for his\r
+hurrying away. As to there being any quantity of snow fallen or likely\r
+to fall to impede their return, that was a mere joke; he was afraid they\r
+would find no difficulty. He wished the road might be impassable, that\r
+he might be able to keep them all at Randalls; and with the utmost\r
+good-will was sure that accommodation might be found for every body,\r
+calling on his wife to agree with him, that with a little contrivance,\r
+every body might be lodged, which she hardly knew how to do, from the\r
+consciousness of there being but two spare rooms in the house.\r
+\r
+“What is to be done, my dear Emma?--what is to be done?” was Mr.\r
+Woodhouse’s first exclamation, and all that he could say for some\r
+time. To her he looked for comfort; and her assurances of safety, her\r
+representation of the excellence of the horses, and of James, and of\r
+their having so many friends about them, revived him a little.\r
+\r
+His eldest daughter’s alarm was equal to his own. The horror of being\r
+blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full\r
+in her imagination; and fancying the road to be now just passable for\r
+adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager\r
+to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls,\r
+while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible\r
+accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them.\r
+\r
+“You had better order the carriage directly, my love,” said she; “I dare\r
+say we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly; and if we\r
+do come to any thing very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all\r
+afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes,\r
+you know, the moment I got home; and it is not the sort of thing that\r
+gives me cold.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed!” replied he. “Then, my dear Isabella, it is the most\r
+extraordinary sort of thing in the world, for in general every thing\r
+does give you cold. Walk home!--you are prettily shod for walking home,\r
+I dare say. It will be bad enough for the horses.”\r
+\r
+Isabella turned to Mrs. Weston for her approbation of the plan. Mrs.\r
+Weston could only approve. Isabella then went to Emma; but Emma could\r
+not so entirely give up the hope of their being all able to get away;\r
+and they were still discussing the point, when Mr. Knightley, who had\r
+left the room immediately after his brother’s first report of the snow,\r
+came back again, and told them that he had been out of doors to examine,\r
+and could answer for there not being the smallest difficulty in their\r
+getting home, whenever they liked it, either now or an hour hence. He\r
+had gone beyond the sweep--some way along the Highbury road--the snow\r
+was nowhere above half an inch deep--in many places hardly enough to\r
+whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the\r
+clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon\r
+over. He had seen the coachmen, and they both agreed with him in there\r
+being nothing to apprehend.\r
+\r
+To Isabella, the relief of such tidings was very great, and they were\r
+scarcely less acceptable to Emma on her father’s account, who\r
+was immediately set as much at ease on the subject as his nervous\r
+constitution allowed; but the alarm that had been raised could not be\r
+appeased so as to admit of any comfort for him while he continued at\r
+Randalls. He was satisfied of there being no present danger in returning\r
+home, but no assurances could convince him that it was safe to stay; and\r
+while the others were variously urging and recommending, Mr. Knightley\r
+and Emma settled it in a few brief sentences: thus--\r
+\r
+“Your father will not be easy; why do not you go?”\r
+\r
+“I am ready, if the others are.”\r
+\r
+“Shall I ring the bell?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, do.”\r
+\r
+And the bell was rung, and the carriages spoken for. A few minutes more,\r
+and Emma hoped to see one troublesome companion deposited in his own\r
+house, to get sober and cool, and the other recover his temper and\r
+happiness when this visit of hardship were over.\r
+\r
+The carriage came: and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such\r
+occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr.\r
+Weston; but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal\r
+of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the\r
+discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. “He was\r
+afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella\r
+would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind.\r
+He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together\r
+as they could;” and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very\r
+slow and wait for the other carriage.\r
+\r
+Isabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he\r
+did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally;\r
+so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second\r
+carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them,\r
+and that they were to have a tete-a-tete drive. It would not have been\r
+the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure,\r
+previous to the suspicions of this very day; she could have talked to\r
+him of Harriet, and the three-quarters of a mile would have seemed but\r
+one. But now, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had\r
+been drinking too much of Mr. Weston’s good wine, and felt sure that he\r
+would want to be talking nonsense.\r
+\r
+To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was\r
+immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of\r
+the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they\r
+passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her\r
+subject cut up--her hand seized--her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton\r
+actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious\r
+opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known,\r
+hoping--fearing--adoring--ready to die if she refused him; but\r
+flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and\r
+unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short,\r
+very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It\r
+really was so. Without scruple--without apology--without much apparent\r
+diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself\r
+_her_ lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would go on, and say\r
+it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to\r
+restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must\r
+be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to\r
+the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the\r
+playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she\r
+replied,\r
+\r
+“I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to _me_! you forget\r
+yourself--you take me for my friend--any message to Miss Smith I shall\r
+be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please.”\r
+\r
+“Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly\r
+mean!”--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such\r
+boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with\r
+quickness,\r
+\r
+“Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account\r
+for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak\r
+either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough\r
+to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it.”\r
+\r
+But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at\r
+all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and\r
+having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and\r
+slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but\r
+acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he\r
+resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a\r
+favourable answer.\r
+\r
+As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his\r
+inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness,\r
+replied,\r
+\r
+“It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself\r
+too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can\r
+express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last\r
+month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily\r
+habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an\r
+unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible!\r
+Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object\r
+of such professions.”\r
+\r
+“Good Heaven!” cried Mr. Elton, “what can be the meaning of this?--Miss\r
+Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my\r
+existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never\r
+cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she\r
+has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very\r
+sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse!\r
+who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my\r
+honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of\r
+you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one\r
+else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has\r
+been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You\r
+cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--(in an accent meant to be\r
+insinuating)--I am sure you have seen and understood me.”\r
+\r
+It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which\r
+of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely\r
+overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence\r
+being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton’s sanguine state of mind, he\r
+tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed--\r
+\r
+“Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting\r
+silence. It confesses that you have long understood me.”\r
+\r
+“No, sir,” cried Emma, “it confesses no such thing. So far from having\r
+long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect\r
+to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you\r
+should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther\r
+from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of\r
+her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been\r
+very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not\r
+your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged\r
+ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have\r
+never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you\r
+have never thought seriously of her?”\r
+\r
+“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you.\r
+_I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of\r
+girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish\r
+her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object\r
+to--Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think,\r
+quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal\r
+alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!--No, madam, my\r
+visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I\r
+received--”\r
+\r
+“Encouragement!--I give you encouragement!--Sir, you have been entirely\r
+mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my\r
+friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common\r
+acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake\r
+ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might\r
+have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware,\r
+probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you\r
+are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I\r
+trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present.”\r
+\r
+He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite\r
+supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually\r
+deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer,\r
+for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace. If\r
+there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate\r
+awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the\r
+little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage\r
+turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves,\r
+all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another\r
+syllable passed.--Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good\r
+night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under\r
+indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield.\r
+\r
+There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who\r
+had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage\r
+Lane--turning a corner which he could never bear to think of--and in\r
+strange hands--a mere common coachman--no James; and there it seemed as\r
+if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well: for Mr.\r
+John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and\r
+attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her\r
+father, as to seem--if not quite ready to join him in a basin of\r
+gruel--perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome; and the\r
+day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party,\r
+except herself.--But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and\r
+it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the\r
+usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+\r
+The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think\r
+and be miserable.--It was a wretched business indeed!--Such an overthrow\r
+of every thing she had been wishing for!--Such a development of every\r
+thing most unwelcome!--Such a blow for Harriet!--that was the worst\r
+of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or\r
+other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and\r
+she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken--more in\r
+error--more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the\r
+effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.\r
+\r
+“If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have\r
+borne any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me--but poor\r
+Harriet!”\r
+\r
+How she could have been so deceived!--He protested that he had never\r
+thought seriously of Harriet--never! She looked back as well as\r
+she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she\r
+supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must\r
+have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so\r
+misled.\r
+\r
+The picture!--How eager he had been about the picture!--and the\r
+charade!--and an hundred other circumstances;--how clearly they had\r
+seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its “ready\r
+wit”--but then the “soft eyes”--in fact it suited neither; it was\r
+a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such\r
+thick-headed nonsense?\r
+\r
+Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to\r
+herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere\r
+error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others\r
+that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the\r
+gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but,\r
+till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean\r
+any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet’s friend.\r
+\r
+To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the\r
+subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying\r
+that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley\r
+had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given,\r
+the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry\r
+indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his\r
+character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It\r
+was dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many\r
+respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him;\r
+proud, assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little\r
+concerned about the feelings of others.\r
+\r
+Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton’s wanting to pay his\r
+addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his\r
+proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment,\r
+and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the\r
+arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she was\r
+perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be\r
+cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or\r
+manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could\r
+hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less\r
+allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him. He\r
+only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse\r
+of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so\r
+easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody\r
+else with twenty, or with ten.\r
+\r
+But--that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware\r
+of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry\r
+him!--should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!--look down\r
+upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below\r
+him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no\r
+presumption in addressing her!--It was most provoking.\r
+\r
+Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her\r
+inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of\r
+such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that\r
+in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must\r
+know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at\r
+Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family--and that the\r
+Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was\r
+inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate,\r
+to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from\r
+other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell\r
+Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses had\r
+long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood which\r
+Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as he\r
+could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend him\r
+to notice but his situation and his civility.--But he had fancied her\r
+in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and\r
+after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners\r
+and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop\r
+and admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and\r
+obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real\r
+motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and\r
+delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite.\r
+If _she_ had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to\r
+wonder that _he_, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken\r
+hers.\r
+\r
+The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was\r
+wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It\r
+was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what\r
+ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite\r
+concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more.\r
+\r
+“Here have I,” said she, “actually talked poor Harriet into being very\r
+much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for\r
+me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had\r
+not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I\r
+used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her not\r
+to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done\r
+of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and\r
+chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the\r
+opportunity of pleasing some one worth having; I ought not to have\r
+attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time.\r
+I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel this\r
+disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body\r
+else who would be at all desirable for her;--William Coxe--Oh! no, I\r
+could not endure William Coxe--a pert young lawyer.”\r
+\r
+She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more\r
+serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be,\r
+and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and\r
+all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of\r
+future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the\r
+acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding\r
+eclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some\r
+time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the\r
+conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully.\r
+\r
+To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma’s, though under temporary\r
+gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of\r
+spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy,\r
+and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough\r
+to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of\r
+softened pain and brighter hope.\r
+\r
+Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone\r
+to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to\r
+depend on getting tolerably out of it.\r
+\r
+It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in\r
+love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to\r
+disappoint him--that Harriet’s nature should not be of that superior\r
+sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive--and that there\r
+could be no necessity for any body’s knowing what had passed except the\r
+three principals, and especially for her father’s being given a moment’s\r
+uneasiness about it.\r
+\r
+These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow\r
+on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that\r
+might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.\r
+\r
+The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas Day, she\r
+could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his\r
+daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting\r
+or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered\r
+with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and\r
+thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every\r
+morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to\r
+freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse\r
+with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on Sunday any\r
+more than on Christmas Day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton’s\r
+absenting himself.\r
+\r
+It was weather which might fairly confine every body at home; and though\r
+she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society\r
+or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with\r
+his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out; and to\r
+hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from\r
+them,--\r
+\r
+“Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton?”\r
+\r
+These days of confinement would have been, but for her private\r
+perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited\r
+her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to\r
+his companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his\r
+ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during the\r
+rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and obliging,\r
+and speaking pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes of\r
+cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still such\r
+an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as\r
+made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The\r
+weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr.\r
+Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay\r
+behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party\r
+set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor\r
+Isabella;--which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated\r
+on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently\r
+busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness.\r
+\r
+The evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr.\r
+Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with\r
+Mr. Elton’s best compliments, “that he was proposing to leave Highbury\r
+the following morning in his way to Bath; where, in compliance with\r
+the pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few\r
+weeks, and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from\r
+various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal\r
+leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever\r
+retain a grateful sense--and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be\r
+happy to attend to them.”\r
+\r
+Emma was most agreeably surprized.--Mr. Elton’s absence just at this\r
+time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving\r
+it, though not able to give him much credit for the manner in which it\r
+was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than\r
+in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded.\r
+She had not even a share in his opening compliments.--Her name was not\r
+mentioned;--and there was so striking a change in all this, and such an\r
+ill-judged solemnity of leave-taking in his graceful acknowledgments, as\r
+she thought, at first, could not escape her father’s suspicion.\r
+\r
+It did, however.--Her father was quite taken up with the surprize of so\r
+sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely to\r
+the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was a\r
+very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought\r
+and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse\r
+talked over his alarms, and Emma was in spirits to persuade them away\r
+with all her usual promptitude.\r
+\r
+She now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason\r
+to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable that\r
+she should have as much time as possible for getting the better of\r
+her other complaint before the gentleman’s return. She went to Mrs.\r
+Goddard’s accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary\r
+penance of communication; and a severe one it was.--She had to destroy\r
+all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding--to appear in\r
+the ungracious character of the one preferred--and acknowledge herself\r
+grossly mistaken and mis-judging in all her ideas on one subject, all\r
+her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last\r
+six weeks.\r
+\r
+The confession completely renewed her first shame--and the sight of\r
+Harriet’s tears made her think that she should never be in charity with\r
+herself again.\r
+\r
+Harriet bore the intelligence very well--blaming nobody--and in every\r
+thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion\r
+of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to\r
+her friend.\r
+\r
+Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost;\r
+and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on\r
+Harriet’s side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having\r
+any thing to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton\r
+would have been too great a distinction.--She never could have deserved\r
+him--and nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would\r
+have thought it possible.\r
+\r
+Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that\r
+no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma’s eyes--and\r
+she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and\r
+understanding--really for the time convinced that Harriet was the\r
+superior creature of the two--and that to resemble her would be more for\r
+her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could\r
+do.\r
+\r
+It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and\r
+ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of\r
+being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of\r
+her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father’s claims, was\r
+to promote Harriet’s comfort, and endeavour to prove her own affection\r
+in some better method than by match-making. She got her to Hartfield,\r
+and shewed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and\r
+amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton from her\r
+thoughts.\r
+\r
+Time, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done; and\r
+she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in\r
+general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr. Elton\r
+in particular; but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet’s age,\r
+and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might be\r
+made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton’s return, as\r
+to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance,\r
+without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them.\r
+\r
+Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence\r
+of any body equal to him in person or goodness--and did, in truth,\r
+prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet\r
+it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an\r
+inclination of that sort _unrequited_, that she could not comprehend its\r
+continuing very long in equal force.\r
+\r
+If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and\r
+indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not\r
+imagine Harriet’s persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the\r
+recollection of him.\r
+\r
+Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for\r
+each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of\r
+effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each\r
+other, and make the best of it.\r
+\r
+Harriet was farther unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs.\r
+Goddard’s; Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great\r
+girls in the school; and it must be at Hartfield only that she could\r
+have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or\r
+repellent truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be\r
+found if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of\r
+cure, there could be no true peace for herself.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. When the time proposed drew near, Mrs.\r
+Weston’s fears were justified in the arrival of a letter of excuse. For\r
+the present, he could not be spared, to his “very great mortification\r
+and regret; but still he looked forward with the hope of coming to\r
+Randalls at no distant period.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointed--much more disappointed, in\r
+fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man\r
+had been so much more sober: but a sanguine temper, though for ever\r
+expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by\r
+any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure,\r
+and begins to hope again. For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprized and\r
+sorry; but then he began to perceive that Frank’s coming two or three\r
+months later would be a much better plan; better time of year;\r
+better weather; and that he would be able, without any doubt, to stay\r
+considerably longer with them than if he had come sooner.\r
+\r
+These feelings rapidly restored his comfort, while Mrs. Weston, of\r
+a more apprehensive disposition, foresaw nothing but a repetition of\r
+excuses and delays; and after all her concern for what her husband was\r
+to suffer, suffered a great deal more herself.\r
+\r
+Emma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really about Mr.\r
+Frank Churchill’s not coming, except as a disappointment at Randalls.\r
+The acquaintance at present had no charm for her. She wanted, rather, to\r
+be quiet, and out of temptation; but still, as it was desirable that she\r
+should appear, in general, like her usual self, she took care to express\r
+as much interest in the circumstance, and enter as warmly into Mr.\r
+and Mrs. Weston’s disappointment, as might naturally belong to their\r
+friendship.\r
+\r
+She was the first to announce it to Mr. Knightley; and exclaimed quite\r
+as much as was necessary, (or, being acting a part, perhaps rather\r
+more,) at the conduct of the Churchills, in keeping him away. She then\r
+proceeded to say a good deal more than she felt, of the advantage of\r
+such an addition to their confined society in Surry; the pleasure of\r
+looking at somebody new; the gala-day to Highbury entire, which the\r
+sight of him would have made; and ending with reflections on the\r
+Churchills again, found herself directly involved in a disagreement\r
+with Mr. Knightley; and, to her great amusement, perceived that she was\r
+taking the other side of the question from her real opinion, and making\r
+use of Mrs. Weston’s arguments against herself.\r
+\r
+“The Churchills are very likely in fault,” said Mr. Knightley, coolly;\r
+“but I dare say he might come if he would.”\r
+\r
+“I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come; but\r
+his uncle and aunt will not spare him.”\r
+\r
+“I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a\r
+point of it. It is too unlikely, for me to believe it without proof.”\r
+\r
+“How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done, to make you suppose\r
+him such an unnatural creature?”\r
+\r
+“I am not supposing him at all an unnatural creature, in suspecting that\r
+he may have learnt to be above his connexions, and to care very little\r
+for any thing but his own pleasure, from living with those who have\r
+always set him the example of it. It is a great deal more natural than\r
+one could wish, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud,\r
+luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. If\r
+Frank Churchill had wanted to see his father, he would have contrived it\r
+between September and January. A man at his age--what is he?--three or\r
+four-and-twenty--cannot be without the means of doing as much as that.\r
+It is impossible.”\r
+\r
+“That’s easily said, and easily felt by you, who have always been your\r
+own master. You are the worst judge in the world, Mr. Knightley, of the\r
+difficulties of dependence. You do not know what it is to have tempers\r
+to manage.”\r
+\r
+“It is not to be conceived that a man of three or four-and-twenty\r
+should not have liberty of mind or limb to that amount. He cannot want\r
+money--he cannot want leisure. We know, on the contrary, that he has so\r
+much of both, that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in\r
+the kingdom. We hear of him for ever at some watering-place or other. A\r
+little while ago, he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the\r
+Churchills.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, sometimes he can.”\r
+\r
+“And those times are whenever he thinks it worth his while; whenever\r
+there is any temptation of pleasure.”\r
+\r
+“It is very unfair to judge of any body’s conduct, without an intimate\r
+knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior\r
+of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that\r
+family may be. We ought to be acquainted with Enscombe, and with Mrs.\r
+Churchill’s temper, before we pretend to decide upon what her nephew\r
+can do. He may, at times, be able to do a great deal more than he can at\r
+others.”\r
+\r
+“There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and\r
+that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and\r
+resolution. It is Frank Churchill’s duty to pay this attention to his\r
+father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages; but if he\r
+wished to do it, it might be done. A man who felt rightly would say at\r
+once, simply and resolutely, to Mrs. Churchill--‘Every sacrifice of\r
+mere pleasure you will always find me ready to make to your convenience;\r
+but I must go and see my father immediately. I know he would be hurt by\r
+my failing in such a mark of respect to him on the present occasion.\r
+I shall, therefore, set off to-morrow.’--If he would say so to her\r
+at once, in the tone of decision becoming a man, there would be no\r
+opposition made to his going.”\r
+\r
+“No,” said Emma, laughing; “but perhaps there might be some made to his\r
+coming back again. Such language for a young man entirely dependent, to\r
+use!--Nobody but you, Mr. Knightley, would imagine it possible. But you\r
+have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to\r
+your own. Mr. Frank Churchill to be making such a speech as that to\r
+the uncle and aunt, who have brought him up, and are to provide for\r
+him!--Standing up in the middle of the room, I suppose, and speaking as\r
+loud as he could!--How can you imagine such conduct practicable?”\r
+\r
+“Depend upon it, Emma, a sensible man would find no difficulty in it. He\r
+would feel himself in the right; and the declaration--made, of course,\r
+as a man of sense would make it, in a proper manner--would do him more\r
+good, raise him higher, fix his interest stronger with the people he\r
+depended on, than all that a line of shifts and expedients can ever do.\r
+Respect would be added to affection. They would feel that they could\r
+trust him; that the nephew who had done rightly by his father, would do\r
+rightly by them; for they know, as well as he does, as well as all the\r
+world must know, that he ought to pay this visit to his father; and\r
+while meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not\r
+thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims. Respect for\r
+right conduct is felt by every body. If he would act in this sort of\r
+manner, on principle, consistently, regularly, their little minds would\r
+bend to his.”\r
+\r
+“I rather doubt that. You are very fond of bending little minds; but\r
+where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have\r
+a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great\r
+ones. I can imagine, that if you, as you are, Mr. Knightley, were to be\r
+transported and placed all at once in Mr. Frank Churchill’s situation,\r
+you would be able to say and do just what you have been recommending for\r
+him; and it might have a very good effect. The Churchills might not have\r
+a word to say in return; but then, you would have no habits of early\r
+obedience and long observance to break through. To him who has, it might\r
+not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set\r
+all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought. He may have as\r
+strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so\r
+equal, under particular circumstances, to act up to it.”\r
+\r
+“Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal\r
+exertion, it could not be an equal conviction.”\r
+\r
+“Oh, the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to\r
+understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly\r
+opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his\r
+life.”\r
+\r
+“Our amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first\r
+occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the\r
+will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him by this time, of\r
+following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for\r
+the fears of the child, but not of the man. As he became rational, he\r
+ought to have roused himself and shaken off all that was unworthy in\r
+their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their\r
+side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there\r
+would have been no difficulty now.”\r
+\r
+“We shall never agree about him,” cried Emma; “but that is nothing\r
+extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man:\r
+I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly,\r
+though in his own son; but he is very likely to have a more yielding,\r
+complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man’s\r
+perfection. I dare say he has; and though it may cut him off from some\r
+advantages, it will secure him many others.”\r
+\r
+“Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and\r
+of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely\r
+expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine\r
+flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade\r
+himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of\r
+preserving peace at home and preventing his father’s having any right to\r
+complain. His letters disgust me.”\r
+\r
+“Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy every body else.”\r
+\r
+“I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy\r
+a woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother’s\r
+place, but without a mother’s affection to blind her. It is on her\r
+account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly\r
+feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he\r
+would have come I dare say; and it would not have signified whether\r
+he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of\r
+considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to\r
+herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French,\r
+not in English. He may be very ‘amiable,’ have very good manners, and be\r
+very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings\r
+of other people: nothing really amiable about him.”\r
+\r
+“You seem determined to think ill of him.”\r
+\r
+“Me!--not at all,” replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased; “I do not\r
+want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits\r
+as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal;\r
+that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners.”\r
+\r
+“Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure\r
+at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and\r
+agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the\r
+bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a _sensation_ his\r
+coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the\r
+parishes of Donwell and Highbury; but one interest--one object of\r
+curiosity; it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill; we shall think and speak\r
+of nobody else.”\r
+\r
+“You will excuse my being so much over-powered. If I find him\r
+conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance; but if he is only a\r
+chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts.”\r
+\r
+“My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of\r
+every body, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally\r
+agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming; to me, of drawing or music;\r
+and so on to every body, having that general information on all subjects\r
+which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as\r
+propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each; that is my\r
+idea of him.”\r
+\r
+“And mine,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “is, that if he turn out any\r
+thing like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What!\r
+at three-and-twenty to be the king of his company--the great man--the\r
+practised politician, who is to read every body’s character, and make\r
+every body’s talents conduce to the display of his own superiority; to\r
+be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like\r
+fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not\r
+endure such a puppy when it came to the point.”\r
+\r
+“I will say no more about him,” cried Emma, “you turn every thing to\r
+evil. We are both prejudiced; you against, I for him; and we have no\r
+chance of agreeing till he is really here.”\r
+\r
+“Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced.”\r
+\r
+“But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour.”\r
+\r
+“He is a person I never think of from one month’s end to another,” said\r
+Mr. Knightley, with a degree of vexation, which made Emma immediately\r
+talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be\r
+angry.\r
+\r
+To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a\r
+different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of\r
+mind which she was always used to acknowledge in him; for with all the\r
+high opinion of himself, which she had often laid to his charge, she had\r
+never before for a moment supposed it could make him unjust to the merit\r
+of another.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+VOLUME II\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and, in Emma’s\r
+opinion, had been talking enough of Mr. Elton for that day. She could\r
+not think that Harriet’s solace or her own sins required more; and\r
+she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they\r
+returned;--but it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded,\r
+and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and\r
+receiving no other answer than a very plaintive--“Mr. Elton is so good\r
+to the poor!” she found something else must be done.\r
+\r
+They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates.\r
+She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was\r
+always sufficient reason for such an attention; Mrs. and Miss Bates\r
+loved to be called on, and she knew she was considered by the very few\r
+who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in\r
+that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of\r
+their scanty comforts.\r
+\r
+She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley and some from her own heart,\r
+as to her deficiency--but none were equal to counteract the persuasion\r
+of its being very disagreeable,--a waste of time--tiresome women--and\r
+all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second-rate and\r
+third-rate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore\r
+she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not\r
+passing their door without going in--observing, as she proposed it to\r
+Harriet, that, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite\r
+safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax.\r
+\r
+The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied\r
+the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment,\r
+which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even\r
+gratefully welcomed; the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was\r
+seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to\r
+Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready\r
+to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit,\r
+solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse’s\r
+health, cheerful communications about her mother’s, and sweet-cake from\r
+the beaufet--“Mrs. Cole had just been there, just called in for ten\r
+minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and _she_ had\r
+taken a piece of cake and been so kind as to say she liked it very much;\r
+and, therefore, she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them\r
+the favour to eat a piece too.”\r
+\r
+The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton.\r
+There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole had heard from Mr. Elton\r
+since his going away. Emma knew what was coming; they must have the\r
+letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much\r
+he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went,\r
+and how full the Master of the Ceremonies’ ball had been; and she went\r
+through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation\r
+that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet’s\r
+being obliged to say a word.\r
+\r
+This she had been prepared for when she entered the house; but meant,\r
+having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by\r
+any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the Mistresses\r
+and Misses of Highbury, and their card-parties. She had not been\r
+prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr. Elton; but he was actually\r
+hurried off by Miss Bates, she jumped away from him at last abruptly to\r
+the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece.\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes--Mr. Elton, I understand--certainly as to dancing--Mrs. Cole\r
+was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath was--Mrs. Cole was so\r
+kind as to sit some time with us, talking of Jane; for as soon as\r
+she came in, she began inquiring after her, Jane is so very great a\r
+favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs. Cole does not know how to\r
+shew her kindness enough; and I must say that Jane deserves it as much\r
+as any body can. And so she began inquiring after her directly, saying,\r
+‘I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her\r
+time for writing;’ and when I immediately said, ‘But indeed we have, we\r
+had a letter this very morning,’ I do not know that I ever saw any body\r
+more surprized. ‘Have you, upon your honour?’ said she; ‘well, that is\r
+quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.’”\r
+\r
+Emma’s politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest--\r
+\r
+“Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I\r
+hope she is well?”\r
+\r
+“Thank you. You are so kind!” replied the happily deceived aunt, while\r
+eagerly hunting for the letter.--“Oh! here it is. I was sure it could\r
+not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being\r
+aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately\r
+that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs.\r
+Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for\r
+it is such a pleasure to her--a letter from Jane--that she can never\r
+hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is,\r
+only just under my huswife--and since you are so kind as to wish to hear\r
+what she says;--but, first of all, I really must, in justice to\r
+Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter--only two pages you\r
+see--hardly two--and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses\r
+half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often\r
+says, when the letter is first opened, ‘Well, Hetty, now I think\r
+you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work’--don’t you,\r
+ma’am?--And then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out\r
+herself, if she had nobody to do it for her--every word of it--I am sure\r
+she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed,\r
+though my mother’s eyes are not so good as they were, she can see\r
+amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such\r
+a blessing! My mother’s are really very good indeed. Jane often says,\r
+when she is here, ‘I am sure, grandmama, you must have had very strong\r
+eyes to see as you do--and so much fine work as you have done too!--I\r
+only wish my eyes may last me as well.’”\r
+\r
+All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath;\r
+and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss\r
+Fairfax’s handwriting.\r
+\r
+“You are extremely kind,” replied Miss Bates, highly gratified; “you who\r
+are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is\r
+nobody’s praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse’s.\r
+My mother does not hear; she is a little deaf you know. Ma’am,”\r
+ addressing her, “do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say\r
+about Jane’s handwriting?”\r
+\r
+And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated\r
+twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was\r
+pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very\r
+rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax’s letter, and had almost\r
+resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss\r
+Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.\r
+\r
+“My mother’s deafness is very trifling you see--just nothing at all. By\r
+only raising my voice, and saying any thing two or three times over,\r
+she is sure to hear; but then she is used to my voice. But it is very\r
+remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me.\r
+Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmama at all\r
+deafer than she was two years ago; which is saying a great deal at my\r
+mother’s time of life--and it really is full two years, you know, since\r
+she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as\r
+I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her\r
+now.”\r
+\r
+“Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?”\r
+\r
+“Oh yes; next week.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed!--that must be a very great pleasure.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Every body is so\r
+surprized; and every body says the same obliging things. I am sure she\r
+will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury, as they can be to see\r
+her. Yes, Friday or Saturday; she cannot say which, because Colonel\r
+Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very\r
+good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh\r
+yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is\r
+the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it; for, in the\r
+common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or\r
+Wednesday.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my\r
+hearing any thing of Miss Fairfax to-day.”\r
+\r
+“So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been\r
+for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My\r
+mother is so delighted!--for she is to be three months with us at\r
+least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the\r
+pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are\r
+going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come\r
+over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the\r
+summer, but she is so impatient to see them again--for till she married,\r
+last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must\r
+make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say,\r
+but however different countries, and so she wrote a very urgent letter\r
+to her mother--or her father, I declare I do not know which it was, but\r
+we shall see presently in Jane’s letter--wrote in Mr. Dixon’s name as\r
+well as her own, to press their coming over directly, and they would\r
+give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country\r
+seat, Baly-craig, a beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great\r
+deal of its beauty; from Mr. Dixon, I mean--I do not know that she ever\r
+heard about it from any body else; but it was very natural, you know,\r
+that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his\r
+addresses--and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them--for\r
+Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter’s\r
+not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all\r
+blame them; of course she heard every thing he might be telling Miss\r
+Campbell about his own home in Ireland; and I think she wrote us word\r
+that he had shewn them some drawings of the place, views that he had\r
+taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane\r
+was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things.”\r
+\r
+At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion entering Emma’s\r
+brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the\r
+not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of farther\r
+discovery,\r
+\r
+“You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to\r
+come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship\r
+between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be\r
+excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”\r
+\r
+“Very true, very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been\r
+rather afraid of; for we should not have liked to have her at such a\r
+distance from us, for months together--not able to come if any thing was\r
+to happen. But you see, every thing turns out for the best. They want\r
+her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs.\r
+Campbell; quite depend upon it; nothing can be more kind or pressing\r
+than their _joint_ invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently;\r
+Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is\r
+a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at\r
+Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the\r
+sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have\r
+been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he\r
+had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit--\r
+(I can never think of it without trembling!)--But ever since we had the\r
+history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon!”\r
+\r
+“But, in spite of all her friends’ urgency, and her own wish of seeing\r
+Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates?”\r
+\r
+“Yes--entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel\r
+and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should\r
+recommend; and indeed they particularly _wish_ her to try her native\r
+air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately.”\r
+\r
+“I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely. But Mrs.\r
+Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has\r
+no remarkable degree of personal beauty; is not, by any means, to be\r
+compared with Miss Fairfax.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no. You are very obliging to say such things--but certainly not.\r
+There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely\r
+plain--but extremely elegant and amiable.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, that of course.”\r
+\r
+“Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November,\r
+(as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long\r
+time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned\r
+it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so\r
+considerate!--But however, she is so far from well, that her kind\r
+friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air\r
+that always agrees with her; and they have no doubt that three or four\r
+months at Highbury will entirely cure her--and it is certainly a great\r
+deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is\r
+unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do.”\r
+\r
+“It appears to me the most desirable arrangement in the world.”\r
+\r
+“And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells\r
+leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday following--as you will\r
+find from Jane’s letter. So sudden!--You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse,\r
+what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of\r
+her illness--but I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and\r
+looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened to\r
+me, as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane’s letters through\r
+to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for\r
+fear of there being any thing in them to distress her. Jane desired me\r
+to do it, so I always do: and so I began to-day with my usual caution;\r
+but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I\r
+burst out, quite frightened, with ‘Bless me! poor Jane is ill!’--which\r
+my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed\r
+at. However, when I read on, I found it was not near so bad as I had\r
+fancied at first; and I make so light of it now to her, that she does\r
+not think much about it. But I cannot imagine how I could be so off my\r
+guard. If Jane does not get well soon, we will call in Mr. Perry. The\r
+expense shall not be thought of; and though he is so liberal, and so\r
+fond of Jane that I dare say he would not mean to charge any thing for\r
+attendance, we could not suffer it to be so, you know. He has a wife and\r
+family to maintain, and is not to be giving away his time. Well, now I\r
+have just given you a hint of what Jane writes about, we will turn to\r
+her letter, and I am sure she tells her own story a great deal better\r
+than I can tell it for her.”\r
+\r
+“I am afraid we must be running away,” said Emma, glancing at Harriet,\r
+and beginning to rise--“My father will be expecting us. I had no\r
+intention, I thought I had no power of staying more than five minutes,\r
+when I first entered the house. I merely called, because I would not\r
+pass the door without inquiring after Mrs. Bates; but I have been so\r
+pleasantly detained! Now, however, we must wish you and Mrs. Bates good\r
+morning.”\r
+\r
+And not all that could be urged to detain her succeeded. She regained\r
+the street--happy in this, that though much had been forced on her\r
+against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of\r
+Jane Fairfax’s letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+\r
+Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates’s youngest\r
+daughter.\r
+\r
+The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax of the ----regiment of infantry,\r
+and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope\r
+and interest; but nothing now remained of it, save the melancholy\r
+remembrance of him dying in action abroad--of his widow sinking under\r
+consumption and grief soon afterwards--and this girl.\r
+\r
+By birth she belonged to Highbury: and when at three years old, on\r
+losing her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation,\r
+the foundling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every\r
+probability of her being permanently fixed there; of her being taught\r
+only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no\r
+advantages of connexion or improvement, to be engrafted on what\r
+nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and\r
+warm-hearted, well-meaning relations.\r
+\r
+But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change\r
+to her destiny. This was Colonel Campbell, who had very highly regarded\r
+Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most deserving young man; and\r
+farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe\r
+camp-fever, as he believed had saved his life. These were claims which\r
+he did not learn to overlook, though some years passed away from the\r
+death of poor Fairfax, before his own return to England put any thing in\r
+his power. When he did return, he sought out the child and took notice\r
+of her. He was a married man, with only one living child, a girl, about\r
+Jane’s age: and Jane became their guest, paying them long visits and\r
+growing a favourite with all; and before she was nine years old, his\r
+daughter’s great fondness for her, and his own wish of being a real\r
+friend, united to produce an offer from Colonel Campbell of undertaking\r
+the whole charge of her education. It was accepted; and from that period\r
+Jane had belonged to Colonel Campbell’s family, and had lived with them\r
+entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time.\r
+\r
+The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others; the\r
+very few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making\r
+independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Colonel\r
+Campbell’s power; for though his income, by pay and appointments, was\r
+handsome, his fortune was moderate and must be all his daughter’s;\r
+but, by giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of\r
+respectable subsistence hereafter.\r
+\r
+Such was Jane Fairfax’s history. She had fallen into good hands, known\r
+nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent\r
+education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people,\r
+her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline\r
+and culture; and Colonel Campbell’s residence being in London, every\r
+lighter talent had been done full justice to, by the attendance of\r
+first-rate masters. Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy\r
+of all that friendship could do; and at eighteen or nineteen she was,\r
+as far as such an early age can be qualified for the care of children,\r
+fully competent to the office of instruction herself; but she was too\r
+much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor mother could promote,\r
+and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day was put off. It was\r
+easy to decide that she was still too young; and Jane remained with\r
+them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational pleasures of\r
+an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and amusement, with\r
+only the drawback of the future, the sobering suggestions of her own\r
+good understanding to remind her that all this might soon be over.\r
+\r
+The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss\r
+Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party from\r
+the circumstance of Jane’s decided superiority both in beauty and\r
+acquirements. That nature had given it in feature could not be unseen\r
+by the young woman, nor could her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the\r
+parents. They continued together with unabated regard however, till the\r
+marriage of Miss Campbell, who by that chance, that luck which so often\r
+defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is\r
+moderate rather than to what is superior, engaged the affections of\r
+Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable, almost as soon as they were\r
+acquainted; and was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had\r
+yet her bread to earn.\r
+\r
+This event had very lately taken place; too lately for any thing to be\r
+yet attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path\r
+of duty; though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had\r
+fixed on for beginning. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty\r
+should be the period. With the fortitude of a devoted novitiate, she had\r
+resolved at one-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from\r
+all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace\r
+and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.\r
+\r
+The good sense of Colonel and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such\r
+a resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no\r
+exertions would be necessary, their home might be hers for ever; and for\r
+their own comfort they would have retained her wholly; but this would\r
+be selfishness:--what must be at last, had better be soon. Perhaps they\r
+began to feel it might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the\r
+temptation of any delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments\r
+of ease and leisure as must now be relinquished. Still, however,\r
+affection was glad to catch at any reasonable excuse for not hurrying\r
+on the wretched moment. She had never been quite well since the time of\r
+their daughter’s marriage; and till she should have completely recovered\r
+her usual strength, they must forbid her engaging in duties, which, so\r
+far from being compatible with a weakened frame and varying spirits,\r
+seemed, under the most favourable circumstances, to require something\r
+more than human perfection of body and mind to be discharged with\r
+tolerable comfort.\r
+\r
+With regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her\r
+aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths\r
+not told. It was her own choice to give the time of their absence to\r
+Highbury; to spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with\r
+those kind relations to whom she was so very dear: and the Campbells,\r
+whatever might be their motive or motives, whether single, or double, or\r
+treble, gave the arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they\r
+depended more on a few months spent in her native air, for the recovery\r
+of her health, than on any thing else. Certain it was that she was to\r
+come; and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which\r
+had been so long promised it--Mr. Frank Churchill--must put up for the\r
+present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two\r
+years’ absence.\r
+\r
+Emma was sorry;--to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like\r
+through three long months!--to be always doing more than she wished,\r
+and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a\r
+difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was\r
+because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she\r
+wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly\r
+refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which\r
+her conscience could not quite acquit her. But “she could never get\r
+acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such\r
+coldness and reserve--such apparent indifference whether she pleased or\r
+not--and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!--and she was made\r
+such a fuss with by every body!--and it had been always imagined that\r
+they were to be so intimate--because their ages were the same, every\r
+body had supposed they must be so fond of each other.” These were her\r
+reasons--she had no better.\r
+\r
+It was a dislike so little just--every imputed fault was so magnified\r
+by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any\r
+considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and\r
+now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years’\r
+interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and\r
+manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane\r
+Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the\r
+highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost\r
+every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her\r
+figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between\r
+fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point\r
+out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this; and\r
+then, her face--her features--there was more beauty in them altogether\r
+than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very pleasing\r
+beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and eyebrows, had\r
+never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to\r
+cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really\r
+needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was\r
+the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her\r
+principles, admire it:--elegance, which, whether of person or of mind,\r
+she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction,\r
+and merit.\r
+\r
+In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with\r
+twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering\r
+justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When\r
+she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty;\r
+when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was\r
+going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible\r
+to feel any thing but compassion and respect; especially, if to every\r
+well-known particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly\r
+probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had\r
+so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more\r
+pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on.\r
+Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon’s\r
+actions from his wife, or of any thing mischievous which her imagination\r
+had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be simple, single,\r
+successless love on her side alone. She might have been unconsciously\r
+sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his conversation with her\r
+friend; and from the best, the purest of motives, might now be\r
+denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself\r
+effectually from him and his connexions by soon beginning her career of\r
+laborious duty.\r
+\r
+Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings,\r
+as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury\r
+afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence; nobody that she\r
+could wish to scheme about for her.\r
+\r
+These were charming feelings--but not lasting. Before she had committed\r
+herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax,\r
+or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than\r
+saying to Mr. Knightley, “She certainly is handsome; she is better than\r
+handsome!” Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother\r
+and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state.\r
+Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more\r
+tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration\r
+of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how\r
+little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice\r
+of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new\r
+workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane’s offences rose again.\r
+They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise\r
+which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an\r
+air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very\r
+superior performance. She was, besides, which was the worst of all, so\r
+cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in\r
+a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was\r
+disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved.\r
+\r
+If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on\r
+the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed bent\r
+on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon’s character, or her own value\r
+for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all\r
+general approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or distinguished.\r
+It did her no service however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw\r
+its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There probably _was_\r
+something more to conceal than her own preference; Mr. Dixon, perhaps,\r
+had been very near changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only\r
+to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds.\r
+\r
+The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill\r
+had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a\r
+little acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma\r
+procure as to what he truly was. “Was he handsome?”--“She believed\r
+he was reckoned a very fine young man.” “Was he agreeable?”--“He was\r
+generally thought so.” “Did he appear a sensible young man; a young\r
+man of information?”--“At a watering-place, or in a common London\r
+acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were\r
+all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than\r
+they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his\r
+manners pleasing.” Emma could not forgive her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma could not forgive her;--but as neither provocation nor resentment\r
+were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had\r
+seen only proper attention and pleasing behaviour on each side, he was\r
+expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with\r
+Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole; not so openly as he might\r
+have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain enough\r
+to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her unjust to\r
+Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement.\r
+\r
+“A very pleasant evening,” he began, as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been\r
+talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers\r
+swept away;--“particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some\r
+very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than sitting\r
+at one’s ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such young women;\r
+sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am sure Miss\r
+Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left nothing\r
+undone. I was glad you made her play so much, for having no instrument\r
+at her grandmother’s, it must have been a real indulgence.”\r
+\r
+“I am happy you approved,” said Emma, smiling; “but I hope I am not\r
+often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield.”\r
+\r
+“No, my dear,” said her father instantly; “_that_ I am sure you are not.\r
+There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any thing,\r
+you are too attentive. The muffin last night--if it had been handed\r
+round once, I think it would have been enough.”\r
+\r
+“No,” said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time; “you are not often\r
+deficient; not often deficient either in manner or comprehension. I\r
+think you understand me, therefore.”\r
+\r
+An arch look expressed--“I understand you well enough;” but she said\r
+only, “Miss Fairfax is reserved.”\r
+\r
+“I always told you she was--a little; but you will soon overcome all\r
+that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its\r
+foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured.”\r
+\r
+“You think her diffident. I do not see it.”\r
+\r
+“My dear Emma,” said he, moving from his chair into one close by her,\r
+“you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant\r
+evening.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions; and\r
+amused to think how little information I obtained.”\r
+\r
+“I am disappointed,” was his only answer.\r
+\r
+“I hope every body had a pleasant evening,” said Mr. Woodhouse, in his\r
+quiet way. “I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I\r
+moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me.\r
+Miss Bates was very chatty and good-humoured, as she always is, though\r
+she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs.\r
+Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane\r
+Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a\r
+very well-behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening\r
+agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma.”\r
+\r
+“True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax.”\r
+\r
+Emma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the\r
+present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question--\r
+\r
+“She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one’s eyes from.\r
+I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my heart.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to\r
+express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose\r
+thoughts were on the Bates’s, said--\r
+\r
+“It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a\r
+great pity indeed! and I have often wished--but it is so little one can\r
+venture to do--small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon--Now we\r
+have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg;\r
+it is very small and delicate--Hartfield pork is not like any other\r
+pork--but still it is pork--and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure\r
+of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without\r
+the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast\r
+pork--I think we had better send the leg--do not you think so, my dear?”\r
+\r
+“My dear papa, I sent the whole hind-quarter. I knew you would wish it.\r
+There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and\r
+the loin to be dressed directly in any manner they like.”\r
+\r
+“That’s right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but\r
+that is the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it\r
+is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle\r
+boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a\r
+little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome.”\r
+\r
+“Emma,” said Mr. Knightley presently, “I have a piece of news for you.\r
+You like news--and I heard an article in my way hither that I think will\r
+interest you.”\r
+\r
+“News! Oh! yes, I always like news. What is it?--why do you smile\r
+so?--where did you hear it?--at Randalls?”\r
+\r
+He had time only to say,\r
+\r
+“No, not at Randalls; I have not been near Randalls,” when the door was\r
+thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full\r
+of thanks, and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give quickest.\r
+Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another\r
+syllable of communication could rest with him.\r
+\r
+“Oh! my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss Woodhouse--I\r
+come quite over-powered. Such a beautiful hind-quarter of pork! You\r
+are too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be\r
+married.”\r
+\r
+Emma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so\r
+completely surprized that she could not avoid a little start, and a\r
+little blush, at the sound.\r
+\r
+“There is my news:--I thought it would interest you,” said Mr.\r
+Knightley, with a smile which implied a conviction of some part of what\r
+had passed between them.\r
+\r
+“But where could _you_ hear it?” cried Miss Bates. “Where could you\r
+possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I\r
+received Mrs. Cole’s note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least\r
+ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I\r
+was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was\r
+standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so\r
+afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would\r
+go down and see, and Jane said, ‘Shall I go down instead? for I think\r
+you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen.’--‘Oh!\r
+my dear,’ said I--well, and just then came the note. A Miss\r
+Hawkins--that’s all I know. A Miss Hawkins of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley,\r
+how could you possibly have heard it? for the very moment Mr. Cole told\r
+Mrs. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins--”\r
+\r
+“I was with Mr. Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just\r
+read Elton’s letter as I was shewn in, and handed it to me directly.”\r
+\r
+“Well! that is quite--I suppose there never was a piece of news more\r
+generally interesting. My dear sir, you really are too bountiful. My\r
+mother desires her very best compliments and regards, and a thousand\r
+thanks, and says you really quite oppress her.”\r
+\r
+“We consider our Hartfield pork,” replied Mr. Woodhouse--“indeed it\r
+certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot\r
+have a greater pleasure than--”\r
+\r
+“Oh! my dear sir, as my mother says, our friends are only too good\r
+to us. If ever there were people who, without having great wealth\r
+themselves, had every thing they could wish for, I am sure it is us.\r
+We may well say that ‘our lot is cast in a goodly heritage.’ Well, Mr.\r
+Knightley, and so you actually saw the letter; well--”\r
+\r
+“It was short--merely to announce--but cheerful, exulting, of course.”--\r
+Here was a sly glance at Emma. “He had been so fortunate as to--I forget\r
+the precise words--one has no business to remember them. The information\r
+was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By\r
+his style, I should imagine it just settled.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Elton going to be married!” said Emma, as soon as she could speak.\r
+“He will have every body’s wishes for his happiness.”\r
+\r
+“He is very young to settle,” was Mr. Woodhouse’s observation. “He had\r
+better not be in a hurry. He seemed to me very well off as he was. We\r
+were always glad to see him at Hartfield.”\r
+\r
+“A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse!” said Miss Bates, joyfully;\r
+“my mother is so pleased!--she says she cannot bear to have the poor old\r
+Vicarage without a mistress. This is great news, indeed. Jane, you have\r
+never seen Mr. Elton!--no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see\r
+him.”\r
+\r
+Jane’s curiosity did not appear of that absorbing nature as wholly to\r
+occupy her.\r
+\r
+“No--I have never seen Mr. Elton,” she replied, starting on this appeal;\r
+“is he--is he a tall man?”\r
+\r
+“Who shall answer that question?” cried Emma. “My father would say\r
+‘yes,’ Mr. Knightley ‘no;’ and Miss Bates and I that he is just the\r
+happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax,\r
+you will understand that Mr. Elton is the standard of perfection in\r
+Highbury, both in person and mind.”\r
+\r
+“Very true, Miss Woodhouse, so she will. He is the very best young\r
+man--But, my dear Jane, if you remember, I told you yesterday he\r
+was precisely the height of Mr. Perry. Miss Hawkins,--I dare say, an\r
+excellent young woman. His extreme attention to my mother--wanting\r
+her to sit in the vicarage pew, that she might hear the better, for my\r
+mother is a little deaf, you know--it is not much, but she does not\r
+hear quite quick. Jane says that Colonel Campbell is a little deaf. He\r
+fancied bathing might be good for it--the warm bath--but she says it did\r
+him no lasting benefit. Colonel Campbell, you know, is quite our angel.\r
+And Mr. Dixon seems a very charming young man, quite worthy of him. It\r
+is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do.\r
+Now, here will be Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins; and there are the Coles,\r
+such very good people; and the Perrys--I suppose there never was a\r
+happier or a better couple than Mr. and Mrs. Perry. I say, sir,” turning\r
+to Mr. Woodhouse, “I think there are few places with such society as\r
+Highbury. I always say, we are quite blessed in our neighbours.--My dear\r
+sir, if there is one thing my mother loves better than another, it is\r
+pork--a roast loin of pork--”\r
+\r
+“As to who, or what Miss Hawkins is, or how long he has been acquainted\r
+with her,” said Emma, “nothing I suppose can be known. One feels that it\r
+cannot be a very long acquaintance. He has been gone only four weeks.”\r
+\r
+Nobody had any information to give; and, after a few more wonderings,\r
+Emma said,\r
+\r
+“You are silent, Miss Fairfax--but I hope you mean to take an interest\r
+in this news. You, who have been hearing and seeing so much of late\r
+on these subjects, who must have been so deep in the business on Miss\r
+Campbell’s account--we shall not excuse your being indifferent about Mr.\r
+Elton and Miss Hawkins.”\r
+\r
+“When I have seen Mr. Elton,” replied Jane, “I dare say I shall be\r
+interested--but I believe it requires _that_ with me. And as it is some\r
+months since Miss Campbell married, the impression may be a little worn\r
+off.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, he has been gone just four weeks, as you observe, Miss Woodhouse,”\r
+ said Miss Bates, “four weeks yesterday.--A Miss Hawkins!--Well, I had\r
+always rather fancied it would be some young lady hereabouts; not that\r
+I ever--Mrs. Cole once whispered to me--but I immediately said, ‘No, Mr.\r
+Elton is a most worthy young man--but’--In short, I do not think I am\r
+particularly quick at those sort of discoveries. I do not pretend to it.\r
+What is before me, I see. At the same time, nobody could wonder if\r
+Mr. Elton should have aspired--Miss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so\r
+good-humouredly. She knows I would not offend for the world. How does\r
+Miss Smith do? She seems quite recovered now. Have you heard from Mrs.\r
+John Knightley lately? Oh! those dear little children. Jane, do you\r
+know I always fancy Mr. Dixon like Mr. John Knightley. I mean in\r
+person--tall, and with that sort of look--and not very talkative.”\r
+\r
+“Quite wrong, my dear aunt; there is no likeness at all.”\r
+\r
+“Very odd! but one never does form a just idea of any body beforehand.\r
+One takes up a notion, and runs away with it. Mr. Dixon, you say, is\r
+not, strictly speaking, handsome?”\r
+\r
+“Handsome! Oh! no--far from it--certainly plain. I told you he was\r
+plain.”\r
+\r
+“My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain,\r
+and that you yourself--”\r
+\r
+“Oh! as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard,\r
+I always think a person well-looking. But I gave what I believed the\r
+general opinion, when I called him plain.”\r
+\r
+“Well, my dear Jane, I believe we must be running away. The weather does\r
+not look well, and grandmama will be uneasy. You are too obliging, my\r
+dear Miss Woodhouse; but we really must take leave. This has been a most\r
+agreeable piece of news indeed. I shall just go round by Mrs. Cole’s;\r
+but I shall not stop three minutes: and, Jane, you had better go home\r
+directly--I would not have you out in a shower!--We think she is the\r
+better for Highbury already. Thank you, we do indeed. I shall not\r
+attempt calling on Mrs. Goddard, for I really do not think she cares for\r
+any thing but _boiled_ pork: when we dress the leg it will be another\r
+thing. Good morning to you, my dear sir. Oh! Mr. Knightley is coming\r
+too. Well, that is so very!--I am sure if Jane is tired, you will be\r
+so kind as to give her your arm.--Mr. Elton, and Miss Hawkins!--Good\r
+morning to you.”\r
+\r
+Emma, alone with her father, had half her attention wanted by him while\r
+he lamented that young people would be in such a hurry to marry--and to\r
+marry strangers too--and the other half she could give to her own view\r
+of the subject. It was to herself an amusing and a very welcome piece\r
+of news, as proving that Mr. Elton could not have suffered long; but she\r
+was sorry for Harriet: Harriet must feel it--and all that she could hope\r
+was, by giving the first information herself, to save her from hearing\r
+it abruptly from others. It was now about the time that she was likely\r
+to call. If she were to meet Miss Bates in her way!--and upon its\r
+beginning to rain, Emma was obliged to expect that the weather would\r
+be detaining her at Mrs. Goddard’s, and that the intelligence would\r
+undoubtedly rush upon her without preparation.\r
+\r
+The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes,\r
+when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which\r
+hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the “Oh! Miss\r
+Woodhouse, what do you think has happened!” which instantly burst forth,\r
+had all the evidence of corresponding perturbation. As the blow was\r
+given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in\r
+listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to\r
+tell. “She had set out from Mrs. Goddard’s half an hour ago--she had\r
+been afraid it would rain--she had been afraid it would pour down\r
+every moment--but she thought she might get to Hartfield first--she\r
+had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, as she was passing by the\r
+house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she\r
+would just step in and see how it went on; and though she did not seem\r
+to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain,\r
+and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as\r
+she could, and took shelter at Ford’s.”--Ford’s was the principal\r
+woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher’s shop united; the shop\r
+first in size and fashion in the place.--“And so, there she had\r
+set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes,\r
+perhaps--when, all of a sudden, who should come in--to be sure it was\r
+so very odd!--but they always dealt at Ford’s--who should come in, but\r
+Elizabeth Martin and her brother!--Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I\r
+thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting\r
+near the door--Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; he was busy\r
+with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly,\r
+and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the\r
+shop; and I kept sitting near the door!--Oh! dear; I was so miserable!\r
+I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away\r
+you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself anywhere in the\r
+world but there.--Oh! dear, Miss Woodhouse--well, at last, I fancy, he\r
+looked round and saw me; for instead of going on with her buyings, they\r
+began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; and\r
+I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me--(do\r
+you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?)--for presently she came forward--came\r
+quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands,\r
+if I would. She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I\r
+could see she was altered; but, however, she seemed to _try_ to be very\r
+friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time; but I know no\r
+more what I said--I was in such a tremble!--I remember she said she\r
+was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss\r
+Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, it was beginning to\r
+hold up, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting\r
+away--and then--only think!--I found he was coming up towards me\r
+too--slowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and\r
+so he came and spoke, and I answered--and I stood for a minute, feeling\r
+dreadfully, you know, one can’t tell how; and then I took courage, and\r
+said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and I had not got\r
+three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was\r
+going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole’s\r
+stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh!\r
+dear, I thought it would have been the death of me! So I said, I was\r
+very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then he went\r
+back to Elizabeth, and I came round by the stables--I believe I did--but\r
+I hardly knew where I was, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse,\r
+I would rather done any thing than have it happen: and yet, you know,\r
+there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and\r
+so kindly. And Elizabeth, too. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and\r
+make me comfortable again.”\r
+\r
+Very sincerely did Emma wish to do so; but it was not immediately in\r
+her power. She was obliged to stop and think. She was not thoroughly\r
+comfortable herself. The young man’s conduct, and his sister’s, seemed\r
+the result of real feeling, and she could not but pity them. As Harriet\r
+described it, there had been an interesting mixture of wounded affection\r
+and genuine delicacy in their behaviour. But she had believed them to be\r
+well-meaning, worthy people before; and what difference did this make\r
+in the evils of the connexion? It was folly to be disturbed by it. Of\r
+course, he must be sorry to lose her--they must be all sorry. Ambition,\r
+as well as love, had probably been mortified. They might all have hoped\r
+to rise by Harriet’s acquaintance: and besides, what was the value of\r
+Harriet’s description?--So easily pleased--so little discerning;--what\r
+signified her praise?\r
+\r
+She exerted herself, and did try to make her comfortable, by considering\r
+all that had passed as a mere trifle, and quite unworthy of being dwelt\r
+on,\r
+\r
+“It might be distressing, for the moment,” said she; “but you seem to\r
+have behaved extremely well; and it is over--and may never--can never,\r
+as a first meeting, occur again, and therefore you need not think about\r
+it.”\r
+\r
+Harriet said, “very true,” and she “would not think about it;” but still\r
+she talked of it--still she could talk of nothing else; and Emma, at\r
+last, in order to put the Martins out of her head, was obliged to hurry\r
+on the news, which she had meant to give with so much tender caution;\r
+hardly knowing herself whether to rejoice or be angry, ashamed or only\r
+amused, at such a state of mind in poor Harriet--such a conclusion of\r
+Mr. Elton’s importance with her!\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton’s rights, however, gradually revived. Though she did not feel\r
+the first intelligence as she might have done the day before, or an hour\r
+before, its interest soon increased; and before their first conversation\r
+was over, she had talked herself into all the sensations of curiosity,\r
+wonder and regret, pain and pleasure, as to this fortunate Miss Hawkins,\r
+which could conduce to place the Martins under proper subordination in\r
+her fancy.\r
+\r
+Emma learned to be rather glad that there had been such a meeting. It\r
+had been serviceable in deadening the first shock, without retaining any\r
+influence to alarm. As Harriet now lived, the Martins could not get\r
+at her, without seeking her, where hitherto they had wanted either the\r
+courage or the condescension to seek her; for since her refusal of the\r
+brother, the sisters never had been at Mrs. Goddard’s; and a twelvemonth\r
+might pass without their being thrown together again, with any\r
+necessity, or even any power of speech.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+\r
+Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting\r
+situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of\r
+being kindly spoken of.\r
+\r
+A week had not passed since Miss Hawkins’s name was first mentioned in\r
+Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have\r
+every recommendation of person and mind; to be handsome, elegant, highly\r
+accomplished, and perfectly amiable: and when Mr. Elton himself arrived\r
+to triumph in his happy prospects, and circulate the fame of her merits,\r
+there was very little more for him to do, than to tell her Christian\r
+name, and say whose music she principally played.\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected and\r
+mortified--disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what\r
+appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing the right\r
+lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He\r
+had gone away deeply offended--he came back engaged to another--and\r
+to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such\r
+circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost. He came back gay\r
+and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse,\r
+and defying Miss Smith.\r
+\r
+The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of\r
+perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune,\r
+of so many thousands as would always be called ten; a point of some\r
+dignity, as well as some convenience: the story told well; he had not\r
+thrown himself away--he had gained a woman of 10,000 l. or thereabouts;\r
+and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity--the first hour of\r
+introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice;\r
+the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress\r
+of the affair was so glorious--the steps so quick, from the accidental\r
+rencontre, to the dinner at Mr. Green’s, and the party at Mrs.\r
+Brown’s--smiles and blushes rising in importance--with consciousness and\r
+agitation richly scattered--the lady had been so easily impressed--so\r
+sweetly disposed--had in short, to use a most intelligible phrase,\r
+been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally\r
+contented.\r
+\r
+He had caught both substance and shadow--both fortune and affection, and\r
+was just the happy man he ought to be; talking only of himself and\r
+his own concerns--expecting to be congratulated--ready to be laughed\r
+at--and, with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young\r
+ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more\r
+cautiously gallant.\r
+\r
+The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to\r
+please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for; and\r
+when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which\r
+a certain glance of Mrs. Cole’s did not seem to contradict, that when he\r
+next entered Highbury he would bring his bride.\r
+\r
+During his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him; but just enough\r
+to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression\r
+of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension, now\r
+spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder\r
+that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so\r
+inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that,\r
+except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable\r
+humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured\r
+of never seeing him again. She wished him very well; but he gave\r
+her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most\r
+satisfaction.\r
+\r
+The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must\r
+certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be\r
+prevented--many awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A _Mrs._ _Elton_ would\r
+be an excuse for any change of intercourse; former intimacy might sink\r
+without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility\r
+again.\r
+\r
+Of the lady, individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough\r
+for Mr. Elton, no doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury--handsome\r
+enough--to look plain, probably, by Harriet’s side. As to connexion,\r
+there Emma was perfectly easy; persuaded, that after all his own vaunted\r
+claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article,\r
+truth seemed attainable. _What_ she was, must be uncertain; but _who_\r
+she was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not\r
+appear that she was at all Harriet’s superior. She brought no name, no\r
+blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters\r
+of a Bristol--merchant, of course, he must be called; but, as the whole\r
+of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it\r
+was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very\r
+moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath;\r
+but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol; for though the\r
+father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained--in the law\r
+line--nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than\r
+that he was in the law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma\r
+guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise.\r
+And all the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder\r
+sister, who was _very_ _well_ _married_, to a gentleman in a _great_\r
+_way_, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the\r
+history; that was the glory of Miss Hawkins.\r
+\r
+Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had\r
+talked her into love; but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out\r
+of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet’s\r
+mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another; he\r
+certainly would indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin\r
+would have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure\r
+her. Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always\r
+in love. And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this\r
+reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him\r
+somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once; but two or three times every\r
+day Harriet was sure _just_ to meet with him, or _just_ to miss him,\r
+_just_ to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, _just_ to have something\r
+occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of\r
+surprize and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually hearing about\r
+him; for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who\r
+saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so interesting as\r
+the discussion of his concerns; and every report, therefore, every\r
+guess--all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the\r
+arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and\r
+furniture, was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was\r
+receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept\r
+alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss\r
+Hawkins’s happiness, and continual observation of, how much he seemed\r
+attached!--his air as he walked by the house--the very sitting of his\r
+hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love!\r
+\r
+Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her\r
+friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet’s mind,\r
+Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton\r
+predominated, sometimes the Martins; and each was occasionally useful\r
+as a check to the other. Mr. Elton’s engagement had been the cure of\r
+the agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the\r
+knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth\r
+Martin’s calling at Mrs. Goddard’s a few days afterwards. Harriet had\r
+not been at home; but a note had been prepared and left for her, written\r
+in the very style to touch; a small mixture of reproach, with a great\r
+deal of kindness; and till Mr. Elton himself appeared, she had been much\r
+occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return,\r
+and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in\r
+person, had driven away all such cares. While he staid, the Martins were\r
+forgotten; and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again,\r
+Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best\r
+for her to return Elizabeth Martin’s visit.\r
+\r
+How that visit was to be acknowledged--what would be necessary--and\r
+what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration.\r
+Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would\r
+be ingratitude. It must not be: and yet the danger of a renewal of the\r
+acquaintance--!\r
+\r
+After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better, than\r
+Harriet’s returning the visit; but in a way that, if they had\r
+understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal\r
+acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the\r
+Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again\r
+so soon, as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous\r
+recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree\r
+of intimacy was chosen for the future.\r
+\r
+She could think of nothing better: and though there was something in it\r
+which her own heart could not approve--something of ingratitude, merely\r
+glossed over--it must be done, or what would become of Harriet?\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+\r
+Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her\r
+friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard’s, her evil stars had led her\r
+to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to _The Rev.\r
+Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath_, was to be seen under the operation of\r
+being lifted into the butcher’s cart, which was to convey it to where\r
+the coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk\r
+and the direction, was consequently a blank.\r
+\r
+She went, however; and when they reached the farm, and she was to be\r
+put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between\r
+espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of every thing which\r
+had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to\r
+revive a little local agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her\r
+to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined\r
+her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour.\r
+She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who\r
+was married, and settled in Donwell.\r
+\r
+The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again;\r
+and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and\r
+unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the\r
+gravel walk--a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with\r
+her seemingly with ceremonious civility.\r
+\r
+Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was\r
+feeling too much; but at last Emma collected from her enough to\r
+understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating.\r
+She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her\r
+doubtingly, if not coolly; and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had\r
+been talked almost all the time--till just at last, when Mrs. Martin’s\r
+saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had\r
+brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very\r
+room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There\r
+were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window.\r
+_He_ had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour,\r
+the party, the occasion--to feel the same consciousness, the same\r
+regrets--to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they\r
+were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma must suspect,\r
+as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage\r
+reappeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness\r
+of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given\r
+to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months\r
+ago!--Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might\r
+resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She\r
+would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had\r
+the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a\r
+_little_ higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she\r
+have done otherwise?--Impossible!--She could not repent. They must be\r
+separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process--so much\r
+to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little\r
+consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to\r
+procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The\r
+refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary.\r
+\r
+It was a good scheme; but on driving to the door they heard that neither\r
+“master nor mistress was at home;” they had both been out some time; the\r
+man believed they were gone to Hartfield.\r
+\r
+“This is too bad,” cried Emma, as they turned away. “And now we shall\r
+just miss them; too provoking!--I do not know when I have been so\r
+disappointed.” And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her\r
+murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both--such being\r
+the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage\r
+stopt; she looked up; it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were\r
+standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of\r
+them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound--for Mr. Weston\r
+immediately accosted her with,\r
+\r
+“How d’ye do?--how d’ye do?--We have been sitting with your father--glad\r
+to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow--I had a letter this\r
+morning--we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty--he is at\r
+Oxford to-day, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be\r
+so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days; I\r
+was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have\r
+just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall\r
+enjoy him completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could\r
+wish.”\r
+\r
+There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the\r
+influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston’s, confirmed as it all was\r
+by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not\r
+less to the purpose. To know that _she_ thought his coming certain was\r
+enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in\r
+their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits.\r
+The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in\r
+the rapidity of half a moment’s thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now\r
+be talked of no more.\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which\r
+allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command,\r
+as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened,\r
+and smiled, and congratulated.\r
+\r
+“I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,” said he, at the conclusion.\r
+\r
+Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his\r
+wife.\r
+\r
+“We had better move on, Mr. Weston,” said she, “we are detaining the\r
+girls.”\r
+\r
+“Well, well, I am ready;”--and turning again to Emma, “but you must\r
+not be expecting such a _very_ fine young man; you have only\r
+had _my_ account you know; I dare say he is really nothing\r
+extraordinary:”--though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were\r
+speaking a very different conviction.\r
+\r
+Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a\r
+manner that appropriated nothing.\r
+\r
+“Think of me to-morrow, my dear Emma, about four o’clock,” was Mrs.\r
+Weston’s parting injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only\r
+for her.\r
+\r
+“Four o’clock!--depend upon it he will be here by three,” was Mr.\r
+Weston’s quick amendment; and so ended a most satisfactory meeting.\r
+Emma’s spirits were mounted quite up to happiness; every thing wore\r
+a different air; James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as\r
+before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least\r
+must soon be coming out; and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw\r
+something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.\r
+\r
+“Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?”--was a\r
+question, however, which did not augur much.\r
+\r
+But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma\r
+was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time.\r
+\r
+The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston’s faithful\r
+pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o’clock, that\r
+she was to think of her at four.\r
+\r
+“My dear, dear anxious friend,”--said she, in mental soliloquy, while\r
+walking downstairs from her own room, “always overcareful for every\r
+body’s comfort but your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets,\r
+going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right.”\r
+ The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. “‘Tis twelve;\r
+I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this\r
+time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the\r
+possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him\r
+soon.”\r
+\r
+She opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her\r
+father--Mr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few\r
+minutes, and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank’s\r
+being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his\r
+very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her\r
+share of surprize, introduction, and pleasure.\r
+\r
+The Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually\r
+before her--he was presented to her, and she did not think too much had\r
+been said in his praise; he was a _very_ good looking young man; height,\r
+air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great\r
+deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father’s; he looked quick and\r
+sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him; and there was\r
+a well-bred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her\r
+that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted\r
+they soon must be.\r
+\r
+He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the\r
+eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel\r
+earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day.\r
+\r
+“I told you yesterday,” cried Mr. Weston with exultation, “I told you\r
+all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I\r
+used to do myself. One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help\r
+getting on faster than one has planned; and the pleasure of coming in\r
+upon one’s friends before the look-out begins, is worth a great deal\r
+more than any little exertion it needs.”\r
+\r
+“It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it,” said the young\r
+man, “though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far;\r
+but in coming _home_ I felt I might do any thing.”\r
+\r
+The word _home_ made his father look on him with fresh complacency.\r
+Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable; the\r
+conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased\r
+with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly\r
+allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to\r
+Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself\r
+to have always felt the sort of interest in the country which none but\r
+one’s _own_ country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That\r
+he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before,\r
+passed suspiciously through Emma’s brain; but still, if it were a\r
+falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had\r
+no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a\r
+state of no common enjoyment.\r
+\r
+Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening\r
+acquaintance. On his side were the inquiries,--“Was she a\r
+horsewoman?--Pleasant rides?--Pleasant walks?--Had they a large\r
+neighbourhood?--Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?--There were\r
+several very pretty houses in and about it.--Balls--had they balls?--Was\r
+it a musical society?”\r
+\r
+But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance\r
+proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while\r
+their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his\r
+mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much\r
+warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his\r
+father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional\r
+proof of his knowing how to please--and of his certainly thinking it\r
+worth while to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise\r
+beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston; but,\r
+undoubtedly he could know very little of the matter. He understood\r
+what would be welcome; he could be sure of little else. “His father’s\r
+marriage,” he said, “had been the wisest measure, every friend must\r
+rejoice in it; and the family from whom he had received such a blessing\r
+must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on\r
+him.”\r
+\r
+He got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor’s merits,\r
+without seeming quite to forget that in the common course of things it\r
+was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse’s\r
+character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor’s. And at last, as if\r
+resolved to qualify his opinion completely for travelling round to its\r
+object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of\r
+her person.\r
+\r
+“Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for,” said he; “but I\r
+confess that, considering every thing, I had not expected more than a\r
+very tolerably well-looking woman of a certain age; I did not know that\r
+I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston.”\r
+\r
+“You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston for my feelings,”\r
+ said Emma; “were you to guess her to be _eighteen_, I should listen with\r
+pleasure; but _she_ would be ready to quarrel with you for using such\r
+words. Don’t let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty\r
+young woman.”\r
+\r
+“I hope I should know better,” he replied; “no, depend upon it, (with a\r
+gallant bow,) that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom\r
+I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my\r
+terms.”\r
+\r
+Emma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from\r
+their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind,\r
+had ever crossed his; and whether his compliments were to be considered\r
+as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more\r
+of him to understand his ways; at present she only felt they were\r
+agreeable.\r
+\r
+She had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick\r
+eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy\r
+expression; and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was\r
+confident that he was often listening.\r
+\r
+Her own father’s perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the\r
+entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion,\r
+was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily he was not farther from\r
+approving matrimony than from foreseeing it.--Though always objecting\r
+to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from\r
+the apprehension of any; it seemed as if he could not think so ill of\r
+any two persons’ understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it\r
+were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could\r
+now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a\r
+glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all\r
+his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr.\r
+Frank Churchill’s accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils\r
+of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed\r
+anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold--which,\r
+however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till\r
+after another night.\r
+\r
+A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move.--“He must be going.\r
+He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for\r
+Mrs. Weston at Ford’s, but he need not hurry any body else.” His son,\r
+too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying,\r
+\r
+“As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity\r
+of paying a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore\r
+may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with\r
+a neighbour of yours, (turning to Emma,) a lady residing in or near\r
+Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty,\r
+I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not\r
+the proper name--I should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any\r
+family of that name?”\r
+\r
+“To be sure we do,” cried his father; “Mrs. Bates--we passed her\r
+house--I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted\r
+with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl\r
+she is. Call upon her, by all means.”\r
+\r
+“There is no necessity for my calling this morning,” said the young man;\r
+“another day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance\r
+at Weymouth which--”\r
+\r
+“Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done\r
+cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank;\r
+any want of attention to her _here_ should be carefully avoided. You saw\r
+her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body she mixed\r
+with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough\r
+to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight.”\r
+\r
+The son looked convinced.\r
+\r
+“I have heard her speak of the acquaintance,” said Emma; “she is a very\r
+elegant young woman.”\r
+\r
+He agreed to it, but with so quiet a “Yes,” as inclined her almost to\r
+doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort\r
+of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought\r
+only ordinarily gifted with it.\r
+\r
+“If you were never particularly struck by her manners before,” said she,\r
+“I think you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and\r
+hear her--no, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an\r
+aunt who never holds her tongue.”\r
+\r
+“You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?” said Mr.\r
+Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation; “then give\r
+me leave to assure you that you will find her a very agreeable young\r
+lady. She is staying here on a visit to her grandmama and aunt, very\r
+worthy people; I have known them all my life. They will be extremely\r
+glad to see you, I am sure; and one of my servants shall go with you to\r
+shew you the way.”\r
+\r
+“My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me.”\r
+\r
+“But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown,\r
+quite on the other side of the street, and there are a great many\r
+houses; you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk,\r
+unless you keep on the footpath; but my coachman can tell you where you\r
+had best cross the street.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could,\r
+and his father gave his hearty support by calling out, “My good friend,\r
+this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees\r
+it, and as to Mrs. Bates’s, he may get there from the Crown in a hop,\r
+step, and jump.”\r
+\r
+They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a\r
+graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained\r
+very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now\r
+engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full\r
+confidence in their comfort.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+\r
+The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs.\r
+Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had\r
+been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till\r
+her usual hour of exercise; and on being desired to chuse their walk,\r
+immediately fixed on Highbury.--“He did not doubt there being very\r
+pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always\r
+chuse the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury,\r
+would be his constant attraction.”--Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood\r
+for Hartfield; and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with\r
+him. They walked thither directly.\r
+\r
+Emma had hardly expected them: for Mr. Weston, who had called in for\r
+half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew\r
+nothing of their plans; and it was an agreeable surprize to her,\r
+therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in\r
+arm. She was wanting to see him again, and especially to see him in\r
+company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behaviour to whom her opinion of him\r
+was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends\r
+for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It\r
+was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his\r
+duty; nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to\r
+her--nothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as\r
+a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma\r
+to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of\r
+the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour\r
+or two--first round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards\r
+in Highbury. He was delighted with every thing; admired Hartfield\r
+sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse’s ear; and when their going farther was\r
+resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole\r
+village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than\r
+Emma could have supposed.\r
+\r
+Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He\r
+begged to be shewn the house which his father had lived in so long, and\r
+which had been the home of his father’s father; and on recollecting that\r
+an old woman who had nursed him was still living, walked in quest of\r
+her cottage from one end of the street to the other; and though in\r
+some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they\r
+shewed, altogether, a good-will towards Highbury in general, which must\r
+be very like a merit to those he was with.\r
+\r
+Emma watched and decided, that with such feelings as were now shewn, it\r
+could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting\r
+himself; that he had not been acting a part, or making a parade of\r
+insincere professions; and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him\r
+justice.\r
+\r
+Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though\r
+the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of post-horses\r
+were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any\r
+run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by\r
+any interest excited there; but in passing it they gave the history of\r
+the large room visibly added; it had been built many years ago for\r
+a ball-room, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly\r
+populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such;--but such\r
+brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for\r
+which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established\r
+among the gentlemen and half-gentlemen of the place. He was immediately\r
+interested. Its character as a ball-room caught him; and instead of\r
+passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed\r
+windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities,\r
+and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault\r
+in the room, he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No, it\r
+was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the\r
+very number for comfort. They ought to have balls there at least every\r
+fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived\r
+the former good old days of the room?--She who could do any thing in\r
+Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction\r
+that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted\r
+to attend, were mentioned; but he was not satisfied. He could not be\r
+persuaded that so many good-looking houses as he saw around him, could\r
+not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting; and even when particulars\r
+were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that\r
+the inconvenience of such a mixture would be any thing, or that there\r
+would be the smallest difficulty in every body’s returning into their\r
+proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent\r
+on dancing; and Emma was rather surprized to see the constitution of\r
+the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills.\r
+He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social\r
+inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of\r
+Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his\r
+indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of\r
+mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap.\r
+It was but an effusion of lively spirits.\r
+\r
+At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown;\r
+and being now almost facing the house where the Bateses lodged, Emma\r
+recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had\r
+paid it.\r
+\r
+“Yes, oh! yes”--he replied; “I was just going to mention it. A very\r
+successful visit:--I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much\r
+obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken\r
+me quite by surprize, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I\r
+was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes\r
+would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper; and\r
+I had told my father I should certainly be at home before him--but there\r
+was no getting away, no pause; and, to my utter astonishment, I found,\r
+when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me there at last, that I had\r
+been actually sitting with them very nearly three-quarters of an hour.\r
+The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before.”\r
+\r
+“And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?”\r
+\r
+“Ill, very ill--that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look\r
+ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies\r
+can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so\r
+pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.--A most\r
+deplorable want of complexion.”\r
+\r
+Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax’s\r
+complexion. “It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not\r
+allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and\r
+delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of\r
+her face.” He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had\r
+heard many people say the same--but yet he must confess, that to him\r
+nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where\r
+features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all;\r
+and where they were good, the effect was--fortunately he need not\r
+attempt to describe what the effect was.\r
+\r
+“Well,” said Emma, “there is no disputing about taste.--At least you\r
+admire her except her complexion.”\r
+\r
+He shook his head and laughed.--“I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her\r
+complexion.”\r
+\r
+“Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?”\r
+\r
+At this moment they were approaching Ford’s, and he hastily exclaimed,\r
+“Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of\r
+their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he\r
+says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford’s.\r
+If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove\r
+myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must\r
+buy something at Ford’s. It will be taking out my freedom.--I dare say\r
+they sell gloves.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will\r
+be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because\r
+you were Mr. Weston’s son--but lay out half a guinea at Ford’s, and your\r
+popularity will stand upon your own virtues.”\r
+\r
+They went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of “Men’s Beavers”\r
+ and “York Tan” were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he\r
+said--“But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me,\r
+you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my _amor_\r
+_patriae_. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of\r
+public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in\r
+private life.”\r
+\r
+“I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her\r
+party at Weymouth.”\r
+\r
+“And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a\r
+very unfair one. It is always the lady’s right to decide on the degree\r
+of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account.--I\r
+shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow.”\r
+\r
+“Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But\r
+her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very\r
+reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any\r
+body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance\r
+with her.”\r
+\r
+“May I, indeed?--Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so\r
+well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a\r
+little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set.\r
+Colonel Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly,\r
+warm-hearted woman. I like them all.”\r
+\r
+“You know Miss Fairfax’s situation in life, I conclude; what she is\r
+destined to be?”\r
+\r
+“Yes--(rather hesitatingly)--I believe I do.”\r
+\r
+“You get upon delicate subjects, Emma,” said Mrs. Weston smiling;\r
+“remember that I am here.--Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say\r
+when you speak of Miss Fairfax’s situation in life. I will move a little\r
+farther off.”\r
+\r
+“I certainly do forget to think of _her_,” said Emma, “as having ever\r
+been any thing but my friend and my dearest friend.”\r
+\r
+He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment.\r
+\r
+When the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again, “Did\r
+you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?” said Frank\r
+Churchill.\r
+\r
+“Ever hear her!” repeated Emma. “You forget how much she belongs to\r
+Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began.\r
+She plays charmingly.”\r
+\r
+“You think so, do you?--I wanted the opinion of some one who\r
+could really judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with\r
+considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself.--I am\r
+excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right\r
+of judging of any body’s performance.--I have been used to hear her’s\r
+admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well:--a\r
+man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman--engaged to\r
+her--on the point of marriage--would yet never ask that other woman\r
+to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down\r
+instead--never seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other.\r
+That, I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof.”\r
+\r
+“Proof indeed!” said Emma, highly amused.--“Mr. Dixon is very musical,\r
+is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you,\r
+than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a\r
+very strong proof.”\r
+\r
+“Certainly--very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger\r
+than, if _I_ had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable\r
+to me. I could not excuse a man’s having more music than love--more ear\r
+than eye--a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings.\r
+How did Miss Campbell appear to like it?”\r
+\r
+“It was her very particular friend, you know.”\r
+\r
+“Poor comfort!” said Emma, laughing. “One would rather have a stranger\r
+preferred than one’s very particular friend--with a stranger it might\r
+not recur again--but the misery of having a very particular friend\r
+always at hand, to do every thing better than one does oneself!--Poor\r
+Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland.”\r
+\r
+“You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell; but she\r
+really did not seem to feel it.”\r
+\r
+“So much the better--or so much the worse:--I do not know which. But\r
+be it sweetness or be it stupidity in her--quickness of friendship, or\r
+dulness of feeling--there was one person, I think, who must have felt\r
+it: Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous\r
+distinction.”\r
+\r
+“As to that--I do not--”\r
+\r
+“Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax’s\r
+sensations from you, or from any body else. They are known to no human\r
+being, I guess, but herself. But if she continued to play whenever she\r
+was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses.”\r
+\r
+“There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all--”\r
+ he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, “however, it is\r
+impossible for me to say on what terms they really were--how it might\r
+all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness\r
+outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be\r
+a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct\r
+herself in critical situations, than I can be.”\r
+\r
+“I have known her from a child, undoubtedly; we have been children\r
+and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be\r
+intimate,--that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited\r
+her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a\r
+little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take\r
+disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was,\r
+by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve--I\r
+never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved.”\r
+\r
+“It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,” said he. “Oftentimes very\r
+convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve,\r
+but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”\r
+\r
+“Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction\r
+may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an\r
+agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of\r
+conquering any body’s reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss\r
+Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think\r
+ill of her--not the least--except that such extreme and perpetual\r
+cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea\r
+about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to\r
+conceal.”\r
+\r
+He perfectly agreed with her: and after walking together so long, and\r
+thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him,\r
+that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was\r
+not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some\r
+of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better\r
+than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderate--his feelings\r
+warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr.\r
+Elton’s house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at,\r
+and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not\r
+believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for\r
+having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not\r
+think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample\r
+room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who\r
+wanted more.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about.\r
+Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many\r
+advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no\r
+judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma,\r
+in her own mind, determined that he _did_ know what he was talking\r
+about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in\r
+life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the\r
+inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper’s room, or\r
+a bad butler’s pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe\r
+could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would\r
+willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma’s very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the\r
+following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have\r
+his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and\r
+he had sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner,\r
+but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut.\r
+There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over\r
+on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it\r
+which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of\r
+plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart,\r
+which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity,\r
+extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be\r
+doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his\r
+father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear\r
+in general; he became liable to all these charges. His father only\r
+called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs.\r
+Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as\r
+quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that “all young\r
+people would have their little whims.”\r
+\r
+With the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit\r
+hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston\r
+was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made\r
+himself--how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He\r
+appeared to have a very open temper--certainly a very cheerful and\r
+lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal\r
+decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of\r
+talking of him--said he would be the best man in the world if he were\r
+left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he\r
+acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to\r
+speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for\r
+such an unfortunate fancy for having his hair cut, there was nothing to\r
+denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination\r
+had given him; the honour, if not of being really in love with her,\r
+of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own\r
+indifference--(for still her resolution held of never marrying)--the\r
+honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint\r
+acquaintance.\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must\r
+have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her\r
+extremely--thought her very beautiful and very charming; and with so\r
+much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him\r
+harshly. As Mrs. Weston observed, “all young people would have their\r
+little whims.”\r
+\r
+There was one person among his new acquaintance in Surry, not so\r
+leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of\r
+Donwell and Highbury, with great candour; liberal allowances were made\r
+for the little excesses of such a handsome young man--one who smiled so\r
+often and bowed so well; but there was one spirit among them not to be\r
+softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smiles--Mr. Knightley.\r
+The circumstance was told him at Hartfield; for the moment, he was\r
+silent; but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself,\r
+over a newspaper he held in his hand, “Hum! just the trifling, silly\r
+fellow I took him for.” She had half a mind to resent; but an instant’s\r
+observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his\r
+own feelings, and not meant to provoke; and therefore she let it pass.\r
+\r
+Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Weston’s visit this morning was in another respect particularly\r
+opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma\r
+want their advice; and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly\r
+the advice they gave.\r
+\r
+This was the occurrence:--The Coles had been settled some years in\r
+Highbury, and were very good sort of people--friendly, liberal, and\r
+unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade,\r
+and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country,\r
+they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little\r
+company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had\r
+brought them a considerable increase of means--the house in town had\r
+yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With\r
+their wealth, their views increased; their want of a larger house, their\r
+inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number\r
+of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time were,\r
+in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield.\r
+Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared every body\r
+for their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the\r
+single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma\r
+could hardly suppose they would presume to invite--neither Donwell, nor\r
+Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt _her_ to go, if they did;\r
+and she regretted that her father’s known habits would be giving\r
+her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very\r
+respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not\r
+for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit\r
+them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from\r
+herself; she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston.\r
+\r
+But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks\r
+before it appeared, that when the insult came at last, it found her\r
+very differently affected. Donwell and Randalls had received their\r
+invitation, and none had come for her father and herself; and Mrs.\r
+Weston’s accounting for it with “I suppose they will not take the\r
+liberty with you; they know you do not dine out,” was not quite\r
+sufficient. She felt that she should like to have had the power of\r
+refusal; and afterwards, as the idea of the party to be assembled there,\r
+consisting precisely of those whose society was dearest to her, occurred\r
+again and again, she did not know that she might not have been tempted\r
+to accept. Harriet was to be there in the evening, and the Bateses. They\r
+had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day before,\r
+and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might\r
+not the evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare\r
+possibility of it acted as a farther irritation on her spirits; and\r
+her being left in solitary grandeur, even supposing the omission to be\r
+intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort.\r
+\r
+It was the arrival of this very invitation while the Westons were at\r
+Hartfield, which made their presence so acceptable; for though her first\r
+remark, on reading it, was that “of course it must be declined,” she so\r
+very soon proceeded to ask them what they advised her to do, that their\r
+advice for her going was most prompt and successful.\r
+\r
+She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely\r
+without inclination for the party. The Coles expressed themselves so\r
+properly--there was so much real attention in the manner of it--so much\r
+consideration for her father. “They would have solicited the honour\r
+earlier, but had been waiting the arrival of a folding-screen from\r
+London, which they hoped might keep Mr. Woodhouse from any draught of\r
+air, and therefore induce him the more readily to give them the honour\r
+of his company.” Upon the whole, she was very persuadable; and it being\r
+briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting\r
+his comfort--how certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be\r
+depended on for bearing him company--Mr. Woodhouse was to be talked\r
+into an acquiescence of his daughter’s going out to dinner on a day now\r
+near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him. As for _his_\r
+going, Emma did not wish him to think it possible, the hours would be\r
+too late, and the party too numerous. He was soon pretty well resigned.\r
+\r
+“I am not fond of dinner-visiting,” said he--“I never was. No more is\r
+Emma. Late hours do not agree with us. I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Cole\r
+should have done it. I think it would be much better if they would come\r
+in one afternoon next summer, and take their tea with us--take us\r
+in their afternoon walk; which they might do, as our hours are so\r
+reasonable, and yet get home without being out in the damp of the\r
+evening. The dews of a summer evening are what I would not expose any\r
+body to. However, as they are so very desirous to have dear Emma dine\r
+with them, and as you will both be there, and Mr. Knightley too, to take\r
+care of her, I cannot wish to prevent it, provided the weather be what\r
+it ought, neither damp, nor cold, nor windy.” Then turning to Mrs.\r
+Weston, with a look of gentle reproach--“Ah! Miss Taylor, if you had not\r
+married, you would have staid at home with me.”\r
+\r
+“Well, sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “as I took Miss Taylor away, it is\r
+incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can; and I will step to Mrs.\r
+Goddard in a moment, if you wish it.”\r
+\r
+But the idea of any thing to be done in a _moment_, was increasing,\r
+not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse’s agitation. The ladies knew better how\r
+to allay it. Mr. Weston must be quiet, and every thing deliberately\r
+arranged.\r
+\r
+With this treatment, Mr. Woodhouse was soon composed enough for talking\r
+as usual. “He should be happy to see Mrs. Goddard. He had a great regard\r
+for Mrs. Goddard; and Emma should write a line, and invite her. James\r
+could take the note. But first of all, there must be an answer written\r
+to Mrs. Cole.”\r
+\r
+“You will make my excuses, my dear, as civilly as possible. You will say\r
+that I am quite an invalid, and go no where, and therefore must decline\r
+their obliging invitation; beginning with my _compliments_, of course.\r
+But you will do every thing right. I need not tell you what is to be\r
+done. We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be\r
+wanted on Tuesday. I shall have no fears for you with him. We have never\r
+been there above once since the new approach was made; but still I have\r
+no doubt that James will take you very safely. And when you get there,\r
+you must tell him at what time you would have him come for you again;\r
+and you had better name an early hour. You will not like staying late.\r
+You will get very tired when tea is over.”\r
+\r
+“But you would not wish me to come away before I am tired, papa?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no, my love; but you will soon be tired. There will be a great many\r
+people talking at once. You will not like the noise.”\r
+\r
+“But, my dear sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “if Emma comes away early, it will\r
+be breaking up the party.”\r
+\r
+“And no great harm if it does,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “The sooner every\r
+party breaks up, the better.”\r
+\r
+“But you do not consider how it may appear to the Coles. Emma’s going\r
+away directly after tea might be giving offence. They are good-natured\r
+people, and think little of their own claims; but still they must\r
+feel that any body’s hurrying away is no great compliment; and Miss\r
+Woodhouse’s doing it would be more thought of than any other person’s in\r
+the room. You would not wish to disappoint and mortify the Coles, I am\r
+sure, sir; friendly, good sort of people as ever lived, and who have\r
+been your neighbours these _ten_ years.”\r
+\r
+“No, upon no account in the world, Mr. Weston; I am much obliged to\r
+you for reminding me. I should be extremely sorry to be giving them any\r
+pain. I know what worthy people they are. Perry tells me that Mr. Cole\r
+never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but\r
+he is bilious--Mr. Cole is very bilious. No, I would not be the means\r
+of giving them any pain. My dear Emma, we must consider this. I am sure,\r
+rather than run the risk of hurting Mr. and Mrs. Cole, you would stay a\r
+little longer than you might wish. You will not regard being tired. You\r
+will be perfectly safe, you know, among your friends.”\r
+\r
+“Oh yes, papa. I have no fears at all for myself; and I should have no\r
+scruples of staying as late as Mrs. Weston, but on your account. I am\r
+only afraid of your sitting up for me. I am not afraid of your not being\r
+exceedingly comfortable with Mrs. Goddard. She loves piquet, you\r
+know; but when she is gone home, I am afraid you will be sitting up by\r
+yourself, instead of going to bed at your usual time--and the idea of\r
+that would entirely destroy my comfort. You must promise me not to sit\r
+up.”\r
+\r
+He did, on the condition of some promises on her side: such as that,\r
+if she came home cold, she would be sure to warm herself thoroughly; if\r
+hungry, that she would take something to eat; that her own maid should\r
+sit up for her; and that Serle and the butler should see that every\r
+thing were safe in the house, as usual.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Frank Churchill came back again; and if he kept his father’s dinner\r
+waiting, it was not known at Hartfield; for Mrs. Weston was too anxious\r
+for his being a favourite with Mr. Woodhouse, to betray any imperfection\r
+which could be concealed.\r
+\r
+He came back, had had his hair cut, and laughed at himself with a very\r
+good grace, but without seeming really at all ashamed of what he had\r
+done. He had no reason to wish his hair longer, to conceal any confusion\r
+of face; no reason to wish the money unspent, to improve his spirits.\r
+He was quite as undaunted and as lively as ever; and, after seeing him,\r
+Emma thus moralised to herself:--\r
+\r
+“I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things\r
+do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent\r
+way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.--It\r
+depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is\r
+_not_ a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this\r
+differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or\r
+been ashamed of it. There would have been either the ostentation of\r
+a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own\r
+vanities.--No, I am perfectly sure that he is not trifling or silly.”\r
+\r
+With Tuesday came the agreeable prospect of seeing him again, and for\r
+a longer time than hitherto; of judging of his general manners, and by\r
+inference, of the meaning of his manners towards herself; of guessing\r
+how soon it might be necessary for her to throw coldness into her air;\r
+and of fancying what the observations of all those might be, who were\r
+now seeing them together for the first time.\r
+\r
+She meant to be very happy, in spite of the scene being laid at Mr.\r
+Cole’s; and without being able to forget that among the failings of Mr.\r
+Elton, even in the days of his favour, none had disturbed her more than\r
+his propensity to dine with Mr. Cole.\r
+\r
+Her father’s comfort was amply secured, Mrs. Bates as well as Mrs.\r
+Goddard being able to come; and her last pleasing duty, before she left\r
+the house, was to pay her respects to them as they sat together after\r
+dinner; and while her father was fondly noticing the beauty of her\r
+dress, to make the two ladies all the amends in her power, by helping\r
+them to large slices of cake and full glasses of wine, for whatever\r
+unwilling self-denial his care of their constitution might have obliged\r
+them to practise during the meal.--She had provided a plentiful dinner\r
+for them; she wished she could know that they had been allowed to eat\r
+it.\r
+\r
+She followed another carriage to Mr. Cole’s door; and was pleased to see\r
+that it was Mr. Knightley’s; for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses,\r
+having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and\r
+independence, was too apt, in Emma’s opinion, to get about as he could,\r
+and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey.\r
+She had an opportunity now of speaking her approbation while warm from\r
+her heart, for he stopped to hand her out.\r
+\r
+“This is coming as you should do,” said she; “like a gentleman.--I am\r
+quite glad to see you.”\r
+\r
+He thanked her, observing, “How lucky that we should arrive at the same\r
+moment! for, if we had met first in the drawing-room, I doubt whether\r
+you would have discerned me to be more of a gentleman than usual.--You\r
+might not have distinguished how I came, by my look or manner.”\r
+\r
+“Yes I should, I am sure I should. There is always a look of\r
+consciousness or bustle when people come in a way which they know to be\r
+beneath them. You think you carry it off very well, I dare say, but\r
+with you it is a sort of bravado, an air of affected unconcern; I always\r
+observe it whenever I meet you under those circumstances. _Now_ you have\r
+nothing to try for. You are not afraid of being supposed ashamed. You\r
+are not striving to look taller than any body else. _Now_ I shall really\r
+be very happy to walk into the same room with you.”\r
+\r
+“Nonsensical girl!” was his reply, but not at all in anger.\r
+\r
+Emma had as much reason to be satisfied with the rest of the party as\r
+with Mr. Knightley. She was received with a cordial respect which could\r
+not but please, and given all the consequence she could wish for.\r
+When the Westons arrived, the kindest looks of love, the strongest of\r
+admiration were for her, from both husband and wife; the son approached\r
+her with a cheerful eagerness which marked her as his peculiar object,\r
+and at dinner she found him seated by her--and, as she firmly believed,\r
+not without some dexterity on his side.\r
+\r
+The party was rather large, as it included one other family, a proper\r
+unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of\r
+naming among their acquaintance, and the male part of Mr. Cox’s family,\r
+the lawyer of Highbury. The less worthy females were to come in the\r
+evening, with Miss Bates, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Smith; but already,\r
+at dinner, they were too numerous for any subject of conversation to be\r
+general; and, while politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could\r
+fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour.\r
+The first remote sound to which she felt herself obliged to attend, was\r
+the name of Jane Fairfax. Mrs. Cole seemed to be relating something of\r
+her that was expected to be very interesting. She listened, and found\r
+it well worth listening to. That very dear part of Emma, her fancy,\r
+received an amusing supply. Mrs. Cole was telling that she had been\r
+calling on Miss Bates, and as soon as she entered the room had\r
+been struck by the sight of a pianoforte--a very elegant looking\r
+instrument--not a grand, but a large-sized square pianoforte; and the\r
+substance of the story, the end of all the dialogue which ensued of\r
+surprize, and inquiry, and congratulations on her side, and explanations\r
+on Miss Bates’s, was, that this pianoforte had arrived from\r
+Broadwood’s the day before, to the great astonishment of both aunt and\r
+niece--entirely unexpected; that at first, by Miss Bates’s account,\r
+Jane herself was quite at a loss, quite bewildered to think who could\r
+possibly have ordered it--but now, they were both perfectly satisfied\r
+that it could be from only one quarter;--of course it must be from\r
+Colonel Campbell.\r
+\r
+“One can suppose nothing else,” added Mrs. Cole, “and I was only\r
+surprized that there could ever have been a doubt. But Jane, it seems,\r
+had a letter from them very lately, and not a word was said about it.\r
+She knows their ways best; but I should not consider their silence as\r
+any reason for their not meaning to make the present. They might chuse\r
+to surprize her.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Cole had many to agree with her; every body who spoke on the\r
+subject was equally convinced that it must come from Colonel Campbell,\r
+and equally rejoiced that such a present had been made; and there were\r
+enough ready to speak to allow Emma to think her own way, and still\r
+listen to Mrs. Cole.\r
+\r
+“I declare, I do not know when I have heard any thing that has given me\r
+more satisfaction!--It always has quite hurt me that Jane Fairfax, who\r
+plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite\r
+a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine\r
+instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves\r
+a slap, to be sure! and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole,\r
+I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the\r
+drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our little\r
+girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of\r
+it; and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not\r
+any thing of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifullest old\r
+spinet in the world, to amuse herself with.--I was saying this to\r
+Mr. Cole but yesterday, and he quite agreed with me; only he is so\r
+particularly fond of music that he could not help indulging himself\r
+in the purchase, hoping that some of our good neighbours might be so\r
+obliging occasionally to put it to a better use than we can; and that\r
+really is the reason why the instrument was bought--or else I am sure\r
+we ought to be ashamed of it.--We are in great hopes that Miss Woodhouse\r
+may be prevailed with to try it this evening.”\r
+\r
+Miss Woodhouse made the proper acquiescence; and finding that nothing\r
+more was to be entrapped from any communication of Mrs. Cole’s, turned\r
+to Frank Churchill.\r
+\r
+“Why do you smile?” said she.\r
+\r
+“Nay, why do you?”\r
+\r
+“Me!--I suppose I smile for pleasure at Colonel Campbell’s being so rich\r
+and so liberal.--It is a handsome present.”\r
+\r
+“Very.”\r
+\r
+“I rather wonder that it was never made before.”\r
+\r
+“Perhaps Miss Fairfax has never been staying here so long before.”\r
+\r
+“Or that he did not give her the use of their own instrument--which must\r
+now be shut up in London, untouched by any body.”\r
+\r
+“That is a grand pianoforte, and he might think it too large for Mrs.\r
+Bates’s house.”\r
+\r
+“You may _say_ what you chuse--but your countenance testifies that your\r
+_thoughts_ on this subject are very much like mine.”\r
+\r
+“I do not know. I rather believe you are giving me more credit for\r
+acuteness than I deserve. I smile because you smile, and shall probably\r
+suspect whatever I find you suspect; but at present I do not see what\r
+there is to question. If Colonel Campbell is not the person, who can\r
+be?”\r
+\r
+“What do you say to Mrs. Dixon?”\r
+\r
+“Mrs. Dixon! very true indeed. I had not thought of Mrs. Dixon. She must\r
+know as well as her father, how acceptable an instrument would be; and\r
+perhaps the mode of it, the mystery, the surprize, is more like a young\r
+woman’s scheme than an elderly man’s. It is Mrs. Dixon, I dare say. I\r
+told you that your suspicions would guide mine.”\r
+\r
+“If so, you must extend your suspicions and comprehend _Mr_. Dixon in\r
+them.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Dixon.--Very well. Yes, I immediately perceive that it must be the\r
+joint present of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. We were speaking the other day, you\r
+know, of his being so warm an admirer of her performance.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, and what you told me on that head, confirmed an idea which I had\r
+entertained before.--I do not mean to reflect upon the good intentions\r
+of either Mr. Dixon or Miss Fairfax, but I cannot help suspecting either\r
+that, after making his proposals to her friend, he had the misfortune\r
+to fall in love with _her_, or that he became conscious of a little\r
+attachment on her side. One might guess twenty things without guessing\r
+exactly the right; but I am sure there must be a particular cause for\r
+her chusing to come to Highbury instead of going with the Campbells\r
+to Ireland. Here, she must be leading a life of privation and penance;\r
+there it would have been all enjoyment. As to the pretence of trying her\r
+native air, I look upon that as a mere excuse.--In the summer it might\r
+have passed; but what can any body’s native air do for them in the\r
+months of January, February, and March? Good fires and carriages would\r
+be much more to the purpose in most cases of delicate health, and I dare\r
+say in her’s. I do not require you to adopt all my suspicions, though\r
+you make so noble a profession of doing it, but I honestly tell you what\r
+they are.”\r
+\r
+“And, upon my word, they have an air of great probability. Mr. Dixon’s\r
+preference of her music to her friend’s, I can answer for being very\r
+decided.”\r
+\r
+“And then, he saved her life. Did you ever hear of that?--A water\r
+party; and by some accident she was falling overboard. He caught her.”\r
+\r
+“He did. I was there--one of the party.”\r
+\r
+“Were you really?--Well!--But you observed nothing of course, for it\r
+seems to be a new idea to you.--If I had been there, I think I should\r
+have made some discoveries.”\r
+\r
+“I dare say you would; but I, simple I, saw nothing but the fact, that\r
+Miss Fairfax was nearly dashed from the vessel and that Mr. Dixon caught\r
+her.--It was the work of a moment. And though the consequent shock and\r
+alarm was very great and much more durable--indeed I believe it was\r
+half an hour before any of us were comfortable again--yet that was too\r
+general a sensation for any thing of peculiar anxiety to be\r
+observable. I do not mean to say, however, that you might not have made\r
+discoveries.”\r
+\r
+The conversation was here interrupted. They were called on to share\r
+in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses, and\r
+obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others; but when the table\r
+was again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly\r
+right, and occupation and ease were generally restored, Emma said,\r
+\r
+“The arrival of this pianoforte is decisive with me. I wanted to know\r
+a little more, and this tells me quite enough. Depend upon it, we shall\r
+soon hear that it is a present from Mr. and Mrs. Dixon.”\r
+\r
+“And if the Dixons should absolutely deny all knowledge of it we must\r
+conclude it to come from the Campbells.”\r
+\r
+“No, I am sure it is not from the Campbells. Miss Fairfax knows it is\r
+not from the Campbells, or they would have been guessed at first. She\r
+would not have been puzzled, had she dared fix on them. I may not have\r
+convinced you perhaps, but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr.\r
+Dixon is a principal in the business.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings\r
+carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed\r
+you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as\r
+paternal kindness, and thought it the most natural thing in the world.\r
+But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it\r
+should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now I can see it in\r
+no other light than as an offering of love.”\r
+\r
+There was no occasion to press the matter farther. The conviction seemed\r
+real; he looked as if he felt it. She said no more, other subjects\r
+took their turn; and the rest of the dinner passed away; the dessert\r
+succeeded, the children came in, and were talked to and admired amid the\r
+usual rate of conversation; a few clever things said, a few downright\r
+silly, but by much the larger proportion neither the one nor the\r
+other--nothing worse than everyday remarks, dull repetitions, old news,\r
+and heavy jokes.\r
+\r
+The ladies had not been long in the drawing-room, before the other\r
+ladies, in their different divisions, arrived. Emma watched the entree\r
+of her own particular little friend; and if she could not exult in her\r
+dignity and grace, she could not only love the blooming sweetness and\r
+the artless manner, but could most heartily rejoice in that light,\r
+cheerful, unsentimental disposition which allowed her so many\r
+alleviations of pleasure, in the midst of the pangs of disappointed\r
+affection. There she sat--and who would have guessed how many tears she\r
+had been lately shedding? To be in company, nicely dressed herself and\r
+seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile and look pretty, and say\r
+nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour. Jane Fairfax\r
+did look and move superior; but Emma suspected she might have been\r
+glad to change feelings with Harriet, very glad to have purchased the\r
+mortification of having loved--yes, of having loved even Mr. Elton in\r
+vain--by the surrender of all the dangerous pleasure of knowing herself\r
+beloved by the husband of her friend.\r
+\r
+In so large a party it was not necessary that Emma should approach her.\r
+She did not wish to speak of the pianoforte, she felt too much in the\r
+secret herself, to think the appearance of curiosity or interest fair,\r
+and therefore purposely kept at a distance; but by the others, the\r
+subject was almost immediately introduced, and she saw the blush of\r
+consciousness with which congratulations were received, the blush\r
+of guilt which accompanied the name of “my excellent friend Colonel\r
+Campbell.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston, kind-hearted and musical, was particularly interested\r
+by the circumstance, and Emma could not help being amused at her\r
+perseverance in dwelling on the subject; and having so much to ask and\r
+to say as to tone, touch, and pedal, totally unsuspicious of that wish\r
+of saying as little about it as possible, which she plainly read in the\r
+fair heroine’s countenance.\r
+\r
+They were soon joined by some of the gentlemen; and the very first\r
+of the early was Frank Churchill. In he walked, the first and the\r
+handsomest; and after paying his compliments en passant to Miss Bates\r
+and her niece, made his way directly to the opposite side of the circle,\r
+where sat Miss Woodhouse; and till he could find a seat by her, would\r
+not sit at all. Emma divined what every body present must be thinking.\r
+She was his object, and every body must perceive it. She introduced him\r
+to her friend, Miss Smith, and, at convenient moments afterwards, heard\r
+what each thought of the other. “He had never seen so lovely a face, and\r
+was delighted with her naivete.” And she, “Only to be sure it was paying\r
+him too great a compliment, but she did think there were some looks a\r
+little like Mr. Elton.” Emma restrained her indignation, and only turned\r
+from her in silence.\r
+\r
+Smiles of intelligence passed between her and the gentleman on first\r
+glancing towards Miss Fairfax; but it was most prudent to avoid speech.\r
+He told her that he had been impatient to leave the dining-room--hated\r
+sitting long--was always the first to move when he could--that his\r
+father, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Cole, were left very busy over\r
+parish business--that as long as he had staid, however, it had been\r
+pleasant enough, as he had found them in general a set of gentlemanlike,\r
+sensible men; and spoke so handsomely of Highbury altogether--thought it\r
+so abundant in agreeable families--that Emma began to feel she had been\r
+used to despise the place rather too much. She questioned him as to the\r
+society in Yorkshire--the extent of the neighbourhood about Enscombe,\r
+and the sort; and could make out from his answers that, as far as\r
+Enscombe was concerned, there was very little going on, that their\r
+visitings were among a range of great families, none very near; and\r
+that even when days were fixed, and invitations accepted, it was an even\r
+chance that Mrs. Churchill were not in health and spirits for going;\r
+that they made a point of visiting no fresh person; and that, though\r
+he had his separate engagements, it was not without difficulty, without\r
+considerable address _at_ _times_, that he could get away, or introduce\r
+an acquaintance for a night.\r
+\r
+She saw that Enscombe could not satisfy, and that Highbury, taken at\r
+its best, might reasonably please a young man who had more retirement at\r
+home than he liked. His importance at Enscombe was very evident. He did\r
+not boast, but it naturally betrayed itself, that he had persuaded his\r
+aunt where his uncle could do nothing, and on her laughing and noticing\r
+it, he owned that he believed (excepting one or two points) he could\r
+_with_ _time_ persuade her to any thing. One of those points on which\r
+his influence failed, he then mentioned. He had wanted very much to\r
+go abroad--had been very eager indeed to be allowed to travel--but she\r
+would not hear of it. This had happened the year before. _Now_, he said,\r
+he was beginning to have no longer the same wish.\r
+\r
+The unpersuadable point, which he did not mention, Emma guessed to be\r
+good behaviour to his father.\r
+\r
+“I have made a most wretched discovery,” said he, after a short pause.--\r
+“I have been here a week to-morrow--half my time. I never knew days fly\r
+so fast. A week to-morrow!--And I have hardly begun to enjoy myself.\r
+But just got acquainted with Mrs. Weston, and others!--I hate the\r
+recollection.”\r
+\r
+“Perhaps you may now begin to regret that you spent one whole day, out\r
+of so few, in having your hair cut.”\r
+\r
+“No,” said he, smiling, “that is no subject of regret at all. I have\r
+no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be\r
+seen.”\r
+\r
+The rest of the gentlemen being now in the room, Emma found herself\r
+obliged to turn from him for a few minutes, and listen to Mr. Cole. When\r
+Mr. Cole had moved away, and her attention could be restored as before,\r
+she saw Frank Churchill looking intently across the room at Miss\r
+Fairfax, who was sitting exactly opposite.\r
+\r
+“What is the matter?” said she.\r
+\r
+He started. “Thank you for rousing me,” he replied. “I believe I have\r
+been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a\r
+way--so very odd a way--that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw\r
+any thing so outree!--Those curls!--This must be a fancy of her own. I\r
+see nobody else looking like her!--I must go and ask her whether it\r
+is an Irish fashion. Shall I?--Yes, I will--I declare I will--and you\r
+shall see how she takes it;--whether she colours.”\r
+\r
+He was gone immediately; and Emma soon saw him standing before Miss\r
+Fairfax, and talking to her; but as to its effect on the young lady,\r
+as he had improvidently placed himself exactly between them, exactly in\r
+front of Miss Fairfax, she could absolutely distinguish nothing.\r
+\r
+Before he could return to his chair, it was taken by Mrs. Weston.\r
+\r
+“This is the luxury of a large party,” said she:--“one can get near\r
+every body, and say every thing. My dear Emma, I am longing to talk\r
+to you. I have been making discoveries and forming plans, just like\r
+yourself, and I must tell them while the idea is fresh. Do you know how\r
+Miss Bates and her niece came here?”\r
+\r
+“How?--They were invited, were not they?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes--but how they were conveyed hither?--the manner of their\r
+coming?”\r
+\r
+“They walked, I conclude. How else could they come?”\r
+\r
+“Very true.--Well, a little while ago it occurred to me how very sad\r
+it would be to have Jane Fairfax walking home again, late at night, and\r
+cold as the nights are now. And as I looked at her, though I never saw\r
+her appear to more advantage, it struck me that she was heated, and\r
+would therefore be particularly liable to take cold. Poor girl! I could\r
+not bear the idea of it; so, as soon as Mr. Weston came into the room,\r
+and I could get at him, I spoke to him about the carriage. You may guess\r
+how readily he came into my wishes; and having his approbation, I made\r
+my way directly to Miss Bates, to assure her that the carriage would be\r
+at her service before it took us home; for I thought it would be making\r
+her comfortable at once. Good soul! she was as grateful as possible, you\r
+may be sure. ‘Nobody was ever so fortunate as herself!’--but with many,\r
+many thanks--‘there was no occasion to trouble us, for Mr. Knightley’s\r
+carriage had brought, and was to take them home again.’ I was quite\r
+surprized;--very glad, I am sure; but really quite surprized. Such a\r
+very kind attention--and so thoughtful an attention!--the sort of thing\r
+that so few men would think of. And, in short, from knowing his\r
+usual ways, I am very much inclined to think that it was for their\r
+accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not\r
+have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only as an excuse\r
+for assisting them.”\r
+\r
+“Very likely,” said Emma--“nothing more likely. I know no man more\r
+likely than Mr. Knightley to do the sort of thing--to do any thing\r
+really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a\r
+gallant man, but he is a very humane one; and this, considering Jane\r
+Fairfax’s ill-health, would appear a case of humanity to him;--and for\r
+an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on\r
+more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses to-day--for we arrived\r
+together; and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a word that\r
+could betray.”\r
+\r
+“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, smiling, “you give him credit for more simple,\r
+disinterested benevolence in this instance than I do; for while Miss\r
+Bates was speaking, a suspicion darted into my head, and I have never\r
+been able to get it out again. The more I think of it, the more probable\r
+it appears. In short, I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane\r
+Fairfax. See the consequence of keeping you company!--What do you say to\r
+it?”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax!” exclaimed Emma. “Dear Mrs. Weston, how\r
+could you think of such a thing?--Mr. Knightley!--Mr. Knightley must not\r
+marry!--You would not have little Henry cut out from Donwell?--Oh! no,\r
+no, Henry must have Donwell. I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley’s\r
+marrying; and I am sure it is not at all likely. I am amazed that you\r
+should think of such a thing.”\r
+\r
+“My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want\r
+the match--I do not want to injure dear little Henry--but the idea has\r
+been given me by circumstances; and if Mr. Knightley really wished to\r
+marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry’s account, a boy of six\r
+years old, who knows nothing of the matter?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted.--Mr.\r
+Knightley marry!--No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt\r
+it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women!”\r
+\r
+“Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well\r
+know.”\r
+\r
+“But the imprudence of such a match!”\r
+\r
+“I am not speaking of its prudence; merely its probability.”\r
+\r
+“I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than\r
+what you mention. His good-nature, his humanity, as I tell you, would\r
+be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the\r
+Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfax--and is always glad to\r
+shew them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to match-making.\r
+You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!--Oh! no,\r
+no;--every feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so\r
+mad a thing.”\r
+\r
+“Imprudent, if you please--but not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune,\r
+and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable.”\r
+\r
+“But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the\r
+least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry?--He\r
+is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and\r
+his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of\r
+his brother’s children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up\r
+his time or his heart.”\r
+\r
+“My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so; but if he really loves\r
+Jane Fairfax--”\r
+\r
+“Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am\r
+sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family; but--”\r
+\r
+“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, laughing, “perhaps the greatest good he could\r
+do them, would be to give Jane such a respectable home.”\r
+\r
+“If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself; a\r
+very shameful and degrading connexion. How would he bear to have Miss\r
+Bates belonging to him?--To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking\r
+him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane?--‘So very\r
+kind and obliging!--But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!’\r
+And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother’s old\r
+petticoat. ‘Not that it was such a very old petticoat either--for still\r
+it would last a great while--and, indeed, she must thankfully say that\r
+their petticoats were all very strong.’”\r
+\r
+“For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience.\r
+And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed\r
+by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on; and\r
+if he wanted to say any thing himself, he would only talk louder, and\r
+drown her voice. But the question is not, whether it would be a bad\r
+connexion for him, but whether he wishes it; and I think he does. I have\r
+heard him speak, and so must you, so very highly of Jane Fairfax! The\r
+interest he takes in her--his anxiety about her health--his concern that\r
+she should have no happier prospect! I have heard him express himself\r
+so warmly on those points!--Such an admirer of her performance on the\r
+pianoforte, and of her voice! I have heard him say that he could listen\r
+to her for ever. Oh! and I had almost forgotten one idea that occurred\r
+to me--this pianoforte that has been sent here by somebody--though\r
+we have all been so well satisfied to consider it a present from the\r
+Campbells, may it not be from Mr. Knightley? I cannot help suspecting\r
+him. I think he is just the person to do it, even without being in\r
+love.”\r
+\r
+“Then it can be no argument to prove that he is in love. But I do not\r
+think it is at all a likely thing for him to do. Mr. Knightley does\r
+nothing mysteriously.”\r
+\r
+“I have heard him lamenting her having no instrument repeatedly; oftener\r
+than I should suppose such a circumstance would, in the common course of\r
+things, occur to him.”\r
+\r
+“Very well; and if he had intended to give her one, he would have told\r
+her so.”\r
+\r
+“There might be scruples of delicacy, my dear Emma. I have a very strong\r
+notion that it comes from him. I am sure he was particularly silent when\r
+Mrs. Cole told us of it at dinner.”\r
+\r
+“You take up an idea, Mrs. Weston, and run away with it; as you have\r
+many a time reproached me with doing. I see no sign of attachment--I\r
+believe nothing of the pianoforte--and proof only shall convince me that\r
+Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax.”\r
+\r
+They combated the point some time longer in the same way; Emma rather\r
+gaining ground over the mind of her friend; for Mrs. Weston was the most\r
+used of the two to yield; till a little bustle in the room shewed them\r
+that tea was over, and the instrument in preparation;--and at the same\r
+moment Mr. Cole approaching to entreat Miss Woodhouse would do them the\r
+honour of trying it. Frank Churchill, of whom, in the eagerness of her\r
+conversation with Mrs. Weston, she had been seeing nothing, except that\r
+he had found a seat by Miss Fairfax, followed Mr. Cole, to add his very\r
+pressing entreaties; and as, in every respect, it suited Emma best to\r
+lead, she gave a very proper compliance.\r
+\r
+She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than\r
+she could perform with credit; she wanted neither taste nor spirit in\r
+the little things which are generally acceptable, and could accompany\r
+her own voice well. One accompaniment to her song took her agreeably by\r
+surprize--a second, slightly but correctly taken by Frank Churchill. Her\r
+pardon was duly begged at the close of the song, and every thing usual\r
+followed. He was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect\r
+knowledge of music; which was properly denied; and that he knew nothing\r
+of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. They sang\r
+together once more; and Emma would then resign her place to Miss\r
+Fairfax, whose performance, both vocal and instrumental, she never could\r
+attempt to conceal from herself, was infinitely superior to her own.\r
+\r
+With mixed feelings, she seated herself at a little distance from the\r
+numbers round the instrument, to listen. Frank Churchill sang again.\r
+They had sung together once or twice, it appeared, at Weymouth. But the\r
+sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive, soon drew away half\r
+Emma’s mind; and she fell into a train of thinking on the subject of\r
+Mrs. Weston’s suspicions, to which the sweet sounds of the united voices\r
+gave only momentary interruptions. Her objections to Mr. Knightley’s\r
+marrying did not in the least subside. She could see nothing but evil\r
+in it. It would be a great disappointment to Mr. John Knightley;\r
+consequently to Isabella. A real injury to the children--a most\r
+mortifying change, and material loss to them all;--a very great\r
+deduction from her father’s daily comfort--and, as to herself, she could\r
+not at all endure the idea of Jane Fairfax at Donwell Abbey. A Mrs.\r
+Knightley for them all to give way to!--No--Mr. Knightley must never\r
+marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell.\r
+\r
+Presently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They\r
+talked at first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly\r
+very warm; yet she thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have\r
+struck her. As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his\r
+kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and though his answer was in\r
+the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only\r
+his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own.\r
+\r
+“I often feel concern,” said she, “that I dare not make our carriage\r
+more useful on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish; but\r
+you know how impossible my father would deem it that James should put-to\r
+for such a purpose.”\r
+\r
+“Quite out of the question, quite out of the question,” he\r
+replied;--“but you must often wish it, I am sure.” And he smiled with\r
+such seeming pleasure at the conviction, that she must proceed another\r
+step.\r
+\r
+“This present from the Campbells,” said she--“this pianoforte is very\r
+kindly given.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” he replied, and without the smallest apparent\r
+embarrassment.--“But they would have done better had they given\r
+her notice of it. Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not\r
+enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should have\r
+expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell.”\r
+\r
+From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had\r
+had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were\r
+entirely free from peculiar attachment--whether there were no actual\r
+preference--remained a little longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane’s\r
+second song, her voice grew thick.\r
+\r
+“That will do,” said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud--“you have\r
+sung quite enough for one evening--now be quiet.”\r
+\r
+Another song, however, was soon begged for. “One more;--they would not\r
+fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more.”\r
+ And Frank Churchill was heard to say, “I think you could manage this\r
+without effort; the first part is so very trifling. The strength of the\r
+song falls on the second.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley grew angry.\r
+\r
+“That fellow,” said he, indignantly, “thinks of nothing but shewing off\r
+his own voice. This must not be.” And touching Miss Bates, who at that\r
+moment passed near--“Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing\r
+herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on\r
+her.”\r
+\r
+Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to\r
+be grateful, before she stept forward and put an end to all farther\r
+singing. Here ceased the concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse\r
+and Miss Fairfax were the only young lady performers; but soon (within\r
+five minutes) the proposal of dancing--originating nobody exactly knew\r
+where--was so effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole, that every\r
+thing was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston,\r
+capital in her country-dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible\r
+waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to\r
+Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top.\r
+\r
+While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off,\r
+Emma found time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on\r
+her voice and her taste, to look about, and see what became of Mr.\r
+Knightley. This would be a trial. He was no dancer in general. If he\r
+were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might augur\r
+something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to Mrs.\r
+Cole--he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else,\r
+and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole.\r
+\r
+Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry; his interest was yet safe; and\r
+she led off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than\r
+five couple could be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of\r
+it made it very delightful, and she found herself well matched in a\r
+partner. They were a couple worth looking at.\r
+\r
+Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was\r
+growing late, and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother’s\r
+account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again,\r
+they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.\r
+\r
+“Perhaps it is as well,” said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to\r
+her carriage. “I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing\r
+would not have agreed with me, after yours.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma did not repent her condescension in going to the Coles. The visit\r
+afforded her many pleasant recollections the next day; and all that she\r
+might be supposed to have lost on the side of dignified seclusion, must\r
+be amply repaid in the splendour of popularity. She must have delighted\r
+the Coles--worthy people, who deserved to be made happy!--And left a\r
+name behind her that would not soon die away.\r
+\r
+Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common; and there were two\r
+points on which she was not quite easy. She doubted whether she had not\r
+transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of\r
+Jane Fairfax’s feelings to Frank Churchill. It was hardly right; but it\r
+had been so strong an idea, that it would escape her, and his submission\r
+to all that she told, was a compliment to her penetration, which made\r
+it difficult for her to be quite certain that she ought to have held her\r
+tongue.\r
+\r
+The other circumstance of regret related also to Jane Fairfax; and\r
+there she had no doubt. She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the\r
+inferiority of her own playing and singing. She did most heartily\r
+grieve over the idleness of her childhood--and sat down and practised\r
+vigorously an hour and a half.\r
+\r
+She was then interrupted by Harriet’s coming in; and if Harriet’s praise\r
+could have satisfied her, she might soon have been comforted.\r
+\r
+“Oh! if I could but play as well as you and Miss Fairfax!”\r
+\r
+“Don’t class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like her’s,\r
+than a lamp is like sunshine.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! dear--I think you play the best of the two. I think you play quite\r
+as well as she does. I am sure I had much rather hear you. Every body\r
+last night said how well you played.”\r
+\r
+“Those who knew any thing about it, must have felt the difference. The\r
+truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised,\r
+but Jane Fairfax’s is much beyond it.”\r
+\r
+“Well, I always shall think that you play quite as well as she does, or\r
+that if there is any difference nobody would ever find it out. Mr. Cole\r
+said how much taste you had; and Mr. Frank Churchill talked a great deal\r
+about your taste, and that he valued taste much more than execution.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! but Jane Fairfax has them both, Harriet.”\r
+\r
+“Are you sure? I saw she had execution, but I did not know she had any\r
+taste. Nobody talked about it. And I hate Italian singing.--There is no\r
+understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you\r
+know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to\r
+teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into\r
+any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked?”\r
+\r
+“Just as they always do--very vulgar.”\r
+\r
+“They told me something,” said Harriet rather hesitatingly; “but it is\r
+nothing of any consequence.”\r
+\r
+Emma was obliged to ask what they had told her, though fearful of its\r
+producing Mr. Elton.\r
+\r
+“They told me--that Mr. Martin dined with them last Saturday.”\r
+\r
+“Oh!”\r
+\r
+“He came to their father upon some business, and he asked him to stay to\r
+dinner.”\r
+\r
+“Oh!”\r
+\r
+“They talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox. I do not know\r
+what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there\r
+again next summer.”\r
+\r
+“She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should\r
+be.”\r
+\r
+“She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at\r
+dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry\r
+him.”\r
+\r
+“Very likely.--I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar\r
+girls in Highbury.”\r
+\r
+Harriet had business at Ford’s.--Emma thought it most prudent to go with\r
+her. Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and in\r
+her present state, would be dangerous.\r
+\r
+Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always\r
+very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins\r
+and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement.--Much could\r
+not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;--Mr.\r
+Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the\r
+office-door, Mr. Cole’s carriage-horses returning from exercise, or a\r
+stray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she\r
+could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with\r
+his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full\r
+basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling\r
+children round the baker’s little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she\r
+knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough\r
+still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease, can do with\r
+seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.\r
+\r
+She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons\r
+appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law; they were walking into\r
+Highbury;--to Hartfield of course. They were stopping, however, in the\r
+first place at Mrs. Bates’s; whose house was a little nearer\r
+Randalls than Ford’s; and had all but knocked, when Emma caught their\r
+eye.--Immediately they crossed the road and came forward to her; and the\r
+agreeableness of yesterday’s engagement seemed to give fresh pleasure to\r
+the present meeting. Mrs. Weston informed her that she was going to call\r
+on the Bateses, in order to hear the new instrument.\r
+\r
+“For my companion tells me,” said she, “that I absolutely promised Miss\r
+Bates last night, that I would come this morning. I was not aware of it\r
+myself. I did not know that I had fixed a day, but as he says I did, I\r
+am going now.”\r
+\r
+“And while Mrs. Weston pays her visit, I may be allowed, I hope,” said\r
+Frank Churchill, “to join your party and wait for her at Hartfield--if\r
+you are going home.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston was disappointed.\r
+\r
+“I thought you meant to go with me. They would be very much pleased.”\r
+\r
+“Me! I should be quite in the way. But, perhaps--I may be equally in the\r
+way here. Miss Woodhouse looks as if she did not want me. My aunt always\r
+sends me off when she is shopping. She says I fidget her to death; and\r
+Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same. What am I to\r
+do?”\r
+\r
+“I am here on no business of my own,” said Emma; “I am only waiting for\r
+my friend. She will probably have soon done, and then we shall go home.\r
+But you had better go with Mrs. Weston and hear the instrument.”\r
+\r
+“Well--if you advise it.--But (with a smile) if Colonel Campbell should\r
+have employed a careless friend, and if it should prove to have an\r
+indifferent tone--what shall I say? I shall be no support to Mrs.\r
+Weston. She might do very well by herself. A disagreeable truth would be\r
+palatable through her lips, but I am the wretchedest being in the world\r
+at a civil falsehood.”\r
+\r
+“I do not believe any such thing,” replied Emma.--“I am persuaded that\r
+you can be as insincere as your neighbours, when it is necessary; but\r
+there is no reason to suppose the instrument is indifferent. Quite\r
+otherwise indeed, if I understood Miss Fairfax’s opinion last night.”\r
+\r
+“Do come with me,” said Mrs. Weston, “if it be not very disagreeable to\r
+you. It need not detain us long. We will go to Hartfield afterwards.\r
+We will follow them to Hartfield. I really wish you to call with me. It\r
+will be felt so great an attention! and I always thought you meant it.”\r
+\r
+He could say no more; and with the hope of Hartfield to reward him,\r
+returned with Mrs. Weston to Mrs. Bates’s door. Emma watched them in,\r
+and then joined Harriet at the interesting counter,--trying, with all\r
+the force of her own mind, to convince her that if she wanted plain\r
+muslin it was of no use to look at figured; and that a blue ribbon, be\r
+it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern. At\r
+last it was all settled, even to the destination of the parcel.\r
+\r
+“Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard’s, ma’am?” asked Mrs.\r
+Ford.--“Yes--no--yes, to Mrs. Goddard’s. Only my pattern gown is at\r
+Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then,\r
+Mrs. Goddard will want to see it.--And I could take the pattern gown\r
+home any day. But I shall want the ribbon directly--so it had better go\r
+to Hartfield--at least the ribbon. You could make it into two parcels,\r
+Mrs. Ford, could not you?”\r
+\r
+“It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two\r
+parcels.”\r
+\r
+“No more it is.”\r
+\r
+“No trouble in the world, ma’am,” said the obliging Mrs. Ford.\r
+\r
+“Oh! but indeed I would much rather have it only in one. Then, if you\r
+please, you shall send it all to Mrs. Goddard’s--I do not know--No, I\r
+think, Miss Woodhouse, I may just as well have it sent to Hartfield, and\r
+take it home with me at night. What do you advise?”\r
+\r
+“That you do not give another half-second to the subject. To Hartfield,\r
+if you please, Mrs. Ford.”\r
+\r
+“Aye, that will be much best,” said Harriet, quite satisfied, “I should\r
+not at all like to have it sent to Mrs. Goddard’s.”\r
+\r
+Voices approached the shop--or rather one voice and two ladies: Mrs.\r
+Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door.\r
+\r
+“My dear Miss Woodhouse,” said the latter, “I am just run across to\r
+entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while,\r
+and give us your opinion of our new instrument; you and Miss Smith. How\r
+do you do, Miss Smith?--Very well I thank you.--And I begged Mrs. Weston\r
+to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding.”\r
+\r
+“I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are--”\r
+\r
+“Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well;\r
+and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse?--I am so glad\r
+to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.--Oh!\r
+then, said I, I must run across, I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me\r
+just to run across and entreat her to come in; my mother will be so\r
+very happy to see her--and now we are such a nice party, she cannot\r
+refuse.--‘Aye, pray do,’ said Mr. Frank Churchill, ‘Miss Woodhouse’s\r
+opinion of the instrument will be worth having.’--But, said I, I shall\r
+be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.--‘Oh,’ said\r
+he, ‘wait half a minute, till I have finished my job;’--For, would you\r
+believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in\r
+the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother’s spectacles.--The rivet\r
+came out, you know, this morning.--So very obliging!--For my mother had\r
+no use of her spectacles--could not put them on. And, by the bye, every\r
+body ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should indeed. Jane said\r
+so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did,\r
+but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing,\r
+then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time Patty came\r
+to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I,\r
+Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your\r
+mistress’s spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home, Mrs. Wallis\r
+sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the\r
+Wallises, always--I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be\r
+uncivil and give a very rude answer, but we have never known any thing\r
+but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value\r
+of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know?\r
+Only three of us.--besides dear Jane at present--and she really eats\r
+nothing--makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened\r
+if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats--so I\r
+say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the\r
+middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so\r
+well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took\r
+the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet\r
+him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before--I have so often\r
+heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only\r
+way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We\r
+have apple-dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent\r
+apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these\r
+ladies will oblige us.”\r
+\r
+Emma would be “very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, &c.,” and they did at\r
+last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than,\r
+\r
+“How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon. I did not see you before.\r
+I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town. Jane\r
+came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do very well--only a\r
+little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.”\r
+\r
+“What was I talking of?” said she, beginning again when they were all in\r
+the street.\r
+\r
+Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.\r
+\r
+“I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.--Oh! my mother’s\r
+spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! ‘Oh!’ said he,\r
+‘I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind\r
+excessively.’--Which you know shewed him to be so very.... Indeed I must\r
+say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected,\r
+he very far exceeds any thing.... I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston,\r
+most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could....\r
+‘Oh!’ said he, ‘I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort\r
+excessively.’ I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out\r
+the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very\r
+obliging as to take some, ‘Oh!’ said he directly, ‘there is nothing\r
+in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking\r
+home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.’ That, you know, was so\r
+very.... And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they\r
+are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice--only\r
+we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us\r
+promise to have them done three times--but Miss Woodhouse will be so\r
+good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest\r
+sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell--some of Mr.\r
+Knightley’s most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and\r
+certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his\r
+trees--I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was\r
+always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the\r
+other day--for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating\r
+these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed\r
+them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. ‘I\r
+am sure you must be,’ said he, ‘and I will send you another supply; for\r
+I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me\r
+keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more,\r
+before they get good for nothing.’ So I begged he would not--for really\r
+as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great\r
+many left--it was but half a dozen indeed; but they should be all kept\r
+for Jane; and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more,\r
+so liberal as he had been already; and Jane said the same. And when\r
+he was gone, she almost quarrelled with me--No, I should not say\r
+quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives; but she was quite\r
+distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished\r
+I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear,\r
+I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William\r
+Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of\r
+apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down\r
+and spoke to William Larkins and said every thing, as you may suppose.\r
+William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see\r
+him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it\r
+was all the apples of _that_ sort his master had; he had brought them\r
+all--and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did\r
+not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had\r
+sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master’s profit\r
+than any thing; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their\r
+being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be\r
+able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid\r
+her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for\r
+Mrs. Hodges _would_ be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks\r
+were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told\r
+me, and I was excessively shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley\r
+know any thing about it for the world! He would be so very.... I wanted\r
+to keep it from Jane’s knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it\r
+before I was aware.”\r
+\r
+Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors\r
+walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to,\r
+pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will.\r
+\r
+“Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take\r
+care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase--rather darker\r
+and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss\r
+Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss\r
+Smith, the step at the turning.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+\r
+The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered, was\r
+tranquillity itself; Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment,\r
+slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near\r
+her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax,\r
+standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte.\r
+\r
+Busy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to shew a most happy\r
+countenance on seeing Emma again.\r
+\r
+“This is a pleasure,” said he, in rather a low voice, “coming at least\r
+ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be\r
+useful; tell me if you think I shall succeed.”\r
+\r
+“What!” said Mrs. Weston, “have not you finished it yet? you would not\r
+earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate.”\r
+\r
+“I have not been working uninterruptedly,” he replied, “I have been\r
+assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily,\r
+it was not quite firm; an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see\r
+we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be\r
+persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home.”\r
+\r
+He contrived that she should be seated by him; and was sufficiently\r
+employed in looking out the best baked apple for her, and trying to make\r
+her help or advise him in his work, till Jane Fairfax was quite ready\r
+to sit down to the pianoforte again. That she was not immediately ready,\r
+Emma did suspect to arise from the state of her nerves; she had not yet\r
+possessed the instrument long enough to touch it without emotion; she\r
+must reason herself into the power of performance; and Emma could not\r
+but pity such feelings, whatever their origin, and could not but resolve\r
+never to expose them to her neighbour again.\r
+\r
+At last Jane began, and though the first bars were feebly given, the\r
+powers of the instrument were gradually done full justice to. Mrs.\r
+Weston had been delighted before, and was delighted again; Emma\r
+joined her in all her praise; and the pianoforte, with every proper\r
+discrimination, was pronounced to be altogether of the highest promise.\r
+\r
+“Whoever Colonel Campbell might employ,” said Frank Churchill, with a\r
+smile at Emma, “the person has not chosen ill. I heard a good deal of\r
+Colonel Campbell’s taste at Weymouth; and the softness of the upper\r
+notes I am sure is exactly what he and _all_ _that_ _party_ would\r
+particularly prize. I dare say, Miss Fairfax, that he either gave his\r
+friend very minute directions, or wrote to Broadwood himself. Do not you\r
+think so?”\r
+\r
+Jane did not look round. She was not obliged to hear. Mrs. Weston had\r
+been speaking to her at the same moment.\r
+\r
+“It is not fair,” said Emma, in a whisper; “mine was a random guess. Do\r
+not distress her.”\r
+\r
+He shook his head with a smile, and looked as if he had very little\r
+doubt and very little mercy. Soon afterwards he began again,\r
+\r
+“How much your friends in Ireland must be enjoying your pleasure on this\r
+occasion, Miss Fairfax. I dare say they often think of you, and wonder\r
+which will be the day, the precise day of the instrument’s coming to\r
+hand. Do you imagine Colonel Campbell knows the business to be going\r
+forward just at this time?--Do you imagine it to be the consequence\r
+of an immediate commission from him, or that he may have sent only\r
+a general direction, an order indefinite as to time, to depend upon\r
+contingencies and conveniences?”\r
+\r
+He paused. She could not but hear; she could not avoid answering,\r
+\r
+“Till I have a letter from Colonel Campbell,” said she, in a voice of\r
+forced calmness, “I can imagine nothing with any confidence. It must be\r
+all conjecture.”\r
+\r
+“Conjecture--aye, sometimes one conjectures right, and sometimes one\r
+conjectures wrong. I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this\r
+rivet quite firm. What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard\r
+at work, if one talks at all;--your real workmen, I suppose, hold their\r
+tongues; but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word--Miss\r
+Fairfax said something about conjecturing. There, it is done. I have the\r
+pleasure, madam, (to Mrs. Bates,) of restoring your spectacles, healed\r
+for the present.”\r
+\r
+He was very warmly thanked both by mother and daughter; to escape a\r
+little from the latter, he went to the pianoforte, and begged Miss\r
+Fairfax, who was still sitting at it, to play something more.\r
+\r
+“If you are very kind,” said he, “it will be one of the waltzes we\r
+danced last night;--let me live them over again. You did not enjoy them\r
+as I did; you appeared tired the whole time. I believe you were glad we\r
+danced no longer; but I would have given worlds--all the worlds one ever\r
+has to give--for another half-hour.”\r
+\r
+She played.\r
+\r
+“What felicity it is to hear a tune again which _has_ made one\r
+happy!--If I mistake not that was danced at Weymouth.”\r
+\r
+She looked up at him for a moment, coloured deeply, and played something\r
+else. He took some music from a chair near the pianoforte, and turning\r
+to Emma, said,\r
+\r
+“Here is something quite new to me. Do you know it?--Cramer.--And here\r
+are a new set of Irish melodies. That, from such a quarter, one might\r
+expect. This was all sent with the instrument. Very thoughtful of\r
+Colonel Campbell, was not it?--He knew Miss Fairfax could have no music\r
+here. I honour that part of the attention particularly; it shews it to\r
+have been so thoroughly from the heart. Nothing hastily done; nothing\r
+incomplete. True affection only could have prompted it.”\r
+\r
+Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused;\r
+and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains\r
+of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness,\r
+there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the\r
+amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.--This\r
+amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very\r
+reprehensible feelings.\r
+\r
+He brought all the music to her, and they looked it over together.--Emma\r
+took the opportunity of whispering,\r
+\r
+“You speak too plain. She must understand you.”\r
+\r
+“I hope she does. I would have her understand me. I am not in the least\r
+ashamed of my meaning.”\r
+\r
+“But really, I am half ashamed, and wish I had never taken up the idea.”\r
+\r
+“I am very glad you did, and that you communicated it to me. I have now\r
+a key to all her odd looks and ways. Leave shame to her. If she does\r
+wrong, she ought to feel it.”\r
+\r
+“She is not entirely without it, I think.”\r
+\r
+“I do not see much sign of it. She is playing _Robin_ _Adair_ at this\r
+moment--_his_ favourite.”\r
+\r
+Shortly afterwards Miss Bates, passing near the window, descried Mr.\r
+Knightley on horse-back not far off.\r
+\r
+“Mr. Knightley I declare!--I must speak to him if possible, just to\r
+thank him. I will not open the window here; it would give you all cold;\r
+but I can go into my mother’s room you know. I dare say he will come\r
+in when he knows who is here. Quite delightful to have you all meet\r
+so!--Our little room so honoured!”\r
+\r
+She was in the adjoining chamber while she still spoke, and opening the\r
+casement there, immediately called Mr. Knightley’s attention, and every\r
+syllable of their conversation was as distinctly heard by the others, as\r
+if it had passed within the same apartment.\r
+\r
+“How d’ ye do?--how d’ye do?--Very well, I thank you. So obliged to you\r
+for the carriage last night. We were just in time; my mother just ready\r
+for us. Pray come in; do come in. You will find some friends here.”\r
+\r
+So began Miss Bates; and Mr. Knightley seemed determined to be heard in\r
+his turn, for most resolutely and commandingly did he say,\r
+\r
+“How is your niece, Miss Bates?--I want to inquire after you all, but\r
+particularly your niece. How is Miss Fairfax?--I hope she caught no cold\r
+last night. How is she to-day? Tell me how Miss Fairfax is.”\r
+\r
+And Miss Bates was obliged to give a direct answer before he would hear\r
+her in any thing else. The listeners were amused; and Mrs. Weston gave\r
+Emma a look of particular meaning. But Emma still shook her head in\r
+steady scepticism.\r
+\r
+“So obliged to you!--so very much obliged to you for the carriage,”\r
+ resumed Miss Bates.\r
+\r
+He cut her short with,\r
+\r
+“I am going to Kingston. Can I do any thing for you?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! dear, Kingston--are you?--Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she\r
+wanted something from Kingston.”\r
+\r
+“Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do any thing for _you_?”\r
+\r
+“No, I thank you. But do come in. Who do you think is here?--Miss\r
+Woodhouse and Miss Smith; so kind as to call to hear the new pianoforte.\r
+Do put up your horse at the Crown, and come in.”\r
+\r
+“Well,” said he, in a deliberating manner, “for five minutes, perhaps.”\r
+\r
+“And here is Mrs. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill too!--Quite delightful;\r
+so many friends!”\r
+\r
+“No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on\r
+to Kingston as fast as I can.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! do come in. They will be so very happy to see you.”\r
+\r
+“No, no; your room is full enough. I will call another day, and hear the\r
+pianoforte.”\r
+\r
+“Well, I am so sorry!--Oh! Mr. Knightley, what a delightful party last\r
+night; how extremely pleasant.--Did you ever see such dancing?--Was not\r
+it delightful?--Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill; I never saw any\r
+thing equal to it.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! very delightful indeed; I can say nothing less, for I suppose Miss\r
+Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill are hearing every thing that passes.\r
+And (raising his voice still more) I do not see why Miss Fairfax should\r
+not be mentioned too. I think Miss Fairfax dances very well; and Mrs.\r
+Weston is the very best country-dance player, without exception,\r
+in England. Now, if your friends have any gratitude, they will say\r
+something pretty loud about you and me in return; but I cannot stay to\r
+hear it.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! Mr. Knightley, one moment more; something of consequence--so\r
+shocked!--Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples!”\r
+\r
+“What is the matter now?”\r
+\r
+“To think of your sending us all your store apples. You said you had\r
+a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked!\r
+Mrs. Hodges may well be angry. William Larkins mentioned it here. You\r
+should not have done it, indeed you should not. Ah! he is off. He never\r
+can bear to be thanked. But I thought he would have staid now, and it\r
+would have been a pity not to have mentioned.... Well, (returning to the\r
+room,) I have not been able to succeed. Mr. Knightley cannot stop. He is\r
+going to Kingston. He asked me if he could do any thing....”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said Jane, “we heard his kind offers, we heard every thing.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes, my dear, I dare say you might, because you know, the door was\r
+open, and the window was open, and Mr. Knightley spoke loud. You must\r
+have heard every thing to be sure. ‘Can I do any thing for you at\r
+Kingston?’ said he; so I just mentioned.... Oh! Miss Woodhouse, must you\r
+be going?--You seem but just come--so very obliging of you.”\r
+\r
+Emma found it really time to be at home; the visit had already lasted\r
+long; and on examining watches, so much of the morning was perceived\r
+to be gone, that Mrs. Weston and her companion taking leave also, could\r
+allow themselves only to walk with the two young ladies to Hartfield\r
+gates, before they set off for Randalls.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+\r
+It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been\r
+known of young people passing many, many months successively, without\r
+being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue\r
+either to body or mind;--but when a beginning is made--when the\r
+felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt--it\r
+must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.\r
+\r
+Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again;\r
+and the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded\r
+to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young\r
+people in schemes on the subject. Frank’s was the first idea; and his\r
+the greatest zeal in pursuing it; for the lady was the best judge of the\r
+difficulties, and the most solicitous for accommodation and appearance.\r
+But still she had inclination enough for shewing people again how\r
+delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse danced--for\r
+doing that in which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane\r
+Fairfax--and even for simple dancing itself, without any of the wicked\r
+aids of vanity--to assist him first in pacing out the room they were in\r
+to see what it could be made to hold--and then in taking the dimensions\r
+of the other parlour, in the hope of discovering, in spite of all that\r
+Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little\r
+the largest.\r
+\r
+His first proposition and request, that the dance begun at Mr. Cole’s\r
+should be finished there--that the same party should be collected,\r
+and the same musician engaged, met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr.\r
+Weston entered into the idea with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston\r
+most willingly undertook to play as long as they could wish to dance;\r
+and the interesting employment had followed, of reckoning up exactly who\r
+there would be, and portioning out the indispensable division of space\r
+to every couple.\r
+\r
+“You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss\r
+Coxes five,” had been repeated many times over. “And there will be the\r
+two Gilberts, young Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley.\r
+Yes, that will be quite enough for pleasure. You and Miss Smith, and\r
+Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five; and for five\r
+couple there will be plenty of room.”\r
+\r
+But soon it came to be on one side,\r
+\r
+“But will there be good room for five couple?--I really do not think\r
+there will.”\r
+\r
+On another,\r
+\r
+“And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth while to\r
+stand up. Five couple are nothing, when one thinks seriously about it.\r
+It will not do to _invite_ five couple. It can be allowable only as the\r
+thought of the moment.”\r
+\r
+Somebody said that _Miss_ Gilbert was expected at her brother’s, and\r
+must be invited with the rest. Somebody else believed _Mrs_. Gilbert\r
+would have danced the other evening, if she had been asked. A word was\r
+put in for a second young Cox; and at last, Mr. Weston naming one family\r
+of cousins who must be included, and another of very old acquaintance\r
+who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five couple\r
+would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what\r
+possible manner they could be disposed of.\r
+\r
+The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. “Might not\r
+they use both rooms, and dance across the passage?” It seemed the\r
+best scheme; and yet it was not so good but that many of them wanted a\r
+better. Emma said it would be awkward; Mrs. Weston was in distress about\r
+the supper; and Mr. Woodhouse opposed it earnestly, on the score of\r
+health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed, that it could not be\r
+persevered in.\r
+\r
+“Oh! no,” said he; “it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not\r
+bear it for Emma!--Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold.\r
+So would poor little Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would\r
+be quite laid up; do not let them talk of such a wild thing. Pray do\r
+not let them talk of it. That young man (speaking lower) is very\r
+thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite\r
+the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening,\r
+and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the\r
+draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not\r
+quite the thing!”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston was sorry for such a charge. She knew the importance of\r
+it, and said every thing in her power to do it away. Every door was now\r
+closed, the passage plan given up, and the first scheme of dancing only\r
+in the room they were in resorted to again; and with such good-will on\r
+Frank Churchill’s part, that the space which a quarter of an hour before\r
+had been deemed barely sufficient for five couple, was now endeavoured\r
+to be made out quite enough for ten.\r
+\r
+“We were too magnificent,” said he. “We allowed unnecessary room. Ten\r
+couple may stand here very well.”\r
+\r
+Emma demurred. “It would be a crowd--a sad crowd; and what could be\r
+worse than dancing without space to turn in?”\r
+\r
+“Very true,” he gravely replied; “it was very bad.” But still he went on\r
+measuring, and still he ended with,\r
+\r
+“I think there will be very tolerable room for ten couple.”\r
+\r
+“No, no,” said she, “you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful\r
+to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be\r
+dancing in a crowd--and a crowd in a little room!”\r
+\r
+“There is no denying it,” he replied. “I agree with you exactly. A crowd\r
+in a little room--Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures\r
+in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!--Still, however, having\r
+proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be\r
+a disappointment to my father--and altogether--I do not know that--I am\r
+rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well.”\r
+\r
+Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little\r
+self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of\r
+dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest.\r
+Had she intended ever to _marry_ him, it might have been worth while to\r
+pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference,\r
+and the character of his temper; but for all the purposes of their\r
+acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough.\r
+\r
+Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered\r
+the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of\r
+the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement.\r
+\r
+“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” he almost immediately began, “your inclination\r
+for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors\r
+of my father’s little rooms. I bring a new proposal on the subject:--a\r
+thought of my father’s, which waits only your approbation to be acted\r
+upon. May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances\r
+of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the\r
+Crown Inn?”\r
+\r
+“The Crown!”\r
+\r
+“Yes; if you and Mr. Woodhouse see no objection, and I trust you cannot,\r
+my father hopes his friends will be so kind as to visit him there.\r
+Better accommodations, he can promise them, and not a less grateful\r
+welcome than at Randalls. It is his own idea. Mrs. Weston sees no\r
+objection to it, provided you are satisfied. This is what we all feel.\r
+Oh! you were perfectly right! Ten couple, in either of the Randalls\r
+rooms, would have been insufferable!--Dreadful!--I felt how right you\r
+were the whole time, but was too anxious for securing _any_ _thing_\r
+to like to yield. Is not it a good exchange?--You consent--I hope you\r
+consent?”\r
+\r
+“It appears to me a plan that nobody can object to, if Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Weston do not. I think it admirable; and, as far as I can answer for\r
+myself, shall be most happy--It seems the only improvement that could\r
+be. Papa, do you not think it an excellent improvement?”\r
+\r
+She was obliged to repeat and explain it, before it was fully\r
+comprehended; and then, being quite new, farther representations were\r
+necessary to make it acceptable.\r
+\r
+“No; he thought it very far from an improvement--a very bad plan--much\r
+worse than the other. A room at an inn was always damp and dangerous;\r
+never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited. If they must dance, they\r
+had better dance at Randalls. He had never been in the room at the Crown\r
+in his life--did not know the people who kept it by sight.--Oh! no--a\r
+very bad plan. They would catch worse colds at the Crown than anywhere.”\r
+\r
+“I was going to observe, sir,” said Frank Churchill, “that one of the\r
+great recommendations of this change would be the very little danger\r
+of any body’s catching cold--so much less danger at the Crown than at\r
+Randalls! Mr. Perry might have reason to regret the alteration, but\r
+nobody else could.”\r
+\r
+“Sir,” said Mr. Woodhouse, rather warmly, “you are very much mistaken\r
+if you suppose Mr. Perry to be that sort of character. Mr. Perry is\r
+extremely concerned when any of us are ill. But I do not understand how\r
+the room at the Crown can be safer for you than your father’s house.”\r
+\r
+“From the very circumstance of its being larger, sir. We shall have no\r
+occasion to open the windows at all--not once the whole evening; and it\r
+is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, letting in cold air upon\r
+heated bodies, which (as you well know, sir) does the mischief.”\r
+\r
+“Open the windows!--but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of\r
+opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I never\r
+heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!--I am sure, neither\r
+your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would suffer\r
+it.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a\r
+window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I have\r
+often known it done myself.”\r
+\r
+“Have you indeed, sir?--Bless me! I never could have supposed it. But I\r
+live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear. However,\r
+this does make a difference; and, perhaps, when we come to talk it\r
+over--but these sort of things require a good deal of consideration. One\r
+cannot resolve upon them in a hurry. If Mr. and Mrs. Weston will be so\r
+obliging as to call here one morning, we may talk it over, and see what\r
+can be done.”\r
+\r
+“But, unfortunately, sir, my time is so limited--”\r
+\r
+“Oh!” interrupted Emma, “there will be plenty of time for talking every\r
+thing over. There is no hurry at all. If it can be contrived to be at\r
+the Crown, papa, it will be very convenient for the horses. They will be\r
+so near their own stable.”\r
+\r
+“So they will, my dear. That is a great thing. Not that James ever\r
+complains; but it is right to spare our horses when we can. If I could\r
+be sure of the rooms being thoroughly aired--but is Mrs. Stokes to be\r
+trusted? I doubt it. I do not know her, even by sight.”\r
+\r
+“I can answer for every thing of that nature, sir, because it will be\r
+under Mrs. Weston’s care. Mrs. Weston undertakes to direct the whole.”\r
+\r
+“There, papa!--Now you must be satisfied--Our own dear Mrs. Weston, who\r
+is carefulness itself. Do not you remember what Mr. Perry said, so many\r
+years ago, when I had the measles? ‘If _Miss_ _Taylor_ undertakes to\r
+wrap Miss Emma up, you need not have any fears, sir.’ How often have I\r
+heard you speak of it as such a compliment to her!”\r
+\r
+“Aye, very true. Mr. Perry did say so. I shall never forget it. Poor\r
+little Emma! You were very bad with the measles; that is, you would have\r
+been very bad, but for Perry’s great attention. He came four times a day\r
+for a week. He said, from the first, it was a very good sort--which\r
+was our great comfort; but the measles are a dreadful complaint. I hope\r
+whenever poor Isabella’s little ones have the measles, she will send for\r
+Perry.”\r
+\r
+“My father and Mrs. Weston are at the Crown at this moment,” said Frank\r
+Churchill, “examining the capabilities of the house. I left them there\r
+and came on to Hartfield, impatient for your opinion, and hoping you\r
+might be persuaded to join them and give your advice on the spot. I was\r
+desired to say so from both. It would be the greatest pleasure to\r
+them, if you could allow me to attend you there. They can do nothing\r
+satisfactorily without you.”\r
+\r
+Emma was most happy to be called to such a council; and her father,\r
+engaging to think it all over while she was gone, the two young people\r
+set off together without delay for the Crown. There were Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Weston; delighted to see her and receive her approbation, very busy and\r
+very happy in their different way; she, in some little distress; and he,\r
+finding every thing perfect.\r
+\r
+“Emma,” said she, “this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places\r
+you see it is dreadfully dirty; and the wainscot is more yellow and\r
+forlorn than any thing I could have imagined.”\r
+\r
+“My dear, you are too particular,” said her husband. “What does all that\r
+signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as\r
+clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see any thing of it on our\r
+club-nights.”\r
+\r
+The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “Men never know\r
+when things are dirty or not;” and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to\r
+himself, “Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares.”\r
+\r
+One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain.\r
+It regarded a supper-room. At the time of the ballroom’s being built,\r
+suppers had not been in question; and a small card-room adjoining, was\r
+the only addition. What was to be done? This card-room would be wanted\r
+as a card-room now; or, if cards were conveniently voted unnecessary\r
+by their four selves, still was it not too small for any comfortable\r
+supper? Another room of much better size might be secured for the\r
+purpose; but it was at the other end of the house, and a long awkward\r
+passage must be gone through to get at it. This made a difficulty. Mrs.\r
+Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage;\r
+and neither Emma nor the gentlemen could tolerate the prospect of being\r
+miserably crowded at supper.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper; merely sandwiches,\r
+&c., set out in the little room; but that was scouted as a wretched\r
+suggestion. A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was\r
+pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and\r
+Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again. She then took another line of\r
+expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed,\r
+\r
+“I do not think it _is_ so very small. We shall not be many, you know.”\r
+\r
+And Mr. Weston at the same time, walking briskly with long steps through\r
+the passage, was calling out,\r
+\r
+“You talk a great deal of the length of this passage, my dear. It is a\r
+mere nothing after all; and not the least draught from the stairs.”\r
+\r
+“I wish,” said Mrs. Weston, “one could know which arrangement our guests\r
+in general would like best. To do what would be most generally pleasing\r
+must be our object--if one could but tell what that would be.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, very true,” cried Frank, “very true. You want your neighbours’\r
+opinions. I do not wonder at you. If one could ascertain what the chief\r
+of them--the Coles, for instance. They are not far off. Shall I call\r
+upon them? Or Miss Bates? She is still nearer.--And I do not know\r
+whether Miss Bates is not as likely to understand the inclinations of\r
+the rest of the people as any body. I think we do want a larger council.\r
+Suppose I go and invite Miss Bates to join us?”\r
+\r
+“Well--if you please,” said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, “if you think\r
+she will be of any use.”\r
+\r
+“You will get nothing to the purpose from Miss Bates,” said Emma. “She\r
+will be all delight and gratitude, but she will tell you nothing. She\r
+will not even listen to your questions. I see no advantage in consulting\r
+Miss Bates.”\r
+\r
+“But she is so amusing, so extremely amusing! I am very fond of hearing\r
+Miss Bates talk. And I need not bring the whole family, you know.”\r
+\r
+Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed, gave it\r
+his decided approbation.\r
+\r
+“Aye, do, Frank.--Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at\r
+once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know a properer\r
+person for shewing us how to do away difficulties. Fetch Miss Bates.\r
+We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be\r
+happy. But fetch them both. Invite them both.”\r
+\r
+“Both sir! Can the old lady?”...\r
+\r
+“The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great\r
+blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect.\r
+Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both.” And\r
+away he ran.\r
+\r
+Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, brisk-moving aunt,\r
+and her elegant niece,--Mrs. Weston, like a sweet-tempered woman and\r
+a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it\r
+much less than she had supposed before--indeed very trifling; and here\r
+ended the difficulties of decision. All the rest, in speculation at\r
+least, was perfectly smooth. All the minor arrangements of table and\r
+chair, lights and music, tea and supper, made themselves; or were left\r
+as mere trifles to be settled at any time between Mrs. Weston and Mrs.\r
+Stokes.--Every body invited, was certainly to come; Frank had already\r
+written to Enscombe to propose staying a few days beyond his fortnight,\r
+which could not possibly be refused. And a delightful dance it was to\r
+be.\r
+\r
+Most cordially, when Miss Bates arrived, did she agree that it must.\r
+As a counsellor she was not wanted; but as an approver, (a much safer\r
+character,) she was truly welcome. Her approbation, at once general\r
+and minute, warm and incessant, could not but please; and for another\r
+half-hour they were all walking to and fro, between the different rooms,\r
+some suggesting, some attending, and all in happy enjoyment of the\r
+future. The party did not break up without Emma’s being positively\r
+secured for the two first dances by the hero of the evening, nor without\r
+her overhearing Mr. Weston whisper to his wife, “He has asked her, my\r
+dear. That’s right. I knew he would!”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+\r
+One thing only was wanting to make the prospect of the ball completely\r
+satisfactory to Emma--its being fixed for a day within the granted\r
+term of Frank Churchill’s stay in Surry; for, in spite of Mr. Weston’s\r
+confidence, she could not think it so very impossible that the\r
+Churchills might not allow their nephew to remain a day beyond his\r
+fortnight. But this was not judged feasible. The preparations must take\r
+their time, nothing could be properly ready till the third week were\r
+entered on, and for a few days they must be planning, proceeding and\r
+hoping in uncertainty--at the risk--in her opinion, the great risk, of\r
+its being all in vain.\r
+\r
+Enscombe however was gracious, gracious in fact, if not in word. His\r
+wish of staying longer evidently did not please; but it was not opposed.\r
+All was safe and prosperous; and as the removal of one solicitude\r
+generally makes way for another, Emma, being now certain of her\r
+ball, began to adopt as the next vexation Mr. Knightley’s provoking\r
+indifference about it. Either because he did not dance himself, or\r
+because the plan had been formed without his being consulted, he\r
+seemed resolved that it should not interest him, determined against its\r
+exciting any present curiosity, or affording him any future amusement.\r
+To her voluntary communications Emma could get no more approving reply,\r
+than,\r
+\r
+“Very well. If the Westons think it worth while to be at all this\r
+trouble for a few hours of noisy entertainment, I have nothing to say\r
+against it, but that they shall not chuse pleasures for me.--Oh! yes,\r
+I must be there; I could not refuse; and I will keep as much awake as\r
+I can; but I would rather be at home, looking over William Larkins’s\r
+week’s account; much rather, I confess.--Pleasure in seeing\r
+dancing!--not I, indeed--I never look at it--I do not know who\r
+does.--Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.\r
+Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very\r
+different.”\r
+\r
+This Emma felt was aimed at her; and it made her quite angry. It was not\r
+in compliment to Jane Fairfax however that he was so indifferent, or so\r
+indignant; he was not guided by _her_ feelings in reprobating the ball,\r
+for _she_ enjoyed the thought of it to an extraordinary degree. It made\r
+her animated--open hearted--she voluntarily said;--\r
+\r
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I hope nothing may happen to prevent the ball.\r
+What a disappointment it would be! I do look forward to it, I own, with\r
+_very_ great pleasure.”\r
+\r
+It was not to oblige Jane Fairfax therefore that he would have preferred\r
+the society of William Larkins. No!--she was more and more convinced\r
+that Mrs. Weston was quite mistaken in that surmise. There was a great\r
+deal of friendly and of compassionate attachment on his side--but no\r
+love.\r
+\r
+Alas! there was soon no leisure for quarrelling with Mr. Knightley. Two\r
+days of joyful security were immediately followed by the over-throw of\r
+every thing. A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew’s\r
+instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwell--far too unwell to do without\r
+him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband)\r
+when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual\r
+unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of\r
+herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle,\r
+and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay.\r
+\r
+The substance of this letter was forwarded to Emma, in a note from Mrs.\r
+Weston, instantly. As to his going, it was inevitable. He must be gone\r
+within a few hours, though without feeling any real alarm for his aunt,\r
+to lessen his repugnance. He knew her illnesses; they never occurred but\r
+for her own convenience.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston added, “that he could only allow himself time to hurry to\r
+Highbury, after breakfast, and take leave of the few friends there\r
+whom he could suppose to feel any interest in him; and that he might be\r
+expected at Hartfield very soon.”\r
+\r
+This wretched note was the finale of Emma’s breakfast. When once it had\r
+been read, there was no doing any thing, but lament and exclaim. The\r
+loss of the ball--the loss of the young man--and all that the young man\r
+might be feeling!--It was too wretched!--Such a delightful evening as\r
+it would have been!--Every body so happy! and she and her partner the\r
+happiest!--“I said it would be so,” was the only consolation.\r
+\r
+Her father’s feelings were quite distinct. He thought principally of\r
+Mrs. Churchill’s illness, and wanted to know how she was treated; and as\r
+for the ball, it was shocking to have dear Emma disappointed; but they\r
+would all be safer at home.\r
+\r
+Emma was ready for her visitor some time before he appeared; but if this\r
+reflected at all upon his impatience, his sorrowful look and total want\r
+of spirits when he did come might redeem him. He felt the going away\r
+almost too much to speak of it. His dejection was most evident. He\r
+sat really lost in thought for the first few minutes; and when rousing\r
+himself, it was only to say,\r
+\r
+“Of all horrid things, leave-taking is the worst.”\r
+\r
+“But you will come again,” said Emma. “This will not be your only visit\r
+to Randalls.”\r
+\r
+“Ah!--(shaking his head)--the uncertainty of when I may be able to\r
+return!--I shall try for it with a zeal!--It will be the object of\r
+all my thoughts and cares!--and if my uncle and aunt go to town this\r
+spring--but I am afraid--they did not stir last spring--I am afraid it\r
+is a custom gone for ever.”\r
+\r
+“Our poor ball must be quite given up.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! that ball!--why did we wait for any thing?--why not seize the\r
+pleasure at once?--How often is happiness destroyed by preparation,\r
+foolish preparation!--You told us it would be so.--Oh! Miss Woodhouse,\r
+why are you always so right?”\r
+\r
+“Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much\r
+rather have been merry than wise.”\r
+\r
+“If I can come again, we are still to have our ball. My father depends\r
+on it. Do not forget your engagement.”\r
+\r
+Emma looked graciously.\r
+\r
+“Such a fortnight as it has been!” he continued; “every day more\r
+precious and more delightful than the day before!--every day making\r
+me less fit to bear any other place. Happy those, who can remain at\r
+Highbury!”\r
+\r
+“As you do us such ample justice now,” said Emma, laughing, “I will\r
+venture to ask, whether you did not come a little doubtfully at first?\r
+Do not we rather surpass your expectations? I am sure we do. I am sure\r
+you did not much expect to like us. You would not have been so long in\r
+coming, if you had had a pleasant idea of Highbury.”\r
+\r
+He laughed rather consciously; and though denying the sentiment, Emma\r
+was convinced that it had been so.\r
+\r
+“And you must be off this very morning?”\r
+\r
+“Yes; my father is to join me here: we shall walk back together, and I\r
+must be off immediately. I am almost afraid that every moment will bring\r
+him.”\r
+\r
+“Not five minutes to spare even for your friends Miss Fairfax and Miss\r
+Bates? How unlucky! Miss Bates’s powerful, argumentative mind might have\r
+strengthened yours.”\r
+\r
+“Yes--I _have_ called there; passing the door, I thought it better. It\r
+was a right thing to do. I went in for three minutes, and was detained\r
+by Miss Bates’s being absent. She was out; and I felt it impossible not\r
+to wait till she came in. She is a woman that one may, that one _must_\r
+laugh at; but that one would not wish to slight. It was better to pay my\r
+visit, then”--\r
+\r
+He hesitated, got up, walked to a window.\r
+\r
+“In short,” said he, “perhaps, Miss Woodhouse--I think you can hardly be\r
+quite without suspicion”--\r
+\r
+He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly knew\r
+what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely\r
+serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in\r
+the hope of putting it by, she calmly said,\r
+\r
+“You are quite in the right; it was most natural to pay your visit,\r
+then”--\r
+\r
+He was silent. She believed he was looking at her; probably reflecting\r
+on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner. She heard\r
+him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had _cause_ to sigh.\r
+He could not believe her to be encouraging him. A few awkward moments\r
+passed, and he sat down again; and in a more determined manner said,\r
+\r
+“It was something to feel that all the rest of my time might be given to\r
+Hartfield. My regard for Hartfield is most warm”--\r
+\r
+He stopt again, rose again, and seemed quite embarrassed.--He was more\r
+in love with her than Emma had supposed; and who can say how it might\r
+have ended, if his father had not made his appearance? Mr. Woodhouse\r
+soon followed; and the necessity of exertion made him composed.\r
+\r
+A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial. Mr.\r
+Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of\r
+procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that\r
+was doubtful, said, “It was time to go;” and the young man, though he\r
+might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave.\r
+\r
+“I shall hear about you all,” said he; “that is my chief consolation.\r
+I shall hear of every thing that is going on among you. I have engaged\r
+Mrs. Weston to correspond with me. She has been so kind as to promise\r
+it. Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really\r
+interested in the absent!--she will tell me every thing. In her letters\r
+I shall be at dear Highbury again.”\r
+\r
+A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest “Good-bye,” closed the\r
+speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill. Short had been\r
+the notice--short their meeting; he was gone; and Emma felt so sorry\r
+to part, and foresaw so great a loss to their little society from his\r
+absence as to begin to be afraid of being too sorry, and feeling it too\r
+much.\r
+\r
+It was a sad change. They had been meeting almost every day since his\r
+arrival. Certainly his being at Randalls had given great spirit to\r
+the last two weeks--indescribable spirit; the idea, the expectation\r
+of seeing him which every morning had brought, the assurance of his\r
+attentions, his liveliness, his manners! It had been a very happy\r
+fortnight, and forlorn must be the sinking from it into the common\r
+course of Hartfield days. To complete every other recommendation, he had\r
+_almost_ told her that he loved her. What strength, or what constancy of\r
+affection he might be subject to, was another point; but at present\r
+she could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious\r
+preference of herself; and this persuasion, joined to all the rest,\r
+made her think that she _must_ be a little in love with him, in spite of\r
+every previous determination against it.\r
+\r
+“I certainly must,” said she. “This sensation of listlessness,\r
+weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself,\r
+this feeling of every thing’s being dull and insipid about the house!--\r
+I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I\r
+were not--for a few weeks at least. Well! evil to some is always good to\r
+others. I shall have many fellow-mourners for the ball, if not for Frank\r
+Churchill; but Mr. Knightley will be happy. He may spend the evening\r
+with his dear William Larkins now if he likes.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley, however, shewed no triumphant happiness. He could not say\r
+that he was sorry on his own account; his very cheerful look would have\r
+contradicted him if he had; but he said, and very steadily, that he\r
+was sorry for the disappointment of the others, and with considerable\r
+kindness added,\r
+\r
+“You, Emma, who have so few opportunities of dancing, you are really out\r
+of luck; you are very much out of luck!”\r
+\r
+It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest\r
+regret in this woeful change; but when they did meet, her composure\r
+was odious. She had been particularly unwell, however, suffering from\r
+headache to a degree, which made her aunt declare, that had the ball\r
+taken place, she did not think Jane could have attended it; and it was\r
+charity to impute some of her unbecoming indifference to the languor of\r
+ill-health.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas\r
+only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good\r
+deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing\r
+Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever\r
+in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him, and\r
+quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were\r
+his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to\r
+Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit\r
+herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed\r
+for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and,\r
+pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and\r
+farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or\r
+working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close\r
+of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing\r
+elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his\r
+side was that she _refused_ _him_. Their affection was always to subside\r
+into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their\r
+parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this,\r
+it struck her that she could not be very much in love; for in spite of\r
+her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never\r
+to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle\r
+than she could foresee in her own feelings.\r
+\r
+“I do not find myself making any use of the word _sacrifice_,” said\r
+she.--“In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is\r
+there any allusion to making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not\r
+really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will\r
+not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I\r
+should be sorry to be more.”\r
+\r
+Upon the whole, she was equally contented with her view of his feelings.\r
+\r
+“_He_ is undoubtedly very much in love--every thing denotes it--very\r
+much in love indeed!--and when he comes again, if his affection\r
+continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.--It would be most\r
+inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. Not that I\r
+imagine he can think I have been encouraging him hitherto. No, if he\r
+had believed me at all to share his feelings, he would not have been\r
+so wretched. Could he have thought himself encouraged, his looks and\r
+language at parting would have been different.--Still, however, I must\r
+be on my guard. This is in the supposition of his attachment continuing\r
+what it now is; but I do not know that I expect it will; I do not look\r
+upon him to be quite the sort of man--I do not altogether build upon\r
+his steadiness or constancy.--His feelings are warm, but I can imagine\r
+them rather changeable.--Every consideration of the subject, in short,\r
+makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.--I\r
+shall do very well again after a little while--and then, it will be a\r
+good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives,\r
+and I shall have been let off easily.”\r
+\r
+When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it; and\r
+she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her\r
+at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had\r
+undervalued their strength. It was a long, well-written letter, giving\r
+the particulars of his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the\r
+affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable,\r
+and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed\r
+attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of\r
+apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs.\r
+Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast\r
+between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was\r
+just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more\r
+might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.--The charm\r
+of her own name was not wanting. _Miss_ _Woodhouse_ appeared more than\r
+once, and never without a something of pleasing connexion, either a\r
+compliment to her taste, or a remembrance of what she had said; and in\r
+the very last time of its meeting her eye, unadorned as it was by any\r
+such broad wreath of gallantry, she yet could discern the effect of\r
+her influence and acknowledge the greatest compliment perhaps of all\r
+conveyed. Compressed into the very lowest vacant corner were these\r
+words--“I had not a spare moment on Tuesday, as you know, for Miss\r
+Woodhouse’s beautiful little friend. Pray make my excuses and adieus\r
+to her.” This, Emma could not doubt, was all for herself. Harriet was\r
+remembered only from being _her_ friend. His information and prospects\r
+as to Enscombe were neither worse nor better than had been anticipated;\r
+Mrs. Churchill was recovering, and he dared not yet, even in his own\r
+imagination, fix a time for coming to Randalls again.\r
+\r
+Gratifying, however, and stimulative as was the letter in the material\r
+part, its sentiments, she yet found, when it was folded up and returned\r
+to Mrs. Weston, that it had not added any lasting warmth, that she could\r
+still do without the writer, and that he must learn to do without her.\r
+Her intentions were unchanged. Her resolution of refusal only grew more\r
+interesting by the addition of a scheme for his subsequent consolation\r
+and happiness. His recollection of Harriet, and the words which\r
+clothed it, the “beautiful little friend,” suggested to her the\r
+idea of Harriet’s succeeding her in his affections. Was it\r
+impossible?--No.--Harriet undoubtedly was greatly his inferior in\r
+understanding; but he had been very much struck with the loveliness\r
+of her face and the warm simplicity of her manner; and all the\r
+probabilities of circumstance and connexion were in her favour.--For\r
+Harriet, it would be advantageous and delightful indeed.\r
+\r
+“I must not dwell upon it,” said she.--“I must not think of it. I know\r
+the danger of indulging such speculations. But stranger things have\r
+happened; and when we cease to care for each other as we do now, it\r
+will be the means of confirming us in that sort of true disinterested\r
+friendship which I can already look forward to with pleasure.”\r
+\r
+It was well to have a comfort in store on Harriet’s behalf, though it\r
+might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom; for evil in that quarter\r
+was at hand. As Frank Churchill’s arrival had succeeded Mr. Elton’s\r
+engagement in the conversation of Highbury, as the latest interest\r
+had entirely borne down the first, so now upon Frank Churchill’s\r
+disappearance, Mr. Elton’s concerns were assuming the most irresistible\r
+form.--His wedding-day was named. He would soon be among them again; Mr.\r
+Elton and his bride. There was hardly time to talk over the first letter\r
+from Enscombe before “Mr. Elton and his bride” was in every body’s\r
+mouth, and Frank Churchill was forgotten. Emma grew sick at the sound.\r
+She had had three weeks of happy exemption from Mr. Elton; and Harriet’s\r
+mind, she had been willing to hope, had been lately gaining strength.\r
+With Mr. Weston’s ball in view at least, there had been a great deal of\r
+insensibility to other things; but it was now too evident that she had\r
+not attained such a state of composure as could stand against the actual\r
+approach--new carriage, bell-ringing, and all.\r
+\r
+Poor Harriet was in a flutter of spirits which required all the\r
+reasonings and soothings and attentions of every kind that Emma could\r
+give. Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had\r
+a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience; but it was heavy work\r
+to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed\r
+to, without being able to make their opinions the same. Harriet listened\r
+submissively, and said “it was very true--it was just as Miss Woodhouse\r
+described--it was not worth while to think about them--and she would not\r
+think about them any longer” but no change of subject could avail, and\r
+the next half-hour saw her as anxious and restless about the Eltons as\r
+before. At last Emma attacked her on another ground.\r
+\r
+“Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr.\r
+Elton’s marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make _me_.\r
+You could not give me a greater reproof for the mistake I fell into.\r
+It was all my doing, I know. I have not forgotten it, I assure\r
+you.--Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive you--and it will\r
+be a painful reflection to me for ever. Do not imagine me in danger of\r
+forgetting it.”\r
+\r
+Harriet felt this too much to utter more than a few words of eager\r
+exclamation. Emma continued,\r
+\r
+“I have not said, exert yourself Harriet for my sake; think less, talk\r
+less of Mr. Elton for my sake; because for your own sake rather, I\r
+would wish it to be done, for the sake of what is more important than my\r
+comfort, a habit of self-command in you, a consideration of what is your\r
+duty, an attention to propriety, an endeavour to avoid the suspicions of\r
+others, to save your health and credit, and restore your tranquillity.\r
+These are the motives which I have been pressing on you. They are very\r
+important--and sorry I am that you cannot feel them sufficiently to act\r
+upon them. My being saved from pain is a very secondary consideration.\r
+I want you to save yourself from greater pain. Perhaps I may sometimes\r
+have felt that Harriet would not forget what was due--or rather what\r
+would be kind by me.”\r
+\r
+This appeal to her affections did more than all the rest. The idea of\r
+wanting gratitude and consideration for Miss Woodhouse, whom she really\r
+loved extremely, made her wretched for a while, and when the violence\r
+of grief was comforted away, still remained powerful enough to prompt to\r
+what was right and support her in it very tolerably.\r
+\r
+“You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my life--Want\r
+gratitude to you!--Nobody is equal to you!--I care for nobody as I do\r
+for you!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!”\r
+\r
+Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and\r
+manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so\r
+well, nor valued her affection so highly before.\r
+\r
+“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” said she afterwards to\r
+herself. “There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness\r
+of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the\r
+clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will. It\r
+is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally\r
+beloved--which gives Isabella all her popularity.--I have it not--but\r
+I know how to prize and respect it.--Harriet is my superior in all the\r
+charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet!--I would not change\r
+you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female\r
+breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!--Harriet is worth a\r
+hundred such--And for a wife--a sensible man’s wife--it is invaluable. I\r
+mention no names; but happy the man who changes Emma for Harriet!”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton was first seen at church: but though devotion might be\r
+interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and\r
+it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to\r
+settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or\r
+not pretty at all.\r
+\r
+Emma had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety, to make\r
+her resolve on not being the last to pay her respects; and she made a\r
+point of Harriet’s going with her, that the worst of the business might\r
+be gone through as soon as possible.\r
+\r
+She could not enter the house again, could not be in the same room to\r
+which she had with such vain artifice retreated three months ago, to\r
+lace up her boot, without _recollecting_. A thousand vexatious thoughts\r
+would recur. Compliments, charades, and horrible blunders; and it was\r
+not to be supposed that poor Harriet should not be recollecting too; but\r
+she behaved very well, and was only rather pale and silent. The visit\r
+was of course short; and there was so much embarrassment and occupation\r
+of mind to shorten it, that Emma would not allow herself entirely to\r
+form an opinion of the lady, and on no account to give one, beyond the\r
+nothing-meaning terms of being “elegantly dressed, and very pleasing.”\r
+\r
+She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault,\r
+but she suspected that there was no elegance;--ease, but not elegance.--\r
+She was almost sure that for a young woman, a stranger, a bride, there\r
+was too much ease. Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty;\r
+but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma\r
+thought at least it would turn out so.\r
+\r
+As for Mr. Elton, his manners did not appear--but no, she would not\r
+permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners. It was an\r
+awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man\r
+had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman\r
+was better off; she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the\r
+privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to\r
+depend on; and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr.\r
+Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just\r
+married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had\r
+been expected to marry, she must allow him to have the right to look as\r
+little wise, and to be as much affectedly, and as little really easy as\r
+could be.\r
+\r
+“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” said Harriet, when they had quitted the\r
+house, and after waiting in vain for her friend to begin; “Well, Miss\r
+Woodhouse, (with a gentle sigh,) what do you think of her?--Is not she\r
+very charming?”\r
+\r
+There was a little hesitation in Emma’s answer.\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes--very--a very pleasing young woman.”\r
+\r
+“I think her beautiful, quite beautiful.”\r
+\r
+“Very nicely dressed, indeed; a remarkably elegant gown.”\r
+\r
+“I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no--there is nothing to surprize one at all.--A pretty fortune; and\r
+she came in his way.”\r
+\r
+“I dare say,” returned Harriet, sighing again, “I dare say she was very\r
+much attached to him.”\r
+\r
+“Perhaps she might; but it is not every man’s fate to marry the woman\r
+who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this\r
+the best offer she was likely to have.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said Harriet earnestly, “and well she might, nobody could ever\r
+have a better. Well, I wish them happy with all my heart. And now, Miss\r
+Woodhouse, I do not think I shall mind seeing them again. He is just as\r
+superior as ever;--but being married, you know, it is quite a different\r
+thing. No, indeed, Miss Woodhouse, you need not be afraid; I can sit and\r
+admire him now without any great misery. To know that he has not thrown\r
+himself away, is such a comfort!--She does seem a charming young woman,\r
+just what he deserves. Happy creature! He called her ‘Augusta.’ How\r
+delightful!”\r
+\r
+When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind. She could then see\r
+more and judge better. From Harriet’s happening not to be at Hartfield,\r
+and her father’s being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter\r
+of an hour of the lady’s conversation to herself, and could composedly\r
+attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that\r
+Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and\r
+thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very\r
+superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert\r
+and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people,\r
+and one style of living; that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that\r
+her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good.\r
+\r
+Harriet would have been a better match. If not wise or refined herself,\r
+she would have connected him with those who were; but Miss Hawkins, it\r
+might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of\r
+her own set. The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the\r
+alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him.\r
+\r
+The very first subject after being seated was Maple Grove, “My brother\r
+Mr. Suckling’s seat;”--a comparison of Hartfield to Maple Grove. The\r
+grounds of Hartfield were small, but neat and pretty; and the house was\r
+modern and well-built. Mrs. Elton seemed most favourably impressed\r
+by the size of the room, the entrance, and all that she could see or\r
+imagine. “Very like Maple Grove indeed!--She was quite struck by the\r
+likeness!--That room was the very shape and size of the morning-room\r
+at Maple Grove; her sister’s favourite room.”--Mr. Elton was appealed\r
+to.--“Was not it astonishingly like?--She could really almost fancy\r
+herself at Maple Grove.”\r
+\r
+“And the staircase--You know, as I came in, I observed how very like the\r
+staircase was; placed exactly in the same part of the house. I really\r
+could not help exclaiming! I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very\r
+delightful to me, to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to\r
+as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy months there! (with a little\r
+sigh of sentiment). A charming place, undoubtedly. Every body who\r
+sees it is struck by its beauty; but to me, it has been quite a home.\r
+Whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will\r
+understand how very delightful it is to meet with any thing at all like\r
+what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of\r
+matrimony.”\r
+\r
+Emma made as slight a reply as she could; but it was fully sufficient\r
+for Mrs. Elton, who only wanted to be talking herself.\r
+\r
+“So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the house--the\r
+grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like.\r
+The laurels at Maple Grove are in the same profusion as here, and stand\r
+very much in the same way--just across the lawn; and I had a glimpse\r
+of a fine large tree, with a bench round it, which put me so exactly in\r
+mind! My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People\r
+who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing\r
+in the same style.”\r
+\r
+Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that\r
+people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the\r
+extensive grounds of any body else; but it was not worth while to attack\r
+an error so double-dyed, and therefore only said in reply,\r
+\r
+“When you have seen more of this country, I am afraid you will think you\r
+have overrated Hartfield. Surry is full of beauties.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes, I am quite aware of that. It is the garden of England, you\r
+know. Surry is the garden of England.”\r
+\r
+“Yes; but we must not rest our claims on that distinction. Many\r
+counties, I believe, are called the garden of England, as well as\r
+Surry.”\r
+\r
+“No, I fancy not,” replied Mrs. Elton, with a most satisfied smile.\r
+“I never heard any county but Surry called so.”\r
+\r
+Emma was silenced.\r
+\r
+“My brother and sister have promised us a visit in the spring, or summer\r
+at farthest,” continued Mrs. Elton; “and that will be our time for\r
+exploring. While they are with us, we shall explore a great deal, I dare\r
+say. They will have their barouche-landau, of course, which holds four\r
+perfectly; and therefore, without saying any thing of _our_ carriage,\r
+we should be able to explore the different beauties extremely well. They\r
+would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the\r
+year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their\r
+bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable.\r
+When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss\r
+Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr.\r
+Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King’s-Weston\r
+twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their\r
+first having the barouche-landau. You have many parties of that kind\r
+here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse, every summer?”\r
+\r
+“No; not immediately here. We are rather out of distance of the very\r
+striking beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of; and we\r
+are a very quiet set of people, I believe; more disposed to stay at home\r
+than engage in schemes of pleasure.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can\r
+be more devoted to home than I am. I was quite a proverb for it at Maple\r
+Grove. Many a time has Selina said, when she has been going to Bristol,\r
+‘I really cannot get this girl to move from the house. I absolutely must\r
+go in by myself, though I hate being stuck up in the barouche-landau\r
+without a companion; but Augusta, I believe, with her own good-will,\r
+would never stir beyond the park paling.’ Many a time has she said so;\r
+and yet I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think, on the contrary,\r
+when people shut themselves up entirely from society, it is a very\r
+bad thing; and that it is much more advisable to mix in the world in\r
+a proper degree, without living in it either too much or too little. I\r
+perfectly understand your situation, however, Miss Woodhouse--(looking\r
+towards Mr. Woodhouse), Your father’s state of health must be a great\r
+drawback. Why does not he try Bath?--Indeed he should. Let me recommend\r
+Bath to you. I assure you I have no doubt of its doing Mr. Woodhouse\r
+good.”\r
+\r
+“My father tried it more than once, formerly; but without receiving any\r
+benefit; and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare say, is not unknown to you,\r
+does not conceive it would be at all more likely to be useful now.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! that’s a great pity; for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, where the\r
+waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give. In my Bath\r
+life, I have seen such instances of it! And it is so cheerful a place,\r
+that it could not fail of being of use to Mr. Woodhouse’s spirits,\r
+which, I understand, are sometimes much depressed. And as to its\r
+recommendations to _you_, I fancy I need not take much pains to dwell\r
+on them. The advantages of Bath to the young are pretty generally\r
+understood. It would be a charming introduction for you, who have lived\r
+so secluded a life; and I could immediately secure you some of the best\r
+society in the place. A line from me would bring you a little host of\r
+acquaintance; and my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the lady I have\r
+always resided with when in Bath, would be most happy to shew you any\r
+attentions, and would be the very person for you to go into public\r
+with.”\r
+\r
+It was as much as Emma could bear, without being impolite. The idea\r
+of her being indebted to Mrs. Elton for what was called an\r
+_introduction_--of her going into public under the auspices of a friend\r
+of Mrs. Elton’s--probably some vulgar, dashing widow, who, with the\r
+help of a boarder, just made a shift to live!--The dignity of Miss\r
+Woodhouse, of Hartfield, was sunk indeed!\r
+\r
+She restrained herself, however, from any of the reproofs she could have\r
+given, and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly; “but their going to Bath was\r
+quite out of the question; and she was not perfectly convinced that\r
+the place might suit her better than her father.” And then, to prevent\r
+farther outrage and indignation, changed the subject directly.\r
+\r
+“I do not ask whether you are musical, Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions,\r
+a lady’s character generally precedes her; and Highbury has long known\r
+that you are a superior performer.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no, indeed; I must protest against any such idea. A superior\r
+performer!--very far from it, I assure you. Consider from how partial\r
+a quarter your information came. I am doatingly fond of\r
+music--passionately fond;--and my friends say I am not entirely devoid\r
+of taste; but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is\r
+_mediocre_ to the last degree. You, Miss Woodhouse, I well know, play\r
+delightfully. I assure you it has been the greatest satisfaction,\r
+comfort, and delight to me, to hear what a musical society I am got\r
+into. I absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of life to\r
+me; and having always been used to a very musical society, both at\r
+Maple Grove and in Bath, it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I\r
+honestly said as much to Mr. E. when he was speaking of my future\r
+home, and expressing his fears lest the retirement of it should be\r
+disagreeable; and the inferiority of the house too--knowing what I had\r
+been accustomed to--of course he was not wholly without apprehension.\r
+When he was speaking of it in that way, I honestly said that _the_\r
+_world_ I could give up--parties, balls, plays--for I had no fear of\r
+retirement. Blessed with so many resources within myself, the world was\r
+not necessary to _me_. I could do very well without it. To those who had\r
+no resources it was a different thing; but my resources made me quite\r
+independent. And as to smaller-sized rooms than I had been used to, I\r
+really could not give it a thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal to any\r
+sacrifice of that description. Certainly I had been accustomed to every\r
+luxury at Maple Grove; but I did assure him that two carriages were not\r
+necessary to my happiness, nor were spacious apartments. ‘But,’ said I,\r
+‘to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a\r
+musical society. I condition for nothing else; but without music, life\r
+would be a blank to me.’”\r
+\r
+“We cannot suppose,” said Emma, smiling, “that Mr. Elton would hesitate\r
+to assure you of there being a _very_ musical society in Highbury; and\r
+I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be\r
+pardoned, in consideration of the motive.”\r
+\r
+“No, indeed, I have no doubts at all on that head. I am delighted to\r
+find myself in such a circle. I hope we shall have many sweet little\r
+concerts together. I think, Miss Woodhouse, you and I must establish a\r
+musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours.\r
+Will not it be a good plan? If _we_ exert ourselves, I think we shall\r
+not be long in want of allies. Something of that nature would be\r
+particularly desirable for _me_, as an inducement to keep me in\r
+practice; for married women, you know--there is a sad story against\r
+them, in general. They are but too apt to give up music.”\r
+\r
+“But you, who are so extremely fond of it--there can be no danger,\r
+surely?”\r
+\r
+“I should hope not; but really when I look around among my acquaintance,\r
+I tremble. Selina has entirely given up music--never touches the\r
+instrument--though she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs.\r
+Jeffereys--Clara Partridge, that was--and of the two Milmans, now Mrs.\r
+Bird and Mrs. James Cooper; and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my\r
+word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with\r
+Selina; but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has\r
+many things to call her attention. I believe I was half an hour this\r
+morning shut up with my housekeeper.”\r
+\r
+“But every thing of that kind,” said Emma, “will soon be in so regular a\r
+train--”\r
+\r
+“Well,” said Mrs. Elton, laughing, “we shall see.”\r
+\r
+Emma, finding her so determined upon neglecting her music, had nothing\r
+more to say; and, after a moment’s pause, Mrs. Elton chose another\r
+subject.\r
+\r
+“We have been calling at Randalls,” said she, “and found them both at\r
+home; and very pleasant people they seem to be. I like them extremely.\r
+Mr. Weston seems an excellent creature--quite a first-rate favourite\r
+with me already, I assure you. And _she_ appears so truly good--there is\r
+something so motherly and kind-hearted about her, that it wins upon one\r
+directly. She was your governess, I think?”\r
+\r
+Emma was almost too much astonished to answer; but Mrs. Elton hardly\r
+waited for the affirmative before she went on.\r
+\r
+“Having understood as much, I was rather astonished to find her so very\r
+lady-like! But she is really quite the gentlewoman.”\r
+\r
+“Mrs. Weston’s manners,” said Emma, “were always particularly good.\r
+Their propriety, simplicity, and elegance, would make them the safest\r
+model for any young woman.”\r
+\r
+“And who do you think came in while we were there?”\r
+\r
+Emma was quite at a loss. The tone implied some old acquaintance--and\r
+how could she possibly guess?\r
+\r
+“Knightley!” continued Mrs. Elton; “Knightley himself!--Was not it\r
+lucky?--for, not being within when he called the other day, I had never\r
+seen him before; and of course, as so particular a friend of Mr. E.’s,\r
+I had a great curiosity. ‘My friend Knightley’ had been so often\r
+mentioned, that I was really impatient to see him; and I must do my\r
+caro sposo the justice to say that he need not be ashamed of his friend.\r
+Knightley is quite the gentleman. I like him very much. Decidedly, I\r
+think, a very gentleman-like man.”\r
+\r
+Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off; and Emma could\r
+breathe.\r
+\r
+“Insufferable woman!” was her immediate exclamation. “Worse than I had\r
+supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!--I could not have\r
+believed it. Knightley!--never seen him in her life before, and call\r
+him Knightley!--and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart,\r
+vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her _caro_ _sposo_, and her\r
+resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery.\r
+Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether\r
+he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could\r
+not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to\r
+form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs.\r
+Weston!--Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a\r
+gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond\r
+my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank\r
+Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he\r
+would be! Ah! there I am--thinking of him directly. Always the first\r
+person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes\r
+as regularly into my mind!”--\r
+\r
+All this ran so glibly through her thoughts, that by the time her father\r
+had arranged himself, after the bustle of the Eltons’ departure, and was\r
+ready to speak, she was very tolerably capable of attending.\r
+\r
+“Well, my dear,” he deliberately began, “considering we never saw her\r
+before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady; and I dare say she\r
+was very much pleased with you. She speaks a little too quick. A little\r
+quickness of voice there is which rather hurts the ear. But I believe\r
+I am nice; I do not like strange voices; and nobody speaks like you and\r
+poor Miss Taylor. However, she seems a very obliging, pretty-behaved\r
+young lady, and no doubt will make him a very good wife. Though I think\r
+he had better not have married. I made the best excuses I could for not\r
+having been able to wait on him and Mrs. Elton on this happy occasion; I\r
+said that I hoped I _should_ in the course of the summer. But I ought to\r
+have gone before. Not to wait upon a bride is very remiss. Ah! it shews\r
+what a sad invalid I am! But I do not like the corner into Vicarage\r
+Lane.”\r
+\r
+“I dare say your apologies were accepted, sir. Mr. Elton knows you.”\r
+\r
+“Yes: but a young lady--a bride--I ought to have paid my respects to her\r
+if possible. It was being very deficient.”\r
+\r
+“But, my dear papa, you are no friend to matrimony; and therefore why\r
+should you be so anxious to pay your respects to a _bride_? It ought to\r
+be no recommendation to _you_. It is encouraging people to marry if you\r
+make so much of them.”\r
+\r
+“No, my dear, I never encouraged any body to marry, but I would always\r
+wish to pay every proper attention to a lady--and a bride, especially,\r
+is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to _her_. A bride, you\r
+know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who\r
+they may.”\r
+\r
+“Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what\r
+is. And I should never have expected you to be lending your sanction to\r
+such vanity-baits for poor young ladies.”\r
+\r
+“My dear, you do not understand me. This is a matter of mere\r
+common politeness and good-breeding, and has nothing to do with any\r
+encouragement to people to marry.”\r
+\r
+Emma had done. Her father was growing nervous, and could not understand\r
+_her_. Her mind returned to Mrs. Elton’s offences, and long, very long,\r
+did they occupy her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill\r
+opinion of Mrs. Elton. Her observation had been pretty correct. Such as\r
+Mrs. Elton appeared to her on this second interview, such she appeared\r
+whenever they met again,--self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant,\r
+and ill-bred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment,\r
+but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior\r
+knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood;\r
+and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs.\r
+Elton’s consequence only could surpass.\r
+\r
+There was no reason to suppose Mr. Elton thought at all differently from\r
+his wife. He seemed not merely happy with her, but proud. He had the air\r
+of congratulating himself on having brought such a woman to Highbury,\r
+as not even Miss Woodhouse could equal; and the greater part of her\r
+new acquaintance, disposed to commend, or not in the habit of judging,\r
+following the lead of Miss Bates’s good-will, or taking it for granted\r
+that the bride must be as clever and as agreeable as she professed\r
+herself, were very well satisfied; so that Mrs. Elton’s praise\r
+passed from one mouth to another as it ought to do, unimpeded by Miss\r
+Woodhouse, who readily continued her first contribution and talked with\r
+a good grace of her being “very pleasant and very elegantly dressed.”\r
+\r
+In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at\r
+first. Her feelings altered towards Emma.--Offended, probably, by the\r
+little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew\r
+back in her turn and gradually became much more cold and distant; and\r
+though the effect was agreeable, the ill-will which produced it was\r
+necessarily increasing Emma’s dislike. Her manners, too--and Mr.\r
+Elton’s, were unpleasant towards Harriet. They were sneering and\r
+negligent. Emma hoped it must rapidly work Harriet’s cure; but the\r
+sensations which could prompt such behaviour sunk them both very\r
+much.--It was not to be doubted that poor Harriet’s attachment had been\r
+an offering to conjugal unreserve, and her own share in the story, under\r
+a colouring the least favourable to her and the most soothing to him,\r
+had in all likelihood been given also. She was, of course, the object\r
+of their joint dislike.--When they had nothing else to say, it must be\r
+always easy to begin abusing Miss Woodhouse; and the enmity which\r
+they dared not shew in open disrespect to her, found a broader vent in\r
+contemptuous treatment of Harriet.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton took a great fancy to Jane Fairfax; and from the first. Not\r
+merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to\r
+recommend the other, but from the very first; and she was not satisfied\r
+with expressing a natural and reasonable admiration--but without\r
+solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and\r
+befriend her.--Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the\r
+third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton’s knight-errantry\r
+on the subject.--\r
+\r
+“Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.--I quite rave\r
+about Jane Fairfax.--A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and\r
+ladylike--and with such talents!--I assure you I think she has very\r
+extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely\r
+well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she\r
+is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmth--but, upon my word,\r
+I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.--And her situation is so calculated\r
+to affect one!--Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour\r
+to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers\r
+must not be suffered to remain unknown.--I dare say you have heard those\r
+charming lines of the poet,\r
+\r
+ ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,\r
+ ‘And waste its fragrance on the desert air.’\r
+\r
+We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax.”\r
+\r
+“I cannot think there is any danger of it,” was Emma’s calm answer--“and\r
+when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax’s situation and\r
+understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I\r
+have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such\r
+obscurity, so thrown away.--Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed\r
+with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it.\r
+I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she\r
+feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I\r
+must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for\r
+timidity--and I am sure one does not often meet with it.--But in those\r
+who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure\r
+you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more\r
+than I can express.”\r
+\r
+“You appear to feel a great deal--but I am not aware how you or any of\r
+Miss Fairfax’s acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer\r
+than yourself, can shew her any other attention than”--\r
+\r
+“My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to\r
+act. You and I need not be afraid. If _we_ set the example, many will\r
+follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. _We_\r
+have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and _we_ live in a style\r
+which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the\r
+least inconvenient.--I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to\r
+send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked _more_\r
+than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of\r
+thing. It is not likely that I _should_, considering what I have been\r
+used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the\r
+other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple\r
+Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to be--for we do not\r
+at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.--However, my\r
+resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.--I shall certainly have\r
+her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall\r
+have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly\r
+on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very\r
+extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit\r
+her shortly.--I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my\r
+brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her\r
+extremely; and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears\r
+will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners\r
+of either but what is highly conciliating.--I shall have her very often\r
+indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a\r
+seat for her in the barouche-landau in some of our exploring parties.”\r
+\r
+“Poor Jane Fairfax!”--thought Emma.--“You have not deserved this. You\r
+may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment\r
+beyond what you can have merited!--The kindness and protection of Mrs.\r
+Elton!--‘Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.’ Heavens! Let me not suppose\r
+that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!--But upon my honour,\r
+there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman’s tongue!”\r
+\r
+Emma had not to listen to such paradings again--to any so exclusively\r
+addressed to herself--so disgustingly decorated with a “dear Miss\r
+Woodhouse.” The change on Mrs. Elton’s side soon afterwards appeared,\r
+and she was left in peace--neither forced to be the very particular\r
+friend of Mrs. Elton, nor, under Mrs. Elton’s guidance, the very active\r
+patroness of Jane Fairfax, and only sharing with others in a general\r
+way, in knowing what was felt, what was meditated, what was done.\r
+\r
+She looked on with some amusement.--Miss Bates’s gratitude for\r
+Mrs. Elton’s attentions to Jane was in the first style of guileless\r
+simplicity and warmth. She was quite one of her worthies--the\r
+most amiable, affable, delightful woman--just as accomplished and\r
+condescending as Mrs. Elton meant to be considered. Emma’s only surprize\r
+was that Jane Fairfax should accept those attentions and tolerate Mrs.\r
+Elton as she seemed to do. She heard of her walking with the Eltons,\r
+sitting with the Eltons, spending a day with the Eltons! This was\r
+astonishing!--She could not have believed it possible that the taste or\r
+the pride of Miss Fairfax could endure such society and friendship as\r
+the Vicarage had to offer.\r
+\r
+“She is a riddle, quite a riddle!” said she.--“To chuse to remain here\r
+month after month, under privations of every sort! And now to chuse the\r
+mortification of Mrs. Elton’s notice and the penury of her conversation,\r
+rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her\r
+with such real, generous affection.”\r
+\r
+Jane had come to Highbury professedly for three months; the Campbells\r
+were gone to Ireland for three months; but now the Campbells had\r
+promised their daughter to stay at least till Midsummer, and fresh\r
+invitations had arrived for her to join them there. According to Miss\r
+Bates--it all came from her--Mrs. Dixon had written most pressingly.\r
+Would Jane but go, means were to be found, servants sent, friends\r
+contrived--no travelling difficulty allowed to exist; but still she had\r
+declined it!\r
+\r
+“She must have some motive, more powerful than appears, for refusing\r
+this invitation,” was Emma’s conclusion. “She must be under some sort\r
+of penance, inflicted either by the Campbells or herself. There is great\r
+fear, great caution, great resolution somewhere.--She is _not_ to be\r
+with the _Dixons_. The decree is issued by somebody. But why must she\r
+consent to be with the Eltons?--Here is quite a separate puzzle.”\r
+\r
+Upon her speaking her wonder aloud on that part of the subject, before\r
+the few who knew her opinion of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston ventured this\r
+apology for Jane.\r
+\r
+“We cannot suppose that she has any great enjoyment at the Vicarage,\r
+my dear Emma--but it is better than being always at home. Her aunt is a\r
+good creature, but, as a constant companion, must be very tiresome. We\r
+must consider what Miss Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for\r
+what she goes to.”\r
+\r
+“You are right, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “Miss Fairfax\r
+is as capable as any of us of forming a just opinion of Mrs. Elton.\r
+Could she have chosen with whom to associate, she would not have chosen\r
+her. But (with a reproachful smile at Emma) she receives attentions from\r
+Mrs. Elton, which nobody else pays her.”\r
+\r
+Emma felt that Mrs. Weston was giving her a momentary glance; and she\r
+was herself struck by his warmth. With a faint blush, she presently\r
+replied,\r
+\r
+“Such attentions as Mrs. Elton’s, I should have imagined, would rather\r
+disgust than gratify Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton’s invitations I should\r
+have imagined any thing but inviting.”\r
+\r
+“I should not wonder,” said Mrs. Weston, “if Miss Fairfax were to have\r
+been drawn on beyond her own inclination, by her aunt’s eagerness in\r
+accepting Mrs. Elton’s civilities for her. Poor Miss Bates may\r
+very likely have committed her niece and hurried her into a greater\r
+appearance of intimacy than her own good sense would have dictated, in\r
+spite of the very natural wish of a little change.”\r
+\r
+Both felt rather anxious to hear him speak again; and after a few\r
+minutes silence, he said,\r
+\r
+“Another thing must be taken into consideration too--Mrs. Elton does\r
+not talk _to_ Miss Fairfax as she speaks _of_ her. We all know the\r
+difference between the pronouns he or she and thou, the plainest spoken\r
+amongst us; we all feel the influence of a something beyond common\r
+civility in our personal intercourse with each other--a something more\r
+early implanted. We cannot give any body the disagreeable hints that we\r
+may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently.\r
+And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be\r
+sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind\r
+and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the\r
+respect which she has a claim to. Such a woman as Jane Fairfax probably\r
+never fell in Mrs. Elton’s way before--and no degree of vanity can\r
+prevent her acknowledging her own comparative littleness in action, if\r
+not in consciousness.”\r
+\r
+“I know how highly you think of Jane Fairfax,” said Emma. Little Henry\r
+was in her thoughts, and a mixture of alarm and delicacy made her\r
+irresolute what else to say.\r
+\r
+“Yes,” he replied, “any body may know how highly I think of her.”\r
+\r
+“And yet,” said Emma, beginning hastily and with an arch look, but soon\r
+stopping--it was better, however, to know the worst at once--she hurried\r
+on--“And yet, perhaps, you may hardly be aware yourself how highly it\r
+is. The extent of your admiration may take you by surprize some day or\r
+other.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick\r
+leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or\r
+some other cause, brought the colour into his face, as he answered,\r
+\r
+“Oh! are you there?--But you are miserably behindhand. Mr. Cole gave me\r
+a hint of it six weeks ago.”\r
+\r
+He stopped.--Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not\r
+herself know what to think. In a moment he went on--\r
+\r
+“That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I dare\r
+say, would not have me if I were to ask her--and I am very sure I shall\r
+never ask her.”\r
+\r
+Emma returned her friend’s pressure with interest; and was pleased\r
+enough to exclaim,\r
+\r
+“You are not vain, Mr. Knightley. I will say that for you.”\r
+\r
+He seemed hardly to hear her; he was thoughtful--and in a manner which\r
+shewed him not pleased, soon afterwards said,\r
+\r
+“So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax?”\r
+\r
+“No indeed I have not. You have scolded me too much for match-making,\r
+for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. What I said just now,\r
+meant nothing. One says those sort of things, of course, without any\r
+idea of a serious meaning. Oh! no, upon my word I have not the smallest\r
+wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax or Jane any body. You would not come\r
+in and sit with us in this comfortable way, if you were married.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was, “No,\r
+Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take\r
+me by surprize.--I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure\r
+you.” And soon afterwards, “Jane Fairfax is a very charming young\r
+woman--but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has\r
+not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife.”\r
+\r
+Emma could not but rejoice to hear that she had a fault. “Well,” said\r
+she, “and you soon silenced Mr. Cole, I suppose?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken;\r
+he asked my pardon and said no more. Cole does not want to be wiser or\r
+wittier than his neighbours.”\r
+\r
+“In that respect how unlike dear Mrs. Elton, who wants to be wiser and\r
+wittier than all the world! I wonder how she speaks of the Coles--what\r
+she calls them! How can she find any appellation for them, deep enough\r
+in familiar vulgarity? She calls you, Knightley--what can she do for\r
+Mr. Cole? And so I am not to be surprized that Jane Fairfax accepts\r
+her civilities and consents to be with her. Mrs. Weston, your argument\r
+weighs most with me. I can much more readily enter into the temptation\r
+of getting away from Miss Bates, than I can believe in the triumph of\r
+Miss Fairfax’s mind over Mrs. Elton. I have no faith in Mrs. Elton’s\r
+acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her\r
+being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good-breeding.\r
+I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor\r
+with praise, encouragement, and offers of service; that she will not be\r
+continually detailing her magnificent intentions, from the procuring her\r
+a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring\r
+parties which are to take place in the barouche-landau.”\r
+\r
+“Jane Fairfax has feeling,” said Mr. Knightley--“I do not accuse her\r
+of want of feeling. Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong--and her\r
+temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control;\r
+but it wants openness. She is reserved, more reserved, I think, than\r
+she used to be--And I love an open temper. No--till Cole alluded to my\r
+supposed attachment, it had never entered my head. I saw Jane Fairfax\r
+and conversed with her, with admiration and pleasure always--but with no\r
+thought beyond.”\r
+\r
+“Well, Mrs. Weston,” said Emma triumphantly when he left them, “what do\r
+you say now to Mr. Knightley’s marrying Jane Fairfax?”\r
+\r
+“Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the\r
+idea of _not_ being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it\r
+were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+\r
+Every body in and about Highbury who had ever visited Mr. Elton, was\r
+disposed to pay him attention on his marriage. Dinner-parties and\r
+evening-parties were made for him and his lady; and invitations flowed\r
+in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were\r
+never to have a disengaged day.\r
+\r
+“I see how it is,” said she. “I see what a life I am to lead among you.\r
+Upon my word we shall be absolutely dissipated. We really seem quite\r
+the fashion. If this is living in the country, it is nothing very\r
+formidable. From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a\r
+disengaged day!--A woman with fewer resources than I have, need not have\r
+been at a loss.”\r
+\r
+No invitation came amiss to her. Her Bath habits made evening-parties\r
+perfectly natural to her, and Maple Grove had given her a taste for\r
+dinners. She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at\r
+the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury\r
+card-parties. Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Goddard and others, were a\r
+good deal behind-hand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew\r
+them how every thing ought to be arranged. In the course of the spring\r
+she must return their civilities by one very superior party--in which\r
+her card-tables should be set out with their separate candles and\r
+unbroken packs in the true style--and more waiters engaged for the\r
+evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the\r
+refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order.\r
+\r
+Emma, in the meanwhile, could not be satisfied without a dinner at\r
+Hartfield for the Eltons. They must not do less than others, or she\r
+should be exposed to odious suspicions, and imagined capable of pitiful\r
+resentment. A dinner there must be. After Emma had talked about it for\r
+ten minutes, Mr. Woodhouse felt no unwillingness, and only made the\r
+usual stipulation of not sitting at the bottom of the table himself,\r
+with the usual regular difficulty of deciding who should do it for him.\r
+\r
+The persons to be invited, required little thought. Besides the\r
+Eltons, it must be the Westons and Mr. Knightley; so far it was all of\r
+course--and it was hardly less inevitable that poor little Harriet must\r
+be asked to make the eighth:--but this invitation was not given with\r
+equal satisfaction, and on many accounts Emma was particularly pleased\r
+by Harriet’s begging to be allowed to decline it. “She would rather not\r
+be in his company more than she could help. She was not yet quite\r
+able to see him and his charming happy wife together, without feeling\r
+uncomfortable. If Miss Woodhouse would not be displeased, she would\r
+rather stay at home.” It was precisely what Emma would have wished, had\r
+she deemed it possible enough for wishing. She was delighted with the\r
+fortitude of her little friend--for fortitude she knew it was in her to\r
+give up being in company and stay at home; and she could now invite the\r
+very person whom she really wanted to make the eighth, Jane Fairfax.--\r
+Since her last conversation with Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, she\r
+was more conscience-stricken about Jane Fairfax than she had often\r
+been.--Mr. Knightley’s words dwelt with her. He had said that Jane\r
+Fairfax received attentions from Mrs. Elton which nobody else paid her.\r
+\r
+“This is very true,” said she, “at least as far as relates to me, which\r
+was all that was meant--and it is very shameful.--Of the same age--and\r
+always knowing her--I ought to have been more her friend.--She will\r
+never like me now. I have neglected her too long. But I will shew her\r
+greater attention than I have done.”\r
+\r
+Every invitation was successful. They were all disengaged and all\r
+happy.--The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet\r
+over. A circumstance rather unlucky occurred. The two eldest little\r
+Knightleys were engaged to pay their grandpapa and aunt a visit of some\r
+weeks in the spring, and their papa now proposed bringing them, and\r
+staying one whole day at Hartfield--which one day would be the very day\r
+of this party.--His professional engagements did not allow of his being\r
+put off, but both father and daughter were disturbed by its happening\r
+so. Mr. Woodhouse considered eight persons at dinner together as the\r
+utmost that his nerves could bear--and here would be a ninth--and Emma\r
+apprehended that it would be a ninth very much out of humour at not\r
+being able to come even to Hartfield for forty-eight hours without\r
+falling in with a dinner-party.\r
+\r
+She comforted her father better than she could comfort herself, by\r
+representing that though he certainly would make them nine, yet\r
+he always said so little, that the increase of noise would be very\r
+immaterial. She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to\r
+have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her\r
+instead of his brother.\r
+\r
+The event was more favourable to Mr. Woodhouse than to Emma. John\r
+Knightley came; but Mr. Weston was unexpectedly summoned to town and\r
+must be absent on the very day. He might be able to join them in the\r
+evening, but certainly not to dinner. Mr. Woodhouse was quite at ease;\r
+and the seeing him so, with the arrival of the little boys and the\r
+philosophic composure of her brother on hearing his fate, removed the\r
+chief of even Emma’s vexation.\r
+\r
+The day came, the party were punctually assembled, and Mr. John\r
+Knightley seemed early to devote himself to the business of being\r
+agreeable. Instead of drawing his brother off to a window while they\r
+waited for dinner, he was talking to Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton,\r
+as elegant as lace and pearls could make her, he looked at in\r
+silence--wanting only to observe enough for Isabella’s information--but\r
+Miss Fairfax was an old acquaintance and a quiet girl, and he could talk\r
+to her. He had met her before breakfast as he was returning from a walk\r
+with his little boys, when it had been just beginning to rain. It was\r
+natural to have some civil hopes on the subject, and he said,\r
+\r
+“I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am\r
+sure you must have been wet.--We scarcely got home in time. I hope you\r
+turned directly.”\r
+\r
+“I went only to the post-office,” said she, “and reached home before the\r
+rain was much. It is my daily errand. I always fetch the letters when\r
+I am here. It saves trouble, and is a something to get me out. A walk\r
+before breakfast does me good.”\r
+\r
+“Not a walk in the rain, I should imagine.”\r
+\r
+“No, but it did not absolutely rain when I set out.”\r
+\r
+Mr. John Knightley smiled, and replied,\r
+\r
+“That is to say, you chose to have your walk, for you were not six yards\r
+from your own door when I had the pleasure of meeting you; and Henry\r
+and John had seen more drops than they could count long before. The\r
+post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have\r
+lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going\r
+through the rain for.”\r
+\r
+There was a little blush, and then this answer,\r
+\r
+“I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every\r
+dearest connexion, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing\r
+older should make me indifferent about letters.”\r
+\r
+“Indifferent! Oh! no--I never conceived you could become indifferent.\r
+Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very\r
+positive curse.”\r
+\r
+“You are speaking of letters of business; mine are letters of\r
+friendship.”\r
+\r
+“I have often thought them the worst of the two,” replied he coolly.\r
+“Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too well--I am\r
+very sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I\r
+can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than\r
+to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which\r
+makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every\r
+body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again;\r
+and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a post-office,\r
+I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than\r
+to-day.”\r
+\r
+“When I talked of your being altered by time, by the progress of years,”\r
+ said John Knightley, “I meant to imply the change of situation which\r
+time usually brings. I consider one as including the other. Time will\r
+generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily\r
+circle--but that is not the change I had in view for you. As an old\r
+friend, you will allow me to hope, Miss Fairfax, that ten years hence\r
+you may have as many concentrated objects as I have.”\r
+\r
+It was kindly said, and very far from giving offence. A pleasant “thank\r
+you” seemed meant to laugh it off, but a blush, a quivering lip, a tear\r
+in the eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was\r
+now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such\r
+occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular\r
+compliments to the ladies, was ending with her--and with all his mildest\r
+urbanity, said,\r
+\r
+“I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning\r
+in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.--Young ladies\r
+are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their\r
+complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, sir, I did indeed; and I am very much obliged by your kind\r
+solicitude about me.”\r
+\r
+“My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are very sure to be cared for.--I\r
+hope your good grand-mama and aunt are well. They are some of my very\r
+old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You\r
+do us a great deal of honour to-day, I am sure. My daughter and I\r
+are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest\r
+satisfaction in seeing you at Hartfield.”\r
+\r
+The kind-hearted, polite old man might then sit down and feel that he\r
+had done his duty, and made every fair lady welcome and easy.\r
+\r
+By this time, the walk in the rain had reached Mrs. Elton, and her\r
+remonstrances now opened upon Jane.\r
+\r
+“My dear Jane, what is this I hear?--Going to the post-office in the\r
+rain!--This must not be, I assure you.--You sad girl, how could you do\r
+such a thing?--It is a sign I was not there to take care of you.”\r
+\r
+Jane very patiently assured her that she had not caught any cold.\r
+\r
+“Oh! do not tell _me_. You really are a very sad girl, and do not know\r
+how to take care of yourself.--To the post-office indeed! Mrs. Weston,\r
+did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our\r
+authority.”\r
+\r
+“My advice,” said Mrs. Weston kindly and persuasively, “I certainly do\r
+feel tempted to give. Miss Fairfax, you must not run such risks.--Liable\r
+as you have been to severe colds, indeed you ought to be particularly\r
+careful, especially at this time of year. The spring I always think\r
+requires more than common care. Better wait an hour or two, or even\r
+half a day for your letters, than run the risk of bringing on your cough\r
+again. Now do not you feel that you had? Yes, I am sure you are much too\r
+reasonable. You look as if you would not do such a thing again.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! she _shall_ _not_ do such a thing again,” eagerly rejoined Mrs.\r
+Elton. “We will not allow her to do such a thing again:”--and nodding\r
+significantly--“there must be some arrangement made, there must indeed.\r
+I shall speak to Mr. E. The man who fetches our letters every morning\r
+(one of our men, I forget his name) shall inquire for yours too and\r
+bring them to you. That will obviate all difficulties you know; and from\r
+_us_ I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept\r
+such an accommodation.”\r
+\r
+“You are extremely kind,” said Jane; “but I cannot give up my early\r
+walk. I am advised to be out of doors as much as I can, I must walk\r
+somewhere, and the post-office is an object; and upon my word, I have\r
+scarcely ever had a bad morning before.”\r
+\r
+“My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined, that is\r
+(laughing affectedly) as far as I can presume to determine any thing\r
+without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston,\r
+you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves. But I do flatter\r
+myself, my dear Jane, that my influence is not entirely worn out. If I\r
+meet with no insuperable difficulties therefore, consider that point as\r
+settled.”\r
+\r
+“Excuse me,” said Jane earnestly, “I cannot by any means consent to such\r
+an arrangement, so needlessly troublesome to your servant. If the errand\r
+were not a pleasure to me, it could be done, as it always is when I am\r
+not here, by my grandmama’s.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! my dear; but so much as Patty has to do!--And it is a kindness to\r
+employ our men.”\r
+\r
+Jane looked as if she did not mean to be conquered; but instead of\r
+answering, she began speaking again to Mr. John Knightley.\r
+\r
+“The post-office is a wonderful establishment!” said she.--“The\r
+regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do,\r
+and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!”\r
+\r
+“It is certainly very well regulated.”\r
+\r
+“So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears! So seldom that\r
+a letter, among the thousands that are constantly passing about the\r
+kingdom, is even carried wrong--and not one in a million, I suppose,\r
+actually lost! And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad\r
+hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder.”\r
+\r
+“The clerks grow expert from habit.--They must begin with some quickness\r
+of sight and hand, and exercise improves them. If you want any farther\r
+explanation,” continued he, smiling, “they are paid for it. That is\r
+the key to a great deal of capacity. The public pays and must be served\r
+well.”\r
+\r
+The varieties of handwriting were farther talked of, and the usual\r
+observations made.\r
+\r
+“I have heard it asserted,” said John Knightley, “that the same sort\r
+of handwriting often prevails in a family; and where the same master\r
+teaches, it is natural enough. But for that reason, I should imagine\r
+the likeness must be chiefly confined to the females, for boys have very\r
+little teaching after an early age, and scramble into any hand they can\r
+get. Isabella and Emma, I think, do write very much alike. I have not\r
+always known their writing apart.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said his brother hesitatingly, “there is a likeness. I know what\r
+you mean--but Emma’s hand is the strongest.”\r
+\r
+“Isabella and Emma both write beautifully,” said Mr. Woodhouse; “and\r
+always did. And so does poor Mrs. Weston”--with half a sigh and half a\r
+smile at her.\r
+\r
+“I never saw any gentleman’s handwriting”--Emma began, looking also at\r
+Mrs. Weston; but stopped, on perceiving that Mrs. Weston was attending\r
+to some one else--and the pause gave her time to reflect, “Now, how am\r
+I going to introduce him?--Am I unequal to speaking his name at once\r
+before all these people? Is it necessary for me to use any roundabout\r
+phrase?--Your Yorkshire friend--your correspondent in Yorkshire;--that\r
+would be the way, I suppose, if I were very bad.--No, I can pronounce\r
+his name without the smallest distress. I certainly get better and\r
+better.--Now for it.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston was disengaged and Emma began again--“Mr. Frank Churchill\r
+writes one of the best gentleman’s hands I ever saw.”\r
+\r
+“I do not admire it,” said Mr. Knightley. “It is too small--wants\r
+strength. It is like a woman’s writing.”\r
+\r
+This was not submitted to by either lady. They vindicated him against\r
+the base aspersion. “No, it by no means wanted strength--it was not a\r
+large hand, but very clear and certainly strong. Had not Mrs. Weston any\r
+letter about her to produce?” No, she had heard from him very lately,\r
+but having answered the letter, had put it away.\r
+\r
+“If we were in the other room,” said Emma, “if I had my writing-desk, I\r
+am sure I could produce a specimen. I have a note of his.--Do not you\r
+remember, Mrs. Weston, employing him to write for you one day?”\r
+\r
+“He chose to say he was employed”--\r
+\r
+“Well, well, I have that note; and can shew it after dinner to convince\r
+Mr. Knightley.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! when a gallant young man, like Mr. Frank Churchill,” said Mr.\r
+Knightley dryly, “writes to a fair lady like Miss Woodhouse, he will, of\r
+course, put forth his best.”\r
+\r
+Dinner was on table.--Mrs. Elton, before she could be spoken to, was\r
+ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her with his request to be\r
+allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, was saying--\r
+\r
+“Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way.”\r
+\r
+Jane’s solicitude about fetching her own letters had not escaped Emma.\r
+She had heard and seen it all; and felt some curiosity to know whether\r
+the wet walk of this morning had produced any. She suspected that it\r
+_had_; that it would not have been so resolutely encountered but in full\r
+expectation of hearing from some one very dear, and that it had not been\r
+in vain. She thought there was an air of greater happiness than usual--a\r
+glow both of complexion and spirits.\r
+\r
+She could have made an inquiry or two, as to the expedition and the\r
+expense of the Irish mails;--it was at her tongue’s end--but she\r
+abstained. She was quite determined not to utter a word that should hurt\r
+Jane Fairfax’s feelings; and they followed the other ladies out of the\r
+room, arm in arm, with an appearance of good-will highly becoming to the\r
+beauty and grace of each.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+\r
+When the ladies returned to the drawing-room after dinner, Emma found it\r
+hardly possible to prevent their making two distinct parties;--with so\r
+much perseverance in judging and behaving ill did Mrs. Elton engross\r
+Jane Fairfax and slight herself. She and Mrs. Weston were obliged to\r
+be almost always either talking together or silent together. Mrs. Elton\r
+left them no choice. If Jane repressed her for a little time, she\r
+soon began again; and though much that passed between them was in a\r
+half-whisper, especially on Mrs. Elton’s side, there was no avoiding\r
+a knowledge of their principal subjects: The post-office--catching\r
+cold--fetching letters--and friendship, were long under discussion;\r
+and to them succeeded one, which must be at least equally unpleasant\r
+to Jane--inquiries whether she had yet heard of any situation likely to\r
+suit her, and professions of Mrs. Elton’s meditated activity.\r
+\r
+“Here is April come!” said she, “I get quite anxious about you. June\r
+will soon be here.”\r
+\r
+“But I have never fixed on June or any other month--merely looked\r
+forward to the summer in general.”\r
+\r
+“But have you really heard of nothing?”\r
+\r
+“I have not even made any inquiry; I do not wish to make any yet.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! my dear, we cannot begin too early; you are not aware of the\r
+difficulty of procuring exactly the desirable thing.”\r
+\r
+“I not aware!” said Jane, shaking her head; “dear Mrs. Elton, who can\r
+have thought of it as I have done?”\r
+\r
+“But you have not seen so much of the world as I have. You do not know\r
+how many candidates there always are for the _first_ situations. I saw\r
+a vast deal of that in the neighbourhood round Maple Grove. A cousin of\r
+Mr. Suckling, Mrs. Bragge, had such an infinity of applications; every\r
+body was anxious to be in her family, for she moves in the first circle.\r
+Wax-candles in the schoolroom! You may imagine how desirable! Of all\r
+houses in the kingdom Mrs. Bragge’s is the one I would most wish to see\r
+you in.”\r
+\r
+“Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are to be in town again by midsummer,”\r
+ said Jane. “I must spend some time with them; I am sure they will want\r
+it;--afterwards I may probably be glad to dispose of myself. But I would\r
+not wish you to take the trouble of making any inquiries at present.”\r
+\r
+“Trouble! aye, I know your scruples. You are afraid of giving me\r
+trouble; but I assure you, my dear Jane, the Campbells can hardly be\r
+more interested about you than I am. I shall write to Mrs. Partridge in\r
+a day or two, and shall give her a strict charge to be on the look-out\r
+for any thing eligible.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you, but I would rather you did not mention the subject to\r
+her; till the time draws nearer, I do not wish to be giving any body\r
+trouble.”\r
+\r
+“But, my dear child, the time is drawing near; here is April, and June,\r
+or say even July, is very near, with such business to accomplish before\r
+us. Your inexperience really amuses me! A situation such as you deserve,\r
+and your friends would require for you, is no everyday occurrence,\r
+is not obtained at a moment’s notice; indeed, indeed, we must begin\r
+inquiring directly.”\r
+\r
+“Excuse me, ma’am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no\r
+inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When\r
+I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being\r
+long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry\r
+would soon produce something--Offices for the sale--not quite of human\r
+flesh--but of human intellect.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at\r
+the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to\r
+the abolition.”\r
+\r
+“I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane;\r
+“governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely\r
+different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to\r
+the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But\r
+I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by\r
+applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with\r
+something that would do.”\r
+\r
+“Something that would do!” repeated Mrs. Elton. “Aye, _that_ may suit\r
+your humble ideas of yourself;--I know what a modest creature you are;\r
+but it will not satisfy your friends to have you taking up with any\r
+thing that may offer, any inferior, commonplace situation, in a family\r
+not moving in a certain circle, or able to command the elegancies of\r
+life.”\r
+\r
+“You are very obliging; but as to all that, I am very indifferent;\r
+it would be no object to me to be with the rich; my mortifications, I\r
+think, would only be the greater; I should suffer more from comparison.\r
+A gentleman’s family is all that I should condition for.”\r
+\r
+“I know you, I know you; you would take up with any thing; but I shall\r
+be a little more nice, and I am sure the good Campbells will be quite\r
+on my side; with your superior talents, you have a right to move in the\r
+first circle. Your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name\r
+your own terms, have as many rooms as you like, and mix in the family\r
+as much as you chose;--that is--I do not know--if you knew the harp, you\r
+might do all that, I am very sure; but you sing as well as play;--yes, I\r
+really believe you might, even without the harp, stipulate for what\r
+you chose;--and you must and shall be delightfully, honourably and\r
+comfortably settled before the Campbells or I have any rest.”\r
+\r
+“You may well class the delight, the honour, and the comfort of such\r
+a situation together,” said Jane, “they are pretty sure to be equal;\r
+however, I am very serious in not wishing any thing to be attempted\r
+at present for me. I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mrs. Elton, I am\r
+obliged to any body who feels for me, but I am quite serious in wishing\r
+nothing to be done till the summer. For two or three months longer I\r
+shall remain where I am, and as I am.”\r
+\r
+“And I am quite serious too, I assure you,” replied Mrs. Elton gaily,\r
+“in resolving to be always on the watch, and employing my friends to\r
+watch also, that nothing really unexceptionable may pass us.”\r
+\r
+In this style she ran on; never thoroughly stopped by any thing till Mr.\r
+Woodhouse came into the room; her vanity had then a change of object,\r
+and Emma heard her saying in the same half-whisper to Jane,\r
+\r
+“Here comes this dear old beau of mine, I protest!--Only think of his\r
+gallantry in coming away before the other men!--what a dear creature\r
+he is;--I assure you I like him excessively. I admire all that quaint,\r
+old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease;\r
+modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish\r
+you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I\r
+began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous. I fancy I\r
+am rather a favourite; he took notice of my gown. How do you like\r
+it?--Selina’s choice--handsome, I think, but I do not know whether it\r
+is not over-trimmed; I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being\r
+over-trimmed--quite a horror of finery. I must put on a few ornaments\r
+now, because it is expected of me. A bride, you know, must appear like\r
+a bride, but my natural taste is all for simplicity; a simple style\r
+of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery. But I am quite in the\r
+minority, I believe; few people seem to value simplicity of dress,--show\r
+and finery are every thing. I have some notion of putting such a\r
+trimming as this to my white and silver poplin. Do you think it will\r
+look well?”\r
+\r
+The whole party were but just reassembled in the drawing-room when Mr.\r
+Weston made his appearance among them. He had returned to a late dinner,\r
+and walked to Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much\r
+expected by the best judges, for surprize--but there was great joy. Mr.\r
+Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry\r
+to see him before. John Knightley only was in mute astonishment.--That\r
+a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day\r
+of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile\r
+to another man’s house, for the sake of being in mixed company till\r
+bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise\r
+of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply. A man who had been\r
+in motion since eight o’clock in the morning, and might now have been\r
+still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had\r
+been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone!--Such a man, to\r
+quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the\r
+evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world!--Could\r
+he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there\r
+would have been a motive; but his coming would probably prolong rather\r
+than break up the party. John Knightley looked at him with amazement,\r
+then shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I could not have believed it\r
+even of _him_.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was\r
+exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being\r
+principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was\r
+making himself agreeable among the rest; and having satisfied the\r
+inquiries of his wife as to his dinner, convincing her that none of all\r
+her careful directions to the servants had been forgotten, and spread\r
+abroad what public news he had heard, was proceeding to a family\r
+communication, which, though principally addressed to Mrs. Weston, he\r
+had not the smallest doubt of being highly interesting to every body in\r
+the room. He gave her a letter, it was from Frank, and to herself; he\r
+had met with it in his way, and had taken the liberty of opening it.\r
+\r
+“Read it, read it,” said he, “it will give you pleasure; only a few\r
+lines--will not take you long; read it to Emma.”\r
+\r
+The two ladies looked over it together; and he sat smiling and talking\r
+to them the whole time, in a voice a little subdued, but very audible to\r
+every body.\r
+\r
+“Well, he is coming, you see; good news, I think. Well, what do you say\r
+to it?--I always told you he would be here again soon, did not I?--Anne,\r
+my dear, did not I always tell you so, and you would not believe me?--In\r
+town next week, you see--at the latest, I dare say; for _she_ is as\r
+impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done; most\r
+likely they will be there to-morrow or Saturday. As to her illness, all\r
+nothing of course. But it is an excellent thing to have Frank among us\r
+again, so near as town. They will stay a good while when they do come,\r
+and he will be half his time with us. This is precisely what I wanted.\r
+Well, pretty good news, is not it? Have you finished it? Has Emma read\r
+it all? Put it up, put it up; we will have a good talk about it some\r
+other time, but it will not do now. I shall only just mention the\r
+circumstance to the others in a common way.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston was most comfortably pleased on the occasion. Her looks\r
+and words had nothing to restrain them. She was happy, she knew she was\r
+happy, and knew she ought to be happy. Her congratulations were warm and\r
+open; but Emma could not speak so fluently. _She_ was a little occupied\r
+in weighing her own feelings, and trying to understand the degree of her\r
+agitation, which she rather thought was considerable.\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston, however, too eager to be very observant, too communicative\r
+to want others to talk, was very well satisfied with what she did say,\r
+and soon moved away to make the rest of his friends happy by a partial\r
+communication of what the whole room must have overheard already.\r
+\r
+It was well that he took every body’s joy for granted, or he might\r
+not have thought either Mr. Woodhouse or Mr. Knightley particularly\r
+delighted. They were the first entitled, after Mrs. Weston and Emma, to\r
+be made happy;--from them he would have proceeded to Miss Fairfax, but\r
+she was so deep in conversation with John Knightley, that it would have\r
+been too positive an interruption; and finding himself close to Mrs.\r
+Elton, and her attention disengaged, he necessarily began on the subject\r
+with her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+\r
+“I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of introducing my son to you,”\r
+ said Mr. Weston.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton, very willing to suppose a particular compliment intended her\r
+by such a hope, smiled most graciously.\r
+\r
+“You have heard of a certain Frank Churchill, I presume,” he\r
+continued--“and know him to be my son, though he does not bear my name.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes, and I shall be very happy in his acquaintance. I am sure Mr.\r
+Elton will lose no time in calling on him; and we shall both have great\r
+pleasure in seeing him at the Vicarage.”\r
+\r
+“You are very obliging.--Frank will be extremely happy, I am sure.--\r
+He is to be in town next week, if not sooner. We have notice of it in a\r
+letter to-day. I met the letters in my way this morning, and seeing my\r
+son’s hand, presumed to open it--though it was not directed to me--it\r
+was to Mrs. Weston. She is his principal correspondent, I assure you. I\r
+hardly ever get a letter.”\r
+\r
+“And so you absolutely opened what was directed to her! Oh! Mr.\r
+Weston--(laughing affectedly) I must protest against that.--A most\r
+dangerous precedent indeed!--I beg you will not let your neighbours\r
+follow your example.--Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we\r
+married women must begin to exert ourselves!--Oh! Mr. Weston, I could\r
+not have believed it of you!”\r
+\r
+“Aye, we men are sad fellows. You must take care of yourself, Mrs.\r
+Elton.--This letter tells us--it is a short letter--written in a hurry,\r
+merely to give us notice--it tells us that they are all coming up to\r
+town directly, on Mrs. Churchill’s account--she has not been well the\r
+whole winter, and thinks Enscombe too cold for her--so they are all to\r
+move southward without loss of time.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed!--from Yorkshire, I think. Enscombe is in Yorkshire?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, they are about one hundred and ninety miles from London, a\r
+considerable journey.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, upon my word, very considerable. Sixty-five miles farther than\r
+from Maple Grove to London. But what is distance, Mr. Weston, to people\r
+of large fortune?--You would be amazed to hear how my brother, Mr.\r
+Suckling, sometimes flies about. You will hardly believe me--but twice\r
+in one week he and Mr. Bragge went to London and back again with four\r
+horses.”\r
+\r
+“The evil of the distance from Enscombe,” said Mr. Weston, “is, that\r
+Mrs. Churchill, _as_ _we_ _understand_, has not been able to leave the\r
+sofa for a week together. In Frank’s last letter she complained, he\r
+said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having\r
+both his arm and his uncle’s! This, you know, speaks a great degree of\r
+weakness--but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to\r
+sleep only two nights on the road.--So Frank writes word. Certainly,\r
+delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You\r
+must grant me that.”\r
+\r
+“No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my\r
+own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice--You will find me a formidable\r
+antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women--and I assure you,\r
+if you knew how Selina feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you\r
+would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill’s making incredible exertions to\r
+avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to her--and I believe I have\r
+caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets;\r
+an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same?”\r
+\r
+“Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine\r
+lady ever did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land\r
+for”--\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with,\r
+\r
+“Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure\r
+you. Do not run away with such an idea.”\r
+\r
+“Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough\r
+a fine lady as any body ever beheld.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly.\r
+It was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was\r
+_not_ a fine lady; perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of\r
+it;--and she was considering in what way she had best retract, when Mr.\r
+Weston went on.\r
+\r
+“Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspect--but\r
+this is quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and\r
+therefore I would not speak ill of her. Besides, she is out of health\r
+now; but _that_ indeed, by her own account, she has always been. I would\r
+not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much faith in Mrs.\r
+Churchill’s illness.”\r
+\r
+“If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston?--To Bath, or to\r
+Clifton?” “She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for\r
+her. The fact is, I suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now\r
+been a longer time stationary there, than she ever was before, and she\r
+begins to want change. It is a retired place. A fine place, but very\r
+retired.”\r
+\r
+“Aye--like Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from\r
+the road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all round it! You\r
+seem shut out from every thing--in the most complete retirement.--And\r
+Mrs. Churchill probably has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy\r
+that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she may not have resources enough in\r
+herself to be qualified for a country life. I always say a woman cannot\r
+have too many resources--and I feel very thankful that I have so many\r
+myself as to be quite independent of society.”\r
+\r
+“Frank was here in February for a fortnight.”\r
+\r
+“So I remember to have heard. He will find an _addition_ to the society\r
+of Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call\r
+myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being\r
+such a creature in the world.”\r
+\r
+This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr.\r
+Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed,\r
+\r
+“My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible.\r
+Not heard of you!--I believe Mrs. Weston’s letters lately have been full\r
+of very little else than Mrs. Elton.”\r
+\r
+He had done his duty and could return to his son.\r
+\r
+“When Frank left us,” continued he, “it was quite uncertain when we\r
+might see him again, which makes this day’s news doubly welcome. It has\r
+been completely unexpected. That is, _I_ always had a strong persuasion\r
+he would be here again soon, I was sure something favourable would turn\r
+up--but nobody believed me. He and Mrs. Weston were both dreadfully\r
+desponding. ‘How could he contrive to come? And how could it be supposed\r
+that his uncle and aunt would spare him again?’ and so forth--I always\r
+felt that something would happen in our favour; and so it has, you see.\r
+I have observed, Mrs. Elton, in the course of my life, that if things\r
+are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.”\r
+\r
+“Very true, Mr. Weston, perfectly true. It is just what I used to say to\r
+a certain gentleman in company in the days of courtship, when, because\r
+things did not go quite right, did not proceed with all the rapidity\r
+which suited his feelings, he was apt to be in despair, and exclaim that\r
+he was sure at this rate it would be _May_ before Hymen’s saffron robe\r
+would be put on for us. Oh! the pains I have been at to dispel those\r
+gloomy ideas and give him cheerfuller views! The carriage--we had\r
+disappointments about the carriage;--one morning, I remember, he came to\r
+me quite in despair.”\r
+\r
+She was stopped by a slight fit of coughing, and Mr. Weston instantly\r
+seized the opportunity of going on.\r
+\r
+“You were mentioning May. May is the very month which Mrs. Churchill\r
+is ordered, or has ordered herself, to spend in some warmer place than\r
+Enscombe--in short, to spend in London; so that we have the agreeable\r
+prospect of frequent visits from Frank the whole spring--precisely the\r
+season of the year which one should have chosen for it: days almost at\r
+the longest; weather genial and pleasant, always inviting one out, and\r
+never too hot for exercise. When he was here before, we made the best\r
+of it; but there was a good deal of wet, damp, cheerless weather;\r
+there always is in February, you know, and we could not do half that we\r
+intended. Now will be the time. This will be complete enjoyment; and I\r
+do not know, Mrs. Elton, whether the uncertainty of our meetings, the\r
+sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in to-day or\r
+to-morrow, and at any hour, may not be more friendly to happiness than\r
+having him actually in the house. I think it is so. I think it is the\r
+state of mind which gives most spirit and delight. I hope you will be\r
+pleased with my son; but you must not expect a prodigy. He is generally\r
+thought a fine young man, but do not expect a prodigy. Mrs. Weston’s\r
+partiality for him is very great, and, as you may suppose, most\r
+gratifying to me. She thinks nobody equal to him.”\r
+\r
+“And I assure you, Mr. Weston, I have very little doubt that my opinion\r
+will be decidedly in his favour. I have heard so much in praise of Mr.\r
+Frank Churchill.--At the same time it is fair to observe, that I am one\r
+of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly\r
+guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall\r
+judge of him.--I am no flatterer.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston was musing.\r
+\r
+“I hope,” said he presently, “I have not been severe upon poor Mrs.\r
+Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice; but\r
+there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to\r
+speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant,\r
+Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have\r
+met with; and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid\r
+to her. She was the instigator. Frank’s mother would never have been\r
+slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride; but his pride\r
+is nothing to his wife’s: his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort\r
+of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless\r
+and tiresome; but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what\r
+inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood.\r
+She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman;\r
+but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill’d\r
+them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is\r
+an upstart.”\r
+\r
+“Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite\r
+a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to\r
+people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood who\r
+are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give\r
+themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them\r
+directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and\r
+encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs,\r
+and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families.\r
+A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West\r
+Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from\r
+Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston.\r
+One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something\r
+direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the\r
+Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and\r
+yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to\r
+my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest\r
+neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven\r
+years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before him--I\r
+believe, at least--I am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed\r
+the purchase before his death.”\r
+\r
+They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having\r
+said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away.\r
+\r
+After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with Mr.\r
+Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers,\r
+and Emma doubted their getting on very well; for Mr. Knightley seemed\r
+little disposed for conversation; Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which\r
+nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits\r
+which would have made her prefer being silent.\r
+\r
+Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to\r
+leave them early the next day; and he soon began with--\r
+\r
+“Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the\r
+boys; but you have your sister’s letter, and every thing is down at full\r
+length there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than\r
+her’s, and probably not much in the same spirit; all that I have to\r
+recommend being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic\r
+them.”\r
+\r
+“I rather hope to satisfy you both,” said Emma, “for I shall do all\r
+in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and\r
+happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.”\r
+\r
+“And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again.”\r
+\r
+“That is very likely. You think so, do not you?”\r
+\r
+“I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your father--or even\r
+may be some encumbrance to you, if your visiting engagements continue to\r
+increase as much as they have done lately.”\r
+\r
+“Increase!”\r
+\r
+“Certainly; you must be sensible that the last half-year has made a\r
+great difference in your way of life.”\r
+\r
+“Difference! No indeed I am not.”\r
+\r
+“There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with company than\r
+you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come down for only\r
+one day, and you are engaged with a dinner-party!--When did it happen\r
+before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you\r
+mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought\r
+an account of fresh gaieties; dinners at Mr. Cole’s, or balls at the\r
+Crown. The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your\r
+goings-on, is very great.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said his brother quickly, “it is Randalls that does it all.”\r
+\r
+“Very well--and as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less\r
+influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that\r
+Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg\r
+you to send them home.”\r
+\r
+“No,” cried Mr. Knightley, “that need not be the consequence. Let them\r
+be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure.”\r
+\r
+“Upon my word,” exclaimed Emma, “you amuse me! I should like to know how\r
+many of all my numerous engagements take place without your being of\r
+the party; and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting leisure to\r
+attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of mine--what have\r
+they been? Dining once with the Coles--and having a ball talked of,\r
+which never took place. I can understand you--(nodding at Mr. John\r
+Knightley)--your good fortune in meeting with so many of your friends at\r
+once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you, (turning to\r
+Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two hours from\r
+Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation for me, I\r
+cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that if Aunt\r
+Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better\r
+with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she\r
+is absent one--and who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself\r
+or settling his accounts.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without\r
+difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton’s beginning to talk to him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+VOLUME III\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+\r
+A very little quiet reflection was enough to satisfy Emma as to the\r
+nature of her agitation on hearing this news of Frank Churchill. She\r
+was soon convinced that it was not for herself she was feeling at all\r
+apprehensive or embarrassed; it was for him. Her own attachment had\r
+really subsided into a mere nothing; it was not worth thinking of;--but\r
+if he, who had undoubtedly been always so much the most in love of the\r
+two, were to be returning with the same warmth of sentiment which he had\r
+taken away, it would be very distressing. If a separation of two\r
+months should not have cooled him, there were dangers and evils before\r
+her:--caution for him and for herself would be necessary. She did\r
+not mean to have her own affections entangled again, and it would be\r
+incumbent on her to avoid any encouragement of his.\r
+\r
+She wished she might be able to keep him from an absolute declaration.\r
+That would be so very painful a conclusion of their present\r
+acquaintance! and yet, she could not help rather anticipating something\r
+decisive. She felt as if the spring would not pass without bringing a\r
+crisis, an event, a something to alter her present composed and tranquil\r
+state.\r
+\r
+It was not very long, though rather longer than Mr. Weston had foreseen,\r
+before she had the power of forming some opinion of Frank Churchill’s\r
+feelings. The Enscombe family were not in town quite so soon as had been\r
+imagined, but he was at Highbury very soon afterwards. He rode down\r
+for a couple of hours; he could not yet do more; but as he came from\r
+Randalls immediately to Hartfield, she could then exercise all her quick\r
+observation, and speedily determine how he was influenced, and how she\r
+must act. They met with the utmost friendliness. There could be no doubt\r
+of his great pleasure in seeing her. But she had an almost instant doubt\r
+of his caring for her as he had done, of his feeling the same tenderness\r
+in the same degree. She watched him well. It was a clear thing he was\r
+less in love than he had been. Absence, with the conviction probably\r
+of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable\r
+effect.\r
+\r
+He was in high spirits; as ready to talk and laugh as ever, and seemed\r
+delighted to speak of his former visit, and recur to old stories: and he\r
+was not without agitation. It was not in his calmness that she read\r
+his comparative difference. He was not calm; his spirits were evidently\r
+fluttered; there was restlessness about him. Lively as he was, it seemed\r
+a liveliness that did not satisfy himself; but what decided her belief\r
+on the subject, was his staying only a quarter of an hour, and hurrying\r
+away to make other calls in Highbury. “He had seen a group of old\r
+acquaintance in the street as he passed--he had not stopped, he would\r
+not stop for more than a word--but he had the vanity to think they would\r
+be disappointed if he did not call, and much as he wished to stay longer\r
+at Hartfield, he must hurry off.” She had no doubt as to his being less\r
+in love--but neither his agitated spirits, nor his hurrying away, seemed\r
+like a perfect cure; and she was rather inclined to think it implied a\r
+dread of her returning power, and a discreet resolution of not trusting\r
+himself with her long.\r
+\r
+This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days.\r
+He was often hoping, intending to come--but was always prevented. His\r
+aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at\r
+Randall’s. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was\r
+to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill’s removal to London had been of no\r
+service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was\r
+really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at\r
+Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked\r
+back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a\r
+year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care\r
+and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many\r
+years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all\r
+his father’s doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary,\r
+or that she was as strong as ever.\r
+\r
+It soon appeared that London was not the place for her. She could\r
+not endure its noise. Her nerves were under continual irritation and\r
+suffering; and by the ten days’ end, her nephew’s letter to Randalls\r
+communicated a change of plan. They were going to remove immediately to\r
+Richmond. Mrs. Churchill had been recommended to the medical skill of\r
+an eminent person there, and had otherwise a fancy for the place. A\r
+ready-furnished house in a favourite spot was engaged, and much benefit\r
+expected from the change.\r
+\r
+Emma heard that Frank wrote in the highest spirits of this arrangement,\r
+and seemed most fully to appreciate the blessing of having two months\r
+before him of such near neighbourhood to many dear friends--for the\r
+house was taken for May and June. She was told that now he wrote with\r
+the greatest confidence of being often with them, almost as often as he\r
+could even wish.\r
+\r
+Emma saw how Mr. Weston understood these joyous prospects. He was\r
+considering her as the source of all the happiness they offered. She\r
+hoped it was not so. Two months must bring it to the proof.\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston’s own happiness was indisputable. He was quite delighted.\r
+It was the very circumstance he could have wished for. Now, it would be\r
+really having Frank in their neighbourhood. What were nine miles to\r
+a young man?--An hour’s ride. He would be always coming over. The\r
+difference in that respect of Richmond and London was enough to make\r
+the whole difference of seeing him always and seeing him never. Sixteen\r
+miles--nay, eighteen--it must be full eighteen to Manchester-street--was\r
+a serious obstacle. Were he ever able to get away, the day would be\r
+spent in coming and returning. There was no comfort in having him in\r
+London; he might as well be at Enscombe; but Richmond was the very\r
+distance for easy intercourse. Better than nearer!\r
+\r
+One good thing was immediately brought to a certainty by this\r
+removal,--the ball at the Crown. It had not been forgotten before,\r
+but it had been soon acknowledged vain to attempt to fix a day. Now,\r
+however, it was absolutely to be; every preparation was resumed, and\r
+very soon after the Churchills had removed to Richmond, a few lines from\r
+Frank, to say that his aunt felt already much better for the change, and\r
+that he had no doubt of being able to join them for twenty-four hours at\r
+any given time, induced them to name as early a day as possible.\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston’s ball was to be a real thing. A very few to-morrows stood\r
+between the young people of Highbury and happiness.\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse was resigned. The time of year lightened the evil to him.\r
+May was better for every thing than February. Mrs. Bates was engaged to\r
+spend the evening at Hartfield, James had due notice, and he sanguinely\r
+hoped that neither dear little Henry nor dear little John would have any\r
+thing the matter with them, while dear Emma were gone.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+\r
+No misfortune occurred, again to prevent the ball. The day approached,\r
+the day arrived; and after a morning of some anxious watching, Frank\r
+Churchill, in all the certainty of his own self, reached Randalls before\r
+dinner, and every thing was safe.\r
+\r
+No second meeting had there yet been between him and Emma. The room\r
+at the Crown was to witness it;--but it would be better than a\r
+common meeting in a crowd. Mr. Weston had been so very earnest in his\r
+entreaties for her arriving there as soon as possible after themselves,\r
+for the purpose of taking her opinion as to the propriety and comfort of\r
+the rooms before any other persons came, that she could not refuse him,\r
+and must therefore spend some quiet interval in the young man’s company.\r
+She was to convey Harriet, and they drove to the Crown in good time, the\r
+Randalls party just sufficiently before them.\r
+\r
+Frank Churchill seemed to have been on the watch; and though he did not\r
+say much, his eyes declared that he meant to have a delightful evening.\r
+They all walked about together, to see that every thing was as it should\r
+be; and within a few minutes were joined by the contents of another\r
+carriage, which Emma could not hear the sound of at first, without great\r
+surprize. “So unreasonably early!” she was going to exclaim; but she\r
+presently found that it was a family of old friends, who were coming,\r
+like herself, by particular desire, to help Mr. Weston’s judgment; and\r
+they were so very closely followed by another carriage of cousins,\r
+who had been entreated to come early with the same distinguishing\r
+earnestness, on the same errand, that it seemed as if half the company\r
+might soon be collected together for the purpose of preparatory\r
+inspection.\r
+\r
+Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which Mr. Weston\r
+depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man\r
+who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first\r
+distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but\r
+a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher\r
+character.--General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a\r
+man what he ought to be.--She could fancy such a man. The whole party\r
+walked about, and looked, and praised again; and then, having nothing\r
+else to do, formed a sort of half-circle round the fire, to observe\r
+in their various modes, till other subjects were started, that, though\r
+_May_, a fire in the evening was still very pleasant.\r
+\r
+Emma found that it was not Mr. Weston’s fault that the number of privy\r
+councillors was not yet larger. They had stopped at Mrs. Bates’s door\r
+to offer the use of their carriage, but the aunt and niece were to be\r
+brought by the Eltons.\r
+\r
+Frank was standing by her, but not steadily; there was a restlessness,\r
+which shewed a mind not at ease. He was looking about, he was going to\r
+the door, he was watching for the sound of other carriages,--impatient\r
+to begin, or afraid of being always near her.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton was spoken of. “I think she must be here soon,” said he. “I\r
+have a great curiosity to see Mrs. Elton, I have heard so much of her.\r
+It cannot be long, I think, before she comes.”\r
+\r
+A carriage was heard. He was on the move immediately; but coming back,\r
+said,\r
+\r
+“I am forgetting that I am not acquainted with her. I have never seen\r
+either Mr. or Mrs. Elton. I have no business to put myself forward.”\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Elton appeared; and all the smiles and the proprieties\r
+passed.\r
+\r
+“But Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax!” said Mr. Weston, looking about. “We\r
+thought you were to bring them.”\r
+\r
+The mistake had been slight. The carriage was sent for them now. Emma\r
+longed to know what Frank’s first opinion of Mrs. Elton might be; how\r
+he was affected by the studied elegance of her dress, and her smiles of\r
+graciousness. He was immediately qualifying himself to form an opinion,\r
+by giving her very proper attention, after the introduction had passed.\r
+\r
+In a few minutes the carriage returned.--Somebody talked of rain.--“I\r
+will see that there are umbrellas, sir,” said Frank to his father:\r
+“Miss Bates must not be forgotten:” and away he went. Mr. Weston was\r
+following; but Mrs. Elton detained him, to gratify him by her opinion\r
+of his son; and so briskly did she begin, that the young man himself,\r
+though by no means moving slowly, could hardly be out of hearing.\r
+\r
+“A very fine young man indeed, Mr. Weston. You know I candidly told you\r
+I should form my own opinion; and I am happy to say that I am extremely\r
+pleased with him.--You may believe me. I never compliment. I think him\r
+a very handsome young man, and his manners are precisely what I like and\r
+approve--so truly the gentleman, without the least conceit or puppyism.\r
+You must know I have a vast dislike to puppies--quite a horror of them.\r
+They were never tolerated at Maple Grove. Neither Mr. Suckling nor\r
+me had ever any patience with them; and we used sometimes to say very\r
+cutting things! Selina, who is mild almost to a fault, bore with them\r
+much better.”\r
+\r
+While she talked of his son, Mr. Weston’s attention was chained; but\r
+when she got to Maple Grove, he could recollect that there were ladies\r
+just arriving to be attended to, and with happy smiles must hurry away.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton turned to Mrs. Weston. “I have no doubt of its being our\r
+carriage with Miss Bates and Jane. Our coachman and horses are so\r
+extremely expeditious!--I believe we drive faster than any body.--What\r
+a pleasure it is to send one’s carriage for a friend!--I understand you\r
+were so kind as to offer, but another time it will be quite unnecessary.\r
+You may be very sure I shall always take care of _them_.”\r
+\r
+Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax, escorted by the two gentlemen, walked into\r
+the room; and Mrs. Elton seemed to think it as much her duty as Mrs.\r
+Weston’s to receive them. Her gestures and movements might be understood\r
+by any one who looked on like Emma; but her words, every body’s words,\r
+were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates, who came in\r
+talking, and had not finished her speech under many minutes after her\r
+being admitted into the circle at the fire. As the door opened she was\r
+heard,\r
+\r
+“So very obliging of you!--No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not\r
+care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declares--Well!--(as soon\r
+as she was within the door) Well! This is brilliant indeed!--This is\r
+admirable!--Excellently contrived, upon my word. Nothing wanting. Could\r
+not have imagined it.--So well lighted up!--Jane, Jane, look!--did you\r
+ever see any thing? Oh! Mr. Weston, you must really have had Aladdin’s\r
+lamp. Good Mrs. Stokes would not know her own room again. I saw her as\r
+I came in; she was standing in the entrance. ‘Oh! Mrs. Stokes,’ said\r
+I--but I had not time for more.” She was now met by Mrs. Weston.--“Very\r
+well, I thank you, ma’am. I hope you are quite well. Very happy to hear\r
+it. So afraid you might have a headache!--seeing you pass by so often,\r
+and knowing how much trouble you must have. Delighted to hear it indeed.\r
+Ah! dear Mrs. Elton, so obliged to you for the carriage!--excellent\r
+time. Jane and I quite ready. Did not keep the horses a moment. Most\r
+comfortable carriage.--Oh! and I am sure our thanks are due to you,\r
+Mrs. Weston, on that score. Mrs. Elton had most kindly sent Jane a note,\r
+or we should have been.--But two such offers in one day!--Never were\r
+such neighbours. I said to my mother, ‘Upon my word, ma’am--.’ Thank\r
+you, my mother is remarkably well. Gone to Mr. Woodhouse’s. I made her\r
+take her shawl--for the evenings are not warm--her large new shawl--\r
+Mrs. Dixon’s wedding-present.--So kind of her to think of my mother!\r
+Bought at Weymouth, you know--Mr. Dixon’s choice. There were three\r
+others, Jane says, which they hesitated about some time. Colonel\r
+Campbell rather preferred an olive. My dear Jane, are you sure you did\r
+not wet your feet?--It was but a drop or two, but I am so afraid:--but\r
+Mr. Frank Churchill was so extremely--and there was a mat to step\r
+upon--I shall never forget his extreme politeness.--Oh! Mr. Frank\r
+Churchill, I must tell you my mother’s spectacles have never been in\r
+fault since; the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of\r
+your good-nature. Does not she, Jane?--Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank\r
+Churchill?--Ah! here’s Miss Woodhouse.--Dear Miss Woodhouse, how do\r
+you do?--Very well I thank you, quite well. This is meeting quite\r
+in fairy-land!--Such a transformation!--Must not compliment, I know\r
+(eyeing Emma most complacently)--that would be rude--but upon my word,\r
+Miss Woodhouse, you do look--how do you like Jane’s hair?--You are\r
+a judge.--She did it all herself. Quite wonderful how she does her\r
+hair!--No hairdresser from London I think could.--Ah! Dr. Hughes I\r
+declare--and Mrs. Hughes. Must go and speak to Dr. and Mrs. Hughes for a\r
+moment.--How do you do? How do you do?--Very well, I thank you. This\r
+is delightful, is not it?--Where’s dear Mr. Richard?--Oh! there he is.\r
+Don’t disturb him. Much better employed talking to the young ladies. How\r
+do you do, Mr. Richard?--I saw you the other day as you rode through\r
+the town--Mrs. Otway, I protest!--and good Mr. Otway, and Miss Otway\r
+and Miss Caroline.--Such a host of friends!--and Mr. George and Mr.\r
+Arthur!--How do you do? How do you all do?--Quite well, I am much\r
+obliged to you. Never better.--Don’t I hear another carriage?--Who can\r
+this be?--very likely the worthy Coles.--Upon my word, this is charming\r
+to be standing about among such friends! And such a noble fire!--I am\r
+quite roasted. No coffee, I thank you, for me--never take coffee.--A\r
+little tea if you please, sir, by and bye,--no hurry--Oh! here it comes.\r
+Every thing so good!”\r
+\r
+Frank Churchill returned to his station by Emma; and as soon as Miss\r
+Bates was quiet, she found herself necessarily overhearing the discourse\r
+of Mrs. Elton and Miss Fairfax, who were standing a little way behind\r
+her.--He was thoughtful. Whether he were overhearing too, she could not\r
+determine. After a good many compliments to Jane on her dress and look,\r
+compliments very quietly and properly taken, Mrs. Elton was evidently\r
+wanting to be complimented herself--and it was, “How do you like\r
+my gown?--How do you like my trimming?--How has Wright done my\r
+hair?”--with many other relative questions, all answered with patient\r
+politeness. Mrs. Elton then said, “Nobody can think less of dress in\r
+general than I do--but upon such an occasion as this, when every body’s\r
+eyes are so much upon me, and in compliment to the Westons--who I have\r
+no doubt are giving this ball chiefly to do me honour--I would not wish\r
+to be inferior to others. And I see very few pearls in the room except\r
+mine.--So Frank Churchill is a capital dancer, I understand.--We shall\r
+see if our styles suit.--A fine young man certainly is Frank Churchill.\r
+I like him very well.”\r
+\r
+At this moment Frank began talking so vigorously, that Emma could not\r
+but imagine he had overheard his own praises, and did not want to hear\r
+more;--and the voices of the ladies were drowned for a while, till\r
+another suspension brought Mrs. Elton’s tones again distinctly\r
+forward.--Mr. Elton had just joined them, and his wife was exclaiming,\r
+\r
+“Oh! you have found us out at last, have you, in our seclusion?--I was\r
+this moment telling Jane, I thought you would begin to be impatient for\r
+tidings of us.”\r
+\r
+“Jane!”--repeated Frank Churchill, with a look of surprize and\r
+displeasure.--“That is easy--but Miss Fairfax does not disapprove it, I\r
+suppose.”\r
+\r
+“How do you like Mrs. Elton?” said Emma in a whisper.\r
+\r
+“Not at all.”\r
+\r
+“You are ungrateful.”\r
+\r
+“Ungrateful!--What do you mean?” Then changing from a frown to a\r
+smile--“No, do not tell me--I do not want to know what you mean.--Where\r
+is my father?--When are we to begin dancing?”\r
+\r
+Emma could hardly understand him; he seemed in an odd humour. He walked\r
+off to find his father, but was quickly back again with both Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Weston. He had met with them in a little perplexity, which must be\r
+laid before Emma. It had just occurred to Mrs. Weston that Mrs. Elton\r
+must be asked to begin the ball; that she would expect it; which\r
+interfered with all their wishes of giving Emma that distinction.--Emma\r
+heard the sad truth with fortitude.\r
+\r
+“And what are we to do for a proper partner for her?” said Mr. Weston.\r
+“She will think Frank ought to ask her.”\r
+\r
+Frank turned instantly to Emma, to claim her former promise; and\r
+boasted himself an engaged man, which his father looked his most perfect\r
+approbation of--and it then appeared that Mrs. Weston was wanting _him_\r
+to dance with Mrs. Elton himself, and that their business was to help to\r
+persuade him into it, which was done pretty soon.--Mr. Weston and Mrs.\r
+Elton led the way, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse followed.\r
+Emma must submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton, though she had always\r
+considered the ball as peculiarly for her. It was almost enough to make\r
+her think of marrying. Mrs. Elton had undoubtedly the advantage, at this\r
+time, in vanity completely gratified; for though she had intended to\r
+begin with Frank Churchill, she could not lose by the change. Mr. Weston\r
+might be his son’s superior.--In spite of this little rub, however,\r
+Emma was smiling with enjoyment, delighted to see the respectable length\r
+of the set as it was forming, and to feel that she had so many hours\r
+of unusual festivity before her.--She was more disturbed by Mr.\r
+Knightley’s not dancing than by any thing else.--There he was, among\r
+the standers-by, where he ought not to be; he ought to be dancing,--not\r
+classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who\r
+were pretending to feel an interest in the dance till their rubbers were\r
+made up,--so young as he looked!--He could not have appeared to greater\r
+advantage perhaps anywhere, than where he had placed himself. His tall,\r
+firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of\r
+the elderly men, was such as Emma felt must draw every body’s eyes;\r
+and, excepting her own partner, there was not one among the whole row of\r
+young men who could be compared with him.--He moved a few steps nearer,\r
+and those few steps were enough to prove in how gentlemanlike a manner,\r
+with what natural grace, he must have danced, would he but take the\r
+trouble.--Whenever she caught his eye, she forced him to smile; but\r
+in general he was looking grave. She wished he could love a ballroom\r
+better, and could like Frank Churchill better.--He seemed often\r
+observing her. She must not flatter herself that he thought of her\r
+dancing, but if he were criticising her behaviour, she did not feel\r
+afraid. There was nothing like flirtation between her and her partner.\r
+They seemed more like cheerful, easy friends, than lovers. That Frank\r
+Churchill thought less of her than he had done, was indubitable.\r
+\r
+The ball proceeded pleasantly. The anxious cares, the incessant\r
+attentions of Mrs. Weston, were not thrown away. Every body seemed\r
+happy; and the praise of being a delightful ball, which is seldom\r
+bestowed till after a ball has ceased to be, was repeatedly given in\r
+the very beginning of the existence of this. Of very important, very\r
+recordable events, it was not more productive than such meetings usually\r
+are. There was one, however, which Emma thought something of.--The two\r
+last dances before supper were begun, and Harriet had no partner;--the\r
+only young lady sitting down;--and so equal had been hitherto the\r
+number of dancers, that how there could be any one disengaged was the\r
+wonder!--But Emma’s wonder lessened soon afterwards, on seeing Mr. Elton\r
+sauntering about. He would not ask Harriet to dance if it were possible\r
+to be avoided: she was sure he would not--and she was expecting him\r
+every moment to escape into the card-room.\r
+\r
+Escape, however, was not his plan. He came to the part of the room where\r
+the sitters-by were collected, spoke to some, and walked about in front\r
+of them, as if to shew his liberty, and his resolution of maintaining\r
+it. He did not omit being sometimes directly before Miss Smith, or\r
+speaking to those who were close to her.--Emma saw it. She was not yet\r
+dancing; she was working her way up from the bottom, and had therefore\r
+leisure to look around, and by only turning her head a little she saw\r
+it all. When she was half-way up the set, the whole group were exactly\r
+behind her, and she would no longer allow her eyes to watch; but Mr.\r
+Elton was so near, that she heard every syllable of a dialogue which\r
+just then took place between him and Mrs. Weston; and she perceived that\r
+his wife, who was standing immediately above her, was not only\r
+listening also, but even encouraging him by significant glances.--The\r
+kind-hearted, gentle Mrs. Weston had left her seat to join him and say,\r
+“Do not you dance, Mr. Elton?” to which his prompt reply was, “Most\r
+readily, Mrs. Weston, if you will dance with me.”\r
+\r
+“Me!--oh! no--I would get you a better partner than myself. I am no\r
+dancer.”\r
+\r
+“If Mrs. Gilbert wishes to dance,” said he, “I shall have great\r
+pleasure, I am sure--for, though beginning to feel myself rather an old\r
+married man, and that my dancing days are over, it would give me very\r
+great pleasure at any time to stand up with an old friend like Mrs.\r
+Gilbert.”\r
+\r
+“Mrs. Gilbert does not mean to dance, but there is a young lady\r
+disengaged whom I should be very glad to see dancing--Miss Smith.” “Miss\r
+Smith!--oh!--I had not observed.--You are extremely obliging--and if I\r
+were not an old married man.--But my dancing days are over, Mrs. Weston.\r
+You will excuse me. Any thing else I should be most happy to do, at your\r
+command--but my dancing days are over.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston said no more; and Emma could imagine with what surprize and\r
+mortification she must be returning to her seat. This was Mr. Elton! the\r
+amiable, obliging, gentle Mr. Elton.--She looked round for a moment; he\r
+had joined Mr. Knightley at a little distance, and was arranging himself\r
+for settled conversation, while smiles of high glee passed between him\r
+and his wife.\r
+\r
+She would not look again. Her heart was in a glow, and she feared her\r
+face might be as hot.\r
+\r
+In another moment a happier sight caught her;--Mr. Knightley leading\r
+Harriet to the set!--Never had she been more surprized, seldom more\r
+delighted, than at that instant. She was all pleasure and gratitude,\r
+both for Harriet and herself, and longed to be thanking him; and though\r
+too distant for speech, her countenance said much, as soon as she could\r
+catch his eye again.\r
+\r
+His dancing proved to be just what she had believed it, extremely good;\r
+and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky, if it had not been for\r
+the cruel state of things before, and for the very complete enjoyment\r
+and very high sense of the distinction which her happy features\r
+announced. It was not thrown away on her, she bounded higher than ever,\r
+flew farther down the middle, and was in a continual course of smiles.\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton had retreated into the card-room, looking (Emma trusted) very\r
+foolish. She did not think he was quite so hardened as his wife, though\r
+growing very like her;--_she_ spoke some of her feelings, by observing\r
+audibly to her partner,\r
+\r
+“Knightley has taken pity on poor little Miss Smith!--Very good-natured,\r
+I declare.”\r
+\r
+Supper was announced. The move began; and Miss Bates might be heard from\r
+that moment, without interruption, till her being seated at table and\r
+taking up her spoon.\r
+\r
+“Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you?--Here is your tippet. Mrs.\r
+Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will\r
+be draughts in the passage, though every thing has been done--One door\r
+nailed up--Quantities of matting--My dear Jane, indeed you must.\r
+Mr. Churchill, oh! you are too obliging! How well you put it on!--so\r
+gratified! Excellent dancing indeed!--Yes, my dear, I ran home, as I\r
+said I should, to help grandmama to bed, and got back again, and\r
+nobody missed me.--I set off without saying a word, just as I told you.\r
+Grandmama was quite well, had a charming evening with Mr. Woodhouse, a\r
+vast deal of chat, and backgammon.--Tea was made downstairs, biscuits\r
+and baked apples and wine before she came away: amazing luck in some\r
+of her throws: and she inquired a great deal about you, how you were\r
+amused, and who were your partners. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘I shall not forestall\r
+Jane; I left her dancing with Mr. George Otway; she will love to tell\r
+you all about it herself to-morrow: her first partner was Mr. Elton,\r
+I do not know who will ask her next, perhaps Mr. William Cox.’ My dear\r
+sir, you are too obliging.--Is there nobody you would not rather?--I am\r
+not helpless. Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and\r
+me on the other!--Stop, stop, let us stand a little back, Mrs. Elton is\r
+going; dear Mrs. Elton, how elegant she looks!--Beautiful lace!--Now we\r
+all follow in her train. Quite the queen of the evening!--Well, here we\r
+are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no,\r
+there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd!\r
+I was convinced there were two, and there is but one. I never saw any\r
+thing equal to the comfort and style--Candles everywhere.--I was telling\r
+you of your grandmama, Jane,--There was a little disappointment.--The\r
+baked apples and biscuits, excellent in their way, you know; but there\r
+was a delicate fricassee of sweetbread and some asparagus brought in at\r
+first, and good Mr. Woodhouse, not thinking the asparagus quite boiled\r
+enough, sent it all out again. Now there is nothing grandmama loves\r
+better than sweetbread and asparagus--so she was rather disappointed,\r
+but we agreed we would not speak of it to any body, for fear of\r
+its getting round to dear Miss Woodhouse, who would be so very much\r
+concerned!--Well, this is brilliant! I am all amazement! could not have\r
+supposed any thing!--Such elegance and profusion!--I have seen nothing\r
+like it since--Well, where shall we sit? where shall we sit? Anywhere,\r
+so that Jane is not in a draught. Where _I_ sit is of no consequence.\r
+Oh! do you recommend this side?--Well, I am sure, Mr. Churchill--only\r
+it seems too good--but just as you please. What you direct in this house\r
+cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes\r
+for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but\r
+it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning.”\r
+\r
+Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper;\r
+but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited\r
+him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked. He was warm in his\r
+reprobation of Mr. Elton’s conduct; it had been unpardonable rudeness;\r
+and Mrs. Elton’s looks also received the due share of censure.\r
+\r
+“They aimed at wounding more than Harriet,” said he. “Emma, why is it\r
+that they are your enemies?”\r
+\r
+He looked with smiling penetration; and, on receiving no answer, added,\r
+“_She_ ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may\r
+be.--To that surmise, you say nothing, of course; but confess, Emma,\r
+that you did want him to marry Harriet.”\r
+\r
+“I did,” replied Emma, “and they cannot forgive me.”\r
+\r
+He shook his head; but there was a smile of indulgence with it, and he\r
+only said,\r
+\r
+“I shall not scold you. I leave you to your own reflections.”\r
+\r
+“Can you trust me with such flatterers?--Does my vain spirit ever tell\r
+me I am wrong?”\r
+\r
+“Not your vain spirit, but your serious spirit.--If one leads you wrong,\r
+I am sure the other tells you of it.”\r
+\r
+“I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is\r
+a littleness about him which you discovered, and which I did not: and I\r
+was fully convinced of his being in love with Harriet. It was through a\r
+series of strange blunders!”\r
+\r
+“And, in return for your acknowledging so much, I will do you the\r
+justice to say, that you would have chosen for him better than he has\r
+chosen for himself.--Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities, which\r
+Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless\r
+girl--infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a\r
+woman as Mrs. Elton. I found Harriet more conversable than I expected.”\r
+\r
+Emma was extremely gratified.--They were interrupted by the bustle of\r
+Mr. Weston calling on every body to begin dancing again.\r
+\r
+“Come Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all\r
+doing?--Come Emma, set your companions the example. Every body is lazy!\r
+Every body is asleep!”\r
+\r
+“I am ready,” said Emma, “whenever I am wanted.”\r
+\r
+“Whom are you going to dance with?” asked Mr. Knightley.\r
+\r
+She hesitated a moment, and then replied, “With you, if you will ask\r
+me.”\r
+\r
+“Will you?” said he, offering his hand.\r
+\r
+“Indeed I will. You have shewn that you can dance, and you know we are\r
+not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.”\r
+\r
+“Brother and sister! no, indeed.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+\r
+This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable\r
+pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which\r
+she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.--She was extremely\r
+glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the\r
+Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much\r
+alike; and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was\r
+peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few\r
+minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the\r
+occasion of some of its highest satisfactions; and she looked forward\r
+to another happy result--the cure of Harriet’s infatuation.--From\r
+Harriet’s manner of speaking of the circumstance before they quitted the\r
+ballroom, she had strong hopes. It seemed as if her eyes were suddenly\r
+opened, and she were enabled to see that Mr. Elton was not the superior\r
+creature she had believed him. The fever was over, and Emma could\r
+harbour little fear of the pulse being quickened again by injurious\r
+courtesy. She depended on the evil feelings of the Eltons for\r
+supplying all the discipline of pointed neglect that could be farther\r
+requisite.--Harriet rational, Frank Churchill not too much in love, and\r
+Mr. Knightley not wanting to quarrel with her, how very happy a summer\r
+must be before her!\r
+\r
+She was not to see Frank Churchill this morning. He had told her that he\r
+could not allow himself the pleasure of stopping at Hartfield, as he was\r
+to be at home by the middle of the day. She did not regret it.\r
+\r
+Having arranged all these matters, looked them through, and put them all\r
+to rights, she was just turning to the house with spirits freshened up\r
+for the demands of the two little boys, as well as of their grandpapa,\r
+when the great iron sweep-gate opened, and two persons entered whom she\r
+had never less expected to see together--Frank Churchill, with Harriet\r
+leaning on his arm--actually Harriet!--A moment sufficed to convince\r
+her that something extraordinary had happened. Harriet looked white\r
+and frightened, and he was trying to cheer her.--The iron gates and the\r
+front-door were not twenty yards asunder;--they were all three soon in\r
+the hall, and Harriet immediately sinking into a chair fainted away.\r
+\r
+A young lady who faints, must be recovered; questions must be answered,\r
+and surprizes be explained. Such events are very interesting, but the\r
+suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted\r
+with the whole.\r
+\r
+Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs.\r
+Goddard’s, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and\r
+taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough\r
+for safety, had led them into alarm.--About half a mile beyond Highbury,\r
+making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became\r
+for a considerable stretch very retired; and when the young ladies\r
+had advanced some way into it, they had suddenly perceived at a small\r
+distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a\r
+party of gipsies. A child on the watch, came towards them to beg; and\r
+Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream, and calling\r
+on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight hedge at\r
+the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to Highbury.\r
+But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much from cramp\r
+after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such\r
+a return of it as made her absolutely powerless--and in this state, and\r
+exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain.\r
+\r
+How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more\r
+courageous, must be doubtful; but such an invitation for attack could\r
+not be resisted; and Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen children,\r
+headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous, and impertinent\r
+in look, though not absolutely in word.--More and more frightened, she\r
+immediately promised them money, and taking out her purse, gave them a\r
+shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to use her ill.--She\r
+was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving away--but her\r
+terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather\r
+surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more.\r
+\r
+In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and\r
+conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance his\r
+leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance\r
+at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced\r
+him to walk forward, and leave his horses to meet him by another road,\r
+a mile or two beyond Highbury--and happening to have borrowed a pair\r
+of scissors the night before of Miss Bates, and to have forgotten to\r
+restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door, and go in for a\r
+few minutes: he was therefore later than he had intended; and being\r
+on foot, was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The\r
+terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then\r
+their own portion. He had left them completely frightened; and Harriet\r
+eagerly clinging to him, and hardly able to speak, had just strength\r
+enough to reach Hartfield, before her spirits were quite overcome.\r
+It was his idea to bring her to Hartfield: he had thought of no other\r
+place.\r
+\r
+This was the amount of the whole story,--of his communication and of\r
+Harriet’s as soon as she had recovered her senses and speech.--He dared\r
+not stay longer than to see her well; these several delays left him\r
+not another minute to lose; and Emma engaging to give assurance of her\r
+safety to Mrs. Goddard, and notice of there being such a set of people\r
+in the neighbourhood to Mr. Knightley, he set off, with all the grateful\r
+blessings that she could utter for her friend and herself.\r
+\r
+Such an adventure as this,--a fine young man and a lovely young woman\r
+thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain\r
+ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at\r
+least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician\r
+have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and\r
+heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been\r
+at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?--How much\r
+more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and\r
+foresight!--especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her\r
+mind had already made.\r
+\r
+It was a very extraordinary thing! Nothing of the sort had ever\r
+occurred before to any young ladies in the place, within her memory; no\r
+rencontre, no alarm of the kind;--and now it had happened to the very\r
+person, and at the very hour, when the other very person was chancing\r
+to pass by to rescue her!--It certainly was very extraordinary!--And\r
+knowing, as she did, the favourable state of mind of each at this\r
+period, it struck her the more. He was wishing to get the better of his\r
+attachment to herself, she just recovering from her mania for Mr. Elton.\r
+It seemed as if every thing united to promise the most interesting\r
+consequences. It was not possible that the occurrence should not be\r
+strongly recommending each to the other.\r
+\r
+In the few minutes’ conversation which she had yet had with him, while\r
+Harriet had been partially insensible, he had spoken of her terror,\r
+her naivete, her fervour as she seized and clung to his arm, with a\r
+sensibility amused and delighted; and just at last, after Harriet’s\r
+own account had been given, he had expressed his indignation at the\r
+abominable folly of Miss Bickerton in the warmest terms. Every thing was\r
+to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted.\r
+She would not stir a step, nor drop a hint. No, she had had enough of\r
+interference. There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive scheme.\r
+It was no more than a wish. Beyond it she would on no account proceed.\r
+\r
+Emma’s first resolution was to keep her father from the knowledge of\r
+what had passed,--aware of the anxiety and alarm it would occasion: but\r
+she soon felt that concealment must be impossible. Within half an hour\r
+it was known all over Highbury. It was the very event to engage those\r
+who talk most, the young and the low; and all the youth and servants in\r
+the place were soon in the happiness of frightful news. The last night’s\r
+ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Poor Mr. Woodhouse trembled as he sat,\r
+and, as Emma had foreseen, would scarcely be satisfied without their\r
+promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. It was some comfort\r
+to him that many inquiries after himself and Miss Woodhouse (for his\r
+neighbours knew that he loved to be inquired after), as well as Miss\r
+Smith, were coming in during the rest of the day; and he had\r
+the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very\r
+indifferent--which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well,\r
+and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had\r
+an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man,\r
+for she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent\r
+illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message.\r
+\r
+The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice; they took\r
+themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have\r
+walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history\r
+dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her\r
+nephews:--in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and\r
+John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the\r
+gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the\r
+slightest particular from the original recital.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+\r
+A very few days had passed after this adventure, when Harriet came one\r
+morning to Emma with a small parcel in her hand, and after sitting down\r
+and hesitating, thus began:\r
+\r
+“Miss Woodhouse--if you are at leisure--I have something that I should\r
+like to tell you--a sort of confession to make--and then, you know, it\r
+will be over.”\r
+\r
+Emma was a good deal surprized; but begged her to speak. There was a\r
+seriousness in Harriet’s manner which prepared her, quite as much as her\r
+words, for something more than ordinary.\r
+\r
+“It is my duty, and I am sure it is my wish,” she continued, “to have\r
+no reserves with you on this subject. As I am happily quite an altered\r
+creature in _one_ _respect_, it is very fit that you should have\r
+the satisfaction of knowing it. I do not want to say more than is\r
+necessary--I am too much ashamed of having given way as I have done, and\r
+I dare say you understand me.”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” said Emma, “I hope I do.”\r
+\r
+“How I could so long a time be fancying myself!...” cried Harriet,\r
+warmly. “It seems like madness! I can see nothing at all extraordinary\r
+in him now.--I do not care whether I meet him or not--except that of the\r
+two I had rather not see him--and indeed I would go any distance round\r
+to avoid him--but I do not envy his wife in the least; I neither admire\r
+her nor envy her, as I have done: she is very charming, I dare say, and\r
+all that, but I think her very ill-tempered and disagreeable--I shall\r
+never forget her look the other night!--However, I assure you, Miss\r
+Woodhouse, I wish her no evil.--No, let them be ever so happy together,\r
+it will not give me another moment’s pang: and to convince you that I\r
+have been speaking truth, I am now going to destroy--what I ought to\r
+have destroyed long ago--what I ought never to have kept--I know that\r
+very well (blushing as she spoke).--However, now I will destroy it\r
+all--and it is my particular wish to do it in your presence, that you\r
+may see how rational I am grown. Cannot you guess what this parcel\r
+holds?” said she, with a conscious look.\r
+\r
+“Not the least in the world.--Did he ever give you any thing?”\r
+\r
+“No--I cannot call them gifts; but they are things that I have valued\r
+very much.”\r
+\r
+She held the parcel towards her, and Emma read the words _Most_\r
+_precious_ _treasures_ on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited.\r
+Harriet unfolded the parcel, and she looked on with impatience. Within\r
+abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridge-ware box,\r
+which Harriet opened: it was well lined with the softest cotton; but,\r
+excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of court-plaister.\r
+\r
+“Now,” said Harriet, “you _must_ recollect.”\r
+\r
+“No, indeed I do not.”\r
+\r
+“Dear me! I should not have thought it possible you could forget what\r
+passed in this very room about court-plaister, one of the very last\r
+times we ever met in it!--It was but a very few days before I had my\r
+sore throat--just before Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley came--I think the\r
+very evening.--Do not you remember his cutting his finger with your new\r
+penknife, and your recommending court-plaister?--But, as you had none\r
+about you, and knew I had, you desired me to supply him; and so I took\r
+mine out and cut him a piece; but it was a great deal too large, and he\r
+cut it smaller, and kept playing some time with what was left, before he\r
+gave it back to me. And so then, in my nonsense, I could not help making\r
+a treasure of it--so I put it by never to be used, and looked at it now\r
+and then as a great treat.”\r
+\r
+“My dearest Harriet!” cried Emma, putting her hand before her face,\r
+and jumping up, “you make me more ashamed of myself than I can bear.\r
+Remember it? Aye, I remember it all now; all, except your saving this\r
+relic--I knew nothing of that till this moment--but the cutting the\r
+finger, and my recommending court-plaister, and saying I had none\r
+about me!--Oh! my sins, my sins!--And I had plenty all the while in my\r
+pocket!--One of my senseless tricks!--I deserve to be under a continual\r
+blush all the rest of my life.--Well--(sitting down again)--go on--what\r
+else?”\r
+\r
+“And had you really some at hand yourself? I am sure I never suspected\r
+it, you did it so naturally.”\r
+\r
+“And so you actually put this piece of court-plaister by for his sake!”\r
+ said Emma, recovering from her state of shame and feeling divided\r
+between wonder and amusement. And secretly she added to herself, “Lord\r
+bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a\r
+piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I\r
+never was equal to this.”\r
+\r
+“Here,” resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, “here is something\r
+still more valuable, I mean that _has_ _been_ more valuable, because\r
+this is what did really once belong to him, which the court-plaister\r
+never did.”\r
+\r
+Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of an\r
+old pencil,--the part without any lead.\r
+\r
+“This was really his,” said Harriet.--“Do not you remember one\r
+morning?--no, I dare say you do not. But one morning--I forget exactly\r
+the day--but perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before _that_\r
+_evening_, he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocket-book; it was\r
+about spruce-beer. Mr. Knightley had been telling him something about\r
+brewing spruce-beer, and he wanted to put it down; but when he took out\r
+his pencil, there was so little lead that he soon cut it all away, and\r
+it would not do, so you lent him another, and this was left upon the\r
+table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye on it; and, as soon as I\r
+dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again from that moment.”\r
+\r
+“I do remember it,” cried Emma; “I perfectly remember it.--Talking\r
+about spruce-beer.--Oh! yes--Mr. Knightley and I both saying we\r
+liked it, and Mr. Elton’s seeming resolved to learn to like it too. I\r
+perfectly remember it.--Stop; Mr. Knightley was standing just here, was\r
+not he? I have an idea he was standing just here.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! I do not know. I cannot recollect.--It is very odd, but I cannot\r
+recollect.--Mr. Elton was sitting here, I remember, much about where I\r
+am now.”--\r
+\r
+“Well, go on.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! that’s all. I have nothing more to shew you, or to say--except that\r
+I am now going to throw them both behind the fire, and I wish you to see\r
+me do it.”\r
+\r
+“My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in\r
+treasuring up these things?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, simpleton as I was!--but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I\r
+could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you\r
+know, to keep any remembrances, after he was married. I knew it was--but\r
+had not resolution enough to part with them.”\r
+\r
+“But, Harriet, is it necessary to burn the court-plaister?--I have not\r
+a word to say for the bit of old pencil, but the court-plaister might be\r
+useful.”\r
+\r
+“I shall be happier to burn it,” replied Harriet. “It has a disagreeable\r
+look to me. I must get rid of every thing.--There it goes, and there is\r
+an end, thank Heaven! of Mr. Elton.”\r
+\r
+“And when,” thought Emma, “will there be a beginning of Mr. Churchill?”\r
+\r
+She had soon afterwards reason to believe that the beginning was already\r
+made, and could not but hope that the gipsy, though she had _told_ no\r
+fortune, might be proved to have made Harriet’s.--About a fortnight\r
+after the alarm, they came to a sufficient explanation, and quite\r
+undesignedly. Emma was not thinking of it at the moment, which made the\r
+information she received more valuable. She merely said, in the course\r
+of some trivial chat, “Well, Harriet, whenever you marry I would advise\r
+you to do so and so”--and thought no more of it, till after a minute’s\r
+silence she heard Harriet say in a very serious tone, “I shall never\r
+marry.”\r
+\r
+Emma then looked up, and immediately saw how it was; and after a\r
+moment’s debate, as to whether it should pass unnoticed or not, replied,\r
+\r
+“Never marry!--This is a new resolution.”\r
+\r
+“It is one that I shall never change, however.”\r
+\r
+After another short hesitation, “I hope it does not proceed from--I hope\r
+it is not in compliment to Mr. Elton?”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Elton indeed!” cried Harriet indignantly.--“Oh! no”--and Emma could\r
+just catch the words, “so superior to Mr. Elton!”\r
+\r
+She then took a longer time for consideration. Should she proceed no\r
+farther?--should she let it pass, and seem to suspect nothing?--Perhaps\r
+Harriet might think her cold or angry if she did; or perhaps if she were\r
+totally silent, it might only drive Harriet into asking her to hear too\r
+much; and against any thing like such an unreserve as had been, such\r
+an open and frequent discussion of hopes and chances, she was perfectly\r
+resolved.--She believed it would be wiser for her to say and know at\r
+once, all that she meant to say and know. Plain dealing was always\r
+best. She had previously determined how far she would proceed, on any\r
+application of the sort; and it would be safer for both, to have the\r
+judicious law of her own brain laid down with speed.--She was decided,\r
+and thus spoke--\r
+\r
+“Harriet, I will not affect to be in doubt of your meaning. Your\r
+resolution, or rather your expectation of never marrying, results from\r
+an idea that the person whom you might prefer, would be too greatly your\r
+superior in situation to think of you. Is not it so?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, believe me I have not the presumption to suppose--\r
+Indeed I am not so mad.--But it is a pleasure to me to admire him at a\r
+distance--and to think of his infinite superiority to all the rest of\r
+the world, with the gratitude, wonder, and veneration, which are so\r
+proper, in me especially.”\r
+\r
+“I am not at all surprized at you, Harriet. The service he rendered you\r
+was enough to warm your heart.”\r
+\r
+“Service! oh! it was such an inexpressible obligation!--The very\r
+recollection of it, and all that I felt at the time--when I saw him\r
+coming--his noble look--and my wretchedness before. Such a change! In\r
+one moment such a change! From perfect misery to perfect happiness!”\r
+\r
+“It is very natural. It is natural, and it is honourable.--Yes,\r
+honourable, I think, to chuse so well and so gratefully.--But that\r
+it will be a fortunate preference is more than I can promise. I do not\r
+advise you to give way to it, Harriet. I do not by any means engage\r
+for its being returned. Consider what you are about. Perhaps it will be\r
+wisest in you to check your feelings while you can: at any rate do not\r
+let them carry you far, unless you are persuaded of his liking you. Be\r
+observant of him. Let his behaviour be the guide of your sensations. I\r
+give you this caution now, because I shall never speak to you again on\r
+the subject. I am determined against all interference. Henceforward I\r
+know nothing of the matter. Let no name ever pass our lips. We were very\r
+wrong before; we will be cautious now.--He is your superior, no doubt,\r
+and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature; but\r
+yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place, there have been\r
+matches of greater disparity. But take care of yourself. I would not\r
+have you too sanguine; though, however it may end, be assured your\r
+raising your thoughts to _him_, is a mark of good taste which I shall\r
+always know how to value.”\r
+\r
+Harriet kissed her hand in silent and submissive gratitude. Emma was\r
+very decided in thinking such an attachment no bad thing for her friend.\r
+Its tendency would be to raise and refine her mind--and it must be\r
+saving her from the danger of degradation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+\r
+In this state of schemes, and hopes, and connivance, June opened upon\r
+Hartfield. To Highbury in general it brought no material change. The\r
+Eltons were still talking of a visit from the Sucklings, and of the use\r
+to be made of their barouche-landau; and Jane Fairfax was still at her\r
+grandmother’s; and as the return of the Campbells from Ireland was again\r
+delayed, and August, instead of Midsummer, fixed for it, she was likely\r
+to remain there full two months longer, provided at least she were able\r
+to defeat Mrs. Elton’s activity in her service, and save herself from\r
+being hurried into a delightful situation against her will.\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley, who, for some reason best known to himself, had certainly\r
+taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike\r
+him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit\r
+of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing\r
+declared it; his own attentions, his father’s hints, his mother-in-law’s\r
+guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and\r
+indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were devoting him\r
+to Emma, and Emma herself making him over to Harriet, Mr. Knightley\r
+began to suspect him of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax. He\r
+could not understand it; but there were symptoms of intelligence between\r
+them--he thought so at least--symptoms of admiration on his side, which,\r
+having once observed, he could not persuade himself to think entirely\r
+void of meaning, however he might wish to escape any of Emma’s errors\r
+of imagination. _She_ was not present when the suspicion first arose.\r
+He was dining with the Randalls family, and Jane, at the Eltons’; and he\r
+had seen a look, more than a single look, at Miss Fairfax, which, from\r
+the admirer of Miss Woodhouse, seemed somewhat out of place. When he was\r
+again in their company, he could not help remembering what he had seen;\r
+nor could he avoid observations which, unless it were like Cowper and\r
+his fire at twilight,\r
+\r
+“Myself creating what I saw,”\r
+\r
+brought him yet stronger suspicion of there being a something of private\r
+liking, of private understanding even, between Frank Churchill and Jane.\r
+\r
+He had walked up one day after dinner, as he very often did, to spend\r
+his evening at Hartfield. Emma and Harriet were going to walk; he joined\r
+them; and, on returning, they fell in with a larger party, who, like\r
+themselves, judged it wisest to take their exercise early, as the\r
+weather threatened rain; Mr. and Mrs. Weston and their son, Miss Bates\r
+and her niece, who had accidentally met. They all united; and, on\r
+reaching Hartfield gates, Emma, who knew it was exactly the sort of\r
+visiting that would be welcome to her father, pressed them all to go in\r
+and drink tea with him. The Randalls party agreed to it immediately; and\r
+after a pretty long speech from Miss Bates, which few persons listened\r
+to, she also found it possible to accept dear Miss Woodhouse’s most\r
+obliging invitation.\r
+\r
+As they were turning into the grounds, Mr. Perry passed by on horseback.\r
+The gentlemen spoke of his horse.\r
+\r
+“By the bye,” said Frank Churchill to Mrs. Weston presently, “what\r
+became of Mr. Perry’s plan of setting up his carriage?”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston looked surprized, and said, “I did not know that he ever had\r
+any such plan.”\r
+\r
+“Nay, I had it from you. You wrote me word of it three months ago.”\r
+\r
+“Me! impossible!”\r
+\r
+“Indeed you did. I remember it perfectly. You mentioned it as what\r
+was certainly to be very soon. Mrs. Perry had told somebody, and was\r
+extremely happy about it. It was owing to _her_ persuasion, as she\r
+thought his being out in bad weather did him a great deal of harm. You\r
+must remember it now?”\r
+\r
+“Upon my word I never heard of it till this moment.”\r
+\r
+“Never! really, never!--Bless me! how could it be?--Then I must have\r
+dreamt it--but I was completely persuaded--Miss Smith, you walk as if\r
+you were tired. You will not be sorry to find yourself at home.”\r
+\r
+“What is this?--What is this?” cried Mr. Weston, “about Perry and a\r
+carriage? Is Perry going to set up his carriage, Frank? I am glad he can\r
+afford it. You had it from himself, had you?”\r
+\r
+“No, sir,” replied his son, laughing, “I seem to have had it from\r
+nobody.--Very odd!--I really was persuaded of Mrs. Weston’s having\r
+mentioned it in one of her letters to Enscombe, many weeks ago, with all\r
+these particulars--but as she declares she never heard a syllable of\r
+it before, of course it must have been a dream. I am a great dreamer.\r
+I dream of every body at Highbury when I am away--and when I have gone\r
+through my particular friends, then I begin dreaming of Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Perry.”\r
+\r
+“It is odd though,” observed his father, “that you should have had such\r
+a regular connected dream about people whom it was not very likely you\r
+should be thinking of at Enscombe. Perry’s setting up his carriage! and\r
+his wife’s persuading him to it, out of care for his health--just\r
+what will happen, I have no doubt, some time or other; only a little\r
+premature. What an air of probability sometimes runs through a dream!\r
+And at others, what a heap of absurdities it is! Well, Frank, your dream\r
+certainly shews that Highbury is in your thoughts when you are absent.\r
+Emma, you are a great dreamer, I think?”\r
+\r
+Emma was out of hearing. She had hurried on before her guests to\r
+prepare her father for their appearance, and was beyond the reach of Mr.\r
+Weston’s hint.\r
+\r
+“Why, to own the truth,” cried Miss Bates, who had been trying in vain\r
+to be heard the last two minutes, “if I must speak on this subject,\r
+there is no denying that Mr. Frank Churchill might have--I do not mean\r
+to say that he did not dream it--I am sure I have sometimes the oddest\r
+dreams in the world--but if I am questioned about it, I must acknowledge\r
+that there was such an idea last spring; for Mrs. Perry herself\r
+mentioned it to my mother, and the Coles knew of it as well as\r
+ourselves--but it was quite a secret, known to nobody else, and only\r
+thought of about three days. Mrs. Perry was very anxious that he should\r
+have a carriage, and came to my mother in great spirits one morning\r
+because she thought she had prevailed. Jane, don’t you remember\r
+grandmama’s telling us of it when we got home? I forget where we\r
+had been walking to--very likely to Randalls; yes, I think it was to\r
+Randalls. Mrs. Perry was always particularly fond of my mother--indeed\r
+I do not know who is not--and she had mentioned it to her in confidence;\r
+she had no objection to her telling us, of course, but it was not to go\r
+beyond: and, from that day to this, I never mentioned it to a soul that\r
+I know of. At the same time, I will not positively answer for my having\r
+never dropt a hint, because I know I do sometimes pop out a thing before\r
+I am aware. I am a talker, you know; I am rather a talker; and now and\r
+then I have let a thing escape me which I should not. I am not like\r
+Jane; I wish I were. I will answer for it _she_ never betrayed the least\r
+thing in the world. Where is she?--Oh! just behind. Perfectly remember\r
+Mrs. Perry’s coming.--Extraordinary dream, indeed!”\r
+\r
+They were entering the hall. Mr. Knightley’s eyes had preceded Miss\r
+Bates’s in a glance at Jane. From Frank Churchill’s face, where\r
+he thought he saw confusion suppressed or laughed away, he had\r
+involuntarily turned to hers; but she was indeed behind, and too busy\r
+with her shawl. Mr. Weston had walked in. The two other gentlemen waited\r
+at the door to let her pass. Mr. Knightley suspected in Frank\r
+Churchill the determination of catching her eye--he seemed watching her\r
+intently--in vain, however, if it were so--Jane passed between them\r
+into the hall, and looked at neither.\r
+\r
+There was no time for farther remark or explanation. The dream must be\r
+borne with, and Mr. Knightley must take his seat with the rest round the\r
+large modern circular table which Emma had introduced at Hartfield, and\r
+which none but Emma could have had power to place there and persuade her\r
+father to use, instead of the small-sized Pembroke, on which two of his\r
+daily meals had, for forty years been crowded. Tea passed pleasantly,\r
+and nobody seemed in a hurry to move.\r
+\r
+“Miss Woodhouse,” said Frank Churchill, after examining a table behind\r
+him, which he could reach as he sat, “have your nephews taken away their\r
+alphabets--their box of letters? It used to stand here. Where is it?\r
+This is a sort of dull-looking evening, that ought to be treated rather\r
+as winter than summer. We had great amusement with those letters one\r
+morning. I want to puzzle you again.”\r
+\r
+Emma was pleased with the thought; and producing the box, the table\r
+was quickly scattered over with alphabets, which no one seemed so much\r
+disposed to employ as their two selves. They were rapidly forming words\r
+for each other, or for any body else who would be puzzled. The quietness\r
+of the game made it particularly eligible for Mr. Woodhouse, who had\r
+often been distressed by the more animated sort, which Mr. Weston had\r
+occasionally introduced, and who now sat happily occupied in lamenting,\r
+with tender melancholy, over the departure of the “poor little boys,”\r
+ or in fondly pointing out, as he took up any stray letter near him, how\r
+beautifully Emma had written it.\r
+\r
+Frank Churchill placed a word before Miss Fairfax. She gave a slight\r
+glance round the table, and applied herself to it. Frank was next to\r
+Emma, Jane opposite to them--and Mr. Knightley so placed as to see them\r
+all; and it was his object to see as much as he could, with as little\r
+apparent observation. The word was discovered, and with a faint smile\r
+pushed away. If meant to be immediately mixed with the others, and\r
+buried from sight, she should have looked on the table instead of\r
+looking just across, for it was not mixed; and Harriet, eager after\r
+every fresh word, and finding out none, directly took it up, and fell to\r
+work. She was sitting by Mr. Knightley, and turned to him for help. The\r
+word was _blunder_; and as Harriet exultingly proclaimed it, there was a\r
+blush on Jane’s cheek which gave it a meaning not otherwise ostensible.\r
+Mr. Knightley connected it with the dream; but how it could all be,\r
+was beyond his comprehension. How the delicacy, the discretion of his\r
+favourite could have been so lain asleep! He feared there must be some\r
+decided involvement. Disingenuousness and double dealing seemed to meet\r
+him at every turn. These letters were but the vehicle for gallantry and\r
+trick. It was a child’s play, chosen to conceal a deeper game on Frank\r
+Churchill’s part.\r
+\r
+With great indignation did he continue to observe him; with great alarm\r
+and distrust, to observe also his two blinded companions. He saw a short\r
+word prepared for Emma, and given to her with a look sly and demure. He\r
+saw that Emma had soon made it out, and found it highly entertaining,\r
+though it was something which she judged it proper to appear to censure;\r
+for she said, “Nonsense! for shame!” He heard Frank Churchill next say,\r
+with a glance towards Jane, “I will give it to her--shall I?”--and as\r
+clearly heard Emma opposing it with eager laughing warmth. “No, no, you\r
+must not; you shall not, indeed.”\r
+\r
+It was done however. This gallant young man, who seemed to love without\r
+feeling, and to recommend himself without complaisance, directly handed\r
+over the word to Miss Fairfax, and with a particular degree of sedate\r
+civility entreated her to study it. Mr. Knightley’s excessive curiosity\r
+to know what this word might be, made him seize every possible moment\r
+for darting his eye towards it, and it was not long before he saw it\r
+to be _Dixon_. Jane Fairfax’s perception seemed to accompany his;\r
+her comprehension was certainly more equal to the covert meaning,\r
+the superior intelligence, of those five letters so arranged. She was\r
+evidently displeased; looked up, and seeing herself watched, blushed\r
+more deeply than he had ever perceived her, and saying only, “I did not\r
+know that proper names were allowed,” pushed away the letters with even\r
+an angry spirit, and looked resolved to be engaged by no other word\r
+that could be offered. Her face was averted from those who had made the\r
+attack, and turned towards her aunt.\r
+\r
+“Aye, very true, my dear,” cried the latter, though Jane had not spoken\r
+a word--“I was just going to say the same thing. It is time for us to be\r
+going indeed. The evening is closing in, and grandmama will be looking\r
+for us. My dear sir, you are too obliging. We really must wish you good\r
+night.”\r
+\r
+Jane’s alertness in moving, proved her as ready as her aunt had\r
+preconceived. She was immediately up, and wanting to quit the table; but\r
+so many were also moving, that she could not get away; and Mr. Knightley\r
+thought he saw another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards\r
+her, and resolutely swept away by her unexamined. She was afterwards\r
+looking for her shawl--Frank Churchill was looking also--it was growing\r
+dusk, and the room was in confusion; and how they parted, Mr. Knightley\r
+could not tell.\r
+\r
+He remained at Hartfield after all the rest, his thoughts full of\r
+what he had seen; so full, that when the candles came to assist his\r
+observations, he must--yes, he certainly must, as a friend--an anxious\r
+friend--give Emma some hint, ask her some question. He could not see her\r
+in a situation of such danger, without trying to preserve her. It was\r
+his duty.\r
+\r
+“Pray, Emma,” said he, “may I ask in what lay the great amusement, the\r
+poignant sting of the last word given to you and Miss Fairfax? I saw the\r
+word, and am curious to know how it could be so very entertaining to the\r
+one, and so very distressing to the other.”\r
+\r
+Emma was extremely confused. She could not endure to give him the true\r
+explanation; for though her suspicions were by no means removed, she was\r
+really ashamed of having ever imparted them.\r
+\r
+“Oh!” she cried in evident embarrassment, “it all meant nothing; a mere\r
+joke among ourselves.”\r
+\r
+“The joke,” he replied gravely, “seemed confined to you and Mr.\r
+Churchill.”\r
+\r
+He had hoped she would speak again, but she did not. She would rather\r
+busy herself about any thing than speak. He sat a little while in\r
+doubt. A variety of evils crossed his mind. Interference--fruitless\r
+interference. Emma’s confusion, and the acknowledged intimacy, seemed to\r
+declare her affection engaged. Yet he would speak. He owed it to her,\r
+to risk any thing that might be involved in an unwelcome interference,\r
+rather than her welfare; to encounter any thing, rather than the\r
+remembrance of neglect in such a cause.\r
+\r
+“My dear Emma,” said he at last, with earnest kindness, “do you\r
+think you perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance between the\r
+gentleman and lady we have been speaking of?”\r
+\r
+“Between Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax? Oh! yes, perfectly.--Why\r
+do you make a doubt of it?”\r
+\r
+“Have you never at any time had reason to think that he admired her, or\r
+that she admired him?”\r
+\r
+“Never, never!” she cried with a most open eagerness--“Never, for the\r
+twentieth part of a moment, did such an idea occur to me. And how could\r
+it possibly come into your head?”\r
+\r
+“I have lately imagined that I saw symptoms of attachment between\r
+them--certain expressive looks, which I did not believe meant to be\r
+public.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! you amuse me excessively. I am delighted to find that you can\r
+vouchsafe to let your imagination wander--but it will not do--very sorry\r
+to check you in your first essay--but indeed it will not do. There is no\r
+admiration between them, I do assure you; and the appearances which\r
+have caught you, have arisen from some peculiar circumstances--feelings\r
+rather of a totally different nature--it is impossible exactly to\r
+explain:--there is a good deal of nonsense in it--but the part which is\r
+capable of being communicated, which is sense, is, that they are as far\r
+from any attachment or admiration for one another, as any two beings in\r
+the world can be. That is, I _presume_ it to be so on her side, and I\r
+can _answer_ for its being so on his. I will answer for the gentleman’s\r
+indifference.”\r
+\r
+She spoke with a confidence which staggered, with a satisfaction\r
+which silenced, Mr. Knightley. She was in gay spirits, and would have\r
+prolonged the conversation, wanting to hear the particulars of his\r
+suspicions, every look described, and all the wheres and hows of a\r
+circumstance which highly entertained her: but his gaiety did not meet\r
+hers. He found he could not be useful, and his feelings were too much\r
+irritated for talking. That he might not be irritated into an absolute\r
+fever, by the fire which Mr. Woodhouse’s tender habits required almost\r
+every evening throughout the year, he soon afterwards took a hasty\r
+leave, and walked home to the coolness and solitude of Donwell Abbey.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+\r
+After being long fed with hopes of a speedy visit from Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Suckling, the Highbury world were obliged to endure the mortification\r
+of hearing that they could not possibly come till the autumn. No such\r
+importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at\r
+present. In the daily interchange of news, they must be again restricted\r
+to the other topics with which for a while the Sucklings’ coming had\r
+been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health\r
+seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs.\r
+Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much\r
+increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was\r
+by the approach of it.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal\r
+of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all\r
+wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought\r
+at first;--but a little consideration convinced her that every thing\r
+need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though\r
+the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the\r
+autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was\r
+to be such a party had been long generally known: it had even given the\r
+idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what\r
+every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed\r
+to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the\r
+chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a\r
+quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and\r
+preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the\r
+Eltons and the Sucklings.\r
+\r
+This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but\r
+feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston\r
+that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had\r
+failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that\r
+as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she\r
+had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great\r
+dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly\r
+aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done\r
+without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and\r
+she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which\r
+she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would\r
+probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs.\r
+Elton’s party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her\r
+outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her\r
+reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston’s temper.\r
+\r
+“I am glad you approve of what I have done,” said he very comfortably.\r
+“But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without\r
+numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its\r
+own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not\r
+leave her out.”\r
+\r
+Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.\r
+\r
+It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton\r
+was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to\r
+pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing\r
+into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days,\r
+before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured\r
+on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton’s resources were\r
+inadequate to such an attack.\r
+\r
+“Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?” she cried.--“And such weather\r
+for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What\r
+are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing\r
+done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful\r
+exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston.”\r
+\r
+“You had better explore to Donwell,” replied Mr. Knightley. “That may\r
+be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening\r
+fast.”\r
+\r
+If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so,\r
+for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the “Oh! I should like\r
+it of all things,” was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was\r
+famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation:\r
+but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt\r
+the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again\r
+and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely\r
+gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment\r
+as she chose to consider it.\r
+\r
+“You may depend upon me,” said she. “I certainly will come. Name your\r
+day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?”\r
+\r
+“I cannot name a day,” said he, “till I have spoken to some others whom\r
+I would wish to meet you.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady\r
+Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me.”\r
+\r
+“I hope you will bring Elton,” said he: “but I will not trouble you to\r
+give any other invitations.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consider--you need not be afraid\r
+of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her preferment.\r
+Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave\r
+it all to me. I will invite your guests.”\r
+\r
+“No,”--he calmly replied,--“there is but one married woman in the world\r
+whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and\r
+that one is--”\r
+\r
+“--Mrs. Weston, I suppose,” interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.\r
+\r
+“No--Mrs. Knightley;--and till she is in being, I will manage such\r
+matters myself.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! you are an odd creature!” she cried, satisfied to have no one\r
+preferred to herself.--“You are a humourist, and may say what you\r
+like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and her\r
+aunt.--The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting\r
+the Hartfield family. Don’t scruple. I know you are attached to them.”\r
+\r
+“You certainly will meet them if I can prevail; and I shall call on Miss\r
+Bates in my way home.”\r
+\r
+“That’s quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day:--but as you like. It\r
+is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a simple thing. I\r
+shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging\r
+on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be\r
+more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be\r
+no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about\r
+your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under\r
+trees;--and whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out\r
+of doors--a table spread in the shade, you know. Every thing as natural\r
+and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?”\r
+\r
+“Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have\r
+the table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of\r
+gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is\r
+best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating\r
+strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house.”\r
+\r
+“Well--as you please; only don’t have a great set out. And, by the bye,\r
+can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?--Pray be\r
+sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs. Hodges, or to inspect\r
+anything--”\r
+\r
+“I have not the least wish for it, I thank you.”\r
+\r
+“Well--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely\r
+clever.”\r
+\r
+“I will answer for it, that mine thinks herself full as clever, and\r
+would spurn any body’s assistance.”\r
+\r
+“I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on\r
+donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me--and my caro sposo walking by. I\r
+really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life\r
+I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever\r
+so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at\r
+home;--and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in\r
+winter there is dirt.”\r
+\r
+“You will not find either, between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane is\r
+never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if\r
+you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs. Cole’s. I would wish every thing to\r
+be as much to your taste as possible.”\r
+\r
+“That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend.\r
+Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the\r
+warmest heart. As I tell Mr. E., you are a thorough humourist.--Yes,\r
+believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in\r
+the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please\r
+me.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He\r
+wished to persuade Mr. Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party;\r
+and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to\r
+eat would inevitably make him ill. Mr. Woodhouse must not, under the\r
+specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at\r
+Donwell, be tempted away to his misery.\r
+\r
+He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for\r
+his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell for two\r
+years. “Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet, could go\r
+very well; and he could sit still with Mrs. Weston, while the dear girls\r
+walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could be damp now,\r
+in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old house again\r
+exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, and\r
+any other of his neighbours.--He could not see any objection at all to\r
+his, and Emma’s, and Harriet’s going there some very fine morning. He\r
+thought it very well done of Mr. Knightley to invite them--very kind\r
+and sensible--much cleverer than dining out.--He was not fond of dining\r
+out.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley was fortunate in every body’s most ready concurrence. The\r
+invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like\r
+Mrs. Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment\r
+to themselves.--Emma and Harriet professed very high expectations of\r
+pleasure from it; and Mr. Weston, unasked, promised to get Frank over to\r
+join them, if possible; a proof of approbation and gratitude which could\r
+have been dispensed with.--Mr. Knightley was then obliged to say that\r
+he should be glad to see him; and Mr. Weston engaged to lose no time in\r
+writing, and spare no arguments to induce him to come.\r
+\r
+In the meanwhile the lame horse recovered so fast, that the party to\r
+Box Hill was again under happy consideration; and at last Donwell was\r
+settled for one day, and Box Hill for the next,--the weather appearing\r
+exactly right.\r
+\r
+Under a bright mid-day sun, at almost Midsummer, Mr. Woodhouse was\r
+safely conveyed in his carriage, with one window down, to partake of\r
+this al-fresco party; and in one of the most comfortable rooms in the\r
+Abbey, especially prepared for him by a fire all the morning, he was\r
+happily placed, quite at his ease, ready to talk with pleasure of what\r
+had been achieved, and advise every body to come and sit down, and not\r
+to heat themselves.--Mrs. Weston, who seemed to have walked there on\r
+purpose to be tired, and sit all the time with him, remained, when\r
+all the others were invited or persuaded out, his patient listener and\r
+sympathiser.\r
+\r
+It was so long since Emma had been at the Abbey, that as soon as she was\r
+satisfied of her father’s comfort, she was glad to leave him, and look\r
+around her; eager to refresh and correct her memory with more particular\r
+observation, more exact understanding of a house and grounds which must\r
+ever be so interesting to her and all her family.\r
+\r
+She felt all the honest pride and complacency which her alliance with\r
+the present and future proprietor could fairly warrant, as she viewed\r
+the respectable size and style of the building, its suitable, becoming,\r
+characteristic situation, low and sheltered--its ample gardens\r
+stretching down to meadows washed by a stream, of which the Abbey, with\r
+all the old neglect of prospect, had scarcely a sight--and its abundance\r
+of timber in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance\r
+had rooted up.--The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike\r
+it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many\r
+comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms.--It was just what it ought\r
+to be, and it looked what it was--and Emma felt an increasing respect\r
+for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted\r
+in blood and understanding.--Some faults of temper John Knightley had;\r
+but Isabella had connected herself unexceptionably. She had given them\r
+neither men, nor names, nor places, that could raise a blush. These were\r
+pleasant feelings, and she walked about and indulged them till it\r
+was necessary to do as the others did, and collect round the\r
+strawberry-beds.--The whole party were assembled, excepting Frank\r
+Churchill, who was expected every moment from Richmond; and Mrs. Elton,\r
+in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket,\r
+was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or\r
+talking--strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or\r
+spoken of.--“The best fruit in England--every body’s favourite--always\r
+wholesome.--These the finest beds and finest sorts.--Delightful to\r
+gather for one’s self--the only way of really enjoying them.--Morning\r
+decidedly the best time--never tired--every sort good--hautboy\r
+infinitely superior--no comparison--the others hardly eatable--hautboys\r
+very scarce--Chili preferred--white wood finest flavour of all--price\r
+of strawberries in London--abundance about Bristol--Maple\r
+Grove--cultivation--beds when to be renewed--gardeners thinking exactly\r
+different--no general rule--gardeners never to be put out of their\r
+way--delicious fruit--only too rich to be eaten much of--inferior\r
+to cherries--currants more refreshing--only objection to gathering\r
+strawberries the stooping--glaring sun--tired to death--could bear it no\r
+longer--must go and sit in the shade.”\r
+\r
+Such, for half an hour, was the conversation--interrupted only once by\r
+Mrs. Weston, who came out, in her solicitude after her son-in-law, to\r
+inquire if he were come--and she was a little uneasy.--She had some\r
+fears of his horse.\r
+\r
+Seats tolerably in the shade were found; and now Emma was obliged\r
+to overhear what Mrs. Elton and Jane Fairfax were talking of.--A\r
+situation, a most desirable situation, was in question. Mrs. Elton had\r
+received notice of it that morning, and was in raptures. It was not\r
+with Mrs. Suckling, it was not with Mrs. Bragge, but in felicity and\r
+splendour it fell short only of them: it was with a cousin of Mrs.\r
+Bragge, an acquaintance of Mrs. Suckling, a lady known at Maple Grove.\r
+Delightful, charming, superior, first circles, spheres, lines, ranks,\r
+every thing--and Mrs. Elton was wild to have the offer closed with\r
+immediately.--On her side, all was warmth, energy, and triumph--and she\r
+positively refused to take her friend’s negative, though Miss Fairfax\r
+continued to assure her that she would not at present engage in any\r
+thing, repeating the same motives which she had been heard to urge\r
+before.--Still Mrs. Elton insisted on being authorised to write an\r
+acquiescence by the morrow’s post.--How Jane could bear it at all, was\r
+astonishing to Emma.--She did look vexed, she did speak pointedly--and\r
+at last, with a decision of action unusual to her, proposed a\r
+removal.--“Should not they walk? Would not Mr. Knightley shew them the\r
+gardens--all the gardens?--She wished to see the whole extent.”--The\r
+pertinacity of her friend seemed more than she could bear.\r
+\r
+It was hot; and after walking some time over the gardens in a scattered,\r
+dispersed way, scarcely any three together, they insensibly followed one\r
+another to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which\r
+stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed\r
+the finish of the pleasure grounds.--It led to nothing; nothing but a\r
+view at the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which seemed\r
+intended, in their erection, to give the appearance of an approach to\r
+the house, which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be\r
+the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and\r
+the view which closed it extremely pretty.--The considerable slope, at\r
+nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper\r
+form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of\r
+considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood;--and at\r
+the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the\r
+Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and\r
+handsome curve around it.\r
+\r
+It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure,\r
+English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being\r
+oppressive.\r
+\r
+In this walk Emma and Mr. Weston found all the others assembled; and\r
+towards this view she immediately perceived Mr. Knightley and Harriet\r
+distinct from the rest, quietly leading the way. Mr. Knightley and\r
+Harriet!--It was an odd tete-a-tete; but she was glad to see it.--There\r
+had been a time when he would have scorned her as a companion, and\r
+turned from her with little ceremony. Now they seemed in pleasant\r
+conversation. There had been a time also when Emma would have been sorry\r
+to see Harriet in a spot so favourable for the Abbey Mill Farm; but now\r
+she feared it not. It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of\r
+prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in\r
+blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.--She joined them at the\r
+wall, and found them more engaged in talking than in looking around. He\r
+was giving Harriet information as to modes of agriculture, etc. and Emma\r
+received a smile which seemed to say, “These are my own concerns. I have\r
+a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of\r
+introducing Robert Martin.”--She did not suspect him. It was too old\r
+a story.--Robert Martin had probably ceased to think of Harriet.--They\r
+took a few turns together along the walk.--The shade was most\r
+refreshing, and Emma found it the pleasantest part of the day.\r
+\r
+The next remove was to the house; they must all go in and eat;--and they\r
+were all seated and busy, and still Frank Churchill did not come. Mrs.\r
+Weston looked, and looked in vain. His father would not own himself\r
+uneasy, and laughed at her fears; but she could not be cured of wishing\r
+that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to\r
+coming, with more than common certainty. “His aunt was so much better,\r
+that he had not a doubt of getting over to them.”--Mrs. Churchill’s\r
+state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such\r
+sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable\r
+dependence--and Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say,\r
+that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was\r
+prevented coming.--Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under\r
+consideration; she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion.\r
+\r
+The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see\r
+what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far\r
+as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at\r
+any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr.\r
+Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part\r
+of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him,\r
+stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that\r
+Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and\r
+variety which her spirits seemed to need.\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse’s\r
+entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals,\r
+shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been\r
+prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness\r
+had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused.\r
+Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them\r
+all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than\r
+in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and\r
+methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma\r
+walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments’ free observation of\r
+the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when\r
+Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a\r
+look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there\r
+was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in\r
+quest of.\r
+\r
+“Will you be so kind,” said she, “when I am missed, as to say that I am\r
+gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it\r
+is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted,\r
+and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any\r
+body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the\r
+ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be\r
+missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am\r
+gone?”\r
+\r
+“Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury\r
+alone?”\r
+\r
+“Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty\r
+minutes.”\r
+\r
+“But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my\r
+father’s servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be\r
+round in five minutes.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And\r
+for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to\r
+guard others!”\r
+\r
+She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, “That\r
+can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the\r
+carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already.”\r
+\r
+“I am,”--she answered--“I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of\r
+fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know\r
+at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are\r
+exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have\r
+my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary.”\r
+\r
+Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all; and entering into\r
+her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and\r
+watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was\r
+grateful--and her parting words, “Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of\r
+being sometimes alone!”--seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and\r
+to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her,\r
+even towards some of those who loved her best.\r
+\r
+“Such a home, indeed! such an aunt!” said Emma, as she turned back into\r
+the hall again. “I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of\r
+their just horrors, the more I shall like you.”\r
+\r
+Jane had not been gone a quarter of an hour, and they had only\r
+accomplished some views of St. Mark’s Place, Venice, when Frank\r
+Churchill entered the room. Emma had not been thinking of him, she had\r
+forgotten to think of him--but she was very glad to see him. Mrs. Weston\r
+would be at ease. The black mare was blameless; _they_ were right\r
+who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by\r
+a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had\r
+lasted some hours--and he had quite given up every thought of coming,\r
+till very late;--and had he known how hot a ride he should have, and\r
+how late, with all his hurry, he must be, he believed he should not have\r
+come at all. The heat was excessive; he had never suffered any thing\r
+like it--almost wished he had staid at home--nothing killed him\r
+like heat--he could bear any degree of cold, etc., but heat was\r
+intolerable--and he sat down, at the greatest possible distance from the\r
+slight remains of Mr. Woodhouse’s fire, looking very deplorable.\r
+\r
+“You will soon be cooler, if you sit still,” said Emma.\r
+\r
+“As soon as I am cooler I shall go back again. I could very ill be\r
+spared--but such a point had been made of my coming! You will all be\r
+going soon I suppose; the whole party breaking up. I met _one_ as I\r
+came--Madness in such weather!--absolute madness!”\r
+\r
+Emma listened, and looked, and soon perceived that Frank Churchill’s\r
+state might be best defined by the expressive phrase of being out of\r
+humour. Some people were always cross when they were hot. Such might be\r
+his constitution; and as she knew that eating and drinking were often\r
+the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking\r
+some refreshment; he would find abundance of every thing in the\r
+dining-room--and she humanely pointed out the door.\r
+\r
+“No--he should not eat. He was not hungry; it would only make him\r
+hotter.” In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and\r
+muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off. Emma returned all her\r
+attention to her father, saying in secret--\r
+\r
+“I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a man\r
+who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet’s sweet easy temper\r
+will not mind it.”\r
+\r
+He was gone long enough to have had a very comfortable meal, and came\r
+back all the better--grown quite cool--and, with good manners, like\r
+himself--able to draw a chair close to them, take an interest in their\r
+employment; and regret, in a reasonable way, that he should be so late.\r
+He was not in his best spirits, but seemed trying to improve them; and,\r
+at last, made himself talk nonsense very agreeably. They were looking\r
+over views in Swisserland.\r
+\r
+“As soon as my aunt gets well, I shall go abroad,” said he. “I shall\r
+never be easy till I have seen some of these places. You will have my\r
+sketches, some time or other, to look at--or my tour to read--or my\r
+poem. I shall do something to expose myself.”\r
+\r
+“That may be--but not by sketches in Swisserland. You will never go to\r
+Swisserland. Your uncle and aunt will never allow you to leave England.”\r
+\r
+“They may be induced to go too. A warm climate may be prescribed for\r
+her. I have more than half an expectation of our all going abroad. I\r
+assure you I have. I feel a strong persuasion, this morning, that I\r
+shall soon be abroad. I ought to travel. I am tired of doing nothing. I\r
+want a change. I am serious, Miss Woodhouse, whatever your penetrating\r
+eyes may fancy--I am sick of England--and would leave it to-morrow, if\r
+I could.”\r
+\r
+“You are sick of prosperity and indulgence. Cannot you invent a few\r
+hardships for yourself, and be contented to stay?”\r
+\r
+“_I_ sick of prosperity and indulgence! You are quite mistaken. I do\r
+not look upon myself as either prosperous or indulged. I am thwarted\r
+in every thing material. I do not consider myself at all a fortunate\r
+person.”\r
+\r
+“You are not quite so miserable, though, as when you first came. Go and\r
+eat and drink a little more, and you will do very well. Another slice of\r
+cold meat, another draught of Madeira and water, will make you nearly on\r
+a par with the rest of us.”\r
+\r
+“No--I shall not stir. I shall sit by you. You are my best cure.”\r
+\r
+“We are going to Box Hill to-morrow;--you will join us. It is not\r
+Swisserland, but it will be something for a young man so much in want of\r
+a change. You will stay, and go with us?”\r
+\r
+“No, certainly not; I shall go home in the cool of the evening.”\r
+\r
+“But you may come again in the cool of to-morrow morning.”\r
+\r
+“No--It will not be worth while. If I come, I shall be cross.”\r
+\r
+“Then pray stay at Richmond.”\r
+\r
+“But if I do, I shall be crosser still. I can never bear to think of you\r
+all there without me.”\r
+\r
+“These are difficulties which you must settle for yourself. Chuse your\r
+own degree of crossness. I shall press you no more.”\r
+\r
+The rest of the party were now returning, and all were soon collected.\r
+With some there was great joy at the sight of Frank Churchill; others\r
+took it very composedly; but there was a very general distress and\r
+disturbance on Miss Fairfax’s disappearance being explained. That it was\r
+time for every body to go, concluded the subject; and with a short final\r
+arrangement for the next day’s scheme, they parted. Frank Churchill’s\r
+little inclination to exclude himself increased so much, that his last\r
+words to Emma were,\r
+\r
+“Well;--if _you_ wish me to stay and join the party, I will.”\r
+\r
+She smiled her acceptance; and nothing less than a summons from Richmond\r
+was to take him back before the following evening.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+\r
+They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward\r
+circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in\r
+favour of a pleasant party. Mr. Weston directed the whole, officiating\r
+safely between Hartfield and the Vicarage, and every body was in good\r
+time. Emma and Harriet went together; Miss Bates and her niece, with\r
+the Eltons; the gentlemen on horseback. Mrs. Weston remained with Mr.\r
+Woodhouse. Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there.\r
+Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and every body\r
+had a burst of admiration on first arriving; but in the general amount\r
+of the day there was deficiency. There was a languor, a want of spirits,\r
+a want of union, which could not be got over. They separated too much\r
+into parties. The Eltons walked together; Mr. Knightley took charge of\r
+Miss Bates and Jane; and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill.\r
+And Mr. Weston tried, in vain, to make them harmonise better. It seemed\r
+at first an accidental division, but it never materially varied. Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Elton, indeed, shewed no unwillingness to mix, and be as agreeable\r
+as they could; but during the two whole hours that were spent on the\r
+hill, there seemed a principle of separation, between the other parties,\r
+too strong for any fine prospects, or any cold collation, or any\r
+cheerful Mr. Weston, to remove.\r
+\r
+At first it was downright dulness to Emma. She had never seen Frank\r
+Churchill so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearing--looked\r
+without seeing--admired without intelligence--listened without knowing\r
+what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet\r
+should be dull likewise; and they were both insufferable.\r
+\r
+When they all sat down it was better; to her taste a great deal better,\r
+for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object.\r
+Every distinguishing attention that could be paid, was paid to her.\r
+To amuse her, and be agreeable in her eyes, seemed all that he cared\r
+for--and Emma, glad to be enlivened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay\r
+and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission\r
+to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating\r
+period of their acquaintance; but which now, in her own estimation,\r
+meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must\r
+have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very\r
+well describe. “Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together\r
+excessively.” They were laying themselves open to that very phrase--and\r
+to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to\r
+Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any\r
+real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she had\r
+expected. She laughed because she was disappointed; and though she liked\r
+him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship,\r
+admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning\r
+back her heart. She still intended him for her friend.\r
+\r
+“How much I am obliged to you,” said he, “for telling me to come\r
+to-day!--If it had not been for you, I should certainly have lost all\r
+the happiness of this party. I had quite determined to go away again.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, you were very cross; and I do not know what about, except that you\r
+were too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you\r
+deserved. But you were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come.”\r
+\r
+“Don’t say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me.”\r
+\r
+“It is hotter to-day.”\r
+\r
+“Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable to-day.”\r
+\r
+“You are comfortable because you are under command.”\r
+\r
+“Your command?--Yes.”\r
+\r
+“Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had,\r
+somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own\r
+management; but to-day you are got back again--and as I cannot be always\r
+with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command\r
+rather than mine.”\r
+\r
+“It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a\r
+motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always\r
+with me. You are always with me.”\r
+\r
+“Dating from three o’clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not\r
+begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before.”\r
+\r
+“Three o’clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you\r
+first in February.”\r
+\r
+“Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)--nobody\r
+speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking\r
+nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people.”\r
+\r
+“I say nothing of which I am ashamed,” replied he, with lively\r
+impudence. “I saw you first in February. Let every body on the Hill\r
+hear me if they can. Let my accents swell to Mickleham on one side,\r
+and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in February.” And then\r
+whispering--“Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do\r
+to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They _shall_ talk. Ladies\r
+and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is,\r
+presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking\r
+of?”\r
+\r
+Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great\r
+deal; Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse’s presiding; Mr.\r
+Knightley’s answer was the most distinct.\r
+\r
+“Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all\r
+thinking of?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no, no”--cried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could--“Upon no\r
+account in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt\r
+of just now. Let me hear any thing rather than what you are all thinking\r
+of. I will not say quite all. There are one or two, perhaps, (glancing\r
+at Mr. Weston and Harriet,) whose thoughts I might not be afraid of\r
+knowing.”\r
+\r
+“It is a sort of thing,” cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, “which _I_\r
+should not have thought myself privileged to inquire into. Though,\r
+perhaps, as the _Chaperon_ of the party--_I_ never was in any\r
+circle--exploring parties--young ladies--married women--”\r
+\r
+Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband; and he murmured, in reply,\r
+\r
+“Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed--quite unheard\r
+of--but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every\r
+body knows what is due to _you_.”\r
+\r
+“It will not do,” whispered Frank to Emma; “they are most of them\r
+affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen--I\r
+am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of\r
+knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires\r
+something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here\r
+are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very\r
+entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one\r
+thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated--or two\r
+things moderately clever--or three things very dull indeed, and she\r
+engages to laugh heartily at them all.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates, “then I need not be uneasy.\r
+‘Three things very dull indeed.’ That will just do for me, you know. I\r
+shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth,\r
+shan’t I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every\r
+body’s assent)--Do not you all think I shall?”\r
+\r
+Emma could not resist.\r
+\r
+“Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me--but you will be\r
+limited as to number--only three at once.”\r
+\r
+Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not\r
+immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not\r
+anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her.\r
+\r
+“Ah!--well--to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr.\r
+Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very\r
+disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.”\r
+\r
+“I like your plan,” cried Mr. Weston. “Agreed, agreed. I will do my\r
+best. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon?”\r
+\r
+“Low, I am afraid, sir, very low,” answered his son;--“but we shall be\r
+indulgent--especially to any one who leads the way.”\r
+\r
+“No, no,” said Emma, “it will not reckon low. A conundrum of Mr.\r
+Weston’s shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me\r
+hear it.”\r
+\r
+“I doubt its being very clever myself,” said Mr. Weston. “It is too much\r
+a matter of fact, but here it is.--What two letters of the alphabet are\r
+there, that express perfection?”\r
+\r
+“What two letters!--express perfection! I am sure I do not know.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! you will never guess. You, (to Emma), I am certain, will never\r
+guess.--I will tell you.--M. and A.--Em-ma.--Do you understand?”\r
+\r
+Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very\r
+indifferent piece of wit, but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and\r
+enjoy in it--and so did Frank and Harriet.--It did not seem to touch\r
+the rest of the party equally; some looked very stupid about it, and Mr.\r
+Knightley gravely said,\r
+\r
+“This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston\r
+has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up every body\r
+else. _Perfection_ should not have come quite so soon.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! for myself, I protest I must be excused,” said Mrs. Elton; “_I_\r
+really cannot attempt--I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had\r
+an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all\r
+pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!--You know\r
+who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very\r
+well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire; but quite out of\r
+place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer.\r
+Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty\r
+things at every body’s service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a\r
+great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to\r
+judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please,\r
+Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing\r
+clever to say--not one of us.\r
+\r
+“Yes, yes, pray pass _me_,” added her husband, with a sort of sneering\r
+consciousness; “_I_ have nothing to say that can entertain Miss\r
+Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married man--quite good for\r
+nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta?”\r
+\r
+“With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot.\r
+Come, Jane, take my other arm.”\r
+\r
+Jane declined it, however, and the husband and wife walked off.\r
+“Happy couple!” said Frank Churchill, as soon as they were out of\r
+hearing:--“How well they suit one another!--Very lucky--marrying as they\r
+did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place!--They only knew\r
+each other, I think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!--for as to\r
+any real knowledge of a person’s disposition that Bath, or any public\r
+place, can give--it is all nothing; there can be no knowledge. It is\r
+only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as\r
+they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it\r
+is all guess and luck--and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man\r
+has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest\r
+of his life!”\r
+\r
+Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own\r
+confederates, spoke now.\r
+\r
+“Such things do occur, undoubtedly.”--She was stopped by a cough. Frank\r
+Churchill turned towards her to listen.\r
+\r
+“You were speaking,” said he, gravely. She recovered her voice.\r
+\r
+“I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances\r
+do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be\r
+very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise--but there is\r
+generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to\r
+mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness\r
+must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate\r
+acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever.”\r
+\r
+He made no answer; merely looked, and bowed in submission; and soon\r
+afterwards said, in a lively tone,\r
+\r
+“Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I\r
+marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to\r
+Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?--I am sure I should like any body\r
+fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at\r
+his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate\r
+her.”\r
+\r
+“And make her like myself.”\r
+\r
+“By all means, if you can.”\r
+\r
+“Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife.”\r
+\r
+“She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else.\r
+I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return, I shall come\r
+to you for my wife. Remember.”\r
+\r
+Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every\r
+favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described?\r
+Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished.\r
+He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment; who could say?\r
+Referring the education to her seemed to imply it.\r
+\r
+“Now, ma’am,” said Jane to her aunt, “shall we join Mrs. Elton?”\r
+\r
+“If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was\r
+ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall\r
+soon overtake her. There she is--no, that’s somebody else. That’s one\r
+of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.--Well, I\r
+declare--”\r
+\r
+They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston,\r
+his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained; and the young man’s spirits\r
+now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant. Even Emma grew tired at last of\r
+flattery and merriment, and wished herself rather walking quietly about\r
+with any of the others, or sitting almost alone, and quite unattended\r
+to, in tranquil observation of the beautiful views beneath her. The\r
+appearance of the servants looking out for them to give notice of the\r
+carriages was a joyful sight; and even the bustle of collecting and\r
+preparing to depart, and the solicitude of Mrs. Elton to have _her_\r
+carriage first, were gladly endured, in the prospect of the quiet drive\r
+home which was to close the very questionable enjoyments of this day of\r
+pleasure. Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people,\r
+she hoped never to be betrayed into again.\r
+\r
+While waiting for the carriage, she found Mr. Knightley by her side. He\r
+looked around, as if to see that no one were near, and then said,\r
+\r
+“Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a\r
+privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it.\r
+I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be\r
+so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to\r
+a woman of her character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had not thought\r
+it possible.”\r
+\r
+Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off.\r
+\r
+“Nay, how could I help saying what I did?--Nobody could have helped it.\r
+It was not so very bad. I dare say she did not understand me.”\r
+\r
+“I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of\r
+it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of it--with what\r
+candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your\r
+forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions, as she was for\r
+ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be\r
+so irksome.”\r
+\r
+“Oh!” cried Emma, “I know there is not a better creature in the world:\r
+but you must allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most\r
+unfortunately blended in her.”\r
+\r
+“They are blended,” said he, “I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous,\r
+I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over\r
+the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless\r
+absurdity to take its chance, I would not quarrel with you for any\r
+liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation--but, Emma,\r
+consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk\r
+from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must\r
+probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was\r
+badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had\r
+seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you\r
+now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her,\r
+humble her--and before her niece, too--and before others, many of whom\r
+(certainly _some_,) would be entirely guided by _your_ treatment\r
+of her.--This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from\r
+pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can;\r
+satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and\r
+trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you\r
+can do now.”\r
+\r
+While they talked, they were advancing towards the carriage; it was\r
+ready; and, before she could speak again, he had handed her in. He had\r
+misinterpreted the feelings which had kept her face averted, and her\r
+tongue motionless. They were combined only of anger against herself,\r
+mortification, and deep concern. She had not been able to speak; and, on\r
+entering the carriage, sunk back for a moment overcome--then reproaching\r
+herself for having taken no leave, making no acknowledgment, parting in\r
+apparent sullenness, she looked out with voice and hand eager to shew a\r
+difference; but it was just too late. He had turned away, and the horses\r
+were in motion. She continued to look back, but in vain; and soon, with\r
+what appeared unusual speed, they were half way down the hill, and\r
+every thing left far behind. She was vexed beyond what could have been\r
+expressed--almost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so\r
+agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was\r
+most forcibly struck. The truth of this representation there was no\r
+denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal,\r
+so cruel to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill\r
+opinion in any one she valued! And how suffer him to leave her without\r
+saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness!\r
+\r
+Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel\r
+it more. She never had been so depressed. Happily it was not necessary\r
+to speak. There was only Harriet, who seemed not in spirits herself,\r
+fagged, and very willing to be silent; and Emma felt the tears running\r
+down her cheeks almost all the way home, without being at any trouble to\r
+check them, extraordinary as they were.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+\r
+The wretchedness of a scheme to Box Hill was in Emma’s thoughts all the\r
+evening. How it might be considered by the rest of the party, she could\r
+not tell. They, in their different homes, and their different ways,\r
+might be looking back on it with pleasure; but in her view it was\r
+a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational\r
+satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than\r
+any she had ever passed. A whole evening of back-gammon with her father,\r
+was felicity to it. _There_, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she\r
+was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort; and\r
+feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree of his fond affection and\r
+confiding esteem, she could not, in her general conduct, be open to any\r
+severe reproach. As a daughter, she hoped she was not without a heart.\r
+She hoped no one could have said to her, “How could you be so unfeeling\r
+to your father?--I must, I will tell you truths while I can.” Miss\r
+Bates should never again--no, never! If attention, in future, could do\r
+away the past, she might hope to be forgiven. She had been often remiss,\r
+her conscience told her so; remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact;\r
+scornful, ungracious. But it should be so no more. In the warmth of true\r
+contrition, she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should\r
+be the beginning, on her side, of a regular, equal, kindly intercourse.\r
+\r
+She was just as determined when the morrow came, and went early, that\r
+nothing might prevent her. It was not unlikely, she thought, that she\r
+might see Mr. Knightley in her way; or, perhaps, he might come in\r
+while she were paying her visit. She had no objection. She would not be\r
+ashamed of the appearance of the penitence, so justly and truly hers.\r
+Her eyes were towards Donwell as she walked, but she saw him not.\r
+\r
+“The ladies were all at home.” She had never rejoiced at the sound\r
+before, nor ever before entered the passage, nor walked up the stairs,\r
+with any wish of giving pleasure, but in conferring obligation, or of\r
+deriving it, except in subsequent ridicule.\r
+\r
+There was a bustle on her approach; a good deal of moving and talking.\r
+She heard Miss Bates’s voice, something was to be done in a hurry; the\r
+maid looked frightened and awkward; hoped she would be pleased to wait a\r
+moment, and then ushered her in too soon. The aunt and niece seemed both\r
+escaping into the adjoining room. Jane she had a distinct glimpse of,\r
+looking extremely ill; and, before the door had shut them out, she heard\r
+Miss Bates saying, “Well, my dear, I shall _say_ you are laid down upon\r
+the bed, and I am sure you are ill enough.”\r
+\r
+Poor old Mrs. Bates, civil and humble as usual, looked as if she did not\r
+quite understand what was going on.\r
+\r
+“I am afraid Jane is not very well,” said she, “but I do not know; they\r
+_tell_ me she is well. I dare say my daughter will be here presently,\r
+Miss Woodhouse. I hope you find a chair. I wish Hetty had not gone. I am\r
+very little able--Have you a chair, ma’am? Do you sit where you like? I\r
+am sure she will be here presently.”\r
+\r
+Emma seriously hoped she would. She had a moment’s fear of Miss Bates\r
+keeping away from her. But Miss Bates soon came--“Very happy and\r
+obliged”--but Emma’s conscience told her that there was not the same\r
+cheerful volubility as before--less ease of look and manner. A very\r
+friendly inquiry after Miss Fairfax, she hoped, might lead the way to a\r
+return of old feelings. The touch seemed immediate.\r
+\r
+“Ah! Miss Woodhouse, how kind you are!--I suppose you have heard--and\r
+are come to give us joy. This does not seem much like joy, indeed, in\r
+me--(twinkling away a tear or two)--but it will be very trying for us\r
+to part with her, after having had her so long, and she has a dreadful\r
+headache just now, writing all the morning:--such long letters, you\r
+know, to be written to Colonel Campbell, and Mrs. Dixon. ‘My dear,’ said\r
+I, ‘you will blind yourself’--for tears were in her eyes perpetually.\r
+One cannot wonder, one cannot wonder. It is a great change; and though\r
+she is amazingly fortunate--such a situation, I suppose, as no\r
+young woman before ever met with on first going out--do not think us\r
+ungrateful, Miss Woodhouse, for such surprising good fortune--(again\r
+dispersing her tears)--but, poor dear soul! if you were to see what a\r
+headache she has. When one is in great pain, you know one cannot feel\r
+any blessing quite as it may deserve. She is as low as possible. To\r
+look at her, nobody would think how delighted and happy she is to have\r
+secured such a situation. You will excuse her not coming to you--she is\r
+not able--she is gone into her own room--I want her to lie down upon the\r
+bed. ‘My dear,’ said I, ‘I shall say you are laid down upon the bed:’\r
+but, however, she is not; she is walking about the room. But, now that\r
+she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She will\r
+be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your\r
+kindness will excuse her. You were kept waiting at the door--I was quite\r
+ashamed--but somehow there was a little bustle--for it so happened that\r
+we had not heard the knock, and till you were on the stairs, we did not\r
+know any body was coming. ‘It is only Mrs. Cole,’ said I, ‘depend upon\r
+it. Nobody else would come so early.’ ‘Well,’ said she, ‘it must be\r
+borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.’ But then Patty\r
+came in, and said it was you. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘it is Miss Woodhouse: I am\r
+sure you will like to see her.’--‘I can see nobody,’ said she; and\r
+up she got, and would go away; and that was what made us keep you\r
+waiting--and extremely sorry and ashamed we were. ‘If you must go, my\r
+dear,’ said I, ‘you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the\r
+bed.’”\r
+\r
+Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing\r
+kinder towards Jane; and this picture of her present sufferings acted\r
+as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but\r
+pity; and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of\r
+the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on\r
+seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear\r
+to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and\r
+solicitude--sincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected\r
+from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for\r
+Miss Fairfax’s advantage and comfort as possible. “It must be a severe\r
+trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel\r
+Campbell’s return.”\r
+\r
+“So very kind!” replied Miss Bates. “But you are always kind.”\r
+\r
+There was no bearing such an “always;” and to break through her dreadful\r
+gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of--\r
+\r
+“Where--may I ask?--is Miss Fairfax going?”\r
+\r
+“To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have the charge\r
+of her three little girls--delightful children. Impossible that any\r
+situation could be more replete with comfort; if we except, perhaps,\r
+Mrs. Suckling’s own family, and Mrs. Bragge’s; but Mrs. Smallridge is\r
+intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhood:--lives only four\r
+miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove.”\r
+\r
+“Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--”\r
+\r
+“Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She\r
+would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, ‘No;’ for when Jane\r
+first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday, the very morning\r
+we were at Donwell,) when Jane first heard of it, she was quite decided\r
+against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention; exactly\r
+as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel\r
+Campbell’s return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any\r
+engagement at present--and so she told Mrs. Elton over and over\r
+again--and I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her\r
+mind!--but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw\r
+farther than I did. It is not every body that would have stood out in\r
+such a kind way as she did, and refuse to take Jane’s answer; but she\r
+positively declared she would _not_ write any such denial yesterday, as\r
+Jane wished her; she would wait--and, sure enough, yesterday evening it\r
+was all settled that Jane should go. Quite a surprize to me! I had not\r
+the least idea!--Jane took Mrs. Elton aside, and told her at once, that\r
+upon thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Smallridge’s situation, she\r
+had come to the resolution of accepting it.--I did not know a word of it\r
+till it was all settled.”\r
+\r
+“You spent the evening with Mrs. Elton?”\r
+\r
+“Yes, all of us; Mrs. Elton would have us come. It was settled so, upon\r
+the hill, while we were walking about with Mr. Knightley. ‘You _must_\r
+_all_ spend your evening with us,’ said she--‘I positively must have you\r
+_all_ come.’”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Knightley was there too, was he?”\r
+\r
+“No, not Mr. Knightley; he declined it from the first; and though I\r
+thought he would come, because Mrs. Elton declared she would not let him\r
+off, he did not;--but my mother, and Jane, and I, were all there, and\r
+a very agreeable evening we had. Such kind friends, you know, Miss\r
+Woodhouse, one must always find agreeable, though every body seemed\r
+rather fagged after the morning’s party. Even pleasure, you know, is\r
+fatiguing--and I cannot say that any of them seemed very much to have\r
+enjoyed it. However, _I_ shall always think it a very pleasant party,\r
+and feel extremely obliged to the kind friends who included me in it.”\r
+\r
+“Miss Fairfax, I suppose, though you were not aware of it, had been\r
+making up her mind the whole day?”\r
+\r
+“I dare say she had.”\r
+\r
+“Whenever the time may come, it must be unwelcome to her and all her\r
+friends--but I hope her engagement will have every alleviation that is\r
+possible--I mean, as to the character and manners of the family.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse. Yes, indeed, there is every thing\r
+in the world that can make her happy in it. Except the Sucklings and\r
+Bragges, there is not such another nursery establishment, so liberal\r
+and elegant, in all Mrs. Elton’s acquaintance. Mrs. Smallridge, a most\r
+delightful woman!--A style of living almost equal to Maple Grove--and as\r
+to the children, except the little Sucklings and little Bragges, there\r
+are not such elegant sweet children anywhere. Jane will be treated with\r
+such regard and kindness!--It will be nothing but pleasure, a life of\r
+pleasure.--And her salary!--I really cannot venture to name her salary\r
+to you, Miss Woodhouse. Even you, used as you are to great sums, would\r
+hardly believe that so much could be given to a young person like Jane.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! madam,” cried Emma, “if other children are at all like what I\r
+remember to have been myself, I should think five times the amount of\r
+what I have ever yet heard named as a salary on such occasions, dearly\r
+earned.”\r
+\r
+“You are so noble in your ideas!”\r
+\r
+“And when is Miss Fairfax to leave you?”\r
+\r
+“Very soon, very soon, indeed; that’s the worst of it. Within a\r
+fortnight. Mrs. Smallridge is in a great hurry. My poor mother does not\r
+know how to bear it. So then, I try to put it out of her thoughts, and\r
+say, Come ma’am, do not let us think about it any more.”\r
+\r
+“Her friends must all be sorry to lose her; and will not Colonel and\r
+Mrs. Campbell be sorry to find that she has engaged herself before their\r
+return?”\r
+\r
+“Yes; Jane says she is sure they will; but yet, this is such a situation\r
+as she cannot feel herself justified in declining. I was so astonished\r
+when she first told me what she had been saying to Mrs. Elton, and when\r
+Mrs. Elton at the same moment came congratulating me upon it! It was\r
+before tea--stay--no, it could not be before tea, because we were\r
+just going to cards--and yet it was before tea, because I remember\r
+thinking--Oh! no, now I recollect, now I have it; something happened\r
+before tea, but not that. Mr. Elton was called out of the room before\r
+tea, old John Abdy’s son wanted to speak with him. Poor old John, I\r
+have a great regard for him; he was clerk to my poor father twenty-seven\r
+years; and now, poor old man, he is bed-ridden, and very poorly with the\r
+rheumatic gout in his joints--I must go and see him to-day; and so will\r
+Jane, I am sure, if she gets out at all. And poor John’s son came to\r
+talk to Mr. Elton about relief from the parish; he is very well to do\r
+himself, you know, being head man at the Crown, ostler, and every thing\r
+of that sort, but still he cannot keep his father without some help;\r
+and so, when Mr. Elton came back, he told us what John ostler had been\r
+telling him, and then it came out about the chaise having been sent to\r
+Randalls to take Mr. Frank Churchill to Richmond. That was what happened\r
+before tea. It was after tea that Jane spoke to Mrs. Elton.”\r
+\r
+Miss Bates would hardly give Emma time to say how perfectly new this\r
+circumstance was to her; but as without supposing it possible that she\r
+could be ignorant of any of the particulars of Mr. Frank Churchill’s\r
+going, she proceeded to give them all, it was of no consequence.\r
+\r
+What Mr. Elton had learned from the ostler on the subject, being the\r
+accumulation of the ostler’s own knowledge, and the knowledge of the\r
+servants at Randalls, was, that a messenger had come over from Richmond\r
+soon after the return of the party from Box Hill--which messenger,\r
+however, had been no more than was expected; and that Mr. Churchill had\r
+sent his nephew a few lines, containing, upon the whole, a tolerable\r
+account of Mrs. Churchill, and only wishing him not to delay coming\r
+back beyond the next morning early; but that Mr. Frank Churchill having\r
+resolved to go home directly, without waiting at all, and his horse\r
+seeming to have got a cold, Tom had been sent off immediately for the\r
+Crown chaise, and the ostler had stood out and seen it pass by, the boy\r
+going a good pace, and driving very steady.\r
+\r
+There was nothing in all this either to astonish or interest, and it\r
+caught Emma’s attention only as it united with the subject which already\r
+engaged her mind. The contrast between Mrs. Churchill’s importance in\r
+the world, and Jane Fairfax’s, struck her; one was every thing, the\r
+other nothing--and she sat musing on the difference of woman’s destiny,\r
+and quite unconscious on what her eyes were fixed, till roused by Miss\r
+Bates’s saying,\r
+\r
+“Aye, I see what you are thinking of, the pianoforte. What is to become\r
+of that?--Very true. Poor dear Jane was talking of it just now.--‘You\r
+must go,’ said she. ‘You and I must part. You will have no business\r
+here.--Let it stay, however,’ said she; ‘give it houseroom till Colonel\r
+Campbell comes back. I shall talk about it to him; he will settle for\r
+me; he will help me out of all my difficulties.’--And to this day, I do\r
+believe, she knows not whether it was his present or his daughter’s.”\r
+\r
+Now Emma was obliged to think of the pianoforte; and the remembrance of\r
+all her former fanciful and unfair conjectures was so little pleasing,\r
+that she soon allowed herself to believe her visit had been long enough;\r
+and, with a repetition of every thing that she could venture to say of\r
+the good wishes which she really felt, took leave.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+\r
+Emma’s pensive meditations, as she walked home, were not interrupted;\r
+but on entering the parlour, she found those who must rouse her. Mr.\r
+Knightley and Harriet had arrived during her absence, and were sitting\r
+with her father.--Mr. Knightley immediately got up, and in a manner\r
+decidedly graver than usual, said,\r
+\r
+“I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare,\r
+and therefore must now be gone directly. I am going to London, to spend\r
+a few days with John and Isabella. Have you any thing to send or say,\r
+besides the ‘love,’ which nobody carries?”\r
+\r
+“Nothing at all. But is not this a sudden scheme?”\r
+\r
+“Yes--rather--I have been thinking of it some little time.”\r
+\r
+Emma was sure he had not forgiven her; he looked unlike himself. Time,\r
+however, she thought, would tell him that they ought to be friends\r
+again. While he stood, as if meaning to go, but not going--her father\r
+began his inquiries.\r
+\r
+“Well, my dear, and did you get there safely?--And how did you find my\r
+worthy old friend and her daughter?--I dare say they must have been very\r
+much obliged to you for coming. Dear Emma has been to call on Mrs.\r
+and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, as I told you before. She is always so\r
+attentive to them!”\r
+\r
+Emma’s colour was heightened by this unjust praise; and with a\r
+smile, and shake of the head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr.\r
+Knightley.--It seemed as if there were an instantaneous impression in\r
+her favour, as if his eyes received the truth from hers, and all that\r
+had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught and honoured.--\r
+He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly gratified--and in\r
+another moment still more so, by a little movement of more than common\r
+friendliness on his part.--He took her hand;--whether she had not\r
+herself made the first motion, she could not say--she might, perhaps,\r
+have rather offered it--but he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly\r
+was on the point of carrying it to his lips--when, from some fancy or\r
+other, he suddenly let it go.--Why he should feel such a scruple, why\r
+he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not\r
+perceive.--He would have judged better, she thought, if he had not\r
+stopped.--The intention, however, was indubitable; and whether it was\r
+that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it\r
+happened, but she thought nothing became him more.--It was with him,\r
+of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.--She could not but recall the\r
+attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity.--He left\r
+them immediately afterwards--gone in a moment. He always moved with the\r
+alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but\r
+now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance.\r
+\r
+Emma could not regret her having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she\r
+had left her ten minutes earlier;--it would have been a great pleasure\r
+to talk over Jane Fairfax’s situation with Mr. Knightley.--Neither\r
+would she regret that he should be going to Brunswick Square, for she\r
+knew how much his visit would be enjoyed--but it might have happened\r
+at a better time--and to have had longer notice of it, would have been\r
+pleasanter.--They parted thorough friends, however; she could not\r
+be deceived as to the meaning of his countenance, and his unfinished\r
+gallantry;--it was all done to assure her that she had fully recovered\r
+his good opinion.--He had been sitting with them half an hour, she\r
+found. It was a pity that she had not come back earlier!\r
+\r
+In the hope of diverting her father’s thoughts from the disagreeableness\r
+of Mr. Knightley’s going to London; and going so suddenly; and going on\r
+horseback, which she knew would be all very bad; Emma communicated her\r
+news of Jane Fairfax, and her dependence on the effect was justified;\r
+it supplied a very useful check,--interested, without disturbing him. He\r
+had long made up his mind to Jane Fairfax’s going out as governess, and\r
+could talk of it cheerfully, but Mr. Knightley’s going to London had\r
+been an unexpected blow.\r
+\r
+“I am very glad, indeed, my dear, to hear she is to be so comfortably\r
+settled. Mrs. Elton is very good-natured and agreeable, and I dare say\r
+her acquaintance are just what they ought to be. I hope it is a dry\r
+situation, and that her health will be taken good care of. It ought to\r
+be a first object, as I am sure poor Miss Taylor’s always was with me.\r
+You know, my dear, she is going to be to this new lady what Miss Taylor\r
+was to us. And I hope she will be better off in one respect, and not be\r
+induced to go away after it has been her home so long.”\r
+\r
+The following day brought news from Richmond to throw every thing else\r
+into the background. An express arrived at Randalls to announce the\r
+death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason\r
+to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty\r
+hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any\r
+thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short\r
+struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more.\r
+\r
+It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of\r
+gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the\r
+surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where\r
+she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops\r
+to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be\r
+disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.\r
+Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was\r
+now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully\r
+justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The\r
+event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of\r
+imaginary complaints.\r
+\r
+“Poor Mrs. Churchill! no doubt she had been suffering a great deal:\r
+more than any body had ever supposed--and continual pain would try the\r
+temper. It was a sad event--a great shock--with all her faults, what\r
+would Mr. Churchill do without her? Mr. Churchill’s loss would be\r
+dreadful indeed. Mr. Churchill would never get over it.”--Even Mr.\r
+Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, “Ah! poor woman,\r
+who would have thought it!” and resolved, that his mourning should be as\r
+handsome as possible; and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her\r
+broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it\r
+would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also\r
+a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill,\r
+the grief of her husband--her mind glanced over them both with awe and\r
+compassion--and then rested with lightened feelings on how Frank might\r
+be affected by the event, how benefited, how freed. She saw in a moment\r
+all the possible good. Now, an attachment to Harriet Smith would have\r
+nothing to encounter. Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, was feared\r
+by nobody; an easy, guidable man, to be persuaded into any thing by his\r
+nephew. All that remained to be wished was, that the nephew should form\r
+the attachment, as, with all her goodwill in the cause, Emma could feel\r
+no certainty of its being already formed.\r
+\r
+Harriet behaved extremely well on the occasion, with great self-command.\r
+What ever she might feel of brighter hope, she betrayed nothing. Emma\r
+was gratified, to observe such a proof in her of strengthened character,\r
+and refrained from any allusion that might endanger its maintenance.\r
+They spoke, therefore, of Mrs. Churchill’s death with mutual\r
+forbearance.\r
+\r
+Short letters from Frank were received at Randalls, communicating all\r
+that was immediately important of their state and plans. Mr. Churchill\r
+was better than could be expected; and their first removal, on the\r
+departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very\r
+old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a\r
+visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for\r
+Harriet; good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible\r
+on Emma’s side.\r
+\r
+It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose\r
+prospects were closing, while Harriet’s opened, and whose engagements\r
+now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her\r
+kindness--and with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely\r
+a stronger regret than for her past coldness; and the person, whom she\r
+had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she\r
+would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted\r
+to be of use to her; wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify\r
+respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day\r
+at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused,\r
+and by a verbal message. “Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write;”\r
+ and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared\r
+that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against\r
+her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe\r
+headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the\r
+possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge’s at the time proposed.\r
+Her health seemed for the moment completely deranged--appetite quite\r
+gone--and though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing\r
+touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension\r
+of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had\r
+undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself,\r
+though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her\r
+present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous\r
+disorder:--confined always to one room;--he could have wished it\r
+otherwise--and her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must\r
+acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that\r
+description. Her care and attention could not be questioned; they were,\r
+in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived\r
+more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern;\r
+grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some\r
+way of being useful. To take her--be it only an hour or two--from\r
+her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational\r
+conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good; and the\r
+following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language\r
+she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any\r
+hour that Jane would name--mentioning that she had Mr. Perry’s decided\r
+opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only\r
+in this short note:\r
+\r
+“Miss Fairfax’s compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any\r
+exercise.”\r
+\r
+Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was\r
+impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed\r
+indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best\r
+counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted. In spite of the\r
+answer, therefore, she ordered the carriage, and drove to Mrs. Bates’s,\r
+in the hope that Jane would be induced to join her--but it would not\r
+do;--Miss Bates came to the carriage door, all gratitude, and agreeing\r
+with her most earnestly in thinking an airing might be of the greatest\r
+service--and every thing that message could do was tried--but all in\r
+vain. Miss Bates was obliged to return without success; Jane was\r
+quite unpersuadable; the mere proposal of going out seemed to make her\r
+worse.--Emma wished she could have seen her, and tried her own powers;\r
+but, almost before she could hint the wish, Miss Bates made it appear\r
+that she had promised her niece on no account to let Miss Woodhouse in.\r
+“Indeed, the truth was, that poor dear Jane could not bear to see any\r
+body--any body at all--Mrs. Elton, indeed, could not be denied--and\r
+Mrs. Cole had made such a point--and Mrs. Perry had said so much--but,\r
+except them, Jane would really see nobody.”\r
+\r
+Emma did not want to be classed with the Mrs. Eltons, the Mrs. Perrys,\r
+and the Mrs. Coles, who would force themselves anywhere; neither could\r
+she feel any right of preference herself--she submitted, therefore, and\r
+only questioned Miss Bates farther as to her niece’s appetite and diet,\r
+which she longed to be able to assist. On that subject poor Miss Bates\r
+was very unhappy, and very communicative; Jane would hardly eat any\r
+thing:--Mr. Perry recommended nourishing food; but every thing\r
+they could command (and never had any body such good neighbours) was\r
+distasteful.\r
+\r
+Emma, on reaching home, called the housekeeper directly, to an\r
+examination of her stores; and some arrowroot of very superior quality\r
+was speedily despatched to Miss Bates with a most friendly note. In half\r
+an hour the arrowroot was returned, with a thousand thanks from Miss\r
+Bates, but “dear Jane would not be satisfied without its being sent\r
+back; it was a thing she could not take--and, moreover, she insisted on\r
+her saying, that she was not at all in want of any thing.”\r
+\r
+When Emma afterwards heard that Jane Fairfax had been seen wandering\r
+about the meadows, at some distance from Highbury, on the afternoon of\r
+the very day on which she had, under the plea of being unequal to any\r
+exercise, so peremptorily refused to go out with her in the carriage,\r
+she could have no doubt--putting every thing together--that Jane was\r
+resolved to receive no kindness from _her_. She was sorry, very sorry.\r
+Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable\r
+from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and\r
+inequality of powers; and it mortified her that she was given so little\r
+credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend: but\r
+she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of\r
+being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy\r
+to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen\r
+into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to\r
+reprove.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+\r
+One morning, about ten days after Mrs. Churchill’s decease, Emma was\r
+called downstairs to Mr. Weston, who “could not stay five minutes,\r
+and wanted particularly to speak with her.”--He met her at the\r
+parlour-door, and hardly asking her how she did, in the natural key of\r
+his voice, sunk it immediately, to say, unheard by her father,\r
+\r
+“Can you come to Randalls at any time this morning?--Do, if it be\r
+possible. Mrs. Weston wants to see you. She must see you.”\r
+\r
+“Is she unwell?”\r
+\r
+“No, no, not at all--only a little agitated. She would have ordered the\r
+carriage, and come to you, but she must see you _alone_, and that you\r
+know--(nodding towards her father)--Humph!--Can you come?”\r
+\r
+“Certainly. This moment, if you please. It is impossible to refuse what\r
+you ask in such a way. But what can be the matter?--Is she really not\r
+ill?”\r
+\r
+“Depend upon me--but ask no more questions. You will know it all in\r
+time. The most unaccountable business! But hush, hush!”\r
+\r
+To guess what all this meant, was impossible even for Emma. Something\r
+really important seemed announced by his looks; but, as her friend was\r
+well, she endeavoured not to be uneasy, and settling it with her father,\r
+that she would take her walk now, she and Mr. Weston were soon out of\r
+the house together and on their way at a quick pace for Randalls.\r
+\r
+“Now,”--said Emma, when they were fairly beyond the sweep gates,--“now\r
+Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened.”\r
+\r
+“No, no,”--he gravely replied.--“Don’t ask me. I promised my wife to\r
+leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not\r
+be impatient, Emma; it will all come out too soon.”\r
+\r
+“Break it to me,” cried Emma, standing still with terror.--“Good\r
+God!--Mr. Weston, tell me at once.--Something has happened in Brunswick\r
+Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it\r
+is.”\r
+\r
+“No, indeed you are mistaken.”--\r
+\r
+“Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.--Consider how many of my dearest\r
+friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it?--I charge you\r
+by all that is sacred, not to attempt concealment.”\r
+\r
+“Upon my word, Emma.”--\r
+\r
+“Your word!--why not your honour!--why not say upon your honour, that\r
+it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!--What can be to be\r
+_broke_ to me, that does not relate to one of that family?”\r
+\r
+“Upon my honour,” said he very seriously, “it does not. It is not in\r
+the smallest degree connected with any human being of the name of\r
+Knightley.”\r
+\r
+Emma’s courage returned, and she walked on.\r
+\r
+“I was wrong,” he continued, “in talking of its being _broke_ to you.\r
+I should not have used the expression. In fact, it does not concern\r
+you--it concerns only myself,--that is, we hope.--Humph!--In short, my\r
+dear Emma, there is no occasion to be so uneasy about it. I don’t\r
+say that it is not a disagreeable business--but things might be much\r
+worse.--If we walk fast, we shall soon be at Randalls.”\r
+\r
+Emma found that she must wait; and now it required little effort. She\r
+asked no more questions therefore, merely employed her own fancy, and\r
+that soon pointed out to her the probability of its being some money\r
+concern--something just come to light, of a disagreeable nature in the\r
+circumstances of the family,--something which the late event at Richmond\r
+had brought forward. Her fancy was very active. Half a dozen natural\r
+children, perhaps--and poor Frank cut off!--This, though very\r
+undesirable, would be no matter of agony to her. It inspired little more\r
+than an animating curiosity.\r
+\r
+“Who is that gentleman on horseback?” said she, as they\r
+proceeded--speaking more to assist Mr. Weston in keeping his secret,\r
+than with any other view.\r
+\r
+“I do not know.--One of the Otways.--Not Frank;--it is not Frank, I\r
+assure you. You will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this\r
+time.”\r
+\r
+“Has your son been with you, then?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! yes--did not you know?--Well, well, never mind.”\r
+\r
+For a moment he was silent; and then added, in a tone much more guarded\r
+and demure,\r
+\r
+“Yes, Frank came over this morning, just to ask us how we did.”\r
+\r
+They hurried on, and were speedily at Randalls.--“Well, my dear,” said\r
+he, as they entered the room--“I have brought her, and now I hope you\r
+will soon be better. I shall leave you together. There is no use in\r
+delay. I shall not be far off, if you want me.”--And Emma distinctly\r
+heard him add, in a lower tone, before he quitted the room,--“I have\r
+been as good as my word. She has not the least idea.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston was looking so ill, and had an air of so much perturbation,\r
+that Emma’s uneasiness increased; and the moment they were alone, she\r
+eagerly said,\r
+\r
+“What is it my dear friend? Something of a very unpleasant nature, I\r
+find, has occurred;--do let me know directly what it is. I have been\r
+walking all this way in complete suspense. We both abhor suspense.\r
+Do not let mine continue longer. It will do you good to speak of your\r
+distress, whatever it may be.”\r
+\r
+“Have you indeed no idea?” said Mrs. Weston in a trembling voice.\r
+“Cannot you, my dear Emma--cannot you form a guess as to what you are to\r
+hear?”\r
+\r
+“So far as that it relates to Mr. Frank Churchill, I do guess.”\r
+\r
+“You are right. It does relate to him, and I will tell you directly;”\r
+ (resuming her work, and seeming resolved against looking up.) “He has\r
+been here this very morning, on a most extraordinary errand. It is\r
+impossible to express our surprize. He came to speak to his father on a\r
+subject,--to announce an attachment--”\r
+\r
+She stopped to breathe. Emma thought first of herself, and then of\r
+Harriet.\r
+\r
+“More than an attachment, indeed,” resumed Mrs. Weston; “an\r
+engagement--a positive engagement.--What will you say, Emma--what will\r
+any body say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are\r
+engaged;--nay, that they have been long engaged!”\r
+\r
+Emma even jumped with surprize;--and, horror-struck, exclaimed,\r
+\r
+“Jane Fairfax!--Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?”\r
+\r
+“You may well be amazed,” returned Mrs. Weston, still averting her eyes,\r
+and talking on with eagerness, that Emma might have time to recover--\r
+“You may well be amazed. But it is even so. There has been a solemn\r
+engagement between them ever since October--formed at Weymouth, and\r
+kept a secret from every body. Not a creature knowing it but\r
+themselves--neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.--It is so\r
+wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost\r
+incredible to myself. I can hardly believe it.--I thought I knew him.”\r
+\r
+Emma scarcely heard what was said.--Her mind was divided between two\r
+ideas--her own former conversations with him about Miss Fairfax; and\r
+poor Harriet;--and for some time she could only exclaim, and require\r
+confirmation, repeated confirmation.\r
+\r
+“Well,” said she at last, trying to recover herself; “this is a\r
+circumstance which I must think of at least half a day, before I can at\r
+all comprehend it. What!--engaged to her all the winter--before either\r
+of them came to Highbury?”\r
+\r
+“Engaged since October,--secretly engaged.--It has hurt me, Emma, very\r
+much. It has hurt his father equally. _Some_ _part_ of his conduct we\r
+cannot excuse.”\r
+\r
+Emma pondered a moment, and then replied, “I will not pretend _not_ to\r
+understand you; and to give you all the relief in my power, be assured\r
+that no such effect has followed his attentions to me, as you are\r
+apprehensive of.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston looked up, afraid to believe; but Emma’s countenance was as\r
+steady as her words.\r
+\r
+“That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my\r
+present perfect indifference,” she continued, “I will farther tell you,\r
+that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I\r
+did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him--nay,\r
+was attached--and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder.\r
+Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past,\r
+for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may\r
+believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy; and when she could find\r
+utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good\r
+than any thing else in the world could do.\r
+\r
+“Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself,” said she. “On\r
+this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you\r
+might be attached to each other--and we were persuaded that it was so.--\r
+Imagine what we have been feeling on your account.”\r
+\r
+“I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful\r
+wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit _him_, Mrs. Weston;\r
+and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he\r
+to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners\r
+so _very_ disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as\r
+he certainly did--to distinguish any one young woman with persevering\r
+attention, as he certainly did--while he really belonged to\r
+another?--How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?--How could\r
+he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?--very wrong,\r
+very wrong indeed.”\r
+\r
+“From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine--”\r
+\r
+“And how could _she_ bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness!\r
+to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman,\r
+before her face, and not resent it.--That is a degree of placidity,\r
+which I can neither comprehend nor respect.”\r
+\r
+“There were misunderstandings between them, Emma; he said so expressly.\r
+He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a\r
+quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow\r
+the full use even of the time he could stay--but that there had been\r
+misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed,\r
+seemed to be brought on by them; and those misunderstandings might very\r
+possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct.”\r
+\r
+“Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Weston--it is too calm a censure. Much, much\r
+beyond impropriety!--It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him\r
+in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!--None of that upright\r
+integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of\r
+trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of\r
+his life.”\r
+\r
+“Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part; for though he has been wrong\r
+in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having\r
+many, very many, good qualities; and--”\r
+\r
+“Good God!” cried Emma, not attending to her.--“Mrs. Smallridge, too!\r
+Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by\r
+such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself--to suffer her\r
+even to think of such a measure!”\r
+\r
+“He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit\r
+him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to him--or at\r
+least not communicated in a way to carry conviction.--Till yesterday, I\r
+know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do\r
+not know how, but by some letter or message--and it was the discovery of\r
+what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him\r
+to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on\r
+his kindness, and, in short, put an end to the miserable state of\r
+concealment that had been carrying on so long.”\r
+\r
+Emma began to listen better.\r
+\r
+“I am to hear from him soon,” continued Mrs. Weston. “He told me at\r
+parting, that he should soon write; and he spoke in a manner which\r
+seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let\r
+us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It\r
+may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to\r
+be understood. Don’t let us be severe, don’t let us be in a hurry to\r
+condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him; and now that I am\r
+satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious\r
+for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must\r
+both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secresy and\r
+concealment.”\r
+\r
+“_His_ sufferings,” replied Emma dryly, “do not appear to have done him\r
+much harm. Well, and how did Mr. Churchill take it?”\r
+\r
+“Most favourably for his nephew--gave his consent with scarcely a\r
+difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family!\r
+While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a\r
+hope, a chance, a possibility;--but scarcely are her remains at rest in\r
+the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite\r
+to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue\r
+influence does not survive the grave!--He gave his consent with very\r
+little persuasion.”\r
+\r
+“Ah!” thought Emma, “he would have done as much for Harriet.”\r
+\r
+“This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this\r
+morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bates’s, I fancy, some time--and\r
+then came on hither; but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle,\r
+to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you,\r
+he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour.--He was very much\r
+agitated--very much, indeed--to a degree that made him appear quite\r
+a different creature from any thing I had ever seen him before.--In\r
+addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so\r
+very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion of--and there was\r
+every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal.”\r
+\r
+“And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such\r
+perfect secresy?--The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of\r
+the engagement?”\r
+\r
+Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush.\r
+\r
+“None; not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in\r
+the world but their two selves.”\r
+\r
+“Well,” said Emma, “I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the\r
+idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a\r
+very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of\r
+hypocrisy and deceit,--espionage, and treachery?--To come among us with\r
+professions of openness and simplicity; and such a league in secret\r
+to judge us all!--Here have we been, the whole winter and spring,\r
+completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth\r
+and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been\r
+carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and\r
+words that were never meant for both to hear.--They must take the\r
+consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not\r
+perfectly agreeable!”\r
+\r
+“I am quite easy on that head,” replied Mrs. Weston. “I am very sure\r
+that I never said any thing of either to the other, which both might not\r
+have heard.”\r
+\r
+“You are in luck.--Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you\r
+imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady.”\r
+\r
+“True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss\r
+Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her; and\r
+as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe.”\r
+\r
+At this moment Mr. Weston appeared at a little distance from the window,\r
+evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him\r
+in; and, while he was coming round, added, “Now, dearest Emma, let me\r
+intreat you to say and look every thing that may set his heart at ease,\r
+and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of\r
+it--and, indeed, almost every thing may be fairly said in her favour. It\r
+is not a connexion to gratify; but if Mr. Churchill does not feel that,\r
+why should we? and it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for\r
+Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such\r
+steadiness of character and good judgment as I have always given her\r
+credit for--and still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of\r
+this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may\r
+be said in her situation for even that error!”\r
+\r
+“Much, indeed!” cried Emma feelingly. “If a woman can ever be\r
+excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane\r
+Fairfax’s.--Of such, one may almost say, that ‘the world is not their’s,\r
+nor the world’s law.’”\r
+\r
+She met Mr. Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance,\r
+exclaiming,\r
+\r
+“A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a\r
+device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of\r
+guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half\r
+your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of\r
+condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation.--I congratulate\r
+you, Mr. Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the\r
+most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter.”\r
+\r
+A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as\r
+right as this speech proclaimed; and its happy effect on his spirits was\r
+immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness: he shook\r
+her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in\r
+a manner to prove, that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think\r
+the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what\r
+could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections; and by the time they\r
+had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again\r
+with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly\r
+reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank\r
+could possibly have done.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+\r
+“Harriet, poor Harriet!”--Those were the words; in them lay the\r
+tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted\r
+the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very\r
+ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much _his_\r
+behaviour as her _own_, which made her so angry with him. It was the\r
+scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet’s account, that gave the\r
+deepest hue to his offence.--Poor Harriet! to be a second time the\r
+dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken\r
+prophetically, when he once said, “Emma, you have been no friend\r
+to Harriet Smith.”--She was afraid she had done her nothing but\r
+disservice.--It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this\r
+instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of\r
+the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise\r
+never have entered Harriet’s imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged\r
+her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever\r
+given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty\r
+of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have\r
+prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence\r
+would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought\r
+to have prevented them.--She felt that she had been risking her friend’s\r
+happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed\r
+her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him,\r
+and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring\r
+for her.--“But, with common sense,” she added, “I am afraid I have had\r
+little to do.”\r
+\r
+She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry\r
+with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.--As for Jane\r
+Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present\r
+solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough; she need\r
+no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health\r
+having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.--Her\r
+days of insignificance and evil were over.--She would soon be well, and\r
+happy, and prosperous.--Emma could now imagine why her own attentions\r
+had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No\r
+doubt it had been from jealousy.--In Jane’s eyes she had been a rival;\r
+and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be\r
+repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack,\r
+and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She\r
+understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from\r
+the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that\r
+Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her\r
+desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little\r
+sympathy to be spared for any body else. Emma was sadly fearful\r
+that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first.\r
+Considering the very superior claims of the object, it ought; and\r
+judging by its apparently stronger effect on Harriet’s mind, producing\r
+reserve and self-command, it would.--She must communicate the painful\r
+truth, however, and as soon as possible. An injunction of secresy had\r
+been among Mr. Weston’s parting words. “For the present, the whole\r
+affair was to be completely a secret. Mr. Churchill had made a point of\r
+it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost;\r
+and every body admitted it to be no more than due decorum.”--Emma had\r
+promised; but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty.\r
+\r
+In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost\r
+ridiculous, that she should have the very same distressing and delicate\r
+office to perform by Harriet, which Mrs. Weston had just gone through by\r
+herself. The intelligence, which had been so anxiously announced to her,\r
+she was now to be anxiously announcing to another. Her heart beat quick\r
+on hearing Harriet’s footstep and voice; so, she supposed, had poor Mrs.\r
+Weston felt when _she_ was approaching Randalls. Could the event of\r
+the disclosure bear an equal resemblance!--But of that, unfortunately,\r
+there could be no chance.\r
+\r
+“Well, Miss Woodhouse!” cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room--“is\r
+not this the oddest news that ever was?”\r
+\r
+“What news do you mean?” replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or\r
+voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint.\r
+\r
+“About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear any thing so strange? Oh!--you\r
+need not be afraid of owning it to me, for Mr. Weston has told me\r
+himself. I met him just now. He told me it was to be a great secret;\r
+and, therefore, I should not think of mentioning it to any body but you,\r
+but he said you knew it.”\r
+\r
+“What did Mr. Weston tell you?”--said Emma, still perplexed.\r
+\r
+“Oh! he told me all about it; that Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill\r
+are to be married, and that they have been privately engaged to one\r
+another this long while. How very odd!”\r
+\r
+It was, indeed, so odd; Harriet’s behaviour was so extremely odd,\r
+that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared\r
+absolutely changed. She seemed to propose shewing no agitation, or\r
+disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery. Emma looked at\r
+her, quite unable to speak.\r
+\r
+“Had you any idea,” cried Harriet, “of his being in love with her?--You,\r
+perhaps, might.--You (blushing as she spoke) who can see into every\r
+body’s heart; but nobody else--”\r
+\r
+“Upon my word,” said Emma, “I begin to doubt my having any such talent.\r
+Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached\r
+to another woman at the very time that I was--tacitly, if not\r
+openly--encouraging you to give way to your own feelings?--I never\r
+had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr. Frank\r
+Churchill’s having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very\r
+sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly.”\r
+\r
+“Me!” cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. “Why should you caution\r
+me?--You do not think I care about Mr. Frank Churchill.”\r
+\r
+“I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject,” replied\r
+Emma, smiling; “but you do not mean to deny that there was a time--and\r
+not very distant either--when you gave me reason to understand that you\r
+did care about him?”\r
+\r
+“Him!--never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me?”\r
+ turning away distressed.\r
+\r
+“Harriet!” cried Emma, after a moment’s pause--“What do you mean?--Good\r
+Heaven! what do you mean?--Mistake you!--Am I to suppose then?--”\r
+\r
+She could not speak another word.--Her voice was lost; and she sat down,\r
+waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer.\r
+\r
+Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from\r
+her, did not immediately say any thing; and when she did speak, it was\r
+in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma’s.\r
+\r
+“I should not have thought it possible,” she began, “that you could have\r
+misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name him--but considering\r
+how infinitely superior he is to every body else, I should not have\r
+thought it possible that I could be supposed to mean any other person.\r
+Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not know who would ever look at him in\r
+the company of the other. I hope I have a better taste than to think of\r
+Mr. Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that you should\r
+have been so mistaken, is amazing!--I am sure, but for believing that\r
+you entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I\r
+should have considered it at first too great a presumption almost,\r
+to dare to think of him. At first, if you had not told me that more\r
+wonderful things had happened; that there had been matches of greater\r
+disparity (those were your very words);--I should not have dared to\r
+give way to--I should not have thought it possible--But if _you_, who\r
+had been always acquainted with him--”\r
+\r
+“Harriet!” cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely--“Let us understand\r
+each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you\r
+speaking of--Mr. Knightley?”\r
+\r
+“To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of any body else--and so\r
+I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as\r
+possible.”\r
+\r
+“Not quite,” returned Emma, with forced calmness, “for all that you then\r
+said, appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost\r
+assert that you had _named_ Mr. Frank Churchill. I am sure the service\r
+Mr. Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the\r
+gipsies, was spoken of.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how you do forget!”\r
+\r
+“My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on\r
+the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment;\r
+that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely\r
+natural:--and you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to\r
+your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had\r
+been in seeing him come forward to your rescue.--The impression of it is\r
+strong on my memory.”\r
+\r
+“Oh, dear,” cried Harriet, “now I recollect what you mean; but I\r
+was thinking of something very different at the time. It was not the\r
+gipsies--it was not Mr. Frank Churchill that I meant. No! (with some\r
+elevation) I was thinking of a much more precious circumstance--of Mr.\r
+Knightley’s coming and asking me to dance, when Mr. Elton would not\r
+stand up with me; and when there was no other partner in the room. That\r
+was the kind action; that was the noble benevolence and generosity; that\r
+was the service which made me begin to feel how superior he was to every\r
+other being upon earth.”\r
+\r
+“Good God!” cried Emma, “this has been a most unfortunate--most\r
+deplorable mistake!--What is to be done?”\r
+\r
+“You would not have encouraged me, then, if you had understood me? At\r
+least, however, I cannot be worse off than I should have been, if the\r
+other had been the person; and now--it _is_ possible--”\r
+\r
+She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak.\r
+\r
+“I do not wonder, Miss Woodhouse,” she resumed, “that you should feel a\r
+great difference between the two, as to me or as to any body. You must\r
+think one five hundred million times more above me than the other. But\r
+I hope, Miss Woodhouse, that supposing--that if--strange as it may\r
+appear--. But you know they were your own words, that _more_ wonderful\r
+things had happened, matches of _greater_ disparity had taken place than\r
+between Mr. Frank Churchill and me; and, therefore, it seems as if such\r
+a thing even as this, may have occurred before--and if I should be so\r
+fortunate, beyond expression, as to--if Mr. Knightley should really--if\r
+_he_ does not mind the disparity, I hope, dear Miss Woodhouse, you will\r
+not set yourself against it, and try to put difficulties in the way. But\r
+you are too good for that, I am sure.”\r
+\r
+Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at\r
+her in consternation, and hastily said,\r
+\r
+“Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley’s returning your affection?”\r
+\r
+“Yes,” replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully--“I must say that I\r
+have.”\r
+\r
+Emma’s eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating,\r
+in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient\r
+for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers,\r
+once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched--she\r
+admitted--she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse\r
+that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank\r
+Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet’s having\r
+some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an\r
+arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!\r
+\r
+Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same\r
+few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed\r
+her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How\r
+inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been\r
+her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her\r
+with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the\r
+world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all\r
+these demerits--some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense\r
+of justice by Harriet--(there would be no need of _compassion_ to the\r
+girl who believed herself loved by Mr. Knightley--but justice required\r
+that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now,) gave Emma the\r
+resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent\r
+kindness.--For her own advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost\r
+extent of Harriet’s hopes should be enquired into; and Harriet had done\r
+nothing to forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily\r
+formed and maintained--or to deserve to be slighted by the person, whose\r
+counsels had never led her right.--Rousing from reflection, therefore,\r
+and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more\r
+inviting accent, renewed the conversation; for as to the subject which\r
+had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was\r
+quite sunk and lost.--Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and\r
+themselves.\r
+\r
+Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad\r
+to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and\r
+such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give\r
+the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight.--Emma’s\r
+tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than\r
+Harriet’s, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady; but her\r
+mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such\r
+a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing\r
+emotions, must create.--She listened with much inward suffering, but\r
+with great outward patience, to Harriet’s detail.--Methodical, or well\r
+arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it\r
+contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of\r
+the narration, a substance to sink her spirit--especially with the\r
+corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of\r
+Mr. Knightley’s most improved opinion of Harriet.\r
+\r
+Harriet had been conscious of a difference in his behaviour ever since\r
+those two decisive dances.--Emma knew that he had, on that occasion,\r
+found her much superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at\r
+least from the time of Miss Woodhouse’s encouraging her to think of him,\r
+Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more than he\r
+had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a different manner\r
+towards her; a manner of kindness and sweetness!--Latterly she had been\r
+more and more aware of it. When they had been all walking together,\r
+he had so often come and walked by her, and talked so very\r
+delightfully!--He seemed to want to be acquainted with her. Emma knew it\r
+to have been very much the case. She had often observed the change, to\r
+almost the same extent.--Harriet repeated expressions of approbation\r
+and praise from him--and Emma felt them to be in the closest agreement\r
+with what she had known of his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for\r
+being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous,\r
+feelings.--She knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet; he\r
+had dwelt on them to her more than once.--Much that lived in Harriet’s\r
+memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from\r
+him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment\r
+implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected,\r
+by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour’s relation,\r
+and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed\r
+undiscerned by her who now heard them; but the two latest occurrences to\r
+be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without\r
+some degree of witness from Emma herself.--The first, was his walking\r
+with her apart from the others, in the lime-walk at Donwell, where they\r
+had been walking some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains (as\r
+she was convinced) to draw her from the rest to himself--and at first,\r
+he had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done\r
+before, in a very particular way indeed!--(Harriet could not recall\r
+it without a blush.) He seemed to be almost asking her, whether her\r
+affections were engaged.--But as soon as she (Miss Woodhouse) appeared\r
+likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began talking about\r
+farming:--The second, was his having sat talking with her nearly half\r
+an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the very last morning of\r
+his being at Hartfield--though, when he first came in, he had said that\r
+he could not stay five minutes--and his having told her, during their\r
+conversation, that though he must go to London, it was very much against\r
+his inclination that he left home at all, which was much more (as\r
+Emma felt) than he had acknowledged to _her_. The superior degree of\r
+confidence towards Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her\r
+severe pain.\r
+\r
+On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a\r
+little reflection, venture the following question. “Might he not?--Is\r
+not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of\r
+your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin--he might have\r
+Mr. Martin’s interest in view? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with\r
+spirit.\r
+\r
+“Mr. Martin! No indeed!--There was not a hint of Mr. Martin. I hope I\r
+know better now, than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it.”\r
+\r
+When Harriet had closed her evidence, she appealed to her dear Miss\r
+Woodhouse, to say whether she had not good ground for hope.\r
+\r
+“I never should have presumed to think of it at first,” said she, “but\r
+for you. You told me to observe him carefully, and let his behaviour\r
+be the rule of mine--and so I have. But now I seem to feel that I may\r
+deserve him; and that if he does chuse me, it will not be any thing so\r
+very wonderful.”\r
+\r
+The bitter feelings occasioned by this speech, the many bitter feelings,\r
+made the utmost exertion necessary on Emma’s side, to enable her to say\r
+on reply,\r
+\r
+“Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last\r
+man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his\r
+feeling for her more than he really does.”\r
+\r
+Harriet seemed ready to worship her friend for a sentence so\r
+satisfactory; and Emma was only saved from raptures and fondness, which\r
+at that moment would have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her\r
+father’s footsteps. He was coming through the hall. Harriet was too\r
+much agitated to encounter him. “She could not compose herself--\r
+Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed--she had better go;”--with most ready\r
+encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another\r
+door--and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of\r
+Emma’s feelings: “Oh God! that I had never seen her!”\r
+\r
+The rest of the day, the following night, were hardly enough for her\r
+thoughts.--She was bewildered amidst the confusion of all that had\r
+rushed on her within the last few hours. Every moment had brought a\r
+fresh surprize; and every surprize must be matter of humiliation to\r
+her.--How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had\r
+been thus practising on herself, and living under!--The blunders, the\r
+blindness of her own head and heart!--she sat still, she walked about,\r
+she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery--in every place, every\r
+posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly; that she had\r
+been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had\r
+been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she\r
+was wretched, and should probably find this day but the beginning of\r
+wretchedness.\r
+\r
+To understand, thoroughly understand her own heart, was the first\r
+endeavour. To that point went every leisure moment which her father’s\r
+claims on her allowed, and every moment of involuntary absence of mind.\r
+\r
+How long had Mr. Knightley been so dear to her, as every feeling\r
+declared him now to be? When had his influence, such influence begun?--\r
+When had he succeeded to that place in her affection, which Frank\r
+Churchill had once, for a short period, occupied?--She looked back;\r
+she compared the two--compared them, as they had always stood in her\r
+estimation, from the time of the latter’s becoming known to her--and as\r
+they must at any time have been compared by her, had it--oh! had it, by\r
+any blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute the comparison.--She\r
+saw that there never had been a time when she did not consider Mr.\r
+Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when his regard for her had not\r
+been infinitely the most dear. She saw, that in persuading herself,\r
+in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been entirely under a\r
+delusion, totally ignorant of her own heart--and, in short, that she had\r
+never really cared for Frank Churchill at all!\r
+\r
+This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection. This was\r
+the knowledge of herself, on the first question of inquiry, which\r
+she reached; and without being long in reaching it.--She was most\r
+sorrowfully indignant; ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed\r
+to her--her affection for Mr. Knightley.--Every other part of her mind\r
+was disgusting.\r
+\r
+With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of every\r
+body’s feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange every\r
+body’s destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and\r
+she had not quite done nothing--for she had done mischief. She had\r
+brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on Mr.\r
+Knightley.--Were this most unequal of all connexions to take place, on\r
+her must rest all the reproach of having given it a beginning; for his\r
+attachment, she must believe to be produced only by a consciousness of\r
+Harriet’s;--and even were this not the case, he would never have known\r
+Harriet at all but for her folly.\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--It was a union to distance every\r
+wonder of the kind.--The attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax\r
+became commonplace, threadbare, stale in the comparison, exciting no\r
+surprize, presenting no disparity, affording nothing to be said or\r
+thought.--Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--Such an elevation on her\r
+side! Such a debasement on his! It was horrible to Emma to think how it\r
+must sink him in the general opinion, to foresee the smiles, the sneers,\r
+the merriment it would prompt at his expense; the mortification and\r
+disdain of his brother, the thousand inconveniences to himself.--Could\r
+it be?--No; it was impossible. And yet it was far, very far, from\r
+impossible.--Was it a new circumstance for a man of first-rate abilities\r
+to be captivated by very inferior powers? Was it new for one, perhaps\r
+too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who would seek him?--Was\r
+it new for any thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent,\r
+incongruous--or for chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct\r
+the human fate?\r
+\r
+Oh! had she never brought Harriet forward! Had she left her where she\r
+ought, and where he had told her she ought!--Had she not, with a\r
+folly which no tongue could express, prevented her marrying the\r
+unexceptionable young man who would have made her happy and respectable\r
+in the line of life to which she ought to belong--all would have been\r
+safe; none of this dreadful sequel would have been.\r
+\r
+How Harriet could ever have had the presumption to raise her thoughts to\r
+Mr. Knightley!--How she could dare to fancy herself the chosen of such\r
+a man till actually assured of it!--But Harriet was less humble, had\r
+fewer scruples than formerly.--Her inferiority, whether of mind or\r
+situation, seemed little felt.--She had seemed more sensible of Mr.\r
+Elton’s being to stoop in marrying her, than she now seemed of Mr.\r
+Knightley’s.--Alas! was not that her own doing too? Who had been at\r
+pains to give Harriet notions of self-consequence but herself?--Who but\r
+herself had taught her, that she was to elevate herself if possible,\r
+and that her claims were great to a high worldly establishment?--If\r
+Harriet, from being humble, were grown vain, it was her doing too.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+\r
+Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known\r
+how much of her happiness depended on being _first_ with Mr. Knightley,\r
+first in interest and affection.--Satisfied that it was so, and feeling\r
+it her due, she had enjoyed it without reflection; and only in the\r
+dread of being supplanted, found how inexpressibly important it had\r
+been.--Long, very long, she felt she had been first; for, having no\r
+female connexions of his own, there had been only Isabella whose claims\r
+could be compared with hers, and she had always known exactly how far\r
+he loved and esteemed Isabella. She had herself been first with him for\r
+many years past. She had not deserved it; she had often been negligent\r
+or perverse, slighting his advice, or even wilfully opposing him,\r
+insensible of half his merits, and quarrelling with him because he would\r
+not acknowledge her false and insolent estimate of her own--but still,\r
+from family attachment and habit, and thorough excellence of mind, he\r
+had loved her, and watched over her from a girl, with an endeavour to\r
+improve her, and an anxiety for her doing right, which no other creature\r
+had at all shared. In spite of all her faults, she knew she was dear\r
+to him; might she not say, very dear?--When the suggestions of hope,\r
+however, which must follow here, presented themselves, she could not\r
+presume to indulge them. Harriet Smith might think herself not unworthy\r
+of being peculiarly, exclusively, passionately loved by Mr. Knightley.\r
+_She_ could not. She could not flatter herself with any idea of\r
+blindness in his attachment to _her_. She had received a very recent\r
+proof of its impartiality.--How shocked had he been by her behaviour to\r
+Miss Bates! How directly, how strongly had he expressed himself to her\r
+on the subject!--Not too strongly for the offence--but far, far too\r
+strongly to issue from any feeling softer than upright justice and\r
+clear-sighted goodwill.--She had no hope, nothing to deserve the name\r
+of hope, that he could have that sort of affection for herself which was\r
+now in question; but there was a hope (at times a slight one, at\r
+times much stronger,) that Harriet might have deceived herself, and be\r
+overrating his regard for _her_.--Wish it she must, for his sake--be the\r
+consequence nothing to herself, but his remaining single all his life.\r
+Could she be secure of that, indeed, of his never marrying at all, she\r
+believed she should be perfectly satisfied.--Let him but continue the\r
+same Mr. Knightley to her and her father, the same Mr. Knightley to\r
+all the world; let Donwell and Hartfield lose none of their precious\r
+intercourse of friendship and confidence, and her peace would be\r
+fully secured.--Marriage, in fact, would not do for her. It would be\r
+incompatible with what she owed to her father, and with what she felt\r
+for him. Nothing should separate her from her father. She would not\r
+marry, even if she were asked by Mr. Knightley.\r
+\r
+It must be her ardent wish that Harriet might be disappointed; and she\r
+hoped, that when able to see them together again, she might at least\r
+be able to ascertain what the chances for it were.--She should see them\r
+henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had\r
+hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how\r
+to admit that she could be blinded here.--He was expected back every\r
+day. The power of observation would be soon given--frightfully soon it\r
+appeared when her thoughts were in one course. In the meanwhile, she\r
+resolved against seeing Harriet.--It would do neither of them good,\r
+it would do the subject no good, to be talking of it farther.--She was\r
+resolved not to be convinced, as long as she could doubt, and yet had\r
+no authority for opposing Harriet’s confidence. To talk would be only to\r
+irritate.--She wrote to her, therefore, kindly, but decisively, to beg\r
+that she would not, at present, come to Hartfield; acknowledging it to\r
+be her conviction, that all farther confidential discussion of _one_\r
+topic had better be avoided; and hoping, that if a few days were allowed\r
+to pass before they met again, except in the company of others--she\r
+objected only to a tete-a-tete--they might be able to act as if they\r
+had forgotten the conversation of yesterday.--Harriet submitted, and\r
+approved, and was grateful.\r
+\r
+This point was just arranged, when a visitor arrived to tear Emma’s\r
+thoughts a little from the one subject which had engrossed them,\r
+sleeping or waking, the last twenty-four hours--Mrs. Weston, who had\r
+been calling on her daughter-in-law elect, and took Hartfield in her\r
+way home, almost as much in duty to Emma as in pleasure to herself, to\r
+relate all the particulars of so interesting an interview.\r
+\r
+Mr. Weston had accompanied her to Mrs. Bates’s, and gone through his\r
+share of this essential attention most handsomely; but she having then\r
+induced Miss Fairfax to join her in an airing, was now returned with\r
+much more to say, and much more to say with satisfaction, than a quarter\r
+of an hour spent in Mrs. Bates’s parlour, with all the encumbrance of\r
+awkward feelings, could have afforded.\r
+\r
+A little curiosity Emma had; and she made the most of it while her\r
+friend related. Mrs. Weston had set off to pay the visit in a good deal\r
+of agitation herself; and in the first place had wished not to go at all\r
+at present, to be allowed merely to write to Miss Fairfax instead, and\r
+to defer this ceremonious call till a little time had passed, and Mr.\r
+Churchill could be reconciled to the engagement’s becoming known; as,\r
+considering every thing, she thought such a visit could not be paid\r
+without leading to reports:--but Mr. Weston had thought differently; he\r
+was extremely anxious to shew his approbation to Miss Fairfax and her\r
+family, and did not conceive that any suspicion could be excited by it;\r
+or if it were, that it would be of any consequence; for “such things,”\r
+ he observed, “always got about.” Emma smiled, and felt that Mr. Weston\r
+had very good reason for saying so. They had gone, in short--and very\r
+great had been the evident distress and confusion of the lady. She had\r
+hardly been able to speak a word, and every look and action had shewn\r
+how deeply she was suffering from consciousness. The quiet, heart-felt\r
+satisfaction of the old lady, and the rapturous delight of her\r
+daughter--who proved even too joyous to talk as usual, had been a\r
+gratifying, yet almost an affecting, scene. They were both so truly\r
+respectable in their happiness, so disinterested in every sensation;\r
+thought so much of Jane; so much of every body, and so little of\r
+themselves, that every kindly feeling was at work for them. Miss\r
+Fairfax’s recent illness had offered a fair plea for Mrs. Weston to\r
+invite her to an airing; she had drawn back and declined at first, but,\r
+on being pressed had yielded; and, in the course of their drive,\r
+Mrs. Weston had, by gentle encouragement, overcome so much of her\r
+embarrassment, as to bring her to converse on the important subject.\r
+Apologies for her seemingly ungracious silence in their first reception,\r
+and the warmest expressions of the gratitude she was always feeling\r
+towards herself and Mr. Weston, must necessarily open the cause; but\r
+when these effusions were put by, they had talked a good deal of the\r
+present and of the future state of the engagement. Mrs. Weston was\r
+convinced that such conversation must be the greatest relief to her\r
+companion, pent up within her own mind as every thing had so long been,\r
+and was very much pleased with all that she had said on the subject.\r
+\r
+“On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so\r
+many months,” continued Mrs. Weston, “she was energetic. This was one\r
+of her expressions. ‘I will not say, that since I entered into the\r
+engagement I have not had some happy moments; but I can say, that I have\r
+never known the blessing of one tranquil hour:’--and the quivering lip,\r
+Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart.”\r
+\r
+“Poor girl!” said Emma. “She thinks herself wrong, then, for having\r
+consented to a private engagement?”\r
+\r
+“Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed\r
+to blame herself. ‘The consequence,’ said she, ‘has been a state of\r
+perpetual suffering to me; and so it ought. But after all the punishment\r
+that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. Pain is no\r
+expiation. I never can be blameless. I have been acting contrary to all\r
+my sense of right; and the fortunate turn that every thing has taken,\r
+and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me\r
+ought not to be.’ ‘Do not imagine, madam,’ she continued, ‘that I was\r
+taught wrong. Do not let any reflection fall on the principles or the\r
+care of the friends who brought me up. The error has been all my own;\r
+and I do assure you that, with all the excuse that present circumstances\r
+may appear to give, I shall yet dread making the story known to Colonel\r
+Campbell.’”\r
+\r
+“Poor girl!” said Emma again. “She loves him then excessively, I\r
+suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be\r
+led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her\r
+judgment.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him.”\r
+\r
+“I am afraid,” returned Emma, sighing, “that I must often have\r
+contributed to make her unhappy.”\r
+\r
+“On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she\r
+probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the\r
+misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural\r
+consequence of the evil she had involved herself in,” she said, “was\r
+that of making her _unreasonable_. The consciousness of having done\r
+amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious\r
+and irritable to a degree that must have been--that had been--hard for\r
+him to bear. ‘I did not make the allowances,’ said she, ‘which I ought\r
+to have done, for his temper and spirits--his delightful spirits, and\r
+that gaiety, that playfulness of disposition, which, under any other\r
+circumstances, would, I am sure, have been as constantly bewitching to\r
+me, as they were at first.’ She then began to speak of you, and of the\r
+great kindness you had shewn her during her illness; and with a blush\r
+which shewed me how it was all connected, desired me, whenever I had\r
+an opportunity, to thank you--I could not thank you too much--for every\r
+wish and every endeavour to do her good. She was sensible that you had\r
+never received any proper acknowledgment from herself.”\r
+\r
+“If I did not know her to be happy now,” said Emma, seriously, “which,\r
+in spite of every little drawback from her scrupulous conscience, she\r
+must be, I could not bear these thanks;--for, oh! Mrs. Weston, if there\r
+were an account drawn up of the evil and the good I have done Miss\r
+Fairfax!--Well (checking herself, and trying to be more lively), this\r
+is all to be forgotten. You are very kind to bring me these interesting\r
+particulars. They shew her to the greatest advantage. I am sure she is\r
+very good--I hope she will be very happy. It is fit that the fortune\r
+should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers.”\r
+\r
+Such a conclusion could not pass unanswered by Mrs. Weston. She thought\r
+well of Frank in almost every respect; and, what was more, she loved him\r
+very much, and her defence was, therefore, earnest. She talked with a\r
+great deal of reason, and at least equal affection--but she had too much\r
+to urge for Emma’s attention; it was soon gone to Brunswick Square or\r
+to Donwell; she forgot to attempt to listen; and when Mrs. Weston ended\r
+with, “We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know,\r
+but I hope it will soon come,” she was obliged to pause before she\r
+answered, and at last obliged to answer at random, before she could at\r
+all recollect what letter it was which they were so anxious for.\r
+\r
+“Are you well, my Emma?” was Mrs. Weston’s parting question.\r
+\r
+“Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me\r
+intelligence of the letter as soon as possible.”\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston’s communications furnished Emma with more food for\r
+unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her\r
+sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted\r
+not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the\r
+envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause.\r
+Had she followed Mr. Knightley’s known wishes, in paying that attention\r
+to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due; had she tried to know her\r
+better; had she done her part towards intimacy; had she endeavoured\r
+to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all\r
+probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her\r
+now.--Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as\r
+an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other--what\r
+was she?--Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends;\r
+that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax’s confidence on this\r
+important matter--which was most probable--still, in knowing her as\r
+she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the\r
+abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she\r
+had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so\r
+unpardonably imparted; an idea which she greatly feared had been made a\r
+subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane’s feelings, by the\r
+levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill’s. Of all the sources of evil\r
+surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded\r
+that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a\r
+perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without\r
+her having stabbed Jane Fairfax’s peace in a thousand instances; and on\r
+Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no\r
+more.\r
+\r
+The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield.\r
+The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and\r
+nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was\r
+despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights\r
+the longer visible.\r
+\r
+The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably\r
+comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter’s side, and by\r
+exertions which had never cost her half so much before. It reminded\r
+her of their first forlorn tete-a-tete, on the evening of Mrs. Weston’s\r
+wedding-day; but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea,\r
+and dissipated every melancholy fancy. Alas! such delightful proofs of\r
+Hartfield’s attraction, as those sort of visits conveyed, might shortly\r
+be over. The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the\r
+approaching winter, had proved erroneous; no friends had deserted them,\r
+no pleasures had been lost.--But her present forebodings she feared\r
+would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now,\r
+was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled--that\r
+might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that\r
+might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be\r
+comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the\r
+spirits only of ruined happiness.\r
+\r
+The child to be born at Randalls must be a tie there even dearer than\r
+herself; and Mrs. Weston’s heart and time would be occupied by it.\r
+They should lose her; and, probably, in great measure, her husband\r
+also.--Frank Churchill would return among them no more; and Miss\r
+Fairfax, it was reasonable to suppose, would soon cease to belong to\r
+Highbury. They would be married, and settled either at or near Enscombe.\r
+All that were good would be withdrawn; and if to these losses, the\r
+loss of Donwell were to be added, what would remain of cheerful or\r
+of rational society within their reach? Mr. Knightley to be no longer\r
+coming there for his evening comfort!--No longer walking in at all\r
+hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their’s!--How was\r
+it to be endured? And if he were to be lost to them for Harriet’s sake;\r
+if he were to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet’s society\r
+all that he wanted; if Harriet were to be the chosen, the first,\r
+the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best\r
+blessings of existence; what could be increasing Emma’s wretchedness but\r
+the reflection never far distant from her mind, that it had been all her\r
+own work?\r
+\r
+When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from\r
+a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a\r
+few seconds--and the only source whence any thing like consolation\r
+or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better\r
+conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might\r
+be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it\r
+would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and\r
+leave her less to regret when it were gone.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+\r
+The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and\r
+the same loneliness, and the same melancholy, seemed to reign at\r
+Hartfield--but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a\r
+softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was\r
+summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma\r
+resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite\r
+sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after\r
+a storm, been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they\r
+might gradually introduce; and on Mr. Perry’s coming in soon after\r
+dinner, with a disengaged hour to give her father, she lost no time\r
+in hurrying into the shrubbery.--There, with spirits freshened, and\r
+thoughts a little relieved, she had taken a few turns, when she saw Mr.\r
+Knightley passing through the garden door, and coming towards her.--It\r
+was the first intimation of his being returned from London. She had\r
+been thinking of him the moment before, as unquestionably sixteen miles\r
+distant.--There was time only for the quickest arrangement of mind. She\r
+must be collected and calm. In half a minute they were together. The\r
+“How d’ye do’s” were quiet and constrained on each side. She asked after\r
+their mutual friends; they were all well.--When had he left them?--Only\r
+that morning. He must have had a wet ride.--Yes.--He meant to walk with\r
+her, she found. “He had just looked into the dining-room, and as he was\r
+not wanted there, preferred being out of doors.”--She thought he neither\r
+looked nor spoke cheerfully; and the first possible cause for it,\r
+suggested by her fears, was, that he had perhaps been communicating his\r
+plans to his brother, and was pained by the manner in which they had\r
+been received.\r
+\r
+They walked together. He was silent. She thought he was often looking\r
+at her, and trying for a fuller view of her face than it suited her to\r
+give. And this belief produced another dread. Perhaps he wanted to\r
+speak to her, of his attachment to Harriet; he might be watching for\r
+encouragement to begin.--She did not, could not, feel equal to lead the\r
+way to any such subject. He must do it all himself. Yet she could\r
+not bear this silence. With him it was most unnatural. She\r
+considered--resolved--and, trying to smile, began--\r
+\r
+“You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather\r
+surprize you.”\r
+\r
+“Have I?” said he quietly, and looking at her; “of what nature?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! the best nature in the world--a wedding.”\r
+\r
+After waiting a moment, as if to be sure she intended to say no more, he\r
+replied,\r
+\r
+“If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that\r
+already.”\r
+\r
+“How is it possible?” cried Emma, turning her glowing cheeks towards\r
+him; for, while she spoke, it occurred to her that he might have called\r
+at Mrs. Goddard’s in his way.\r
+\r
+“I had a few lines on parish business from Mr. Weston this morning, and\r
+at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened.”\r
+\r
+Emma was quite relieved, and could presently say, with a little more\r
+composure,\r
+\r
+“_You_ probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have\r
+had your suspicions.--I have not forgotten that you once tried to give\r
+me a caution.--I wish I had attended to it--but--(with a sinking voice\r
+and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness.”\r
+\r
+For a moment or two nothing was said, and she was unsuspicious of having\r
+excited any particular interest, till she found her arm drawn within\r
+his, and pressed against his heart, and heard him thus saying, in a tone\r
+of great sensibility, speaking low,\r
+\r
+“Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound.--Your own excellent\r
+sense--your exertions for your father’s sake--I know you will not allow\r
+yourself--.” Her arm was pressed again, as he added, in a more\r
+broken and subdued accent, “The feelings of the warmest\r
+friendship--Indignation--Abominable scoundrel!”--And in a louder,\r
+steadier tone, he concluded with, “He will soon be gone. They will soon\r
+be in Yorkshire. I am sorry for _her_. She deserves a better fate.”\r
+\r
+Emma understood him; and as soon as she could recover from the flutter\r
+of pleasure, excited by such tender consideration, replied,\r
+\r
+“You are very kind--but you are mistaken--and I must set you right.--\r
+I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was\r
+going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed\r
+of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may\r
+well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason\r
+to regret that I was not in the secret earlier.”\r
+\r
+“Emma!” cried he, looking eagerly at her, “are you, indeed?”--but\r
+checking himself--“No, no, I understand you--forgive me--I am pleased\r
+that you can say even so much.--He is no object of regret, indeed! and\r
+it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment\r
+of more than your reason.--Fortunate that your affections were not\r
+farther entangled!--I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure\r
+myself as to the degree of what you felt--I could only be certain that\r
+there was a preference--and a preference which I never believed him to\r
+deserve.--He is a disgrace to the name of man.--And is he to be rewarded\r
+with that sweet young woman?--Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable\r
+creature.”\r
+\r
+“Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused--“I\r
+am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your\r
+error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I\r
+have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been\r
+at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural\r
+for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse.--But I never\r
+have.”\r
+\r
+He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would\r
+not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his\r
+clemency; but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in\r
+his opinion. She went on, however.\r
+\r
+“I have very little to say for my own conduct.--I was tempted by his\r
+attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased.--An old story,\r
+probably--a common case--and no more than has happened to hundreds of my\r
+sex before; and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up\r
+as I do for Understanding. Many circumstances assisted the temptation.\r
+He was the son of Mr. Weston--he was continually here--I always found\r
+him very pleasant--and, in short, for (with a sigh) let me swell out the\r
+causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at last--my vanity\r
+was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, however--for some\r
+time, indeed--I have had no idea of their meaning any thing.--I thought\r
+them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side.\r
+He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been\r
+attached to him. And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He\r
+never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real\r
+situation with another.--It was his object to blind all about him; and\r
+no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myself--except\r
+that I was _not_ blinded--that it was my good fortune--that, in short, I\r
+was somehow or other safe from him.”\r
+\r
+She had hoped for an answer here--for a few words to say that her\r
+conduct was at least intelligible; but he was silent; and, as far as she\r
+could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone,\r
+he said,\r
+\r
+“I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill.--I can suppose,\r
+however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has\r
+been but trifling.--And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he\r
+may yet turn out well.--With such a woman he has a chance.--I have no\r
+motive for wishing him ill--and for her sake, whose happiness will be\r
+involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him\r
+well.”\r
+\r
+“I have no doubt of their being happy together,” said Emma; “I believe\r
+them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached.”\r
+\r
+“He is a most fortunate man!” returned Mr. Knightley, with energy. “So\r
+early in life--at three-and-twenty--a period when, if a man chuses a\r
+wife, he generally chuses ill. At three-and-twenty to have drawn such\r
+a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation,\r
+has before him!--Assured of the love of such a woman--the disinterested\r
+love, for Jane Fairfax’s character vouches for her disinterestedness;\r
+every thing in his favour,--equality of situation--I mean, as far as\r
+regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important;\r
+equality in every point but one--and that one, since the purity of her\r
+heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it\r
+will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants.--A man would always\r
+wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from;\r
+and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of _her_ regard, must,\r
+I think, be the happiest of mortals.--Frank Churchill is, indeed, the\r
+favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good.--He meets\r
+with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even\r
+weary her by negligent treatment--and had he and all his family sought\r
+round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found\r
+her superior.--His aunt is in the way.--His aunt dies.--He has only to\r
+speak.--His friends are eager to promote his happiness.--He had used\r
+every body ill--and they are all delighted to forgive him.--He is a\r
+fortunate man indeed!”\r
+\r
+“You speak as if you envied him.”\r
+\r
+“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy.”\r
+\r
+Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence\r
+of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if\r
+possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally\r
+different--the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for\r
+breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying,\r
+\r
+“You will not ask me what is the point of envy.--You are determined, I\r
+see, to have no curiosity.--You are wise--but _I_ cannot be wise. Emma,\r
+I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the\r
+next moment.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! then, don’t speak it, don’t speak it,” she eagerly cried. “Take a\r
+little time, consider, do not commit yourself.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you,” said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not\r
+another syllable followed.\r
+\r
+Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in\r
+her--perhaps to consult her;--cost her what it would, she would listen.\r
+She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give\r
+just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence,\r
+relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more\r
+intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.--They had\r
+reached the house.\r
+\r
+“You are going in, I suppose?” said he.\r
+\r
+“No,”--replied Emma--quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which\r
+he still spoke--“I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not\r
+gone.” And, after proceeding a few steps, she added--“I stopped you\r
+ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you\r
+pain.--But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or\r
+to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation--as\r
+a friend, indeed, you may command me.--I will hear whatever you like. I\r
+will tell you exactly what I think.”\r
+\r
+“As a friend!”--repeated Mr. Knightley.--“Emma, that I fear is a\r
+word--No, I have no wish--Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?--I\r
+have gone too far already for concealment.--Emma, I accept your\r
+offer--Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to\r
+you as a friend.--Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?”\r
+\r
+He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression\r
+of his eyes overpowered her.\r
+\r
+“My dearest Emma,” said he, “for dearest you will always be, whatever\r
+the event of this hour’s conversation, my dearest, most beloved\r
+Emma--tell me at once. Say ‘No,’ if it is to be said.”--She could\r
+really say nothing.--“You are silent,” he cried, with great animation;\r
+“absolutely silent! at present I ask no more.”\r
+\r
+Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The\r
+dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most\r
+prominent feeling.\r
+\r
+“I cannot make speeches, Emma:” he soon resumed; and in a tone of\r
+such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably\r
+convincing.--“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it\r
+more. But you know what I am.--You hear nothing but truth from me.--I\r
+have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other\r
+woman in England would have borne it.--Bear with the truths I would\r
+tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The\r
+manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have\r
+been a very indifferent lover.--But you understand me.--Yes, you see,\r
+you understand my feelings--and will return them if you can. At present,\r
+I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.”\r
+\r
+While he spoke, Emma’s mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful\r
+velocity of thought, had been able--and yet without losing a word--to\r
+catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet’s\r
+hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a\r
+delusion as any of her own--that Harriet was nothing; that she was every\r
+thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet\r
+had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her\r
+agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all\r
+received as discouragement from herself.--And not only was there time\r
+for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness; there\r
+was time also to rejoice that Harriet’s secret had not escaped her, and\r
+to resolve that it need not, and should not.--It was all the service\r
+she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of\r
+sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his\r
+affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the\r
+two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at\r
+once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not\r
+marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and\r
+with contrition; but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that\r
+could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her\r
+friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever; but her\r
+judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever\r
+been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal\r
+and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.--She spoke\r
+then, on being so entreated.--What did she say?--Just what she ought,\r
+of course. A lady always does.--She said enough to shew there need not\r
+be despair--and to invite him to say more himself. He _had_ despaired at\r
+one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence,\r
+as for the time crushed every hope;--she had begun by refusing to hear\r
+him.--The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden;--her proposal of\r
+taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had\r
+just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary!--She felt its\r
+inconsistency; but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it,\r
+and seek no farther explanation.\r
+\r
+Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;\r
+seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a\r
+little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though the conduct is\r
+mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.--Mr.\r
+Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she\r
+possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his.\r
+\r
+He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had\r
+followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it. He had come,\r
+in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement, with no\r
+selfish view, no view at all, but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an\r
+opening, to soothe or to counsel her.--The rest had been the work of\r
+the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings. The\r
+delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill,\r
+of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth\r
+to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himself;--but\r
+it had been no present hope--he had only, in the momentary conquest of\r
+eagerness over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his\r
+attempt to attach her.--The superior hopes which gradually opened were\r
+so much the more enchanting.--The affection, which he had been asking\r
+to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his!--Within half\r
+an hour, he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind, to\r
+something so like perfect happiness, that it could bear no other name.\r
+\r
+_Her_ change was equal.--This one half-hour had given to each the same\r
+precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same\r
+degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust.--On his side, there had been\r
+a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation,\r
+of Frank Churchill.--He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of Frank\r
+Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably\r
+enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill\r
+that had taken him from the country.--The Box Hill party had decided\r
+him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again\r
+such permitted, encouraged attentions.--He had gone to learn to be\r
+indifferent.--But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much\r
+domestic happiness in his brother’s house; woman wore too amiable a form\r
+in it; Isabella was too much like Emma--differing only in those striking\r
+inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before\r
+him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer.--He had\r
+stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day--till this very morning’s\r
+post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax.--Then, with the gladness\r
+which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never\r
+believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much\r
+fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no\r
+longer. He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly\r
+after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures,\r
+faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.\r
+\r
+He had found her agitated and low.--Frank Churchill was a villain.--\r
+He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s\r
+character was not desperate.--She was his own Emma, by hand and word,\r
+when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank\r
+Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+\r
+What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from\r
+what she had brought out!--she had then been only daring to hope for\r
+a little respite of suffering;--she was now in an exquisite flutter of\r
+happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be\r
+greater when the flutter should have passed away.\r
+\r
+They sat down to tea--the same party round the same table--how often\r
+it had been collected!--and how often had her eyes fallen on the same\r
+shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautiful effect of the\r
+western sun!--But never in such a state of spirits, never in any thing\r
+like it; and it was with difficulty that she could summon enough of her\r
+usual self to be the attentive lady of the house, or even the attentive\r
+daughter.\r
+\r
+Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against him in the\r
+breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and so anxiously\r
+hoping might not have taken cold from his ride.--Could he have seen the\r
+heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs; but without the\r
+most distant imagination of the impending evil, without the slightest\r
+perception of any thing extraordinary in the looks or ways of either,\r
+he repeated to them very comfortably all the articles of news he had\r
+received from Mr. Perry, and talked on with much self-contentment,\r
+totally unsuspicious of what they could have told him in return.\r
+\r
+As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma’s fever continued;\r
+but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and\r
+subdued--and in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax\r
+for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points\r
+to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some\r
+alloy. Her father--and Harriet. She could not be alone without feeling\r
+the full weight of their separate claims; and how to guard the comfort\r
+of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father,\r
+it was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley\r
+would ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most\r
+solemn resolution of never quitting her father.--She even wept over\r
+the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an\r
+engagement; but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger of\r
+drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.--How\r
+to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;--how to spare\r
+her from any unnecessary pain; how to make her any possible atonement;\r
+how to appear least her enemy?--On these subjects, her perplexity\r
+and distress were very great--and her mind had to pass again and\r
+again through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever\r
+surrounded it.--She could only resolve at last, that she would still\r
+avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by\r
+letter; that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed\r
+just now for a time from Highbury, and--indulging in one scheme\r
+more--nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation\r
+for her to Brunswick Square.--Isabella had been pleased with Harriet;\r
+and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.--She did\r
+not think it in Harriet’s nature to escape being benefited by novelty\r
+and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.--At any rate,\r
+it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom\r
+every thing was due; a separation for the present; an averting of the\r
+evil day, when they must all be together again.\r
+\r
+She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employment which\r
+left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking\r
+up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon; and half\r
+an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him,\r
+literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a\r
+proper share of the happiness of the evening before.\r
+\r
+He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the\r
+slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was\r
+brought her from Randalls--a very thick letter;--she guessed what it\r
+must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.--She was now\r
+in perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wanted no explanations, she\r
+wanted only to have her thoughts to herself--and as for understanding\r
+any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it.--It must be\r
+waded through, however. She opened the packet; it was too surely so;--a\r
+note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to\r
+Mrs. Weston.\r
+\r
+“I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the\r
+enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have scarcely\r
+a doubt of its happy effect.--I think we shall never materially disagree\r
+about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long preface.--We\r
+are quite well.--This letter has been the cure of all the little\r
+nervousness I have been feeling lately.--I did not quite like your looks\r
+on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning; and though you will never\r
+own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east\r
+wind.--I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday\r
+afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing last\r
+night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill.\r
+\r
+ “Yours ever,\r
+ “A. W.”\r
+\r
+ [To Mrs. Weston.]\r
+\r
+\r
+ WINDSOR-JULY.\r
+MY DEAR MADAM,\r
+\r
+“If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be\r
+expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and\r
+indulgence.--You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of\r
+even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.--But\r
+I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage\r
+rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be\r
+humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for\r
+pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours,\r
+and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.--You\r
+must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I\r
+first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which\r
+was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place\r
+myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.\r
+I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it a right,\r
+I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and\r
+casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my\r
+difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to\r
+require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we\r
+parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the\r
+creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--Had she refused, I\r
+should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say, what was your\r
+hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--To any thing, every\r
+thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts,\r
+perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of\r
+good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her\r
+promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation,\r
+I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband’s son, and\r
+the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no\r
+inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.--See\r
+me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to\r
+Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have\r
+been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till\r
+Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person slighted, you\r
+will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father’s compassion, by\r
+reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long\r
+I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very\r
+happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to\r
+reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I come to the principal,\r
+the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which\r
+excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With\r
+the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss\r
+Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest\r
+humiliation.--A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his\r
+opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.--My behaviour\r
+to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.--In order to\r
+assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than\r
+an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately\r
+thrown.--I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible object--but\r
+I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been\r
+convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any\r
+selfish views to go on.--Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is,\r
+she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and\r
+that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me,\r
+was as much my conviction as my wish.--She received my attentions with\r
+an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me.\r
+We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those\r
+attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.--Whether Miss Woodhouse\r
+began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight,\r
+I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was\r
+within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not\r
+without suspicion; but I have no doubt of her having since detected me,\r
+at least in some degree.--She may not have surmised the whole, but her\r
+quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find,\r
+whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it\r
+did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it.\r
+I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude\r
+for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.--I hope this history of my conduct\r
+towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation\r
+of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against\r
+Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and\r
+procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes\r
+of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly\r
+affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as\r
+myself.--Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight,\r
+you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to\r
+get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.\r
+If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.--Of\r
+the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that\r
+its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who would never\r
+have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.--The\r
+delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam,\r
+is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly\r
+hope, know her thoroughly yourself.--No description can describe her.\r
+She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never\r
+was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own\r
+merit.--Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw,\r
+I have heard from her.--She gives a good account of her own health; but\r
+as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion\r
+of her looks. I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread\r
+of the visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without\r
+delay; I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few\r
+minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and\r
+I am not much better yet; still insane either from happiness or\r
+misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her\r
+excellence and patience, and my uncle’s generosity, I am mad with joy:\r
+but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little\r
+I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her\r
+again!--But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me\r
+to encroach.--I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard\r
+all that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail\r
+yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness\r
+with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event\r
+of the 26th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the\r
+happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures,\r
+but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to\r
+lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she\r
+would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and\r
+refinement.--But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered\r
+into with that woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off\r
+abruptly, to recollect and compose myself.--I have been walking over\r
+the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of\r
+my letter what it ought to be.--It is, in fact, a most mortifying\r
+retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that\r
+my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly\r
+blameable. _She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been enough.--My\r
+plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient.--She was\r
+displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand\r
+occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even\r
+cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and\r
+subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have\r
+escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known.--We quarrelled.--\r
+Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell?--_There_ every little\r
+dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late;\r
+I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she\r
+would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me, which I then\r
+thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very\r
+natural and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the\r
+world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable\r
+particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a\r
+proposal which might have made every previous caution useless?--Had we\r
+been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must\r
+have been suspected.--I was mad enough, however, to resent.--I doubted\r
+her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill; when,\r
+provoked by such conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect\r
+of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been\r
+impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in\r
+a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.--In short, my dear\r
+madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable on mine; and\r
+I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with\r
+you till the next morning, merely because I would be as angry with\r
+her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as not to mean to\r
+be reconciled in time; but I was the injured person, injured by her\r
+coldness, and I went away determined that she should make the first\r
+advances.--I shall always congratulate myself that you were not of\r
+the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly\r
+suppose you would ever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon\r
+her appears in the immediate resolution it produced: as soon as she\r
+found I was really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of that\r
+officious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of whose treatment of her, by the\r
+bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred. I must not quarrel\r
+with a spirit of forbearance which has been so richly extended towards\r
+myself; but, otherwise, I should loudly protest against the share of it\r
+which that woman has known.--‘Jane,’ indeed!--You will observe that I\r
+have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you.\r
+Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between\r
+the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the\r
+insolence of imaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon\r
+have done.--She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me\r
+entirely, and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet\r
+again.--_She_ _felt_ _the_ _engagement_ _to_ _be_ _a_ _source_ _of_\r
+_repentance_ _and_ _misery_ _to_ _each_: _she_ _dissolved_ _it_.--This\r
+letter reached me on the very morning of my poor aunt’s death. I\r
+answered it within an hour; but from the confusion of my mind, and the\r
+multiplicity of business falling on me at once, my answer, instead of\r
+being sent with all the many other letters of that day, was locked up in\r
+my writing-desk; and I, trusting that I had written enough, though but\r
+a few lines, to satisfy her, remained without any uneasiness.--I was\r
+rather disappointed that I did not hear from her again speedily; but I\r
+made excuses for her, and was too busy, and--may I add?--too cheerful\r
+in my views to be captious.--We removed to Windsor; and two\r
+days afterwards I received a parcel from her, my own letters all\r
+returned!--and a few lines at the same time by the post, stating her\r
+extreme surprize at not having had the smallest reply to her last; and\r
+adding, that as silence on such a point could not be misconstrued,\r
+and as it must be equally desirable to both to have every subordinate\r
+arrangement concluded as soon as possible, she now sent me, by a safe\r
+conveyance, all my letters, and requested, that if I could not directly\r
+command hers, so as to send them to Highbury within a week, I would\r
+forward them after that period to her at--: in short, the full direction\r
+to Mr. Smallridge’s, near Bristol, stared me in the face. I knew the\r
+name, the place, I knew all about it, and instantly saw what she had\r
+been doing. It was perfectly accordant with that resolution of character\r
+which I knew her to possess; and the secrecy she had maintained, as to\r
+any such design in her former letter, was equally descriptive of its\r
+anxious delicacy. For the world would not she have seemed to threaten\r
+me.--Imagine the shock; imagine how, till I had actually detected my\r
+own blunder, I raved at the blunders of the post.--What was to be\r
+done?--One thing only.--I must speak to my uncle. Without his sanction I\r
+could not hope to be listened to again.--I spoke; circumstances were\r
+in my favour; the late event had softened away his pride, and he was,\r
+earlier than I could have anticipated, wholly reconciled and complying;\r
+and could say at last, poor man! with a deep sigh, that he wished I\r
+might find as much happiness in the marriage state as he had done.--I\r
+felt that it would be of a different sort.--Are you disposed to pity\r
+me for what I must have suffered in opening the cause to him, for my\r
+suspense while all was at stake?--No; do not pity me till I reached\r
+Highbury, and saw how ill I had made her. Do not pity me till I saw her\r
+wan, sick looks.--I reached Highbury at the time of day when, from my\r
+knowledge of their late breakfast hour, I was certain of a good chance\r
+of finding her alone.--I was not disappointed; and at last I was not\r
+disappointed either in the object of my journey. A great deal of very\r
+reasonable, very just displeasure I had to persuade away. But it is\r
+done; we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever, and no moment’s\r
+uneasiness can ever occur between us again. Now, my dear madam, I will\r
+release you; but I could not conclude before. A thousand and a thousand\r
+thanks for all the kindness you have ever shewn me, and ten thousand for\r
+the attentions your heart will dictate towards her.--If you think me in\r
+a way to be happier than I deserve, I am quite of your opinion.--Miss\r
+W. calls me the child of good fortune. I hope she is right.--In one\r
+respect, my good fortune is undoubted, that of being able to subscribe\r
+myself,\r
+\r
+ Your obliged and affectionate Son,\r
+\r
+ F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+\r
+This letter must make its way to Emma’s feelings. She was obliged, in\r
+spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the\r
+justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name,\r
+it was irresistible; every line relating to herself was interesting,\r
+and almost every line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the subject\r
+could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard\r
+for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of\r
+love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone\r
+through the whole; and though it was impossible not to feel that he had\r
+been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had supposed--and he had\r
+suffered, and was very sorry--and he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and\r
+so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that\r
+there was no being severe; and could he have entered the room, she must\r
+have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever.\r
+\r
+She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again,\r
+she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston’s wishing it to\r
+be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so\r
+much to blame in his conduct.\r
+\r
+“I shall be very glad to look it over,” said he; “but it seems long. I\r
+will take it home with me at night.”\r
+\r
+But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she\r
+must return it by him.\r
+\r
+“I would rather be talking to you,” he replied; “but as it seems a\r
+matter of justice, it shall be done.”\r
+\r
+He began--stopping, however, almost directly to say, “Had I been offered\r
+the sight of one of this gentleman’s letters to his mother-in-law a few\r
+months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference.”\r
+\r
+He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a\r
+smile, observed, “Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his\r
+way. One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s. We will not be\r
+severe.”\r
+\r
+“It will be natural for me,” he added shortly afterwards, “to speak my\r
+opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you.\r
+It will not be so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it--”\r
+\r
+“Not at all. I should wish it.”\r
+\r
+Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity.\r
+\r
+“He trifles here,” said he, “as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong,\r
+and has nothing rational to urge.--Bad.--He ought not to have formed the\r
+engagement.--‘His father’s disposition:’--he is unjust, however, to his\r
+father. Mr. Weston’s sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright\r
+and honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort\r
+before he endeavoured to gain it.--Very true; he did not come till Miss\r
+Fairfax was here.”\r
+\r
+“And I have not forgotten,” said Emma, “how sure you were that he might\r
+have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomely--but you\r
+were perfectly right.”\r
+\r
+“I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:--but yet, I think--had\r
+_you_ not been in the case--I should still have distrusted him.”\r
+\r
+When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it\r
+aloud--all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the\r
+head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as\r
+the subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady\r
+reflection, thus--\r
+\r
+“Very bad--though it might have been worse.--Playing a most dangerous\r
+game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.--No judge of\r
+his own manners by you.--Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and\r
+regardless of little besides his own convenience.--Fancying you to have\r
+fathomed his secret. Natural enough!--his own mind full of intrigue,\r
+that he should suspect it in others.--Mystery; Finesse--how they pervert\r
+the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more\r
+and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each\r
+other?”\r
+\r
+Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet’s account,\r
+which she could not give any sincere explanation of.\r
+\r
+“You had better go on,” said she.\r
+\r
+He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, “the pianoforte! Ah! That\r
+was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether\r
+the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A\r
+boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot comprehend a man’s wishing to give a\r
+woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense\r
+with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument’s\r
+coming if she could.”\r
+\r
+After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill’s\r
+confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for\r
+more than a word in passing.\r
+\r
+“I perfectly agree with you, sir,”--was then his remark. “You did behave\r
+very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.” And having gone through\r
+what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his\r
+persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax’s sense of right,\r
+he made a fuller pause to say, “This is very bad.--He had induced her\r
+to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and\r
+uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from\r
+suffering unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend\r
+with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have\r
+respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were\r
+all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she\r
+had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she\r
+should have been in such a state of punishment.”\r
+\r
+Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew\r
+uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was\r
+deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read,\r
+however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and,\r
+excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear\r
+of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist.\r
+\r
+“There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the\r
+Eltons,” was his next observation.--“His feelings are natural.--What!\r
+actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She felt the engagement to\r
+be a source of repentance and misery to each--she dissolved it.--What a\r
+view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!--Well, he must be a most\r
+extraordinary--”\r
+\r
+“Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers.”\r
+\r
+“I hope he does,” replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter.\r
+“‘Smallridge!’--What does this mean? What is all this?”\r
+\r
+“She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge’s children--a\r
+dear friend of Mrs. Elton’s--a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the\r
+bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?”\r
+\r
+“Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not even of\r
+Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter\r
+the man writes!”\r
+\r
+“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him.”\r
+\r
+“Well, there _is_ feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered in\r
+finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of\r
+her. ‘Dearer, much dearer than ever.’ I hope he may long continue to\r
+feel all the value of such a reconciliation.--He is a very liberal\r
+thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.--‘Happier than I\r
+deserve.’ Come, he knows himself there. ‘Miss Woodhouse calls me the\r
+child of good fortune.’--Those were Miss Woodhouse’s words, were they?--\r
+And a fine ending--and there is the letter. The child of good fortune!\r
+That was your name for him, was it?”\r
+\r
+“You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still\r
+you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I\r
+hope it does him some service with you.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of\r
+inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion\r
+in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves: but still as he\r
+is, beyond a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it\r
+may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very\r
+ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the\r
+steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk\r
+to you of something else. I have another person’s interest at present\r
+so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank Churchill.\r
+Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work\r
+on one subject.”\r
+\r
+The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike\r
+English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love\r
+with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the\r
+happiness of her father. Emma’s answer was ready at the first word.\r
+“While her dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible\r
+for her. She could never quit him.” Part only of this answer, however,\r
+was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr.\r
+Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of any\r
+other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it over most\r
+deeply, most intently; he had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to\r
+remove with her to Donwell; he had wanted to believe it feasible, but\r
+his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself\r
+long; and now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation\r
+would be a risk of her father’s comfort, perhaps even of his life, which\r
+must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!--No, he felt\r
+that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the\r
+sacrifice of this, he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any\r
+respect objectionable; it was, that he should be received at Hartfield;\r
+that so long as her father’s happiness--in other words, his life--required\r
+Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.\r
+\r
+Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own passing\r
+thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected it; but such\r
+an alternative as this had not occurred to her. She was sensible of all\r
+the affection it evinced. She felt that, in quitting Donwell, he must\r
+be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that\r
+in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there\r
+would be much, very much, to be borne with. She promised to think of it,\r
+and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced, that no\r
+reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had\r
+given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration; he had\r
+been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his\r
+thoughts to himself.\r
+\r
+“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure\r
+William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you\r
+ask mine.”\r
+\r
+She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised,\r
+moreover, to think of it, with the intention of finding it a very good\r
+scheme.\r
+\r
+It is remarkable, that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in\r
+which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never\r
+struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as\r
+heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded. Think she must\r
+of the possible difference to the poor little boy; and yet she only\r
+gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in\r
+detecting the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley’s\r
+marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had\r
+wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt.\r
+\r
+This proposal of his, this plan of marrying and continuing at\r
+Hartfield--the more she contemplated it, the more pleasing it became.\r
+His evils seemed to lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual\r
+good to outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the\r
+periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!--Such a partner in\r
+all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of\r
+melancholy!\r
+\r
+She would have been too happy but for poor Harriet; but every blessing\r
+of her own seemed to involve and advance the sufferings of her friend,\r
+who must now be even excluded from Hartfield. The delightful family\r
+party which Emma was securing for herself, poor Harriet must, in mere\r
+charitable caution, be kept at a distance from. She would be a loser in\r
+every way. Emma could not deplore her future absence as any deduction\r
+from her own enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet would be rather a\r
+dead weight than otherwise; but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a\r
+peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a state of\r
+unmerited punishment.\r
+\r
+In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is,\r
+supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr.\r
+Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure;--not\r
+like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly\r
+considerate for every body, would never deserve to be less worshipped\r
+than now; and it really was too much to hope even of Harriet, that she\r
+could be in love with more than _three_ men in one year.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+\r
+It was a very great relief to Emma to find Harriet as desirous as\r
+herself to avoid a meeting. Their intercourse was painful enough by\r
+letter. How much worse, had they been obliged to meet!\r
+\r
+Harriet expressed herself very much as might be supposed, without\r
+reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there\r
+was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style,\r
+which increased the desirableness of their being separate.--It might be\r
+only her own consciousness; but it seemed as if an angel only could have\r
+been quite without resentment under such a stroke.\r
+\r
+She had no difficulty in procuring Isabella’s invitation; and she was\r
+fortunate in having a sufficient reason for asking it, without resorting\r
+to invention.--There was a tooth amiss. Harriet really wished, and\r
+had wished some time, to consult a dentist. Mrs. John Knightley was\r
+delighted to be of use; any thing of ill health was a recommendation to\r
+her--and though not so fond of a dentist as of a Mr. Wingfield, she was\r
+quite eager to have Harriet under her care.--When it was thus settled\r
+on her sister’s side, Emma proposed it to her friend, and found her\r
+very persuadable.--Harriet was to go; she was invited for at least a\r
+fortnight; she was to be conveyed in Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage.--It was\r
+all arranged, it was all completed, and Harriet was safe in Brunswick\r
+Square.\r
+\r
+Now Emma could, indeed, enjoy Mr. Knightley’s visits; now she could\r
+talk, and she could listen with true happiness, unchecked by that sense\r
+of injustice, of guilt, of something most painful, which had haunted her\r
+when remembering how disappointed a heart was near her, how much might\r
+at that moment, and at a little distance, be enduring by the feelings\r
+which she had led astray herself.\r
+\r
+The difference of Harriet at Mrs. Goddard’s, or in London, made perhaps\r
+an unreasonable difference in Emma’s sensations; but she could not think\r
+of her in London without objects of curiosity and employment, which must\r
+be averting the past, and carrying her out of herself.\r
+\r
+She would not allow any other anxiety to succeed directly to the place\r
+in her mind which Harriet had occupied. There was a communication before\r
+her, one which _she_ only could be competent to make--the confession of\r
+her engagement to her father; but she would have nothing to do with it\r
+at present.--She had resolved to defer the disclosure till Mrs. Weston\r
+were safe and well. No additional agitation should be thrown at this\r
+period among those she loved--and the evil should not act on herself\r
+by anticipation before the appointed time.--A fortnight, at least, of\r
+leisure and peace of mind, to crown every warmer, but more agitating,\r
+delight, should be hers.\r
+\r
+She soon resolved, equally as a duty and a pleasure, to employ half an\r
+hour of this holiday of spirits in calling on Miss Fairfax.--She ought\r
+to go--and she was longing to see her; the resemblance of their present\r
+situations increasing every other motive of goodwill. It would be a\r
+_secret_ satisfaction; but the consciousness of a similarity of prospect\r
+would certainly add to the interest with which she should attend to any\r
+thing Jane might communicate.\r
+\r
+She went--she had driven once unsuccessfully to the door, but had not\r
+been into the house since the morning after Box Hill, when poor Jane had\r
+been in such distress as had filled her with compassion, though all the\r
+worst of her sufferings had been unsuspected.--The fear of being still\r
+unwelcome, determined her, though assured of their being at home, to\r
+wait in the passage, and send up her name.--She heard Patty announcing\r
+it; but no such bustle succeeded as poor Miss Bates had before made so\r
+happily intelligible.--No; she heard nothing but the instant reply of,\r
+“Beg her to walk up;”--and a moment afterwards she was met on the stairs\r
+by Jane herself, coming eagerly forward, as if no other reception of her\r
+were felt sufficient.--Emma had never seen her look so well, so lovely,\r
+so engaging. There was consciousness, animation, and warmth; there was\r
+every thing which her countenance or manner could ever have wanted.--\r
+She came forward with an offered hand; and said, in a low, but very\r
+feeling tone,\r
+\r
+“This is most kind, indeed!--Miss Woodhouse, it is impossible for me\r
+to express--I hope you will believe--Excuse me for being so entirely\r
+without words.”\r
+\r
+Emma was gratified, and would soon have shewn no want of words, if the\r
+sound of Mrs. Elton’s voice from the sitting-room had not checked\r
+her, and made it expedient to compress all her friendly and all her\r
+congratulatory sensations into a very, very earnest shake of the hand.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Elton were together. Miss Bates was out, which\r
+accounted for the previous tranquillity. Emma could have wished Mrs.\r
+Elton elsewhere; but she was in a humour to have patience with every\r
+body; and as Mrs. Elton met her with unusual graciousness, she hoped the\r
+rencontre would do them no harm.\r
+\r
+She soon believed herself to penetrate Mrs. Elton’s thoughts, and\r
+understand why she was, like herself, in happy spirits; it was being in\r
+Miss Fairfax’s confidence, and fancying herself acquainted with what was\r
+still a secret to other people. Emma saw symptoms of it immediately in\r
+the expression of her face; and while paying her own compliments to Mrs.\r
+Bates, and appearing to attend to the good old lady’s replies, she saw\r
+her with a sort of anxious parade of mystery fold up a letter which she\r
+had apparently been reading aloud to Miss Fairfax, and return it into\r
+the purple and gold reticule by her side, saying, with significant nods,\r
+\r
+“We can finish this some other time, you know. You and I shall not want\r
+opportunities. And, in fact, you have heard all the essential already. I\r
+only wanted to prove to you that Mrs. S. admits our apology, and is\r
+not offended. You see how delightfully she writes. Oh! she is a sweet\r
+creature! You would have doated on her, had you gone.--But not a word\r
+more. Let us be discreet--quite on our good behaviour.--Hush!--You\r
+remember those lines--I forget the poem at this moment:\r
+\r
+ “For when a lady’s in the case,\r
+ “You know all other things give place.”\r
+\r
+Now I say, my dear, in _our_ case, for _lady_, read----mum! a word to\r
+the wise.--I am in a fine flow of spirits, an’t I? But I want to set\r
+your heart at ease as to Mrs. S.--_My_ representation, you see, has\r
+quite appeased her.”\r
+\r
+And again, on Emma’s merely turning her head to look at Mrs. Bates’s\r
+knitting, she added, in a half whisper,\r
+\r
+“I mentioned no _names_, you will observe.--Oh! no; cautious as a\r
+minister of state. I managed it extremely well.”\r
+\r
+Emma could not doubt. It was a palpable display, repeated on every\r
+possible occasion. When they had all talked a little while in harmony of\r
+the weather and Mrs. Weston, she found herself abruptly addressed with,\r
+\r
+“Do not you think, Miss Woodhouse, our saucy little friend here is\r
+charmingly recovered?--Do not you think her cure does Perry the highest\r
+credit?--(here was a side-glance of great meaning at Jane.) Upon my\r
+word, Perry has restored her in a wonderful short time!--Oh! if you had\r
+seen her, as I did, when she was at the worst!”--And when Mrs. Bates\r
+was saying something to Emma, whispered farther, “We do not say a word\r
+of any _assistance_ that Perry might have; not a word of a certain young\r
+physician from Windsor.--Oh! no; Perry shall have all the credit.”\r
+\r
+“I have scarce had the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Woodhouse,” she\r
+shortly afterwards began, “since the party to Box Hill. Very pleasant\r
+party. But yet I think there was something wanting. Things did not\r
+seem--that is, there seemed a little cloud upon the spirits of some.--So\r
+it appeared to me at least, but I might be mistaken. However, I think\r
+it answered so far as to tempt one to go again. What say you both to our\r
+collecting the same party, and exploring to Box Hill again, while the\r
+fine weather lasts?--It must be the same party, you know, quite the\r
+same party, not _one_ exception.”\r
+\r
+Soon after this Miss Bates came in, and Emma could not help being\r
+diverted by the perplexity of her first answer to herself, resulting,\r
+she supposed, from doubt of what might be said, and impatience to say\r
+every thing.\r
+\r
+“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse, you are all kindness.--It is impossible\r
+to say--Yes, indeed, I quite understand--dearest Jane’s prospects--that\r
+is, I do not mean.--But she is charmingly recovered.--How is Mr.\r
+Woodhouse?--I am so glad.--Quite out of my power.--Such a happy little\r
+circle as you find us here.--Yes, indeed.--Charming young man!--that\r
+is--so very friendly; I mean good Mr. Perry!--such attention to\r
+Jane!”--And from her great, her more than commonly thankful delight\r
+towards Mrs. Elton for being there, Emma guessed that there had been a\r
+little show of resentment towards Jane, from the vicarage quarter,\r
+which was now graciously overcome.--After a few whispers, indeed, which\r
+placed it beyond a guess, Mrs. Elton, speaking louder, said,\r
+\r
+“Yes, here I am, my good friend; and here I have been so long, that\r
+anywhere else I should think it necessary to apologise; but, the truth\r
+is, that I am waiting for my lord and master. He promised to join me\r
+here, and pay his respects to you.”\r
+\r
+“What! are we to have the pleasure of a call from Mr. Elton?--That will\r
+be a favour indeed! for I know gentlemen do not like morning visits, and\r
+Mr. Elton’s time is so engaged.”\r
+\r
+“Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.--He really is engaged from morning to\r
+night.--There is no end of people’s coming to him, on some pretence or\r
+other.--The magistrates, and overseers, and churchwardens, are always\r
+wanting his opinion. They seem not able to do any thing without\r
+him.--‘Upon my word, Mr. E.,’ I often say, ‘rather you than I.--I do\r
+not know what would become of my crayons and my instrument, if I had\r
+half so many applicants.’--Bad enough as it is, for I absolutely neglect\r
+them both to an unpardonable degree.--I believe I have not played a bar\r
+this fortnight.--However, he is coming, I assure you: yes, indeed, on\r
+purpose to wait on you all.” And putting up her hand to screen her\r
+words from Emma--“A congratulatory visit, you know.--Oh! yes, quite\r
+indispensable.”\r
+\r
+Miss Bates looked about her, so happily--!\r
+\r
+“He promised to come to me as soon as he could disengage himself\r
+from Knightley; but he and Knightley are shut up together in deep\r
+consultation.--Mr. E. is Knightley’s right hand.”\r
+\r
+Emma would not have smiled for the world, and only said, “Is Mr. Elton\r
+gone on foot to Donwell?--He will have a hot walk.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no, it is a meeting at the Crown, a regular meeting. Weston and\r
+Cole will be there too; but one is apt to speak only of those who\r
+lead.--I fancy Mr. E. and Knightley have every thing their own way.”\r
+\r
+“Have not you mistaken the day?” said Emma. “I am almost certain that\r
+the meeting at the Crown is not till to-morrow.--Mr. Knightley was at\r
+Hartfield yesterday, and spoke of it as for Saturday.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no, the meeting is certainly to-day,” was the abrupt answer, which\r
+denoted the impossibility of any blunder on Mrs. Elton’s side.--“I do\r
+believe,” she continued, “this is the most troublesome parish that ever\r
+was. We never heard of such things at Maple Grove.”\r
+\r
+“Your parish there was small,” said Jane.\r
+\r
+“Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, for I never heard the subject\r
+talked of.”\r
+\r
+“But it is proved by the smallness of the school, which I have heard\r
+you speak of, as under the patronage of your sister and Mrs. Bragge; the\r
+only school, and not more than five-and-twenty children.”\r
+\r
+“Ah! you clever creature, that’s very true. What a thinking brain you\r
+have! I say, Jane, what a perfect character you and I should make, if we\r
+could be shaken together. My liveliness and your solidity would produce\r
+perfection.--Not that I presume to insinuate, however, that _some_\r
+people may not think _you_ perfection already.--But hush!--not a word,\r
+if you please.”\r
+\r
+It seemed an unnecessary caution; Jane was wanting to give her words,\r
+not to Mrs. Elton, but to Miss Woodhouse, as the latter plainly saw.\r
+The wish of distinguishing her, as far as civility permitted, was very\r
+evident, though it could not often proceed beyond a look.\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton made his appearance. His lady greeted him with some of her\r
+sparkling vivacity.\r
+\r
+“Very pretty, sir, upon my word; to send me on here, to be an\r
+encumbrance to my friends, so long before you vouchsafe to come!--But\r
+you knew what a dutiful creature you had to deal with. You knew I should\r
+not stir till my lord and master appeared.--Here have I been sitting\r
+this hour, giving these young ladies a sample of true conjugal\r
+obedience--for who can say, you know, how soon it may be wanted?”\r
+\r
+Mr. Elton was so hot and tired, that all this wit seemed thrown away.\r
+His civilities to the other ladies must be paid; but his subsequent\r
+object was to lament over himself for the heat he was suffering, and the\r
+walk he had had for nothing.\r
+\r
+“When I got to Donwell,” said he, “Knightley could not be found. Very\r
+odd! very unaccountable! after the note I sent him this morning, and the\r
+message he returned, that he should certainly be at home till one.”\r
+\r
+“Donwell!” cried his wife.--“My dear Mr. E., you have not been to\r
+Donwell!--You mean the Crown; you come from the meeting at the Crown.”\r
+\r
+“No, no, that’s to-morrow; and I particularly wanted to see Knightley\r
+to-day on that very account.--Such a dreadful broiling morning!--I went\r
+over the fields too--(speaking in a tone of great ill-usage,) which made\r
+it so much the worse. And then not to find him at home! I assure you\r
+I am not at all pleased. And no apology left, no message for me. The\r
+housekeeper declared she knew nothing of my being expected.--Very\r
+extraordinary!--And nobody knew at all which way he was gone. Perhaps\r
+to Hartfield, perhaps to the Abbey Mill, perhaps into his woods.--Miss\r
+Woodhouse, this is not like our friend Knightley!--Can you explain it?”\r
+\r
+Emma amused herself by protesting that it was very extraordinary,\r
+indeed, and that she had not a syllable to say for him.\r
+\r
+“I cannot imagine,” said Mrs. Elton, (feeling the indignity as a wife\r
+ought to do,) “I cannot imagine how he could do such a thing by you, of\r
+all people in the world! The very last person whom one should expect to\r
+be forgotten!--My dear Mr. E., he must have left a message for you, I am\r
+sure he must.--Not even Knightley could be so very eccentric;--and his\r
+servants forgot it. Depend upon it, that was the case: and very likely\r
+to happen with the Donwell servants, who are all, I have often observed,\r
+extremely awkward and remiss.--I am sure I would not have such a\r
+creature as his Harry stand at our sideboard for any consideration. And\r
+as for Mrs. Hodges, Wright holds her very cheap indeed.--She promised\r
+Wright a receipt, and never sent it.”\r
+\r
+“I met William Larkins,” continued Mr. Elton, “as I got near the house,\r
+and he told me I should not find his master at home, but I did not\r
+believe him.--William seemed rather out of humour. He did not know what\r
+was come to his master lately, he said, but he could hardly ever get the\r
+speech of him. I have nothing to do with William’s wants, but it really\r
+is of very great importance that _I_ should see Knightley to-day; and it\r
+becomes a matter, therefore, of very serious inconvenience that I should\r
+have had this hot walk to no purpose.”\r
+\r
+Emma felt that she could not do better than go home directly. In\r
+all probability she was at this very time waited for there; and Mr.\r
+Knightley might be preserved from sinking deeper in aggression towards\r
+Mr. Elton, if not towards William Larkins.\r
+\r
+She was pleased, on taking leave, to find Miss Fairfax determined to\r
+attend her out of the room, to go with her even downstairs; it gave her\r
+an opportunity which she immediately made use of, to say,\r
+\r
+“It is as well, perhaps, that I have not had the possibility. Had you\r
+not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to\r
+introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might\r
+have been strictly correct.--I feel that I should certainly have been\r
+impertinent.”\r
+\r
+“Oh!” cried Jane, with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought\r
+infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual\r
+composure--“there would have been no danger. The danger would have\r
+been of my wearying you. You could not have gratified me more than\r
+by expressing an interest--. Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, (speaking more\r
+collectedly,) with the consciousness which I have of misconduct, very\r
+great misconduct, it is particularly consoling to me to know that those\r
+of my friends, whose good opinion is most worth preserving, are not\r
+disgusted to such a degree as to--I have not time for half that I could\r
+wish to say. I long to make apologies, excuses, to urge something for\r
+myself. I feel it so very due. But, unfortunately--in short, if your\r
+compassion does not stand my friend--”\r
+\r
+“Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are,” cried Emma warmly, and\r
+taking her hand. “You owe me no apologies; and every body to whom you\r
+might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted\r
+even--”\r
+\r
+“You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.--So\r
+cold and artificial!--I had always a part to act.--It was a life of\r
+deceit!--I know that I must have disgusted you.”\r
+\r
+“Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side.\r
+Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be done\r
+quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there. I hope you\r
+have pleasant accounts from Windsor?”\r
+\r
+“Very.”\r
+\r
+“And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you--just as\r
+I begin to know you.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet. I am here\r
+till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”\r
+\r
+“Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps,” replied Emma,\r
+smiling--“but, excuse me, it must be thought of.”\r
+\r
+The smile was returned as Jane answered,\r
+\r
+“You are very right; it has been thought of. And I will own to you, (I\r
+am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill\r
+at Enscombe, it is settled. There must be three months, at least, of\r
+deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing\r
+more to wait for.”\r
+\r
+“Thank you, thank you.--This is just what I wanted to be assured\r
+of.--Oh! if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and\r
+open!--Good-bye, good-bye.”\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston’s friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the\r
+satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by\r
+knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in\r
+wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with\r
+any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella’s\r
+sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father\r
+and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew\r
+older--and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence--to\r
+have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks\r
+and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston--no\r
+one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be\r
+quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have\r
+their powers in exercise again.\r
+\r
+“She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me,” she\r
+continued--“like La Baronne d’Almane on La Comtesse d’Ostalis, in Madame\r
+de Genlis’ Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little\r
+Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan.”\r
+\r
+“That is,” replied Mr. Knightley, “she will indulge her even more than\r
+she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all. It will\r
+be the only difference.”\r
+\r
+“Poor child!” cried Emma; “at that rate, what will become of her?”\r
+\r
+“Nothing very bad.--The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable\r
+in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my\r
+bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing all\r
+my happiness to _you_, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me to be\r
+severe on them?”\r
+\r
+Emma laughed, and replied: “But I had the assistance of all your\r
+endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether\r
+my own sense would have corrected me without it.”\r
+\r
+“Do you?--I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:--Miss Taylor\r
+gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite\r
+as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what\r
+right has he to lecture me?--and I am afraid very natural for you to\r
+feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did\r
+you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the\r
+tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without\r
+doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors,\r
+have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least.”\r
+\r
+“I am sure you were of use to me,” cried Emma. “I was very often\r
+influenced rightly by you--oftener than I would own at the time. I\r
+am very sure you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be\r
+spoiled, it will be the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her\r
+as you have done for me, except falling in love with her when she is\r
+thirteen.”\r
+\r
+“How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your\r
+saucy looks--‘Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I\r
+may, or I have Miss Taylor’s leave’--something which, you knew, I\r
+did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad\r
+feelings instead of one.”\r
+\r
+“What an amiable creature I was!--No wonder you should hold my speeches\r
+in such affectionate remembrance.”\r
+\r
+“‘Mr. Knightley.’--You always called me, ‘Mr. Knightley;’ and, from\r
+habit, it has not so very formal a sound.--And yet it is formal. I want\r
+you to call me something else, but I do not know what.”\r
+\r
+“I remember once calling you ‘George,’ in one of my amiable fits, about\r
+ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as\r
+you made no objection, I never did it again.”\r
+\r
+“And cannot you call me ‘George’ now?”\r
+\r
+“Impossible!--I never can call you any thing but ‘Mr. Knightley.’ I\r
+will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by\r
+calling you Mr. K.--But I will promise,” she added presently, laughing\r
+and blushing--“I will promise to call you once by your Christian name.\r
+I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;--in the building in\r
+which N. takes M. for better, for worse.”\r
+\r
+Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important\r
+service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the\r
+advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly\r
+follies--her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a\r
+subject.--She could not enter on it.--Harriet was very seldom mentioned\r
+between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being\r
+thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy,\r
+and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were\r
+declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other\r
+circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that\r
+her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on\r
+Isabella’s letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being\r
+obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to\r
+the pain of having made Harriet unhappy.\r
+\r
+Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be\r
+expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which\r
+appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but,\r
+since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet\r
+different from what she had known her before.--Isabella, to be sure,\r
+was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing\r
+with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma’s comforts and\r
+hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet’s being to stay longer;\r
+her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John\r
+Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain\r
+till they could bring her back.\r
+\r
+“John does not even mention your friend,” said Mr. Knightley. “Here is\r
+his answer, if you like to see it.”\r
+\r
+It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma\r
+accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know\r
+what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her\r
+friend was unmentioned.\r
+\r
+“John enters like a brother into my happiness,” continued Mr. Knightley,\r
+“but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have,\r
+likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making\r
+flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in\r
+her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes.”\r
+\r
+“He writes like a sensible man,” replied Emma, when she had read the\r
+letter. “I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the\r
+good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not\r
+without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as\r
+you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different\r
+construction, I should not have believed him.”\r
+\r
+“My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means--”\r
+\r
+“He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two,”\r
+ interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile--“much less, perhaps, than\r
+he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the\r
+subject.”\r
+\r
+“Emma, my dear Emma--”\r
+\r
+“Oh!” she cried with more thorough gaiety, “if you fancy your brother\r
+does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret,\r
+and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing\r
+_you_ justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on\r
+your side of the question; all the merit on mine. I wish I may not\r
+sink into ‘poor Emma’ with him at once.--His tender compassion towards\r
+oppressed worth can go no farther.”\r
+\r
+“Ah!” he cried, “I wish your father might be half as easily convinced as\r
+John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give, to be\r
+happy together. I am amused by one part of John’s letter--did you notice\r
+it?--where he says, that my information did not take him wholly by\r
+surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of the\r
+kind.”\r
+\r
+“If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having\r
+some thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly\r
+unprepared for that.”\r
+\r
+“Yes, yes--but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my\r
+feelings. What has he been judging by?--I am not conscious of any\r
+difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at\r
+this time for my marrying any more than at another.--But it was so, I\r
+suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them\r
+the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much\r
+as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, ‘Uncle seems\r
+always tired now.’”\r
+\r
+The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other\r
+persons’ reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently\r
+recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse’s visits, Emma having it in view that\r
+her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first to\r
+announce it at home, and then at Randalls.--But how to break it to her\r
+father at last!--She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of Mr.\r
+Knightley’s absence, or when it came to the point her heart would have\r
+failed her, and she must have put it off; but Mr. Knightley was to come\r
+at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make.--She was\r
+forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it a\r
+more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself.\r
+She must not appear to think it a misfortune.--With all the spirits she\r
+could command, she prepared him first for something strange, and then,\r
+in a few words, said, that if his consent and approbation could be\r
+obtained--which, she trusted, would be attended with no difficulty,\r
+since it was a plan to promote the happiness of all--she and Mr.\r
+Knightley meant to marry; by which means Hartfield would receive the\r
+constant addition of that person’s company whom she knew he loved, next\r
+to his daughters and Mrs. Weston, best in the world.\r
+\r
+Poor man!--it was at first a considerable shock to him, and he tried\r
+earnestly to dissuade her from it. She was reminded, more than once, of\r
+having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be\r
+a great deal better for her to remain single; and told of poor Isabella,\r
+and poor Miss Taylor.--But it would not do. Emma hung about him\r
+affectionately, and smiled, and said it must be so; and that he must\r
+not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages taking them\r
+from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change: but she was not\r
+going from Hartfield; she should be always there; she was introducing\r
+no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better; and she\r
+was very sure that he would be a great deal the happier for having Mr.\r
+Knightley always at hand, when he were once got used to the idea.--Did\r
+he not love Mr. Knightley very much?--He would not deny that he did,\r
+she was sure.--Whom did he ever want to consult on business but Mr.\r
+Knightley?--Who was so useful to him, who so ready to write his letters,\r
+who so glad to assist him?--Who so cheerful, so attentive, so attached\r
+to him?--Would not he like to have him always on the spot?--Yes. That\r
+was all very true. Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should\r
+be glad to see him every day;--but they did see him every day as it\r
+was.--Why could not they go on as they had done?\r
+\r
+Mr. Woodhouse could not be soon reconciled; but the worst was overcome,\r
+the idea was given; time and continual repetition must do the rest.--To\r
+Emma’s entreaties and assurances succeeded Mr. Knightley’s, whose fond\r
+praise of her gave the subject even a kind of welcome; and he was soon\r
+used to be talked to by each, on every fair occasion.--They had all\r
+the assistance which Isabella could give, by letters of the strongest\r
+approbation; and Mrs. Weston was ready, on the first meeting, to\r
+consider the subject in the most serviceable light--first, as a settled,\r
+and, secondly, as a good one--well aware of the nearly equal importance\r
+of the two recommendations to Mr. Woodhouse’s mind.--It was agreed\r
+upon, as what was to be; and every body by whom he was used to be\r
+guided assuring him that it would be for his happiness; and having some\r
+feelings himself which almost admitted it, he began to think that some\r
+time or other--in another year or two, perhaps--it might not be so very\r
+bad if the marriage did take place.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston was acting no part, feigning no feelings in all that she\r
+said to him in favour of the event.--She had been extremely surprized,\r
+never more so, than when Emma first opened the affair to her; but she\r
+saw in it only increase of happiness to all, and had no scruple in\r
+urging him to the utmost.--She had such a regard for Mr. Knightley, as\r
+to think he deserved even her dearest Emma; and it was in every respect\r
+so proper, suitable, and unexceptionable a connexion, and in one\r
+respect, one point of the highest importance, so peculiarly eligible,\r
+so singularly fortunate, that now it seemed as if Emma could not safely\r
+have attached herself to any other creature, and that she had herself\r
+been the stupidest of beings in not having thought of it, and wished it\r
+long ago.--How very few of those men in a rank of life to address Emma\r
+would have renounced their own home for Hartfield! And who but Mr.\r
+Knightley could know and bear with Mr. Woodhouse, so as to make such\r
+an arrangement desirable!--The difficulty of disposing of poor Mr.\r
+Woodhouse had been always felt in her husband’s plans and her own, for\r
+a marriage between Frank and Emma. How to settle the claims of Enscombe\r
+and Hartfield had been a continual impediment--less acknowledged by Mr.\r
+Weston than by herself--but even he had never been able to finish\r
+the subject better than by saying--“Those matters will take care of\r
+themselves; the young people will find a way.” But here there was\r
+nothing to be shifted off in a wild speculation on the future. It was\r
+all right, all open, all equal. No sacrifice on any side worth the name.\r
+It was a union of the highest promise of felicity in itself, and without\r
+one real, rational difficulty to oppose or delay it.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections\r
+as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could\r
+increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have\r
+outgrown its first set of caps.\r
+\r
+The news was universally a surprize wherever it spread; and Mr. Weston\r
+had his five minutes share of it; but five minutes were enough to\r
+familiarise the idea to his quickness of mind.--He saw the advantages\r
+of the match, and rejoiced in them with all the constancy of his wife;\r
+but the wonder of it was very soon nothing; and by the end of an hour he\r
+was not far from believing that he had always foreseen it.\r
+\r
+“It is to be a secret, I conclude,” said he. “These matters are always a\r
+secret, till it is found out that every body knows them. Only let me be\r
+told when I may speak out.--I wonder whether Jane has any suspicion.”\r
+\r
+He went to Highbury the next morning, and satisfied himself on that\r
+point. He told her the news. Was not she like a daughter, his eldest\r
+daughter?--he must tell her; and Miss Bates being present, it passed,\r
+of course, to Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Perry, and Mrs. Elton, immediately\r
+afterwards. It was no more than the principals were prepared for; they\r
+had calculated from the time of its being known at Randalls, how soon it\r
+would be over Highbury; and were thinking of themselves, as the evening\r
+wonder in many a family circle, with great sagacity.\r
+\r
+In general, it was a very well approved match. Some might think him, and\r
+others might think her, the most in luck. One set might recommend their\r
+all removing to Donwell, and leaving Hartfield for the John Knightleys;\r
+and another might predict disagreements among their servants; but yet,\r
+upon the whole, there was no serious objection raised, except in one\r
+habitation, the Vicarage.--There, the surprize was not softened by any\r
+satisfaction. Mr. Elton cared little about it, compared with his wife;\r
+he only hoped “the young lady’s pride would now be contented;” and\r
+supposed “she had always meant to catch Knightley if she could;” and,\r
+on the point of living at Hartfield, could daringly exclaim, “Rather\r
+he than I!”--But Mrs. Elton was very much discomposed indeed.--“Poor\r
+Knightley! poor fellow!--sad business for him.”--She was extremely\r
+concerned; for, though very eccentric, he had a thousand good\r
+qualities.--How could he be so taken in?--Did not think him at all in\r
+love--not in the least.--Poor Knightley!--There would be an end of all\r
+pleasant intercourse with him.--How happy he had been to come and dine\r
+with them whenever they asked him! But that would be all over now.--Poor\r
+fellow!--No more exploring parties to Donwell made for _her_. Oh!\r
+no; there would be a Mrs. Knightley to throw cold water on every\r
+thing.--Extremely disagreeable! But she was not at all sorry that\r
+she had abused the housekeeper the other day.--Shocking plan, living\r
+together. It would never do. She knew a family near Maple Grove who\r
+had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first\r
+quarter.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Time passed on. A few more to-morrows, and the party from London would\r
+be arriving. It was an alarming change; and Emma was thinking of it one\r
+morning, as what must bring a great deal to agitate and grieve her, when\r
+Mr. Knightley came in, and distressing thoughts were put by. After the\r
+first chat of pleasure he was silent; and then, in a graver tone, began\r
+with,\r
+\r
+“I have something to tell you, Emma; some news.”\r
+\r
+“Good or bad?” said she, quickly, looking up in his face.\r
+\r
+“I do not know which it ought to be called.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! good I am sure.--I see it in your countenance. You are trying not\r
+to smile.”\r
+\r
+“I am afraid,” said he, composing his features, “I am very much afraid,\r
+my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it.”\r
+\r
+“Indeed! but why so?--I can hardly imagine that any thing which pleases\r
+or amuses you, should not please and amuse me too.”\r
+\r
+“There is one subject,” he replied, “I hope but one, on which we do not\r
+think alike.” He paused a moment, again smiling, with his eyes fixed on\r
+her face. “Does nothing occur to you?--Do not you recollect?--Harriet\r
+Smith.”\r
+\r
+Her cheeks flushed at the name, and she felt afraid of something, though\r
+she knew not what.\r
+\r
+“Have you heard from her yourself this morning?” cried he. “You have, I\r
+believe, and know the whole.”\r
+\r
+“No, I have not; I know nothing; pray tell me.”\r
+\r
+“You are prepared for the worst, I see--and very bad it is. Harriet\r
+Smith marries Robert Martin.”\r
+\r
+Emma gave a start, which did not seem like being prepared--and her eyes,\r
+in eager gaze, said, “No, this is impossible!” but her lips were closed.\r
+\r
+“It is so, indeed,” continued Mr. Knightley; “I have it from Robert\r
+Martin himself. He left me not half an hour ago.”\r
+\r
+She was still looking at him with the most speaking amazement.\r
+\r
+“You like it, my Emma, as little as I feared.--I wish our opinions were\r
+the same. But in time they will. Time, you may be sure, will make one\r
+or the other of us think differently; and, in the meanwhile, we need not\r
+talk much on the subject.”\r
+\r
+“You mistake me, you quite mistake me,” she replied, exerting herself.\r
+“It is not that such a circumstance would now make me unhappy, but I\r
+cannot believe it. It seems an impossibility!--You cannot mean to say,\r
+that Harriet Smith has accepted Robert Martin. You cannot mean that he\r
+has even proposed to her again--yet. You only mean, that he intends it.”\r
+\r
+“I mean that he has done it,” answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but\r
+determined decision, “and been accepted.”\r
+\r
+“Good God!” she cried.--“Well!”--Then having recourse to her workbasket,\r
+in excuse for leaning down her face, and concealing all the exquisite\r
+feelings of delight and entertainment which she knew she must be\r
+expressing, she added, “Well, now tell me every thing; make this\r
+intelligible to me. How, where, when?--Let me know it all. I never was\r
+more surprized--but it does not make me unhappy, I assure you.--How--how\r
+has it been possible?”\r
+\r
+“It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago,\r
+and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send\r
+to John.--He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was\r
+asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley’s. They were\r
+going to take the two eldest boys to Astley’s. The party was to be our\r
+brother and sister, Henry, John--and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could\r
+not resist. They called for him in their way; were all extremely amused;\r
+and my brother asked him to dine with them the next day--which he\r
+did--and in the course of that visit (as I understand) he found an\r
+opportunity of speaking to Harriet; and certainly did not speak\r
+in vain.--She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is\r
+deserving. He came down by yesterday’s coach, and was with me this\r
+morning immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first\r
+on my affairs, and then on his own. This is all that I can relate of\r
+the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much\r
+longer history when you see her.--She will give you all the minute\r
+particulars, which only woman’s language can make interesting.--In our\r
+communications we deal only in the great.--However, I must say, that\r
+Robert Martin’s heart seemed for _him_, and to _me_, very overflowing;\r
+and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that\r
+on quitting their box at Astley’s, my brother took charge of Mrs. John\r
+Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry;\r
+and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith\r
+rather uneasy.”\r
+\r
+He stopped.--Emma dared not attempt any immediate reply. To speak, she\r
+was sure would be to betray a most unreasonable degree of happiness.\r
+She must wait a moment, or he would think her mad. Her silence disturbed\r
+him; and after observing her a little while, he added,\r
+\r
+“Emma, my love, you said that this circumstance would not now make you\r
+unhappy; but I am afraid it gives you more pain than you expected. His\r
+situation is an evil--but you must consider it as what satisfies your\r
+friend; and I will answer for your thinking better and better of him\r
+as you know him more. His good sense and good principles would delight\r
+you.--As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend\r
+in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could, which is\r
+saying a great deal I assure you, Emma.--You laugh at me about William\r
+Larkins; but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin.”\r
+\r
+He wanted her to look up and smile; and having now brought herself not\r
+to smile too broadly--she did--cheerfully answering,\r
+\r
+“You need not be at any pains to reconcile me to the match. I think\r
+Harriet is doing extremely well. _Her_ connexions may be worse than\r
+_his_. In respectability of character, there can be no doubt that they\r
+are. I have been silent from surprize merely, excessive surprize. You\r
+cannot imagine how suddenly it has come on me! how peculiarly unprepared\r
+I was!--for I had reason to believe her very lately more determined\r
+against him, much more, than she was before.”\r
+\r
+“You ought to know your friend best,” replied Mr. Knightley; “but I\r
+should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be\r
+very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her.”\r
+\r
+Emma could not help laughing as she answered, “Upon my word, I believe\r
+you know her quite as well as I do.--But, Mr. Knightley, are you\r
+perfectly sure that she has absolutely and downright _accepted_ him.\r
+I could suppose she might in time--but can she already?--Did not you\r
+misunderstand him?--You were both talking of other things; of business,\r
+shows of cattle, or new drills--and might not you, in the confusion of\r
+so many subjects, mistake him?--It was not Harriet’s hand that he was\r
+certain of--it was the dimensions of some famous ox.”\r
+\r
+The contrast between the countenance and air of Mr. Knightley and Robert\r
+Martin was, at this moment, so strong to Emma’s feelings, and so strong\r
+was the recollection of all that had so recently passed on Harriet’s\r
+side, so fresh the sound of those words, spoken with such emphasis,\r
+“No, I hope I know better than to think of Robert Martin,” that she was\r
+really expecting the intelligence to prove, in some measure, premature.\r
+It could not be otherwise.\r
+\r
+“Do you dare say this?” cried Mr. Knightley. “Do you dare to suppose me\r
+so great a blockhead, as not to know what a man is talking of?--What do\r
+you deserve?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with\r
+any other; and, therefore, you must give me a plain, direct answer. Are\r
+you quite sure that you understand the terms on which Mr. Martin and\r
+Harriet now are?”\r
+\r
+“I am quite sure,” he replied, speaking very distinctly, “that he\r
+told me she had accepted him; and that there was no obscurity, nothing\r
+doubtful, in the words he used; and I think I can give you a proof that\r
+it must be so. He asked my opinion as to what he was now to do. He knew\r
+of no one but Mrs. Goddard to whom he could apply for information of\r
+her relations or friends. Could I mention any thing more fit to be done,\r
+than to go to Mrs. Goddard? I assured him that I could not. Then, he\r
+said, he would endeavour to see her in the course of this day.”\r
+\r
+“I am perfectly satisfied,” replied Emma, with the brightest smiles,\r
+“and most sincerely wish them happy.”\r
+\r
+“You are materially changed since we talked on this subject before.”\r
+\r
+“I hope so--for at that time I was a fool.”\r
+\r
+“And I am changed also; for I am now very willing to grant you all\r
+Harriet’s good qualities. I have taken some pains for your sake, and for\r
+Robert Martin’s sake, (whom I have always had reason to believe as much\r
+in love with her as ever,) to get acquainted with her. I have often\r
+talked to her a good deal. You must have seen that I did. Sometimes,\r
+indeed, I have thought you were half suspecting me of pleading poor\r
+Martin’s cause, which was never the case; but, from all my observations,\r
+I am convinced of her being an artless, amiable girl, with very good\r
+notions, very seriously good principles, and placing her happiness in\r
+the affections and utility of domestic life.--Much of this, I have no\r
+doubt, she may thank you for.”\r
+\r
+“Me!” cried Emma, shaking her head.--“Ah! poor Harriet!”\r
+\r
+She checked herself, however, and submitted quietly to a little more\r
+praise than she deserved.\r
+\r
+Their conversation was soon afterwards closed by the entrance of her\r
+father. She was not sorry. She wanted to be alone. Her mind was in a\r
+state of flutter and wonder, which made it impossible for her to be\r
+collected. She was in dancing, singing, exclaiming spirits; and till she\r
+had moved about, and talked to herself, and laughed and reflected, she\r
+could be fit for nothing rational.\r
+\r
+Her father’s business was to announce James’s being gone out to put the\r
+horses to, preparatory to their now daily drive to Randalls; and she\r
+had, therefore, an immediate excuse for disappearing.\r
+\r
+The joy, the gratitude, the exquisite delight of her sensations may be\r
+imagined. The sole grievance and alloy thus removed in the prospect of\r
+Harriet’s welfare, she was really in danger of becoming too happy for\r
+security.--What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of\r
+him, whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own.\r
+Nothing, but that the lessons of her past folly might teach her humility\r
+and circumspection in future.\r
+\r
+Serious she was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her\r
+resolutions; and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the\r
+very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the\r
+doleful disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heart--such a Harriet!\r
+\r
+Now there would be pleasure in her returning--Every thing would be a\r
+pleasure. It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.\r
+\r
+High in the rank of her most serious and heartfelt felicities, was the\r
+reflection that all necessity of concealment from Mr. Knightley would\r
+soon be over. The disguise, equivocation, mystery, so hateful to her to\r
+practise, might soon be over. She could now look forward to giving him\r
+that full and perfect confidence which her disposition was most ready to\r
+welcome as a duty.\r
+\r
+In the gayest and happiest spirits she set forward with her father; not\r
+always listening, but always agreeing to what he said; and, whether in\r
+speech or silence, conniving at the comfortable persuasion of his\r
+being obliged to go to Randalls every day, or poor Mrs. Weston would be\r
+disappointed.\r
+\r
+They arrived.--Mrs. Weston was alone in the drawing-room:--but hardly\r
+had they been told of the baby, and Mr. Woodhouse received the thanks\r
+for coming, which he asked for, when a glimpse was caught through the\r
+blind, of two figures passing near the window.\r
+\r
+“It is Frank and Miss Fairfax,” said Mrs. Weston. “I was just going to\r
+tell you of our agreeable surprize in seeing him arrive this morning. He\r
+stays till to-morrow, and Miss Fairfax has been persuaded to spend the\r
+day with us.--They are coming in, I hope.”\r
+\r
+In half a minute they were in the room. Emma was extremely glad to\r
+see him--but there was a degree of confusion--a number of embarrassing\r
+recollections on each side. They met readily and smiling, but with a\r
+consciousness which at first allowed little to be said; and having all\r
+sat down again, there was for some time such a blank in the circle, that\r
+Emma began to doubt whether the wish now indulged, which she had long\r
+felt, of seeing Frank Churchill once more, and of seeing him with Jane,\r
+would yield its proportion of pleasure. When Mr. Weston joined the\r
+party, however, and when the baby was fetched, there was no longer a\r
+want of subject or animation--or of courage and opportunity for Frank\r
+Churchill to draw near her and say,\r
+\r
+“I have to thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for a very kind forgiving message\r
+in one of Mrs. Weston’s letters. I hope time has not made you less\r
+willing to pardon. I hope you do not retract what you then said.”\r
+\r
+“No, indeed,” cried Emma, most happy to begin, “not in the least. I am\r
+particularly glad to see and shake hands with you--and to give you joy\r
+in person.”\r
+\r
+He thanked her with all his heart, and continued some time to speak with\r
+serious feeling of his gratitude and happiness.\r
+\r
+“Is not she looking well?” said he, turning his eyes towards Jane.\r
+“Better than she ever used to do?--You see how my father and Mrs. Weston\r
+doat upon her.”\r
+\r
+But his spirits were soon rising again, and with laughing eyes, after\r
+mentioning the expected return of the Campbells, he named the name of\r
+Dixon.--Emma blushed, and forbade its being pronounced in her hearing.\r
+\r
+“I can never think of it,” she cried, “without extreme shame.”\r
+\r
+“The shame,” he answered, “is all mine, or ought to be. But is it\r
+possible that you had no suspicion?--I mean of late. Early, I know, you\r
+had none.”\r
+\r
+“I never had the smallest, I assure you.”\r
+\r
+“That appears quite wonderful. I was once very near--and I wish I\r
+had--it would have been better. But though I was always doing wrong\r
+things, they were very bad wrong things, and such as did me no\r
+service.--It would have been a much better transgression had I broken\r
+the bond of secrecy and told you every thing.”\r
+\r
+“It is not now worth a regret,” said Emma.\r
+\r
+“I have some hope,” resumed he, “of my uncle’s being persuaded to pay a\r
+visit at Randalls; he wants to be introduced to her. When the Campbells\r
+are returned, we shall meet them in London, and continue there, I trust,\r
+till we may carry her northward.--But now, I am at such a distance from\r
+her--is not it hard, Miss Woodhouse?--Till this morning, we have not\r
+once met since the day of reconciliation. Do not you pity me?”\r
+\r
+Emma spoke her pity so very kindly, that with a sudden accession of gay\r
+thought, he cried,\r
+\r
+“Ah! by the bye,” then sinking his voice, and looking demure for the\r
+moment--“I hope Mr. Knightley is well?” He paused.--She coloured and\r
+laughed.--“I know you saw my letter, and think you may remember my wish\r
+in your favour. Let me return your congratulations.--I assure you that\r
+I have heard the news with the warmest interest and satisfaction.--He is\r
+a man whom I cannot presume to praise.”\r
+\r
+Emma was delighted, and only wanted him to go on in the same style; but\r
+his mind was the next moment in his own concerns and with his own Jane,\r
+and his next words were,\r
+\r
+“Did you ever see such a skin?--such smoothness! such delicacy!--and\r
+yet without being actually fair.--One cannot call her fair. It is a\r
+most uncommon complexion, with her dark eye-lashes and hair--a most\r
+distinguishing complexion! So peculiarly the lady in it.--Just colour\r
+enough for beauty.”\r
+\r
+“I have always admired her complexion,” replied Emma, archly; “but\r
+do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so\r
+pale?--When we first began to talk of her.--Have you quite forgotten?”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no--what an impudent dog I was!--How could I dare--”\r
+\r
+But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help\r
+saying,\r
+\r
+“I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you\r
+had very great amusement in tricking us all.--I am sure you had.--I am\r
+sure it was a consolation to you.”\r
+\r
+“Oh! no, no, no--how can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most\r
+miserable wretch!”\r
+\r
+“Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a\r
+source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us\r
+all in.--Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the\r
+truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same\r
+situation. I think there is a little likeness between us.”\r
+\r
+He bowed.\r
+\r
+“If not in our dispositions,” she presently added, with a look of true\r
+sensibility, “there is a likeness in our destiny; the destiny which bids\r
+fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own.”\r
+\r
+“True, true,” he answered, warmly. “No, not true on your side. You can\r
+have no superior, but most true on mine.--She is a complete angel. Look\r
+at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her\r
+throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.--You will\r
+be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my\r
+uncle means to give her all my aunt’s jewels. They are to be new set.\r
+I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be\r
+beautiful in her dark hair?”\r
+\r
+“Very beautiful, indeed,” replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly, that he\r
+gratefully burst out,\r
+\r
+“How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent\r
+looks!--I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should\r
+certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come.”\r
+\r
+The others had been talking of the child, Mrs. Weston giving an account\r
+of a little alarm she had been under, the evening before, from the\r
+infant’s appearing not quite well. She believed she had been foolish,\r
+but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending\r
+for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been\r
+almost as uneasy as herself.--In ten minutes, however, the child had\r
+been perfectly well again. This was her history; and particularly\r
+interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for\r
+thinking of sending for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done\r
+it. “She should always send for Perry, if the child appeared in the\r
+slightest degree disordered, were it only for a moment. She could not be\r
+too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps,\r
+that he had not come last night; for, though the child seemed well now,\r
+very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had\r
+seen it.”\r
+\r
+Frank Churchill caught the name.\r
+\r
+“Perry!” said he to Emma, and trying, as he spoke, to catch Miss\r
+Fairfax’s eye. “My friend Mr. Perry! What are they saying about Mr.\r
+Perry?--Has he been here this morning?--And how does he travel now?--Has\r
+he set up his carriage?”\r
+\r
+Emma soon recollected, and understood him; and while she joined in the\r
+laugh, it was evident from Jane’s countenance that she too was really\r
+hearing him, though trying to seem deaf.\r
+\r
+“Such an extraordinary dream of mine!” he cried. “I can never think of\r
+it without laughing.--She hears us, she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see\r
+it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her. Do\r
+not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter,\r
+which sent me the report, is passing under her eye--that the whole\r
+blunder is spread before her--that she can attend to nothing else,\r
+though pretending to listen to the others?”\r
+\r
+Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile partly\r
+remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet\r
+steady voice,\r
+\r
+“How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me!--They\r
+_will_ sometimes obtrude--but how you can court them!”\r
+\r
+He had a great deal to say in return, and very entertainingly; but\r
+Emma’s feelings were chiefly with Jane, in the argument; and on leaving\r
+Randalls, and falling naturally into a comparison of the two men, she\r
+felt, that pleased as she had been to see Frank Churchill, and really\r
+regarding him as she did with friendship, she had never been more\r
+sensible of Mr. Knightley’s high superiority of character. The happiness\r
+of this most happy day, received its completion, in the animated\r
+contemplation of his worth which this comparison produced.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+\r
+If Emma had still, at intervals, an anxious feeling for Harriet, a\r
+momentary doubt of its being possible for her to be really cured of her\r
+attachment to Mr. Knightley, and really able to accept another man from\r
+unbiased inclination, it was not long that she had to suffer from the\r
+recurrence of any such uncertainty. A very few days brought the party\r
+from London, and she had no sooner an opportunity of being one hour\r
+alone with Harriet, than she became perfectly satisfied--unaccountable\r
+as it was!--that Robert Martin had thoroughly supplanted Mr. Knightley,\r
+and was now forming all her views of happiness.\r
+\r
+Harriet was a little distressed--did look a little foolish at first:\r
+but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and\r
+self-deceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with\r
+the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the\r
+fullest exultation in the present and future; for, as to her friend’s\r
+approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by\r
+meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.--Harriet was\r
+most happy to give every particular of the evening at Astley’s, and the\r
+dinner the next day; she could dwell on it all with the utmost delight.\r
+But what did such particulars explain?--The fact was, as Emma could now\r
+acknowledge, that Harriet had always liked Robert Martin; and that his\r
+continuing to love her had been irresistible.--Beyond this, it must ever\r
+be unintelligible to Emma.\r
+\r
+The event, however, was most joyful; and every day was giving her fresh\r
+reason for thinking so.--Harriet’s parentage became known. She proved\r
+to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the\r
+comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to\r
+have always wished for concealment.--Such was the blood of gentility\r
+which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!--It was likely to\r
+be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what\r
+a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley--or for the\r
+Churchills--or even for Mr. Elton!--The stain of illegitimacy,\r
+unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed.\r
+\r
+No objection was raised on the father’s side; the young man was treated\r
+liberally; it was all as it should be: and as Emma became acquainted\r
+with Robert Martin, who was now introduced at Hartfield, she fully\r
+acknowledged in him all the appearance of sense and worth which could\r
+bid fairest for her little friend. She had no doubt of Harriet’s\r
+happiness with any good-tempered man; but with him, and in the home he\r
+offered, there would be the hope of more, of security, stability, and\r
+improvement. She would be placed in the midst of those who loved her,\r
+and who had better sense than herself; retired enough for safety,\r
+and occupied enough for cheerfulness. She would be never led into\r
+temptation, nor left for it to find her out. She would be respectable\r
+and happy; and Emma admitted her to be the luckiest creature in the\r
+world, to have created so steady and persevering an affection in such a\r
+man;--or, if not quite the luckiest, to yield only to herself.\r
+\r
+Harriet, necessarily drawn away by her engagements with the Martins,\r
+was less and less at Hartfield; which was not to be regretted.--The\r
+intimacy between her and Emma must sink; their friendship must change\r
+into a calmer sort of goodwill; and, fortunately, what ought to be,\r
+and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural\r
+manner.\r
+\r
+Before the end of September, Emma attended Harriet to church, and saw\r
+her hand bestowed on Robert Martin with so complete a satisfaction, as\r
+no remembrances, even connected with Mr. Elton as he stood before them,\r
+could impair.--Perhaps, indeed, at that time she scarcely saw Mr. Elton,\r
+but as the clergyman whose blessing at the altar might next fall on\r
+herself.--Robert Martin and Harriet Smith, the latest couple engaged of\r
+the three, were the first to be married.\r
+\r
+Jane Fairfax had already quitted Highbury, and was restored to the\r
+comforts of her beloved home with the Campbells.--The Mr. Churchills\r
+were also in town; and they were only waiting for November.\r
+\r
+The intermediate month was the one fixed on, as far as they dared, by\r
+Emma and Mr. Knightley.--They had determined that their marriage ought\r
+to be concluded while John and Isabella were still at Hartfield, to\r
+allow them the fortnight’s absence in a tour to the seaside, which was\r
+the plan.--John and Isabella, and every other friend, were agreed in\r
+approving it. But Mr. Woodhouse--how was Mr. Woodhouse to be induced\r
+to consent?--he, who had never yet alluded to their marriage but as a\r
+distant event.\r
+\r
+When first sounded on the subject, he was so miserable, that they were\r
+almost hopeless.--A second allusion, indeed, gave less pain.--He\r
+began to think it was to be, and that he could not prevent it--a very\r
+promising step of the mind on its way to resignation. Still, however, he\r
+was not happy. Nay, he appeared so much otherwise, that his daughter’s\r
+courage failed. She could not bear to see him suffering, to know\r
+him fancying himself neglected; and though her understanding almost\r
+acquiesced in the assurance of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when\r
+once the event were over, his distress would be soon over too, she\r
+hesitated--she could not proceed.\r
+\r
+In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden\r
+illumination of Mr. Woodhouse’s mind, or any wonderful change of his\r
+nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another\r
+way.--Mrs. Weston’s poultry-house was robbed one night of all her\r
+turkeys--evidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultry-yards in\r
+the neighbourhood also suffered.--Pilfering was _housebreaking_ to Mr.\r
+Woodhouse’s fears.--He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his\r
+son-in-law’s protection, would have been under wretched alarm every\r
+night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the\r
+Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them\r
+protected him and his, Hartfield was safe.--But Mr. John Knightley must\r
+be in London again by the end of the first week in November.\r
+\r
+The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary,\r
+cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the\r
+moment, she was able to fix her wedding-day--and Mr. Elton was called\r
+on, within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to\r
+join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse.\r
+\r
+The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have\r
+no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars\r
+detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very\r
+inferior to her own.--“Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a\r
+most pitiful business!--Selina would stare when she heard of it.”--But,\r
+in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence,\r
+the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the\r
+ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+FINIS\r
--- /dev/null
+\r
+SENSE AND SENSIBILITY\r
+\r
+by Jane Austen\r
+\r
+(1811)\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 1\r
+\r
+\r
+The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate\r
+was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of\r
+their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so\r
+respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their\r
+surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single\r
+man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his\r
+life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her\r
+death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great\r
+alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received\r
+into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal\r
+inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to\r
+bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their\r
+children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent. His\r
+attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from\r
+interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid\r
+comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the\r
+children added a relish to his existence.\r
+\r
+By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his present\r
+lady, three daughters. The son, a steady respectable young man, was\r
+amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large,\r
+and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age. By his own\r
+marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his\r
+wealth. To him therefore the succession to the Norland estate was not\r
+so really important as to his sisters; for their fortune, independent\r
+of what might arise to them from their father's inheriting that\r
+property, could be but small. Their mother had nothing, and their\r
+father only seven thousand pounds in his own disposal; for the\r
+remaining moiety of his first wife's fortune was also secured to her\r
+child, and he had only a life-interest in it.\r
+\r
+The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost every other\r
+will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so\r
+unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew;--but\r
+he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the\r
+bequest. Mr. Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife\r
+and daughters than for himself or his son;--but to his son, and his\r
+son's son, a child of four years old, it was secured, in such a way, as\r
+to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear\r
+to him, and who most needed a provision by any charge on the estate, or\r
+by any sale of its valuable woods. The whole was tied up for the\r
+benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and\r
+mother at Norland, had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by\r
+such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three\r
+years old; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his\r
+own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh\r
+all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received\r
+from his niece and her daughters. He meant not to be unkind, however,\r
+and, as a mark of his affection for the three girls, he left them a\r
+thousand pounds a-piece.\r
+\r
+Mr. Dashwood's disappointment was, at first, severe; but his temper was\r
+cheerful and sanguine; and he might reasonably hope to live many years,\r
+and by living economically, lay by a considerable sum from the produce\r
+of an estate already large, and capable of almost immediate\r
+improvement. But the fortune, which had been so tardy in coming, was\r
+his only one twelvemonth. He survived his uncle no longer; and ten\r
+thousand pounds, including the late legacies, was all that remained for\r
+his widow and daughters.\r
+\r
+His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr.\r
+Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which illness\r
+could command, the interest of his mother-in-law and sisters.\r
+\r
+Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the\r
+family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at\r
+such a time, and he promised to do every thing in his power to make\r
+them comfortable. His father was rendered easy by such an assurance,\r
+and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there might\r
+prudently be in his power to do for them.\r
+\r
+He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted\r
+and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well\r
+respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of\r
+his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman, he might\r
+have been made still more respectable than he was:--he might even have\r
+been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and\r
+very fond of his wife. But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature\r
+of himself;--more narrow-minded and selfish.\r
+\r
+When he gave his promise to his father, he meditated within himself to\r
+increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand\r
+pounds a-piece. He then really thought himself equal to it. The\r
+prospect of four thousand a-year, in addition to his present income,\r
+besides the remaining half of his own mother's fortune, warmed his\r
+heart, and made him feel capable of generosity.-- "Yes, he would give\r
+them three thousand pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would\r
+be enough to make them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he\r
+could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience."-- He\r
+thought of it all day long, and for many days successively, and he did\r
+not repent.\r
+\r
+No sooner was his father's funeral over, than Mrs. John Dashwood,\r
+without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law,\r
+arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her\r
+right to come; the house was her husband's from the moment of his\r
+father's decease; but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the\r
+greater, and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood's situation, with only common\r
+feelings, must have been highly unpleasing;--but in HER mind there was\r
+a sense of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of\r
+the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of\r
+immovable disgust. Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with\r
+any of her husband's family; but she had had no opportunity, till the\r
+present, of shewing them with how little attention to the comfort of\r
+other people she could act when occasion required it.\r
+\r
+So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel this ungracious behaviour, and so\r
+earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the\r
+arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had\r
+not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the\r
+propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children\r
+determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes avoid a breach\r
+with their brother.\r
+\r
+Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed\r
+a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified\r
+her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and\r
+enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all,\r
+that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led\r
+to imprudence. She had an excellent heart;--her disposition was\r
+affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern\r
+them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; and which\r
+one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught.\r
+\r
+Marianne's abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor's.\r
+She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything: her sorrows, her\r
+joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable,\r
+interesting: she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between\r
+her and her mother was strikingly great.\r
+\r
+Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister's sensibility; but\r
+by Mrs. Dashwood it was valued and cherished. They encouraged each\r
+other now in the violence of their affliction. The agony of grief\r
+which overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought\r
+for, was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to\r
+their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that\r
+could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in\r
+future. Elinor, too, was deeply afflicted; but still she could\r
+struggle, she could exert herself. She could consult with her brother,\r
+could receive her sister-in-law on her arrival, and treat her with\r
+proper attention; and could strive to rouse her mother to similar\r
+exertion, and encourage her to similar forbearance.\r
+\r
+Margaret, the other sister, was a good-humored, well-disposed girl; but\r
+as she had already imbibed a good deal of Marianne's romance, without\r
+having much of her sense, she did not, at thirteen, bid fair to equal\r
+her sisters at a more advanced period of life.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 2\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. John Dashwood now installed herself mistress of Norland; and her\r
+mother and sisters-in-law were degraded to the condition of visitors.\r
+As such, however, they were treated by her with quiet civility; and by\r
+her husband with as much kindness as he could feel towards anybody\r
+beyond himself, his wife, and their child. He really pressed them,\r
+with some earnestness, to consider Norland as their home; and, as no\r
+plan appeared so eligible to Mrs. Dashwood as remaining there till she\r
+could accommodate herself with a house in the neighbourhood, his\r
+invitation was accepted.\r
+\r
+A continuance in a place where everything reminded her of former\r
+delight, was exactly what suited her mind. In seasons of cheerfulness,\r
+no temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess, in a greater\r
+degree, that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness\r
+itself. But in sorrow she must be equally carried away by her fancy,\r
+and as far beyond consolation as in pleasure she was beyond alloy.\r
+\r
+Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended\r
+to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune\r
+of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most\r
+dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How\r
+could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too,\r
+of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods,\r
+who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no\r
+relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount. It\r
+was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist\r
+between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he\r
+to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his\r
+money to his half sisters?\r
+\r
+"It was my father's last request to me," replied her husband, "that I\r
+should assist his widow and daughters."\r
+\r
+"He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he\r
+was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he\r
+could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half\r
+your fortune from your own child."\r
+\r
+"He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only\r
+requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their\r
+situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it\r
+would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could\r
+hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise,\r
+I could not do less than give it; at least I thought so at the time.\r
+The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something\r
+must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new\r
+home."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, LET something be done for them; but THAT something need\r
+not be three thousand pounds. Consider," she added, "that when the\r
+money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will\r
+marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could be restored\r
+to our poor little boy--"\r
+\r
+"Why, to be sure," said her husband, very gravely, "that would make\r
+great difference. The time may come when Harry will regret that so\r
+large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for\r
+instance, it would be a very convenient addition."\r
+\r
+"To be sure it would."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties, if the sum were\r
+diminished one half.--Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious\r
+increase to their fortunes!"\r
+\r
+"Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so\r
+much for his sisters, even if REALLY his sisters! And as it is--only\r
+half blood!--But you have such a generous spirit!"\r
+\r
+"I would not wish to do any thing mean," he replied. "One had rather,\r
+on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least, can\r
+think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly\r
+expect more."\r
+\r
+"There is no knowing what THEY may expect," said the lady, "but we are\r
+not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can\r
+afford to do."\r
+\r
+"Certainly--and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds\r
+a-piece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have\r
+about three thousand pounds on their mother's death--a very comfortable\r
+fortune for any young woman."\r
+\r
+"To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no\r
+addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst\r
+them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do\r
+not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten\r
+thousand pounds."\r
+\r
+"That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the\r
+whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother\r
+while she lives, rather than for them--something of the annuity kind I\r
+mean.--My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself.\r
+A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable."\r
+\r
+His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this\r
+plan.\r
+\r
+"To be sure," said she, "it is better than parting with fifteen hundred\r
+pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years\r
+we shall be completely taken in."\r
+\r
+"Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that\r
+purchase."\r
+\r
+"Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when\r
+there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy,\r
+and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over\r
+and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not\r
+aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble\r
+of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to\r
+old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how\r
+disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these annuities were to be\r
+paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then\r
+one of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be\r
+no such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her\r
+own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more\r
+unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been\r
+entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever. It\r
+has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would\r
+not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world."\r
+\r
+"It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have\r
+those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your\r
+mother justly says, is NOT one's own. To be tied down to the regular\r
+payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it\r
+takes away one's independence."\r
+\r
+"Undoubtedly; and after all you have no thanks for it. They think\r
+themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises\r
+no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at\r
+my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them any\r
+thing yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a\r
+hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses."\r
+\r
+"I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should\r
+be no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will\r
+be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they\r
+would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger\r
+income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the\r
+year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty\r
+pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever being distressed for\r
+money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father."\r
+\r
+"To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within\r
+myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at\r
+all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might\r
+be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a\r
+comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things,\r
+and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they\r
+are in season. I'll lay my life that he meant nothing farther; indeed,\r
+it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did. Do but consider,\r
+my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law\r
+and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds,\r
+besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which\r
+brings them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will\r
+pay their mother for their board out of it. Altogether, they will have\r
+five hundred a-year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want\r
+for more than that?--They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will\r
+be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly\r
+any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of\r
+any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a\r
+year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as\r
+to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will\r
+be much more able to give YOU something."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word," said Mr. Dashwood, "I believe you are perfectly right.\r
+My father certainly could mean nothing more by his request to me than\r
+what you say. I clearly understand it now, and I will strictly fulfil\r
+my engagement by such acts of assistance and kindness to them as you\r
+have described. When my mother removes into another house my services\r
+shall be readily given to accommodate her as far as I can. Some little\r
+present of furniture too may be acceptable then."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," returned Mrs. John Dashwood. "But, however, ONE thing\r
+must be considered. When your father and mother moved to Norland,\r
+though the furniture of Stanhill was sold, all the china, plate, and\r
+linen was saved, and is now left to your mother. Her house will\r
+therefore be almost completely fitted up as soon as she takes it."\r
+\r
+"That is a material consideration undoubtedly. A valuable legacy\r
+indeed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleasant\r
+addition to our own stock here."\r
+\r
+"Yes; and the set of breakfast china is twice as handsome as what\r
+belongs to this house. A great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for\r
+any place THEY can ever afford to live in. But, however, so it is.\r
+Your father thought only of THEM. And I must say this: that you owe no\r
+particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very\r
+well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the\r
+world to THEM."\r
+\r
+This argument was irresistible. It gave to his intentions whatever of\r
+decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would be\r
+absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the\r
+widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as\r
+his own wife pointed out.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 3\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood remained at Norland several months; not from any\r
+disinclination to move when the sight of every well known spot ceased\r
+to raise the violent emotion which it produced for a while; for when\r
+her spirits began to revive, and her mind became capable of some other\r
+exertion than that of heightening its affliction by melancholy\r
+remembrances, she was impatient to be gone, and indefatigable in her\r
+inquiries for a suitable dwelling in the neighbourhood of Norland; for\r
+to remove far from that beloved spot was impossible. But she could\r
+hear of no situation that at once answered her notions of comfort and\r
+ease, and suited the prudence of her eldest daughter, whose steadier\r
+judgment rejected several houses as too large for their income, which\r
+her mother would have approved.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood had been informed by her husband of the solemn promise on\r
+the part of his son in their favour, which gave comfort to his last\r
+earthly reflections. She doubted the sincerity of this assurance no\r
+more than he had doubted it himself, and she thought of it for her\r
+daughters' sake with satisfaction, though as for herself she was\r
+persuaded that a much smaller provision than 7000L would support her in\r
+affluence. For their brother's sake, too, for the sake of his own\r
+heart, she rejoiced; and she reproached herself for being unjust to his\r
+merit before, in believing him incapable of generosity. His attentive\r
+behaviour to herself and his sisters convinced her that their welfare\r
+was dear to him, and, for a long time, she firmly relied on the\r
+liberality of his intentions.\r
+\r
+The contempt which she had, very early in their acquaintance, felt for\r
+her daughter-in-law, was very much increased by the farther knowledge\r
+of her character, which half a year's residence in her family afforded;\r
+and perhaps in spite of every consideration of politeness or maternal\r
+affection on the side of the former, the two ladies might have found it\r
+impossible to have lived together so long, had not a particular\r
+circumstance occurred to give still greater eligibility, according to\r
+the opinions of Mrs. Dashwood, to her daughters' continuance at Norland.\r
+\r
+This circumstance was a growing attachment between her eldest girl and\r
+the brother of Mrs. John Dashwood, a gentleman-like and pleasing young\r
+man, who was introduced to their acquaintance soon after his sister's\r
+establishment at Norland, and who had since spent the greatest part of\r
+his time there.\r
+\r
+Some mothers might have encouraged the intimacy from motives of\r
+interest, for Edward Ferrars was the eldest son of a man who had died\r
+very rich; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence,\r
+for, except a trifling sum, the whole of his fortune depended on the\r
+will of his mother. But Mrs. Dashwood was alike uninfluenced by either\r
+consideration. It was enough for her that he appeared to be amiable,\r
+that he loved her daughter, and that Elinor returned the partiality.\r
+It was contrary to every doctrine of hers that difference of fortune\r
+should keep any couple asunder who were attracted by resemblance of\r
+disposition; and that Elinor's merit should not be acknowledged by\r
+every one who knew her, was to her comprehension impossible.\r
+\r
+Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any\r
+peculiar graces of person or address. He was not handsome, and his\r
+manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. He was too diffident\r
+to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome,\r
+his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart.\r
+His understanding was good, and his education had given it solid\r
+improvement. But he was neither fitted by abilities nor disposition to\r
+answer the wishes of his mother and sister, who longed to see him\r
+distinguished--as--they hardly knew what. They wanted him to make a\r
+fine figure in the world in some manner or other. His mother wished to\r
+interest him in political concerns, to get him into parliament, or to\r
+see him connected with some of the great men of the day. Mrs. John\r
+Dashwood wished it likewise; but in the mean while, till one of these\r
+superior blessings could be attained, it would have quieted her\r
+ambition to see him driving a barouche. But Edward had no turn for\r
+great men or barouches. All his wishes centered in domestic comfort\r
+and the quiet of private life. Fortunately he had a younger brother\r
+who was more promising.\r
+\r
+Edward had been staying several weeks in the house before he engaged\r
+much of Mrs. Dashwood's attention; for she was, at that time, in such\r
+affliction as rendered her careless of surrounding objects. She saw\r
+only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it. He\r
+did not disturb the wretchedness of her mind by ill-timed conversation.\r
+She was first called to observe and approve him farther, by a\r
+reflection which Elinor chanced one day to make on the difference\r
+between him and his sister. It was a contrast which recommended him\r
+most forcibly to her mother.\r
+\r
+"It is enough," said she; "to say that he is unlike Fanny is enough.\r
+It implies everything amiable. I love him already."\r
+\r
+"I think you will like him," said Elinor, "when you know more of him."\r
+\r
+"Like him!" replied her mother with a smile. "I feel no sentiment of\r
+approbation inferior to love."\r
+\r
+"You may esteem him."\r
+\r
+"I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem and love."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood now took pains to get acquainted with him. Her manners\r
+were attaching, and soon banished his reserve. She speedily\r
+comprehended all his merits; the persuasion of his regard for Elinor\r
+perhaps assisted her penetration; but she really felt assured of his\r
+worth: and even that quietness of manner, which militated against all\r
+her established ideas of what a young man's address ought to be, was no\r
+longer uninteresting when she knew his heart to be warm and his temper\r
+affectionate.\r
+\r
+No sooner did she perceive any symptom of love in his behaviour to\r
+Elinor, than she considered their serious attachment as certain, and\r
+looked forward to their marriage as rapidly approaching.\r
+\r
+"In a few months, my dear Marianne." said she, "Elinor will, in all\r
+probability be settled for life. We shall miss her; but SHE will be\r
+happy."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Mama, how shall we do without her?"\r
+\r
+"My love, it will be scarcely a separation. We shall live within a few\r
+miles of each other, and shall meet every day of our lives. You will\r
+gain a brother, a real, affectionate brother. I have the highest\r
+opinion in the world of Edward's heart. But you look grave, Marianne;\r
+do you disapprove your sister's choice?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Marianne, "I may consider it with some surprise.\r
+Edward is very amiable, and I love him tenderly. But yet--he is not\r
+the kind of young man--there is something wanting--his figure is not\r
+striking; it has none of that grace which I should expect in the man\r
+who could seriously attach my sister. His eyes want all that spirit,\r
+that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence. And besides\r
+all this, I am afraid, Mama, he has no real taste. Music seems\r
+scarcely to attract him, and though he admires Elinor's drawings very\r
+much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their\r
+worth. It is evident, in spite of his frequent attention to her while\r
+she draws, that in fact he knows nothing of the matter. He admires as\r
+a lover, not as a connoisseur. To satisfy me, those characters must be\r
+united. I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every\r
+point coincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings; the\r
+same books, the same music must charm us both. Oh! mama, how\r
+spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night!\r
+I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much\r
+composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my\r
+seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost\r
+driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such\r
+dreadful indifference!"\r
+\r
+"He would certainly have done more justice to simple and elegant prose.\r
+I thought so at the time; but you WOULD give him Cowper."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Mama, if he is not to be animated by Cowper!--but we must allow\r
+for difference of taste. Elinor has not my feelings, and therefore she\r
+may overlook it, and be happy with him. But it would have broke MY\r
+heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so little sensibility.\r
+Mama, the more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I\r
+shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much! He\r
+must have all Edward's virtues, and his person and manners must\r
+ornament his goodness with every possible charm."\r
+\r
+"Remember, my love, that you are not seventeen. It is yet too early in\r
+life to despair of such a happiness. Why should you be less fortunate\r
+than your mother? In one circumstance only, my Marianne, may your\r
+destiny be different from hers!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 4\r
+\r
+\r
+"What a pity it is, Elinor," said Marianne, "that Edward should have no\r
+taste for drawing."\r
+\r
+"No taste for drawing!" replied Elinor, "why should you think so? He\r
+does not draw himself, indeed, but he has great pleasure in seeing the\r
+performances of other people, and I assure you he is by no means\r
+deficient in natural taste, though he has not had opportunities of\r
+improving it. Had he ever been in the way of learning, I think he\r
+would have drawn very well. He distrusts his own judgment in such\r
+matters so much, that he is always unwilling to give his opinion on any\r
+picture; but he has an innate propriety and simplicity of taste, which\r
+in general direct him perfectly right."\r
+\r
+Marianne was afraid of offending, and said no more on the subject; but\r
+the kind of approbation which Elinor described as excited in him by the\r
+drawings of other people, was very far from that rapturous delight,\r
+which, in her opinion, could alone be called taste. Yet, though\r
+smiling within herself at the mistake, she honoured her sister for that\r
+blind partiality to Edward which produced it.\r
+\r
+"I hope, Marianne," continued Elinor, "you do not consider him as\r
+deficient in general taste. Indeed, I think I may say that you cannot,\r
+for your behaviour to him is perfectly cordial, and if THAT were your\r
+opinion, I am sure you could never be civil to him."\r
+\r
+Marianne hardly knew what to say. She would not wound the feelings of\r
+her sister on any account, and yet to say what she did not believe was\r
+impossible. At length she replied:\r
+\r
+"Do not be offended, Elinor, if my praise of him is not in every thing\r
+equal to your sense of his merits. I have not had so many\r
+opportunities of estimating the minuter propensities of his mind, his\r
+inclinations and tastes, as you have; but I have the highest opinion in\r
+the world of his goodness and sense. I think him every thing that is\r
+worthy and amiable."\r
+\r
+"I am sure," replied Elinor, with a smile, "that his dearest friends\r
+could not be dissatisfied with such commendation as that. I do not\r
+perceive how you could express yourself more warmly."\r
+\r
+Marianne was rejoiced to find her sister so easily pleased.\r
+\r
+"Of his sense and his goodness," continued Elinor, "no one can, I\r
+think, be in doubt, who has seen him often enough to engage him in\r
+unreserved conversation. The excellence of his understanding and his\r
+principles can be concealed only by that shyness which too often keeps\r
+him silent. You know enough of him to do justice to his solid worth.\r
+But of his minuter propensities, as you call them you have from\r
+peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself. He and I\r
+have been at times thrown a good deal together, while you have been\r
+wholly engrossed on the most affectionate principle by my mother. I\r
+have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard\r
+his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I\r
+venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, enjoyment of books\r
+exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and\r
+correct, and his taste delicate and pure. His abilities in every\r
+respect improve as much upon acquaintance as his manners and person.\r
+At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person\r
+can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which\r
+are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is\r
+perceived. At present, I know him so well, that I think him really\r
+handsome; or at least, almost so. What say you, Marianne?"\r
+\r
+"I shall very soon think him handsome, Elinor, if I do not now. When\r
+you tell me to love him as a brother, I shall no more see imperfection\r
+in his face, than I now do in his heart."\r
+\r
+Elinor started at this declaration, and was sorry for the warmth she\r
+had been betrayed into, in speaking of him. She felt that Edward stood\r
+very high in her opinion. She believed the regard to be mutual; but\r
+she required greater certainty of it to make Marianne's conviction of\r
+their attachment agreeable to her. She knew that what Marianne and her\r
+mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next--that with them,\r
+to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain\r
+the real state of the case to her sister.\r
+\r
+"I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of\r
+him--that I greatly esteem, that I like him."\r
+\r
+Marianne here burst forth with indignation--\r
+\r
+"Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than\r
+cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I\r
+will leave the room this moment."\r
+\r
+Elinor could not help laughing. "Excuse me," said she; "and be assured\r
+that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my\r
+own feelings. Believe them to be stronger than I have declared;\r
+believe them, in short, to be such as his merit, and the suspicion--the\r
+hope of his affection for me may warrant, without imprudence or folly.\r
+But farther than this you must not believe. I am by no means assured\r
+of his regard for me. There are moments when the extent of it seems\r
+doubtful; and till his sentiments are fully known, you cannot wonder at\r
+my wishing to avoid any encouragement of my own partiality, by\r
+believing or calling it more than it is. In my heart I feel\r
+little--scarcely any doubt of his preference. But there are other\r
+points to be considered besides his inclination. He is very far from\r
+being independent. What his mother really is we cannot know; but, from\r
+Fanny's occasional mention of her conduct and opinions, we have never\r
+been disposed to think her amiable; and I am very much mistaken if\r
+Edward is not himself aware that there would be many difficulties in\r
+his way, if he were to wish to marry a woman who had not either a great\r
+fortune or high rank."\r
+\r
+Marianne was astonished to find how much the imagination of her mother\r
+and herself had outstripped the truth.\r
+\r
+"And you really are not engaged to him!" said she. "Yet it certainly\r
+soon will happen. But two advantages will proceed from this delay. I\r
+shall not lose you so soon, and Edward will have greater opportunity of\r
+improving that natural taste for your favourite pursuit which must be\r
+so indispensably necessary to your future felicity. Oh! if he should\r
+be so far stimulated by your genius as to learn to draw himself, how\r
+delightful it would be!"\r
+\r
+Elinor had given her real opinion to her sister. She could not\r
+consider her partiality for Edward in so prosperous a state as Marianne\r
+had believed it. There was, at times, a want of spirits about him\r
+which, if it did not denote indifference, spoke of something almost as\r
+unpromising. A doubt of her regard, supposing him to feel it, need not\r
+give him more than inquietude. It would not be likely to produce that\r
+dejection of mind which frequently attended him. A more reasonable\r
+cause might be found in the dependent situation which forbade the\r
+indulgence of his affection. She knew that his mother neither behaved\r
+to him so as to make his home comfortable at present, nor to give him\r
+any assurance that he might form a home for himself, without strictly\r
+attending to her views for his aggrandizement. With such a knowledge\r
+as this, it was impossible for Elinor to feel easy on the subject. She\r
+was far from depending on that result of his preference of her, which\r
+her mother and sister still considered as certain. Nay, the longer\r
+they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard;\r
+and sometimes, for a few painful minutes, she believed it to be no more\r
+than friendship.\r
+\r
+But, whatever might really be its limits, it was enough, when perceived\r
+by his sister, to make her uneasy, and at the same time, (which was\r
+still more common,) to make her uncivil. She took the first\r
+opportunity of affronting her mother-in-law on the occasion, talking to\r
+her so expressively of her brother's great expectations, of Mrs.\r
+Ferrars's resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the\r
+danger attending any young woman who attempted to DRAW HIM IN; that\r
+Mrs. Dashwood could neither pretend to be unconscious, nor endeavor to\r
+be calm. She gave her an answer which marked her contempt, and\r
+instantly left the room, resolving that, whatever might be the\r
+inconvenience or expense of so sudden a removal, her beloved Elinor\r
+should not be exposed another week to such insinuations.\r
+\r
+In this state of her spirits, a letter was delivered to her from the\r
+post, which contained a proposal particularly well timed. It was the\r
+offer of a small house, on very easy terms, belonging to a relation of\r
+her own, a gentleman of consequence and property in Devonshire. The\r
+letter was from this gentleman himself, and written in the true spirit\r
+of friendly accommodation. He understood that she was in need of a\r
+dwelling; and though the house he now offered her was merely a cottage,\r
+he assured her that everything should be done to it which she might\r
+think necessary, if the situation pleased her. He earnestly pressed\r
+her, after giving the particulars of the house and garden, to come with\r
+her daughters to Barton Park, the place of his own residence, from\r
+whence she might judge, herself, whether Barton Cottage, for the houses\r
+were in the same parish, could, by any alteration, be made comfortable\r
+to her. He seemed really anxious to accommodate them and the whole of\r
+his letter was written in so friendly a style as could not fail of\r
+giving pleasure to his cousin; more especially at a moment when she was\r
+suffering under the cold and unfeeling behaviour of her nearer\r
+connections. She needed no time for deliberation or inquiry. Her\r
+resolution was formed as she read. The situation of Barton, in a\r
+county so far distant from Sussex as Devonshire, which, but a few hours\r
+before, would have been a sufficient objection to outweigh every\r
+possible advantage belonging to the place, was now its first\r
+recommendation. To quit the neighbourhood of Norland was no longer an\r
+evil; it was an object of desire; it was a blessing, in comparison of\r
+the misery of continuing her daughter-in-law's guest; and to remove for\r
+ever from that beloved place would be less painful than to inhabit or\r
+visit it while such a woman was its mistress. She instantly wrote Sir\r
+John Middleton her acknowledgment of his kindness, and her acceptance\r
+of his proposal; and then hastened to shew both letters to her\r
+daughters, that she might be secure of their approbation before her\r
+answer were sent.\r
+\r
+Elinor had always thought it would be more prudent for them to settle\r
+at some distance from Norland, than immediately amongst their present\r
+acquaintance. On THAT head, therefore, it was not for her to oppose\r
+her mother's intention of removing into Devonshire. The house, too, as\r
+described by Sir John, was on so simple a scale, and the rent so\r
+uncommonly moderate, as to leave her no right of objection on either\r
+point; and, therefore, though it was not a plan which brought any charm\r
+to her fancy, though it was a removal from the vicinity of Norland\r
+beyond her wishes, she made no attempt to dissuade her mother from\r
+sending a letter of acquiescence.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 5\r
+\r
+\r
+No sooner was her answer dispatched, than Mrs. Dashwood indulged herself\r
+in the pleasure of announcing to her son-in-law and his wife that she\r
+was provided with a house, and should incommode them no longer than till\r
+every thing were ready for her inhabiting it. They heard her with\r
+surprise. Mrs. John Dashwood said nothing; but her husband civilly hoped\r
+that she would not be settled far from Norland. She had great\r
+satisfaction in replying that she was going into Devonshire.--Edward\r
+turned hastily towards her, on hearing this, and, in a voice of surprise\r
+and concern, which required no explanation to her, repeated,\r
+"Devonshire! Are you, indeed, going there? So far from hence! And to\r
+what part of it?" She explained the situation. It was within four miles\r
+northward of Exeter.\r
+\r
+"It is but a cottage," she continued, "but I hope to see many of my\r
+friends in it. A room or two can easily be added; and if my friends\r
+find no difficulty in travelling so far to see me, I am sure I will\r
+find none in accommodating them."\r
+\r
+She concluded with a very kind invitation to Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood\r
+to visit her at Barton; and to Edward she gave one with still greater\r
+affection. Though her late conversation with her daughter-in-law had\r
+made her resolve on remaining at Norland no longer than was\r
+unavoidable, it had not produced the smallest effect on her in that\r
+point to which it principally tended. To separate Edward and Elinor\r
+was as far from being her object as ever; and she wished to show Mrs.\r
+John Dashwood, by this pointed invitation to her brother, how totally\r
+she disregarded her disapprobation of the match.\r
+\r
+Mr. John Dashwood told his mother again and again how exceedingly sorry\r
+he was that she had taken a house at such a distance from Norland as to\r
+prevent his being of any service to her in removing her furniture. He\r
+really felt conscientiously vexed on the occasion; for the very\r
+exertion to which he had limited the performance of his promise to his\r
+father was by this arrangement rendered impracticable.-- The furniture\r
+was all sent around by water. It chiefly consisted of household linen,\r
+plate, china, and books, with a handsome pianoforte of Marianne's.\r
+Mrs. John Dashwood saw the packages depart with a sigh: she could not\r
+help feeling it hard that as Mrs. Dashwood's income would be so\r
+trifling in comparison with their own, she should have any handsome\r
+article of furniture.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood took the house for a twelvemonth; it was ready furnished,\r
+and she might have immediate possession. No difficulty arose on either\r
+side in the agreement; and she waited only for the disposal of her\r
+effects at Norland, and to determine her future household, before she\r
+set off for the west; and this, as she was exceedingly rapid in the\r
+performance of everything that interested her, was soon done.--The\r
+horses which were left her by her husband had been sold soon after his\r
+death, and an opportunity now offering of disposing of her carriage,\r
+she agreed to sell that likewise at the earnest advice of her eldest\r
+daughter. For the comfort of her children, had she consulted only her\r
+own wishes, she would have kept it; but the discretion of Elinor\r
+prevailed. HER wisdom too limited the number of their servants to\r
+three; two maids and a man, with whom they were speedily provided from\r
+amongst those who had formed their establishment at Norland.\r
+\r
+The man and one of the maids were sent off immediately into Devonshire,\r
+to prepare the house for their mistress's arrival; for as Lady\r
+Middleton was entirely unknown to Mrs. Dashwood, she preferred going\r
+directly to the cottage to being a visitor at Barton Park; and she\r
+relied so undoubtingly on Sir John's description of the house, as to\r
+feel no curiosity to examine it herself till she entered it as her own.\r
+Her eagerness to be gone from Norland was preserved from diminution by\r
+the evident satisfaction of her daughter-in-law in the prospect of her\r
+removal; a satisfaction which was but feebly attempted to be concealed\r
+under a cold invitation to her to defer her departure. Now was the\r
+time when her son-in-law's promise to his father might with particular\r
+propriety be fulfilled. Since he had neglected to do it on first\r
+coming to the estate, their quitting his house might be looked on as\r
+the most suitable period for its accomplishment. But Mrs. Dashwood\r
+began shortly to give over every hope of the kind, and to be convinced,\r
+from the general drift of his discourse, that his assistance extended\r
+no farther than their maintenance for six months at Norland. He so\r
+frequently talked of the increasing expenses of housekeeping, and of\r
+the perpetual demands upon his purse, which a man of any consequence in\r
+the world was beyond calculation exposed to, that he seemed rather to\r
+stand in need of more money himself than to have any design of giving\r
+money away.\r
+\r
+In a very few weeks from the day which brought Sir John Middleton's\r
+first letter to Norland, every thing was so far settled in their future\r
+abode as to enable Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters to begin their\r
+journey.\r
+\r
+Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieus to a place so\r
+much beloved. "Dear, dear Norland!" said Marianne, as she wandered\r
+alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there; "when\r
+shall I cease to regret you!--when learn to feel a home elsewhere!--Oh!\r
+happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this\r
+spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!--And you, ye\r
+well-known trees!--but you will continue the same.--No leaf will decay\r
+because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we\r
+can observe you no longer!--No; you will continue the same; unconscious\r
+of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any\r
+change in those who walk under your shade!--But who will remain to\r
+enjoy you?"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 6\r
+\r
+\r
+The first part of their journey was performed in too melancholy a\r
+disposition to be otherwise than tedious and unpleasant. But as they\r
+drew towards the end of it, their interest in the appearance of a\r
+country which they were to inhabit overcame their dejection, and a view\r
+of Barton Valley as they entered it gave them cheerfulness. It was a\r
+pleasant fertile spot, well wooded, and rich in pasture. After winding\r
+along it for more than a mile, they reached their own house. A small\r
+green court was the whole of its demesne in front; and a neat wicket\r
+gate admitted them into it.\r
+\r
+As a house, Barton Cottage, though small, was comfortable and compact;\r
+but as a cottage it was defective, for the building was regular, the\r
+roof was tiled, the window shutters were not painted green, nor were\r
+the walls covered with honeysuckles. A narrow passage led directly\r
+through the house into the garden behind. On each side of the entrance\r
+was a sitting room, about sixteen feet square; and beyond them were the\r
+offices and the stairs. Four bed-rooms and two garrets formed the rest\r
+of the house. It had not been built many years and was in good repair.\r
+In comparison of Norland, it was poor and small indeed!--but the tears\r
+which recollection called forth as they entered the house were soon\r
+dried away. They were cheered by the joy of the servants on their\r
+arrival, and each for the sake of the others resolved to appear happy.\r
+It was very early in September; the season was fine, and from first\r
+seeing the place under the advantage of good weather, they received an\r
+impression in its favour which was of material service in recommending\r
+it to their lasting approbation.\r
+\r
+The situation of the house was good. High hills rose immediately\r
+behind, and at no great distance on each side; some of which were open\r
+downs, the others cultivated and woody. The village of Barton was\r
+chiefly on one of these hills, and formed a pleasant view from the\r
+cottage windows. The prospect in front was more extensive; it\r
+commanded the whole of the valley, and reached into the country beyond.\r
+The hills which surrounded the cottage terminated the valley in that\r
+direction; under another name, and in another course, it branched out\r
+again between two of the steepest of them.\r
+\r
+With the size and furniture of the house Mrs. Dashwood was upon the\r
+whole well satisfied; for though her former style of life rendered many\r
+additions to the latter indispensable, yet to add and improve was a\r
+delight to her; and she had at this time ready money enough to supply\r
+all that was wanted of greater elegance to the apartments. "As for the\r
+house itself, to be sure," said she, "it is too small for our family,\r
+but we will make ourselves tolerably comfortable for the present, as it\r
+is too late in the year for improvements. Perhaps in the spring, if I\r
+have plenty of money, as I dare say I shall, we may think about\r
+building. These parlors are both too small for such parties of our\r
+friends as I hope to see often collected here; and I have some thoughts\r
+of throwing the passage into one of them with perhaps a part of the\r
+other, and so leave the remainder of that other for an entrance; this,\r
+with a new drawing room which may be easily added, and a bed-chamber\r
+and garret above, will make it a very snug little cottage. I could\r
+wish the stairs were handsome. But one must not expect every thing;\r
+though I suppose it would be no difficult matter to widen them. I\r
+shall see how much I am before-hand with the world in the spring, and\r
+we will plan our improvements accordingly."\r
+\r
+In the mean time, till all these alterations could be made from the\r
+savings of an income of five hundred a-year by a woman who never saved\r
+in her life, they were wise enough to be contented with the house as it\r
+was; and each of them was busy in arranging their particular concerns,\r
+and endeavoring, by placing around them books and other possessions, to\r
+form themselves a home. Marianne's pianoforte was unpacked and\r
+properly disposed of; and Elinor's drawings were affixed to the walls\r
+of their sitting room.\r
+\r
+In such employments as these they were interrupted soon after breakfast\r
+the next day by the entrance of their landlord, who called to welcome\r
+them to Barton, and to offer them every accommodation from his own\r
+house and garden in which theirs might at present be deficient. Sir\r
+John Middleton was a good looking man about forty. He had formerly\r
+visited at Stanhill, but it was too long for his young cousins to\r
+remember him. His countenance was thoroughly good-humoured; and his\r
+manners were as friendly as the style of his letter. Their arrival\r
+seemed to afford him real satisfaction, and their comfort to be an\r
+object of real solicitude to him. He said much of his earnest desire\r
+of their living in the most sociable terms with his family, and pressed\r
+them so cordially to dine at Barton Park every day till they were\r
+better settled at home, that, though his entreaties were carried to a\r
+point of perseverance beyond civility, they could not give offence.\r
+His kindness was not confined to words; for within an hour after he\r
+left them, a large basket full of garden stuff and fruit arrived from\r
+the park, which was followed before the end of the day by a present of\r
+game. He insisted, moreover, on conveying all their letters to and\r
+from the post for them, and would not be denied the satisfaction of\r
+sending them his newspaper every day.\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton had sent a very civil message by him, denoting her\r
+intention of waiting on Mrs. Dashwood as soon as she could be assured\r
+that her visit would be no inconvenience; and as this message was\r
+answered by an invitation equally polite, her ladyship was introduced\r
+to them the next day.\r
+\r
+They were, of course, very anxious to see a person on whom so much of\r
+their comfort at Barton must depend; and the elegance of her appearance\r
+was favourable to their wishes. Lady Middleton was not more than six\r
+or seven and twenty; her face was handsome, her figure tall and\r
+striking, and her address graceful. Her manners had all the elegance\r
+which her husband's wanted. But they would have been improved by some\r
+share of his frankness and warmth; and her visit was long enough to\r
+detract something from their first admiration, by shewing that, though\r
+perfectly well-bred, she was reserved, cold, and had nothing to say for\r
+herself beyond the most common-place inquiry or remark.\r
+\r
+Conversation however was not wanted, for Sir John was very chatty, and\r
+Lady Middleton had taken the wise precaution of bringing with her their\r
+eldest child, a fine little boy about six years old, by which means\r
+there was one subject always to be recurred to by the ladies in case of\r
+extremity, for they had to enquire his name and age, admire his beauty,\r
+and ask him questions which his mother answered for him, while he hung\r
+about her and held down his head, to the great surprise of her\r
+ladyship, who wondered at his being so shy before company, as he could\r
+make noise enough at home. On every formal visit a child ought to be\r
+of the party, by way of provision for discourse. In the present case\r
+it took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his\r
+father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of\r
+course every body differed, and every body was astonished at the\r
+opinion of the others.\r
+\r
+An opportunity was soon to be given to the Dashwoods of debating on the\r
+rest of the children, as Sir John would not leave the house without\r
+securing their promise of dining at the park the next day.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 7\r
+\r
+\r
+Barton Park was about half a mile from the cottage. The ladies had\r
+passed near it in their way along the valley, but it was screened from\r
+their view at home by the projection of a hill. The house was large\r
+and handsome; and the Middletons lived in a style of equal hospitality\r
+and elegance. The former was for Sir John's gratification, the latter\r
+for that of his lady. They were scarcely ever without some friends\r
+staying with them in the house, and they kept more company of every\r
+kind than any other family in the neighbourhood. It was necessary to\r
+the happiness of both; for however dissimilar in temper and outward\r
+behaviour, they strongly resembled each other in that total want of\r
+talent and taste which confined their employments, unconnected with\r
+such as society produced, within a very narrow compass. Sir John was a\r
+sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she\r
+humoured her children; and these were their only resources. Lady\r
+Middleton had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the\r
+year round, while Sir John's independent employments were in existence\r
+only half the time. Continual engagements at home and abroad, however,\r
+supplied all the deficiencies of nature and education; supported the\r
+good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good breeding of his\r
+wife.\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance of her table, and of\r
+all her domestic arrangements; and from this kind of vanity was her\r
+greatest enjoyment in any of their parties. But Sir John's\r
+satisfaction in society was much more real; he delighted in collecting\r
+about him more young people than his house would hold, and the noisier\r
+they were the better was he pleased. He was a blessing to all the\r
+juvenile part of the neighbourhood, for in summer he was for ever\r
+forming parties to eat cold ham and chicken out of doors, and in winter\r
+his private balls were numerous enough for any young lady who was not\r
+suffering under the unsatiable appetite of fifteen.\r
+\r
+The arrival of a new family in the country was always a matter of joy\r
+to him, and in every point of view he was charmed with the inhabitants\r
+he had now procured for his cottage at Barton. The Miss Dashwoods were\r
+young, pretty, and unaffected. It was enough to secure his good\r
+opinion; for to be unaffected was all that a pretty girl could want to\r
+make her mind as captivating as her person. The friendliness of his\r
+disposition made him happy in accommodating those, whose situation\r
+might be considered, in comparison with the past, as unfortunate. In\r
+showing kindness to his cousins therefore he had the real satisfaction\r
+of a good heart; and in settling a family of females only in his\r
+cottage, he had all the satisfaction of a sportsman; for a sportsman,\r
+though he esteems only those of his sex who are sportsmen likewise, is\r
+not often desirous of encouraging their taste by admitting them to a\r
+residence within his own manor.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were met at the door of the house by\r
+Sir John, who welcomed them to Barton Park with unaffected sincerity;\r
+and as he attended them to the drawing room repeated to the young\r
+ladies the concern which the same subject had drawn from him the day\r
+before, at being unable to get any smart young men to meet them. They\r
+would see, he said, only one gentleman there besides himself; a\r
+particular friend who was staying at the park, but who was neither very\r
+young nor very gay. He hoped they would all excuse the smallness of\r
+the party, and could assure them it should never happen so again. He\r
+had been to several families that morning in hopes of procuring some\r
+addition to their number, but it was moonlight and every body was full\r
+of engagements. Luckily Lady Middleton's mother had arrived at Barton\r
+within the last hour, and as she was a very cheerful agreeable woman,\r
+he hoped the young ladies would not find it so very dull as they might\r
+imagine. The young ladies, as well as their mother, were perfectly\r
+satisfied with having two entire strangers of the party, and wished for\r
+no more.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton's mother, was a good-humoured, merry,\r
+fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy, and\r
+rather vulgar. She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner\r
+was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and\r
+husbands; hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in Sussex,\r
+and pretended to see them blush whether they did or not. Marianne was\r
+vexed at it for her sister's sake, and turned her eyes towards Elinor\r
+to see how she bore these attacks, with an earnestness which gave\r
+Elinor far more pain than could arise from such common-place raillery\r
+as Mrs. Jennings's.\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, seemed no more adapted by\r
+resemblance of manner to be his friend, than Lady Middleton was to be\r
+his wife, or Mrs. Jennings to be Lady Middleton's mother. He was\r
+silent and grave. His appearance however was not unpleasing, in spite\r
+of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old\r
+bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though\r
+his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his\r
+address was particularly gentlemanlike.\r
+\r
+There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as\r
+companions to the Dashwoods; but the cold insipidity of Lady Middleton\r
+was so particularly repulsive, that in comparison of it the gravity of\r
+Colonel Brandon, and even the boisterous mirth of Sir John and his\r
+mother-in-law was interesting. Lady Middleton seemed to be roused to\r
+enjoyment only by the entrance of her four noisy children after dinner,\r
+who pulled her about, tore her clothes, and put an end to every kind of\r
+discourse except what related to themselves.\r
+\r
+In the evening, as Marianne was discovered to be musical, she was\r
+invited to play. The instrument was unlocked, every body prepared to\r
+be charmed, and Marianne, who sang very well, at their request went\r
+through the chief of the songs which Lady Middleton had brought into\r
+the family on her marriage, and which perhaps had lain ever since in\r
+the same position on the pianoforte, for her ladyship had celebrated\r
+that event by giving up music, although by her mother's account, she\r
+had played extremely well, and by her own was very fond of it.\r
+\r
+Marianne's performance was highly applauded. Sir John was loud in his\r
+admiration at the end of every song, and as loud in his conversation\r
+with the others while every song lasted. Lady Middleton frequently\r
+called him to order, wondered how any one's attention could be diverted\r
+from music for a moment, and asked Marianne to sing a particular song\r
+which Marianne had just finished. Colonel Brandon alone, of all the\r
+party, heard her without being in raptures. He paid her only the\r
+compliment of attention; and she felt a respect for him on the\r
+occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless\r
+want of taste. His pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that\r
+ecstatic delight which alone could sympathize with her own, was\r
+estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the\r
+others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five and\r
+thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every\r
+exquisite power of enjoyment. She was perfectly disposed to make every\r
+allowance for the colonel's advanced state of life which humanity\r
+required.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 8\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings was a widow with an ample jointure. She had only two\r
+daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and\r
+she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the\r
+world. In the promotion of this object she was zealously active, as\r
+far as her ability reached; and missed no opportunity of projecting\r
+weddings among all the young people of her acquaintance. She was\r
+remarkably quick in the discovery of attachments, and had enjoyed the\r
+advantage of raising the blushes and the vanity of many a young lady by\r
+insinuations of her power over such a young man; and this kind of\r
+discernment enabled her soon after her arrival at Barton decisively to\r
+pronounce that Colonel Brandon was very much in love with Marianne\r
+Dashwood. She rather suspected it to be so, on the very first evening\r
+of their being together, from his listening so attentively while she\r
+sang to them; and when the visit was returned by the Middletons' dining\r
+at the cottage, the fact was ascertained by his listening to her again.\r
+It must be so. She was perfectly convinced of it. It would be an\r
+excellent match, for HE was rich, and SHE was handsome. Mrs. Jennings\r
+had been anxious to see Colonel Brandon well married, ever since her\r
+connection with Sir John first brought him to her knowledge; and she\r
+was always anxious to get a good husband for every pretty girl.\r
+\r
+The immediate advantage to herself was by no means inconsiderable, for\r
+it supplied her with endless jokes against them both. At the park she\r
+laughed at the colonel, and in the cottage at Marianne. To the former\r
+her raillery was probably, as far as it regarded only himself,\r
+perfectly indifferent; but to the latter it was at first\r
+incomprehensible; and when its object was understood, she hardly knew\r
+whether most to laugh at its absurdity, or censure its impertinence,\r
+for she considered it as an unfeeling reflection on the colonel's\r
+advanced years, and on his forlorn condition as an old bachelor.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood, who could not think a man five years younger than\r
+herself, so exceedingly ancient as he appeared to the youthful fancy of\r
+her daughter, ventured to clear Mrs. Jennings from the probability of\r
+wishing to throw ridicule on his age.\r
+\r
+"But at least, Mama, you cannot deny the absurdity of the accusation,\r
+though you may not think it intentionally ill-natured. Colonel Brandon\r
+is certainly younger than Mrs. Jennings, but he is old enough to be MY\r
+father; and if he were ever animated enough to be in love, must have\r
+long outlived every sensation of the kind. It is too ridiculous! When\r
+is a man to be safe from such wit, if age and infirmity will not\r
+protect him?"\r
+\r
+"Infirmity!" said Elinor, "do you call Colonel Brandon infirm? I can\r
+easily suppose that his age may appear much greater to you than to my\r
+mother; but you can hardly deceive yourself as to his having the use of\r
+his limbs!"\r
+\r
+"Did not you hear him complain of the rheumatism? and is not that the\r
+commonest infirmity of declining life?"\r
+\r
+"My dearest child," said her mother, laughing, "at this rate you must\r
+be in continual terror of MY decay; and it must seem to you a miracle\r
+that my life has been extended to the advanced age of forty."\r
+\r
+"Mama, you are not doing me justice. I know very well that Colonel\r
+Brandon is not old enough to make his friends yet apprehensive of\r
+losing him in the course of nature. He may live twenty years longer.\r
+But thirty-five has nothing to do with matrimony."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Elinor, "thirty-five and seventeen had better not have\r
+any thing to do with matrimony together. But if there should by any\r
+chance happen to be a woman who is single at seven and twenty, I should\r
+not think Colonel Brandon's being thirty-five any objection to his\r
+marrying HER."\r
+\r
+"A woman of seven and twenty," said Marianne, after pausing a moment,\r
+"can never hope to feel or inspire affection again, and if her home be\r
+uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring\r
+herself to submit to the offices of a nurse, for the sake of the\r
+provision and security of a wife. In his marrying such a woman\r
+therefore there would be nothing unsuitable. It would be a compact of\r
+convenience, and the world would be satisfied. In my eyes it would be\r
+no marriage at all, but that would be nothing. To me it would seem\r
+only a commercial exchange, in which each wished to be benefited at the\r
+expense of the other."\r
+\r
+"It would be impossible, I know," replied Elinor, "to convince you that\r
+a woman of seven and twenty could feel for a man of thirty-five\r
+anything near enough to love, to make him a desirable companion to her.\r
+But I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon and his wife to the\r
+constant confinement of a sick chamber, merely because he chanced to\r
+complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight rheumatic feel in\r
+one of his shoulders."\r
+\r
+"But he talked of flannel waistcoats," said Marianne; "and with me a\r
+flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps,\r
+rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and\r
+the feeble."\r
+\r
+"Had he been only in a violent fever, you would not have despised him\r
+half so much. Confess, Marianne, is not there something interesting to\r
+you in the flushed cheek, hollow eye, and quick pulse of a fever?"\r
+\r
+Soon after this, upon Elinor's leaving the room, "Mama," said\r
+Marianne, "I have an alarm on the subject of illness which I cannot\r
+conceal from you. I am sure Edward Ferrars is not well. We have now\r
+been here almost a fortnight, and yet he does not come. Nothing but\r
+real indisposition could occasion this extraordinary delay. What else\r
+can detain him at Norland?"\r
+\r
+"Had you any idea of his coming so soon?" said Mrs. Dashwood. "I had\r
+none. On the contrary, if I have felt any anxiety at all on the\r
+subject, it has been in recollecting that he sometimes showed a want of\r
+pleasure and readiness in accepting my invitation, when I talked of his\r
+coming to Barton. Does Elinor expect him already?"\r
+\r
+"I have never mentioned it to her, but of course she must."\r
+\r
+"I rather think you are mistaken, for when I was talking to her\r
+yesterday of getting a new grate for the spare bedchamber, she observed\r
+that there was no immediate hurry for it, as it was not likely that the\r
+room would be wanted for some time."\r
+\r
+"How strange this is! what can be the meaning of it! But the whole of\r
+their behaviour to each other has been unaccountable! How cold, how\r
+composed were their last adieus! How languid their conversation the\r
+last evening of their being together! In Edward's farewell there was no\r
+distinction between Elinor and me: it was the good wishes of an\r
+affectionate brother to both. Twice did I leave them purposely\r
+together in the course of the last morning, and each time did he most\r
+unaccountably follow me out of the room. And Elinor, in quitting\r
+Norland and Edward, cried not as I did. Even now her self-command is\r
+invariable. When is she dejected or melancholy? When does she try to\r
+avoid society, or appear restless and dissatisfied in it?"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 9\r
+\r
+\r
+The Dashwoods were now settled at Barton with tolerable comfort to\r
+themselves. The house and the garden, with all the objects surrounding\r
+them, were now become familiar, and the ordinary pursuits which had\r
+given to Norland half its charms were engaged in again with far greater\r
+enjoyment than Norland had been able to afford, since the loss of their\r
+father. Sir John Middleton, who called on them every day for the first\r
+fortnight, and who was not in the habit of seeing much occupation at\r
+home, could not conceal his amazement on finding them always employed.\r
+\r
+Their visitors, except those from Barton Park, were not many; for, in\r
+spite of Sir John's urgent entreaties that they would mix more in the\r
+neighbourhood, and repeated assurances of his carriage being always at\r
+their service, the independence of Mrs. Dashwood's spirit overcame the\r
+wish of society for her children; and she was resolute in declining to\r
+visit any family beyond the distance of a walk. There were but few who\r
+could be so classed; and it was not all of them that were attainable.\r
+About a mile and a half from the cottage, along the narrow winding\r
+valley of Allenham, which issued from that of Barton, as formerly\r
+described, the girls had, in one of their earliest walks, discovered an\r
+ancient respectable looking mansion which, by reminding them a little\r
+of Norland, interested their imagination and made them wish to be\r
+better acquainted with it. But they learnt, on enquiry, that its\r
+possessor, an elderly lady of very good character, was unfortunately\r
+too infirm to mix with the world, and never stirred from home.\r
+\r
+The whole country about them abounded in beautiful walks. The high\r
+downs which invited them from almost every window of the cottage to\r
+seek the exquisite enjoyment of air on their summits, were a happy\r
+alternative when the dirt of the valleys beneath shut up their superior\r
+beauties; and towards one of these hills did Marianne and Margaret one\r
+memorable morning direct their steps, attracted by the partial sunshine\r
+of a showery sky, and unable longer to bear the confinement which the\r
+settled rain of the two preceding days had occasioned. The weather was\r
+not tempting enough to draw the two others from their pencil and their\r
+book, in spite of Marianne's declaration that the day would be\r
+lastingly fair, and that every threatening cloud would be drawn off\r
+from their hills; and the two girls set off together.\r
+\r
+They gaily ascended the downs, rejoicing in their own penetration at\r
+every glimpse of blue sky; and when they caught in their faces the\r
+animating gales of a high south-westerly wind, they pitied the fears\r
+which had prevented their mother and Elinor from sharing such\r
+delightful sensations.\r
+\r
+"Is there a felicity in the world," said Marianne, "superior to\r
+this?--Margaret, we will walk here at least two hours."\r
+\r
+Margaret agreed, and they pursued their way against the wind, resisting\r
+it with laughing delight for about twenty minutes longer, when suddenly\r
+the clouds united over their heads, and a driving rain set full in\r
+their face.-- Chagrined and surprised, they were obliged, though\r
+unwillingly, to turn back, for no shelter was nearer than their own\r
+house. One consolation however remained for them, to which the\r
+exigence of the moment gave more than usual propriety; it was that of\r
+running with all possible speed down the steep side of the hill which\r
+led immediately to their garden gate.\r
+\r
+They set off. Marianne had at first the advantage, but a false step\r
+brought her suddenly to the ground; and Margaret, unable to stop\r
+herself to assist her, was involuntarily hurried along, and reached the\r
+bottom in safety.\r
+\r
+A gentleman carrying a gun, with two pointers playing round him, was\r
+passing up the hill and within a few yards of Marianne, when her\r
+accident happened. He put down his gun and ran to her assistance. She\r
+had raised herself from the ground, but her foot had been twisted in\r
+her fall, and she was scarcely able to stand. The gentleman offered\r
+his services; and perceiving that her modesty declined what her\r
+situation rendered necessary, took her up in his arms without farther\r
+delay, and carried her down the hill. Then passing through the garden,\r
+the gate of which had been left open by Margaret, he bore her directly\r
+into the house, whither Margaret was just arrived, and quitted not his\r
+hold till he had seated her in a chair in the parlour.\r
+\r
+Elinor and her mother rose up in amazement at their entrance, and while\r
+the eyes of both were fixed on him with an evident wonder and a secret\r
+admiration which equally sprung from his appearance, he apologized for\r
+his intrusion by relating its cause, in a manner so frank and so\r
+graceful that his person, which was uncommonly handsome, received\r
+additional charms from his voice and expression. Had he been even old,\r
+ugly, and vulgar, the gratitude and kindness of Mrs. Dashwood would\r
+have been secured by any act of attention to her child; but the\r
+influence of youth, beauty, and elegance, gave an interest to the\r
+action which came home to her feelings.\r
+\r
+She thanked him again and again; and, with a sweetness of address which\r
+always attended her, invited him to be seated. But this he declined,\r
+as he was dirty and wet. Mrs. Dashwood then begged to know to whom she\r
+was obliged. His name, he replied, was Willoughby, and his present\r
+home was at Allenham, from whence he hoped she would allow him the\r
+honour of calling tomorrow to enquire after Miss Dashwood. The honour\r
+was readily granted, and he then departed, to make himself still more\r
+interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain.\r
+\r
+His manly beauty and more than common gracefulness were instantly the\r
+theme of general admiration, and the laugh which his gallantry raised\r
+against Marianne received particular spirit from his exterior\r
+attractions.-- Marianne herself had seen less of his Mama the\r
+rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting\r
+her up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their\r
+entering the house. But she had seen enough of him to join in all the\r
+admiration of the others, and with an energy which always adorned her\r
+praise. His person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn\r
+for the hero of a favourite story; and in his carrying her into the\r
+house with so little previous formality, there was a rapidity of\r
+thought which particularly recommended the action to her. Every\r
+circumstance belonging to him was interesting. His name was good, his\r
+residence was in their favourite village, and she soon found out that\r
+of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming. Her\r
+imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a\r
+sprained ankle was disregarded.\r
+\r
+Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather\r
+that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne's accident\r
+being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any\r
+gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham.\r
+\r
+"Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is HE in the country? That is good\r
+news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on\r
+Thursday."\r
+\r
+"You know him then," said Mrs. Dashwood.\r
+\r
+"Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year."\r
+\r
+"And what sort of a young man is he?"\r
+\r
+"As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent\r
+shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England."\r
+\r
+"And is that all you can say for him?" cried Marianne, indignantly.\r
+"But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his\r
+pursuits, his talents, and genius?"\r
+\r
+Sir John was rather puzzled.\r
+\r
+"Upon my soul," said he, "I do not know much about him as to all THAT.\r
+But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest\r
+little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw. Was she out with him\r
+today?"\r
+\r
+But Marianne could no more satisfy him as to the colour of Mr.\r
+Willoughby's pointer, than he could describe to her the shades of his\r
+mind.\r
+\r
+"But who is he?" said Elinor. "Where does he come from? Has he a\r
+house at Allenham?"\r
+\r
+On this point Sir John could give more certain intelligence; and he\r
+told them that Mr. Willoughby had no property of his own in the\r
+country; that he resided there only while he was visiting the old lady\r
+at Allenham Court, to whom he was related, and whose possessions he was\r
+to inherit; adding, "Yes, yes, he is very well worth catching I can\r
+tell you, Miss Dashwood; he has a pretty little estate of his own in\r
+Somersetshire besides; and if I were you, I would not give him up to my\r
+younger sister, in spite of all this tumbling down hills. Miss\r
+Marianne must not expect to have all the men to herself. Brandon will\r
+be jealous, if she does not take care."\r
+\r
+"I do not believe," said Mrs. Dashwood, with a good humoured smile,\r
+"that Mr. Willoughby will be incommoded by the attempts of either of MY\r
+daughters towards what you call CATCHING him. It is not an employment\r
+to which they have been brought up. Men are very safe with us, let\r
+them be ever so rich. I am glad to find, however, from what you say,\r
+that he is a respectable young man, and one whose acquaintance will not\r
+be ineligible."\r
+\r
+"He is as good a sort of fellow, I believe, as ever lived," repeated\r
+Sir John. "I remember last Christmas at a little hop at the park, he\r
+danced from eight o'clock till four, without once sitting down."\r
+\r
+"Did he indeed?" cried Marianne with sparkling eyes, "and with\r
+elegance, with spirit?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; and he was up again at eight to ride to covert."\r
+\r
+"That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever\r
+be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and\r
+leave him no sense of fatigue."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye, I see how it will be," said Sir John, "I see how it will be.\r
+You will be setting your cap at him now, and never think of poor\r
+Brandon."\r
+\r
+"That is an expression, Sir John," said Marianne, warmly, "which I\r
+particularly dislike. I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit\r
+is intended; and 'setting one's cap at a man,' or 'making a conquest,'\r
+are the most odious of all. Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and\r
+if their construction could ever be deemed clever, time has long ago\r
+destroyed all its ingenuity."\r
+\r
+Sir John did not much understand this reproof; but he laughed as\r
+heartily as if he did, and then replied,\r
+\r
+"Ay, you will make conquests enough, I dare say, one way or other.\r
+Poor Brandon! he is quite smitten already, and he is very well worth\r
+setting your cap at, I can tell you, in spite of all this tumbling\r
+about and spraining of ankles."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 10\r
+\r
+\r
+Marianne's preserver, as Margaret, with more elegance than precision,\r
+styled Willoughby, called at the cottage early the next morning to make\r
+his personal enquiries. He was received by Mrs. Dashwood with more\r
+than politeness; with a kindness which Sir John's account of him and\r
+her own gratitude prompted; and every thing that passed during the\r
+visit tended to assure him of the sense, elegance, mutual affection,\r
+and domestic comfort of the family to whom accident had now introduced\r
+him. Of their personal charms he had not required a second interview\r
+to be convinced.\r
+\r
+Miss Dashwood had a delicate complexion, regular features, and a\r
+remarkably pretty figure. Marianne was still handsomer. Her form,\r
+though not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of\r
+height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the\r
+common cant of praise, she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less\r
+violently outraged than usually happens. Her skin was very brown, but,\r
+from its transparency, her complexion was uncommonly brilliant; her\r
+features were all good; her smile was sweet and attractive; and in her\r
+eyes, which were very dark, there was a life, a spirit, an eagerness,\r
+which could hardily be seen without delight. From Willoughby their\r
+expression was at first held back, by the embarrassment which the\r
+remembrance of his assistance created. But when this passed away, when\r
+her spirits became collected, when she saw that to the perfect\r
+good-breeding of the gentleman, he united frankness and vivacity, and\r
+above all, when she heard him declare, that of music and dancing he was\r
+passionately fond, she gave him such a look of approbation as secured\r
+the largest share of his discourse to herself for the rest of his stay.\r
+\r
+It was only necessary to mention any favourite amusement to engage her\r
+to talk. She could not be silent when such points were introduced, and\r
+she had neither shyness nor reserve in their discussion. They speedily\r
+discovered that their enjoyment of dancing and music was mutual, and\r
+that it arose from a general conformity of judgment in all that related\r
+to either. Encouraged by this to a further examination of his\r
+opinions, she proceeded to question him on the subject of books; her\r
+favourite authors were brought forward and dwelt upon with so rapturous\r
+a delight, that any young man of five and twenty must have been\r
+insensible indeed, not to become an immediate convert to the excellence\r
+of such works, however disregarded before. Their taste was strikingly\r
+alike. The same books, the same passages were idolized by each--or if\r
+any difference appeared, any objection arose, it lasted no longer than\r
+till the force of her arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be\r
+displayed. He acquiesced in all her decisions, caught all her\r
+enthusiasm; and long before his visit concluded, they conversed with\r
+the familiarity of a long-established acquaintance.\r
+\r
+"Well, Marianne," said Elinor, as soon as he had left them, "for ONE\r
+morning I think you have done pretty well. You have already\r
+ascertained Mr. Willoughby's opinion in almost every matter of\r
+importance. You know what he thinks of Cowper and Scott; you are\r
+certain of his estimating their beauties as he ought, and you have\r
+received every assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper.\r
+But how is your acquaintance to be long supported, under such\r
+extraordinary despatch of every subject for discourse? You will soon\r
+have exhausted each favourite topic. Another meeting will suffice to\r
+explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty, and second marriages, and\r
+then you can have nothing farther to ask."--\r
+\r
+"Elinor," cried Marianne, "is this fair? is this just? are my ideas so\r
+scanty? But I see what you mean. I have been too much at my ease, too\r
+happy, too frank. I have erred against every common-place notion of\r
+decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been\r
+reserved, spiritless, dull, and deceitful--had I talked only of the\r
+weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this\r
+reproach would have been spared."\r
+\r
+"My love," said her mother, "you must not be offended with Elinor--she\r
+was only in jest. I should scold her myself, if she were capable of\r
+wishing to check the delight of your conversation with our new\r
+friend."-- Marianne was softened in a moment.\r
+\r
+Willoughby, on his side, gave every proof of his pleasure in their\r
+acquaintance, which an evident wish of improving it could offer. He\r
+came to them every day. To enquire after Marianne was at first his\r
+excuse; but the encouragement of his reception, to which every day gave\r
+greater kindness, made such an excuse unnecessary before it had ceased\r
+to be possible, by Marianne's perfect recovery. She was confined for\r
+some days to the house; but never had any confinement been less\r
+irksome. Willoughby was a young man of good abilities, quick\r
+imagination, lively spirits, and open, affectionate manners. He was\r
+exactly formed to engage Marianne's heart, for with all this, he joined\r
+not only a captivating person, but a natural ardour of mind which was\r
+now roused and increased by the example of her own, and which\r
+recommended him to her affection beyond every thing else.\r
+\r
+His society became gradually her most exquisite enjoyment. They read,\r
+they talked, they sang together; his musical talents were considerable;\r
+and he read with all the sensibility and spirit which Edward had\r
+unfortunately wanted.\r
+\r
+In Mrs. Dashwood's estimation he was as faultless as in Marianne's; and\r
+Elinor saw nothing to censure in him but a propensity, in which he\r
+strongly resembled and peculiarly delighted her sister, of saying too\r
+much what he thought on every occasion, without attention to persons or\r
+circumstances. In hastily forming and giving his opinion of other\r
+people, in sacrificing general politeness to the enjoyment of undivided\r
+attention where his heart was engaged, and in slighting too easily the\r
+forms of worldly propriety, he displayed a want of caution which Elinor\r
+could not approve, in spite of all that he and Marianne could say in\r
+its support.\r
+\r
+Marianne began now to perceive that the desperation which had seized\r
+her at sixteen and a half, of ever seeing a man who could satisfy her\r
+ideas of perfection, had been rash and unjustifiable. Willoughby was\r
+all that her fancy had delineated in that unhappy hour and in every\r
+brighter period, as capable of attaching her; and his behaviour\r
+declared his wishes to be in that respect as earnest, as his abilities\r
+were strong.\r
+\r
+Her mother too, in whose mind not one speculative thought of their\r
+marriage had been raised, by his prospect of riches, was led before the\r
+end of a week to hope and expect it; and secretly to congratulate\r
+herself on having gained two such sons-in-law as Edward and Willoughby.\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon's partiality for Marianne, which had so early been\r
+discovered by his friends, now first became perceptible to Elinor, when\r
+it ceased to be noticed by them. Their attention and wit were drawn\r
+off to his more fortunate rival; and the raillery which the other had\r
+incurred before any partiality arose, was removed when his feelings\r
+began really to call for the ridicule so justly annexed to sensibility.\r
+Elinor was obliged, though unwillingly, to believe that the sentiments\r
+which Mrs. Jennings had assigned him for her own satisfaction, were now\r
+actually excited by her sister; and that however a general resemblance\r
+of disposition between the parties might forward the affection of Mr.\r
+Willoughby, an equally striking opposition of character was no\r
+hindrance to the regard of Colonel Brandon. She saw it with concern;\r
+for what could a silent man of five and thirty hope, when opposed to a\r
+very lively one of five and twenty? and as she could not even wish him\r
+successful, she heartily wished him indifferent. She liked him--in\r
+spite of his gravity and reserve, she beheld in him an object of\r
+interest. His manners, though serious, were mild; and his reserve\r
+appeared rather the result of some oppression of spirits than of any\r
+natural gloominess of temper. Sir John had dropped hints of past\r
+injuries and disappointments, which justified her belief of his being\r
+an unfortunate man, and she regarded him with respect and compassion.\r
+\r
+Perhaps she pitied and esteemed him the more because he was slighted by\r
+Willoughby and Marianne, who, prejudiced against him for being neither\r
+lively nor young, seemed resolved to undervalue his merits.\r
+\r
+"Brandon is just the kind of man," said Willoughby one day, when they\r
+were talking of him together, "whom every body speaks well of, and\r
+nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers\r
+to talk to."\r
+\r
+"That is exactly what I think of him," cried Marianne.\r
+\r
+"Do not boast of it, however," said Elinor, "for it is injustice in\r
+both of you. He is highly esteemed by all the family at the park, and\r
+I never see him myself without taking pains to converse with him."\r
+\r
+"That he is patronised by YOU," replied Willoughby, "is certainly in\r
+his favour; but as for the esteem of the others, it is a reproach in\r
+itself. Who would submit to the indignity of being approved by such a\r
+woman as Lady Middleton and Mrs. Jennings, that could command the\r
+indifference of any body else?"\r
+\r
+"But perhaps the abuse of such people as yourself and Marianne will\r
+make amends for the regard of Lady Middleton and her mother. If their\r
+praise is censure, your censure may be praise, for they are not more\r
+undiscerning, than you are prejudiced and unjust."\r
+\r
+"In defence of your protege you can even be saucy."\r
+\r
+"My protege, as you call him, is a sensible man; and sense will always\r
+have attractions for me. Yes, Marianne, even in a man between thirty\r
+and forty. He has seen a great deal of the world; has been abroad, has\r
+read, and has a thinking mind. I have found him capable of giving me\r
+much information on various subjects; and he has always answered my\r
+inquiries with readiness of good-breeding and good nature."\r
+\r
+"That is to say," cried Marianne contemptuously, "he has told you, that\r
+in the East Indies the climate is hot, and the mosquitoes are\r
+troublesome."\r
+\r
+"He WOULD have told me so, I doubt not, had I made any such inquiries,\r
+but they happened to be points on which I had been previously informed."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Willoughby, "his observations may have extended to the\r
+existence of nabobs, gold mohrs, and palanquins."\r
+\r
+"I may venture to say that HIS observations have stretched much further\r
+than your candour. But why should you dislike him?"\r
+\r
+"I do not dislike him. I consider him, on the contrary, as a very\r
+respectable man, who has every body's good word, and nobody's notice;\r
+who, has more money than he can spend, more time than he knows how to\r
+employ, and two new coats every year."\r
+\r
+"Add to which," cried Marianne, "that he has neither genius, taste, nor\r
+spirit. That his understanding has no brilliancy, his feelings no\r
+ardour, and his voice no expression."\r
+\r
+"You decide on his imperfections so much in the mass," replied Elinor,\r
+"and so much on the strength of your own imagination, that the\r
+commendation I am able to give of him is comparatively cold and\r
+insipid. I can only pronounce him to be a sensible man, well-bred,\r
+well-informed, of gentle address, and, I believe, possessing an amiable\r
+heart."\r
+\r
+"Miss Dashwood," cried Willoughby, "you are now using me unkindly. You\r
+are endeavouring to disarm me by reason, and to convince me against my\r
+will. But it will not do. You shall find me as stubborn as you can be\r
+artful. I have three unanswerable reasons for disliking Colonel\r
+Brandon; he threatened me with rain when I wanted it to be fine; he has\r
+found fault with the hanging of my curricle, and I cannot persuade him\r
+to buy my brown mare. If it will be any satisfaction to you, however,\r
+to be told, that I believe his character to be in other respects\r
+irreproachable, I am ready to confess it. And in return for an\r
+acknowledgment, which must give me some pain, you cannot deny me the\r
+privilege of disliking him as much as ever."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 11\r
+\r
+\r
+Little had Mrs. Dashwood or her daughters imagined when they first came\r
+into Devonshire, that so many engagements would arise to occupy their\r
+time as shortly presented themselves, or that they should have such\r
+frequent invitations and such constant visitors as to leave them little\r
+leisure for serious employment. Yet such was the case. When Marianne\r
+was recovered, the schemes of amusement at home and abroad, which Sir\r
+John had been previously forming, were put into execution. The private\r
+balls at the park then began; and parties on the water were made and\r
+accomplished as often as a showery October would allow. In every\r
+meeting of the kind Willoughby was included; and the ease and\r
+familiarity which naturally attended these parties were exactly\r
+calculated to give increasing intimacy to his acquaintance with the\r
+Dashwoods, to afford him opportunity of witnessing the excellencies of\r
+Marianne, of marking his animated admiration of her, and of receiving,\r
+in her behaviour to himself, the most pointed assurance of her\r
+affection.\r
+\r
+Elinor could not be surprised at their attachment. She only wished\r
+that it were less openly shewn; and once or twice did venture to\r
+suggest the propriety of some self-command to Marianne. But Marianne\r
+abhorred all concealment where no real disgrace could attend unreserve;\r
+and to aim at the restraint of sentiments which were not in themselves\r
+illaudable, appeared to her not merely an unnecessary effort, but a\r
+disgraceful subjection of reason to common-place and mistaken notions.\r
+Willoughby thought the same; and their behaviour at all times, was an\r
+illustration of their opinions.\r
+\r
+When he was present she had no eyes for any one else. Every thing he\r
+did, was right. Every thing he said, was clever. If their evenings at\r
+the park were concluded with cards, he cheated himself and all the rest\r
+of the party to get her a good hand. If dancing formed the amusement\r
+of the night, they were partners for half the time; and when obliged to\r
+separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together and\r
+scarcely spoke a word to any body else. Such conduct made them of\r
+course most exceedingly laughed at; but ridicule could not shame, and\r
+seemed hardly to provoke them.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood entered into all their feelings with a warmth which left\r
+her no inclination for checking this excessive display of them. To her\r
+it was but the natural consequence of a strong affection in a young and\r
+ardent mind.\r
+\r
+This was the season of happiness to Marianne. Her heart was devoted to\r
+Willoughby, and the fond attachment to Norland, which she brought with\r
+her from Sussex, was more likely to be softened than she had thought it\r
+possible before, by the charms which his society bestowed on her\r
+present home.\r
+\r
+Elinor's happiness was not so great. Her heart was not so much at\r
+ease, nor her satisfaction in their amusements so pure. They afforded\r
+her no companion that could make amends for what she had left behind,\r
+nor that could teach her to think of Norland with less regret than\r
+ever. Neither Lady Middleton nor Mrs. Jennings could supply to her the\r
+conversation she missed; although the latter was an everlasting talker,\r
+and from the first had regarded her with a kindness which ensured her a\r
+large share of her discourse. She had already repeated her own history\r
+to Elinor three or four times; and had Elinor's memory been equal to\r
+her means of improvement, she might have known very early in their\r
+acquaintance all the particulars of Mr. Jennings's last illness, and\r
+what he said to his wife a few minutes before he died. Lady Middleton\r
+was more agreeable than her mother only in being more silent. Elinor\r
+needed little observation to perceive that her reserve was a mere\r
+calmness of manner with which sense had nothing to do. Towards her\r
+husband and mother she was the same as to them; and intimacy was\r
+therefore neither to be looked for nor desired. She had nothing to say\r
+one day that she had not said the day before. Her insipidity was\r
+invariable, for even her spirits were always the same; and though she\r
+did not oppose the parties arranged by her husband, provided every\r
+thing were conducted in style and her two eldest children attended her,\r
+she never appeared to receive more enjoyment from them than she might\r
+have experienced in sitting at home;--and so little did her presence\r
+add to the pleasure of the others, by any share in their conversation,\r
+that they were sometimes only reminded of her being amongst them by her\r
+solicitude about her troublesome boys.\r
+\r
+In Colonel Brandon alone, of all her new acquaintance, did Elinor find\r
+a person who could in any degree claim the respect of abilities, excite\r
+the interest of friendship, or give pleasure as a companion.\r
+Willoughby was out of the question. Her admiration and regard, even\r
+her sisterly regard, was all his own; but he was a lover; his\r
+attentions were wholly Marianne's, and a far less agreeable man might\r
+have been more generally pleasing. Colonel Brandon, unfortunately for\r
+himself, had no such encouragement to think only of Marianne, and in\r
+conversing with Elinor he found the greatest consolation for the\r
+indifference of her sister.\r
+\r
+Elinor's compassion for him increased, as she had reason to suspect\r
+that the misery of disappointed love had already been known to him.\r
+This suspicion was given by some words which accidentally dropped from\r
+him one evening at the park, when they were sitting down together by\r
+mutual consent, while the others were dancing. His eyes were fixed on\r
+Marianne, and, after a silence of some minutes, he said, with a faint\r
+smile, "Your sister, I understand, does not approve of second\r
+attachments."\r
+\r
+"No," replied Elinor, "her opinions are all romantic."\r
+\r
+"Or rather, as I believe, she considers them impossible to exist."\r
+\r
+"I believe she does. But how she contrives it without reflecting on\r
+the character of her own father, who had himself two wives, I know not.\r
+A few years however will settle her opinions on the reasonable basis of\r
+common sense and observation; and then they may be more easy to define\r
+and to justify than they now are, by any body but herself."\r
+\r
+"This will probably be the case," he replied; "and yet there is\r
+something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is\r
+sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions."\r
+\r
+"I cannot agree with you there," said Elinor. "There are\r
+inconveniences attending such feelings as Marianne's, which all the\r
+charms of enthusiasm and ignorance of the world cannot atone for. Her\r
+systems have all the unfortunate tendency of setting propriety at\r
+nought; and a better acquaintance with the world is what I look forward\r
+to as her greatest possible advantage."\r
+\r
+After a short pause he resumed the conversation by saying,--\r
+\r
+"Does your sister make no distinction in her objections against a\r
+second attachment? or is it equally criminal in every body? Are those\r
+who have been disappointed in their first choice, whether from the\r
+inconstancy of its object, or the perverseness of circumstances, to be\r
+equally indifferent during the rest of their lives?"\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, I am not acquainted with the minutiae of her principles.\r
+I only know that I never yet heard her admit any instance of a second\r
+attachment's being pardonable."\r
+\r
+"This," said he, "cannot hold; but a change, a total change of\r
+sentiments--No, no, do not desire it; for when the romantic refinements\r
+of a young mind are obliged to give way, how frequently are they\r
+succeeded by such opinions as are but too common, and too dangerous! I\r
+speak from experience. I once knew a lady who in temper and mind\r
+greatly resembled your sister, who thought and judged like her, but who\r
+from an inforced change--from a series of unfortunate circumstances"--\r
+Here he stopt suddenly; appeared to think that he had said too much,\r
+and by his countenance gave rise to conjectures, which might not\r
+otherwise have entered Elinor's head. The lady would probably have\r
+passed without suspicion, had he not convinced Miss Dashwood that what\r
+concerned her ought not to escape his lips. As it was, it required but\r
+a slight effort of fancy to connect his emotion with the tender\r
+recollection of past regard. Elinor attempted no more. But Marianne,\r
+in her place, would not have done so little. The whole story would\r
+have been speedily formed under her active imagination; and every thing\r
+established in the most melancholy order of disastrous love.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 12\r
+\r
+\r
+As Elinor and Marianne were walking together the next morning the\r
+latter communicated a piece of news to her sister, which in spite of\r
+all that she knew before of Marianne's imprudence and want of thought,\r
+surprised her by its extravagant testimony of both. Marianne told her,\r
+with the greatest delight, that Willoughby had given her a horse, one\r
+that he had bred himself on his estate in Somersetshire, and which was\r
+exactly calculated to carry a woman. Without considering that it was\r
+not in her mother's plan to keep any horse, that if she were to alter\r
+her resolution in favour of this gift, she must buy another for the\r
+servant, and keep a servant to ride it, and after all, build a stable\r
+to receive them, she had accepted the present without hesitation, and\r
+told her sister of it in raptures.\r
+\r
+"He intends to send his groom into Somersetshire immediately for it,"\r
+she added, "and when it arrives we will ride every day. You shall\r
+share its use with me. Imagine to yourself, my dear Elinor, the\r
+delight of a gallop on some of these downs."\r
+\r
+Most unwilling was she to awaken from such a dream of felicity to\r
+comprehend all the unhappy truths which attended the affair; and for\r
+some time she refused to submit to them. As to an additional servant,\r
+the expense would be a trifle; Mama she was sure would never object to\r
+it; and any horse would do for HIM; he might always get one at the\r
+park; as to a stable, the merest shed would be sufficient. Elinor then\r
+ventured to doubt the propriety of her receiving such a present from a\r
+man so little, or at least so lately known to her. This was too much.\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken, Elinor," said she warmly, "in supposing I know very\r
+little of Willoughby. I have not known him long indeed, but I am much\r
+better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in the\r
+world, except yourself and mama. It is not time or opportunity that is\r
+to determine intimacy;--it is disposition alone. Seven years would be\r
+insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven\r
+days are more than enough for others. I should hold myself guilty of\r
+greater impropriety in accepting a horse from my brother, than from\r
+Willoughby. Of John I know very little, though we have lived together\r
+for years; but of Willoughby my judgment has long been formed."\r
+\r
+Elinor thought it wisest to touch that point no more. She knew her\r
+sister's temper. Opposition on so tender a subject would only attach\r
+her the more to her own opinion. But by an appeal to her affection for\r
+her mother, by representing the inconveniences which that indulgent\r
+mother must draw on herself, if (as would probably be the case) she\r
+consented to this increase of establishment, Marianne was shortly\r
+subdued; and she promised not to tempt her mother to such imprudent\r
+kindness by mentioning the offer, and to tell Willoughby when she saw\r
+him next, that it must be declined.\r
+\r
+She was faithful to her word; and when Willoughby called at the\r
+cottage, the same day, Elinor heard her express her disappointment to\r
+him in a low voice, on being obliged to forego the acceptance of his\r
+present. The reasons for this alteration were at the same time\r
+related, and they were such as to make further entreaty on his side\r
+impossible. His concern however was very apparent; and after\r
+expressing it with earnestness, he added, in the same low voice,--"But,\r
+Marianne, the horse is still yours, though you cannot use it now. I\r
+shall keep it only till you can claim it. When you leave Barton to\r
+form your own establishment in a more lasting home, Queen Mab shall\r
+receive you."\r
+\r
+This was all overheard by Miss Dashwood; and in the whole of the\r
+sentence, in his manner of pronouncing it, and in his addressing her\r
+sister by her Christian name alone, she instantly saw an intimacy so\r
+decided, a meaning so direct, as marked a perfect agreement between\r
+them. From that moment she doubted not of their being engaged to each\r
+other; and the belief of it created no other surprise than that she, or\r
+any of their friends, should be left by tempers so frank, to discover\r
+it by accident.\r
+\r
+Margaret related something to her the next day, which placed this\r
+matter in a still clearer light. Willoughby had spent the preceding\r
+evening with them, and Margaret, by being left some time in the parlour\r
+with only him and Marianne, had had opportunity for observations,\r
+which, with a most important face, she communicated to her eldest\r
+sister, when they were next by themselves.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Elinor!" she cried, "I have such a secret to tell you about\r
+Marianne. I am sure she will be married to Mr. Willoughby very soon."\r
+\r
+"You have said so," replied Elinor, "almost every day since they first\r
+met on High-church Down; and they had not known each other a week, I\r
+believe, before you were certain that Marianne wore his picture round\r
+her neck; but it turned out to be only the miniature of our great\r
+uncle."\r
+\r
+"But indeed this is quite another thing. I am sure they will be\r
+married very soon, for he has got a lock of her hair."\r
+\r
+"Take care, Margaret. It may be only the hair of some great uncle of\r
+HIS."\r
+\r
+"But, indeed, Elinor, it is Marianne's. I am almost sure it is, for I\r
+saw him cut it off. Last night after tea, when you and mama went out\r
+of the room, they were whispering and talking together as fast as could\r
+be, and he seemed to be begging something of her, and presently he took\r
+up her scissors and cut off a long lock of her hair, for it was all\r
+tumbled down her back; and he kissed it, and folded it up in a piece of\r
+white paper; and put it into his pocket-book."\r
+\r
+For such particulars, stated on such authority, Elinor could not\r
+withhold her credit; nor was she disposed to it, for the circumstance\r
+was in perfect unison with what she had heard and seen herself.\r
+\r
+Margaret's sagacity was not always displayed in a way so satisfactory\r
+to her sister. When Mrs. Jennings attacked her one evening at the\r
+park, to give the name of the young man who was Elinor's particular\r
+favourite, which had been long a matter of great curiosity to her,\r
+Margaret answered by looking at her sister, and saying, "I must not\r
+tell, may I, Elinor?"\r
+\r
+This of course made every body laugh; and Elinor tried to laugh too.\r
+But the effort was painful. She was convinced that Margaret had fixed\r
+on a person whose name she could not bear with composure to become a\r
+standing joke with Mrs. Jennings.\r
+\r
+Marianne felt for her most sincerely; but she did more harm than good\r
+to the cause, by turning very red and saying in an angry manner to\r
+Margaret,\r
+\r
+"Remember that whatever your conjectures may be, you have no right to\r
+repeat them."\r
+\r
+"I never had any conjectures about it," replied Margaret; "it was you\r
+who told me of it yourself."\r
+\r
+This increased the mirth of the company, and Margaret was eagerly\r
+pressed to say something more.\r
+\r
+"Oh! pray, Miss Margaret, let us know all about it," said Mrs.\r
+Jennings. "What is the gentleman's name?"\r
+\r
+"I must not tell, ma'am. But I know very well what it is; and I know\r
+where he is too."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, we can guess where he is; at his own house at Norland to be\r
+sure. He is the curate of the parish I dare say."\r
+\r
+"No, THAT he is not. He is of no profession at all."\r
+\r
+"Margaret," said Marianne with great warmth, "you know that all this is\r
+an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in\r
+existence."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such\r
+a man once, and his name begins with an F."\r
+\r
+Most grateful did Elinor feel to Lady Middleton for observing, at this\r
+moment, "that it rained very hard," though she believed the\r
+interruption to proceed less from any attention to her, than from her\r
+ladyship's great dislike of all such inelegant subjects of raillery as\r
+delighted her husband and mother. The idea however started by her, was\r
+immediately pursued by Colonel Brandon, who was on every occasion\r
+mindful of the feelings of others; and much was said on the subject of\r
+rain by both of them. Willoughby opened the piano-forte, and asked\r
+Marianne to sit down to it; and thus amidst the various endeavours of\r
+different people to quit the topic, it fell to the ground. But not so\r
+easily did Elinor recover from the alarm into which it had thrown her.\r
+\r
+A party was formed this evening for going on the following day to see a\r
+very fine place about twelve miles from Barton, belonging to a\r
+brother-in-law of Colonel Brandon, without whose interest it could not\r
+be seen, as the proprietor, who was then abroad, had left strict orders\r
+on that head. The grounds were declared to be highly beautiful, and\r
+Sir John, who was particularly warm in their praise, might be allowed\r
+to be a tolerable judge, for he had formed parties to visit them, at\r
+least, twice every summer for the last ten years. They contained a\r
+noble piece of water; a sail on which was to a form a great part of the\r
+morning's amusement; cold provisions were to be taken, open carriages\r
+only to be employed, and every thing conducted in the usual style of a\r
+complete party of pleasure.\r
+\r
+To some few of the company it appeared rather a bold undertaking,\r
+considering the time of year, and that it had rained every day for the\r
+last fortnight;--and Mrs. Dashwood, who had already a cold, was\r
+persuaded by Elinor to stay at home.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 13\r
+\r
+\r
+Their intended excursion to Whitwell turned out very different from\r
+what Elinor had expected. She was prepared to be wet through,\r
+fatigued, and frightened; but the event was still more unfortunate, for\r
+they did not go at all.\r
+\r
+By ten o'clock the whole party was assembled at the park, where they\r
+were to breakfast. The morning was rather favourable, though it had\r
+rained all night, as the clouds were then dispersing across the sky,\r
+and the sun frequently appeared. They were all in high spirits and\r
+good humour, eager to be happy, and determined to submit to the\r
+greatest inconveniences and hardships rather than be otherwise.\r
+\r
+While they were at breakfast the letters were brought in. Among the\r
+rest there was one for Colonel Brandon;--he took it, looked at the\r
+direction, changed colour, and immediately left the room.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter with Brandon?" said Sir John.\r
+\r
+Nobody could tell.\r
+\r
+"I hope he has had no bad news," said Lady Middleton. "It must be\r
+something extraordinary that could make Colonel Brandon leave my\r
+breakfast table so suddenly."\r
+\r
+In about five minutes he returned.\r
+\r
+"No bad news, Colonel, I hope;" said Mrs. Jennings, as soon as he\r
+entered the room.\r
+\r
+"None at all, ma'am, I thank you."\r
+\r
+"Was it from Avignon? I hope it is not to say that your sister is\r
+worse."\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am. It came from town, and is merely a letter of business."\r
+\r
+"But how came the hand to discompose you so much, if it was only a\r
+letter of business? Come, come, this won't do, Colonel; so let us hear\r
+the truth of it."\r
+\r
+"My dear madam," said Lady Middleton, "recollect what you are saying."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps it is to tell you that your cousin Fanny is married?" said\r
+Mrs. Jennings, without attending to her daughter's reproof.\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, it is not."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I know who it is from, Colonel. And I hope she is well."\r
+\r
+"Whom do you mean, ma'am?" said he, colouring a little.\r
+\r
+"Oh! you know who I mean."\r
+\r
+"I am particularly sorry, ma'am," said he, addressing Lady Middleton,\r
+"that I should receive this letter today, for it is on business which\r
+requires my immediate attendance in town."\r
+\r
+"In town!" cried Mrs. Jennings. "What can you have to do in town at\r
+this time of year?"\r
+\r
+"My own loss is great," he continued, "in being obliged to leave so\r
+agreeable a party; but I am the more concerned, as I fear my presence\r
+is necessary to gain your admittance at Whitwell."\r
+\r
+What a blow upon them all was this!\r
+\r
+"But if you write a note to the housekeeper, Mr. Brandon," said\r
+Marianne, eagerly, "will it not be sufficient?"\r
+\r
+He shook his head.\r
+\r
+"We must go," said Sir John.--"It shall not be put off when we are so\r
+near it. You cannot go to town till tomorrow, Brandon, that is all."\r
+\r
+"I wish it could be so easily settled. But it is not in my power to\r
+delay my journey for one day!"\r
+\r
+"If you would but let us know what your business is," said Mrs.\r
+Jennings, "we might see whether it could be put off or not."\r
+\r
+"You would not be six hours later," said Willoughby, "if you were to\r
+defer your journey till our return."\r
+\r
+"I cannot afford to lose ONE hour."--\r
+\r
+Elinor then heard Willoughby say, in a low voice to Marianne, "There\r
+are some people who cannot bear a party of pleasure. Brandon is one of\r
+them. He was afraid of catching cold I dare say, and invented this\r
+trick for getting out of it. I would lay fifty guineas the letter was\r
+of his own writing."\r
+\r
+"I have no doubt of it," replied Marianne.\r
+\r
+"There is no persuading you to change your mind, Brandon, I know of\r
+old," said Sir John, "when once you are determined on anything. But,\r
+however, I hope you will think better of it. Consider, here are the\r
+two Miss Careys come over from Newton, the three Miss Dashwoods walked\r
+up from the cottage, and Mr. Willoughby got up two hours before his\r
+usual time, on purpose to go to Whitwell."\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon again repeated his sorrow at being the cause of\r
+disappointing the party; but at the same time declared it to be\r
+unavoidable.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, when will you come back again?"\r
+\r
+"I hope we shall see you at Barton," added her ladyship, "as soon as\r
+you can conveniently leave town; and we must put off the party to\r
+Whitwell till you return."\r
+\r
+"You are very obliging. But it is so uncertain, when I may have it in\r
+my power to return, that I dare not engage for it at all."\r
+\r
+"Oh! he must and shall come back," cried Sir John. "If he is not here\r
+by the end of the week, I shall go after him."\r
+\r
+"Ay, so do, Sir John," cried Mrs. Jennings, "and then perhaps you may\r
+find out what his business is."\r
+\r
+"I do not want to pry into other men's concerns. I suppose it is\r
+something he is ashamed of."\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon's horses were announced.\r
+\r
+"You do not go to town on horseback, do you?" added Sir John.\r
+\r
+"No. Only to Honiton. I shall then go post."\r
+\r
+"Well, as you are resolved to go, I wish you a good journey. But you\r
+had better change your mind."\r
+\r
+"I assure you it is not in my power."\r
+\r
+He then took leave of the whole party.\r
+\r
+"Is there no chance of my seeing you and your sisters in town this\r
+winter, Miss Dashwood?"\r
+\r
+"I am afraid, none at all."\r
+\r
+"Then I must bid you farewell for a longer time than I should wish to\r
+do."\r
+\r
+To Marianne, he merely bowed and said nothing.\r
+\r
+"Come Colonel," said Mrs. Jennings, "before you go, do let us know what\r
+you are going about."\r
+\r
+He wished her a good morning, and, attended by Sir John, left the room.\r
+\r
+The complaints and lamentations which politeness had hitherto\r
+restrained, now burst forth universally; and they all agreed again and\r
+again how provoking it was to be so disappointed.\r
+\r
+"I can guess what his business is, however," said Mrs. Jennings\r
+exultingly.\r
+\r
+"Can you, ma'am?" said almost every body.\r
+\r
+"Yes; it is about Miss Williams, I am sure."\r
+\r
+"And who is Miss Williams?" asked Marianne.\r
+\r
+"What! do not you know who Miss Williams is? I am sure you must have\r
+heard of her before. She is a relation of the Colonel's, my dear; a\r
+very near relation. We will not say how near, for fear of shocking the\r
+young ladies." Then, lowering her voice a little, she said to Elinor,\r
+"She is his natural daughter."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes; and as like him as she can stare. I dare say the Colonel\r
+will leave her all his fortune."\r
+\r
+When Sir John returned, he joined most heartily in the general regret\r
+on so unfortunate an event; concluding however by observing, that as\r
+they were all got together, they must do something by way of being\r
+happy; and after some consultation it was agreed, that although\r
+happiness could only be enjoyed at Whitwell, they might procure a\r
+tolerable composure of mind by driving about the country. The\r
+carriages were then ordered; Willoughby's was first, and Marianne never\r
+looked happier than when she got into it. He drove through the park\r
+very fast, and they were soon out of sight; and nothing more of them\r
+was seen till their return, which did not happen till after the return\r
+of all the rest. They both seemed delighted with their drive; but said\r
+only in general terms that they had kept in the lanes, while the others\r
+went on the downs.\r
+\r
+It was settled that there should be a dance in the evening, and that\r
+every body should be extremely merry all day long. Some more of the\r
+Careys came to dinner, and they had the pleasure of sitting down nearly\r
+twenty to table, which Sir John observed with great contentment.\r
+Willoughby took his usual place between the two elder Miss Dashwoods.\r
+Mrs. Jennings sat on Elinor's right hand; and they had not been long\r
+seated, before she leant behind her and Willoughby, and said to\r
+Marianne, loud enough for them both to hear, "I have found you out in\r
+spite of all your tricks. I know where you spent the morning."\r
+\r
+Marianne coloured, and replied very hastily, "Where, pray?"--\r
+\r
+"Did not you know," said Willoughby, "that we had been out in my\r
+curricle?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, Mr. Impudence, I know that very well, and I was determined\r
+to find out WHERE you had been to.-- I hope you like your house, Miss\r
+Marianne. It is a very large one, I know; and when I come to see you,\r
+I hope you will have new-furnished it, for it wanted it very much when\r
+I was there six years ago."\r
+\r
+Marianne turned away in great confusion. Mrs. Jennings laughed\r
+heartily; and Elinor found that in her resolution to know where they\r
+had been, she had actually made her own woman enquire of Mr.\r
+Willoughby's groom; and that she had by that method been informed that\r
+they had gone to Allenham, and spent a considerable time there in\r
+walking about the garden and going all over the house.\r
+\r
+Elinor could hardly believe this to be true, as it seemed very unlikely\r
+that Willoughby should propose, or Marianne consent, to enter the house\r
+while Mrs. Smith was in it, with whom Marianne had not the smallest\r
+acquaintance.\r
+\r
+As soon as they left the dining-room, Elinor enquired of her about it;\r
+and great was her surprise when she found that every circumstance\r
+related by Mrs. Jennings was perfectly true. Marianne was quite angry\r
+with her for doubting it.\r
+\r
+"Why should you imagine, Elinor, that we did not go there, or that we\r
+did not see the house? Is not it what you have often wished to do\r
+yourself?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Marianne, but I would not go while Mrs. Smith was there, and with\r
+no other companion than Mr. Willoughby."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Willoughby however is the only person who can have a right to shew\r
+that house; and as he went in an open carriage, it was impossible to\r
+have any other companion. I never spent a pleasanter morning in my\r
+life."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid," replied Elinor, "that the pleasantness of an employment\r
+does not always evince its propriety."\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, nothing can be a stronger proof of it, Elinor; for if\r
+there had been any real impropriety in what I did, I should have been\r
+sensible of it at the time, for we always know when we are acting\r
+wrong, and with such a conviction I could have had no pleasure."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear Marianne, as it has already exposed you to some very\r
+impertinent remarks, do you not now begin to doubt the discretion of\r
+your own conduct?"\r
+\r
+"If the impertinent remarks of Mrs. Jennings are to be the proof of\r
+impropriety in conduct, we are all offending every moment of our lives.\r
+I value not her censure any more than I should do her commendation. I\r
+am not sensible of having done anything wrong in walking over Mrs.\r
+Smith's grounds, or in seeing her house. They will one day be Mr.\r
+Willoughby's, and--"\r
+\r
+"If they were one day to be your own, Marianne, you would not be\r
+justified in what you have done."\r
+\r
+She blushed at this hint; but it was even visibly gratifying to her;\r
+and after a ten minutes' interval of earnest thought, she came to her\r
+sister again, and said with great good humour, "Perhaps, Elinor, it WAS\r
+rather ill-judged in me to go to Allenham; but Mr. Willoughby wanted\r
+particularly to shew me the place; and it is a charming house, I assure\r
+you.--There is one remarkably pretty sitting room up stairs; of a nice\r
+comfortable size for constant use, and with modern furniture it would\r
+be delightful. It is a corner room, and has windows on two sides. On\r
+one side you look across the bowling-green, behind the house, to a\r
+beautiful hanging wood, and on the other you have a view of the church\r
+and village, and, beyond them, of those fine bold hills that we have so\r
+often admired. I did not see it to advantage, for nothing could be\r
+more forlorn than the furniture,--but if it were newly fitted up--a\r
+couple of hundred pounds, Willoughby says, would make it one of the\r
+pleasantest summer-rooms in England."\r
+\r
+Could Elinor have listened to her without interruption from the others,\r
+she would have described every room in the house with equal delight.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 14\r
+\r
+\r
+The sudden termination of Colonel Brandon's visit at the park, with his\r
+steadiness in concealing its cause, filled the mind, and raised the\r
+wonder of Mrs. Jennings for two or three days; she was a great\r
+wonderer, as every one must be who takes a very lively interest in all\r
+the comings and goings of all their acquaintance. She wondered, with\r
+little intermission what could be the reason of it; was sure there must\r
+be some bad news, and thought over every kind of distress that could\r
+have befallen him, with a fixed determination that he should not escape\r
+them all.\r
+\r
+"Something very melancholy must be the matter, I am sure," said she.\r
+"I could see it in his face. Poor man! I am afraid his circumstances\r
+may be bad. The estate at Delaford was never reckoned more than two\r
+thousand a year, and his brother left everything sadly involved. I do\r
+think he must have been sent for about money matters, for what else can\r
+it be? I wonder whether it is so. I would give anything to know the\r
+truth of it. Perhaps it is about Miss Williams and, by the bye, I dare\r
+say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her. May be\r
+she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a\r
+notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about\r
+Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his\r
+circumstances NOW, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must\r
+have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be! May be\r
+his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent for him over. His setting\r
+off in such a hurry seems very like it. Well, I wish him out of all\r
+his trouble with all my heart, and a good wife into the bargain."\r
+\r
+So wondered, so talked Mrs. Jennings. Her opinion varying with every\r
+fresh conjecture, and all seeming equally probable as they arose.\r
+Elinor, though she felt really interested in the welfare of Colonel\r
+Brandon, could not bestow all the wonder on his going so suddenly away,\r
+which Mrs. Jennings was desirous of her feeling; for besides that the\r
+circumstance did not in her opinion justify such lasting amazement or\r
+variety of speculation, her wonder was otherwise disposed of. It was\r
+engrossed by the extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on\r
+the subject, which they must know to be peculiarly interesting to them\r
+all. As this silence continued, every day made it appear more strange\r
+and more incompatible with the disposition of both. Why they should\r
+not openly acknowledge to her mother and herself, what their constant\r
+behaviour to each other declared to have taken place, Elinor could not\r
+imagine.\r
+\r
+She could easily conceive that marriage might not be immediately in\r
+their power; for though Willoughby was independent, there was no reason\r
+to believe him rich. His estate had been rated by Sir John at about\r
+six or seven hundred a year; but he lived at an expense to which that\r
+income could hardly be equal, and he had himself often complained of\r
+his poverty. But for this strange kind of secrecy maintained by them\r
+relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed nothing at all,\r
+she could not account; and it was so wholly contradictory to their\r
+general opinions and practice, that a doubt sometimes entered her mind\r
+of their being really engaged, and this doubt was enough to prevent her\r
+making any inquiry of Marianne.\r
+\r
+Nothing could be more expressive of attachment to them all, than\r
+Willoughby's behaviour. To Marianne it had all the distinguishing\r
+tenderness which a lover's heart could give, and to the rest of the\r
+family it was the affectionate attention of a son and a brother. The\r
+cottage seemed to be considered and loved by him as his home; many more\r
+of his hours were spent there than at Allenham; and if no general\r
+engagement collected them at the park, the exercise which called him\r
+out in the morning was almost certain of ending there, where the rest\r
+of the day was spent by himself at the side of Marianne, and by his\r
+favourite pointer at her feet.\r
+\r
+One evening in particular, about a week after Colonel Brandon left the\r
+country, his heart seemed more than usually open to every feeling of\r
+attachment to the objects around him; and on Mrs. Dashwood's happening\r
+to mention her design of improving the cottage in the spring, he warmly\r
+opposed every alteration of a place which affection had established as\r
+perfect with him.\r
+\r
+"What!" he exclaimed--"Improve this dear cottage! No. THAT I will\r
+never consent to. Not a stone must be added to its walls, not an inch\r
+to its size, if my feelings are regarded."\r
+\r
+"Do not be alarmed," said Miss Dashwood, "nothing of the kind will be\r
+done; for my mother will never have money enough to attempt it."\r
+\r
+"I am heartily glad of it," he cried. "May she always be poor, if she\r
+can employ her riches no better."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Willoughby. But you may be assured that I would not\r
+sacrifice one sentiment of local attachment of yours, or of any one\r
+whom I loved, for all the improvements in the world. Depend upon it\r
+that whatever unemployed sum may remain, when I make up my accounts in\r
+the spring, I would even rather lay it uselessly by than dispose of it\r
+in a manner so painful to you. But are you really so attached to this\r
+place as to see no defect in it?"\r
+\r
+"I am," said he. "To me it is faultless. Nay, more, I consider it as\r
+the only form of building in which happiness is attainable, and were I\r
+rich enough I would instantly pull Combe down, and build it up again in\r
+the exact plan of this cottage."\r
+\r
+"With dark narrow stairs and a kitchen that smokes, I suppose," said\r
+Elinor.\r
+\r
+"Yes," cried he in the same eager tone, "with all and every thing\r
+belonging to it;--in no one convenience or INconvenience about it,\r
+should the least variation be perceptible. Then, and then only, under\r
+such a roof, I might perhaps be as happy at Combe as I have been at\r
+Barton."\r
+\r
+"I flatter myself," replied Elinor, "that even under the disadvantage\r
+of better rooms and a broader staircase, you will hereafter find your\r
+own house as faultless as you now do this."\r
+\r
+"There certainly are circumstances," said Willoughby, "which might\r
+greatly endear it to me; but this place will always have one claim of\r
+my affection, which no other can possibly share."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood looked with pleasure at Marianne, whose fine eyes were\r
+fixed so expressively on Willoughby, as plainly denoted how well she\r
+understood him.\r
+\r
+"How often did I wish," added he, "when I was at Allenham this time\r
+twelvemonth, that Barton cottage were inhabited! I never passed within\r
+view of it without admiring its situation, and grieving that no one\r
+should live in it. How little did I then think that the very first\r
+news I should hear from Mrs. Smith, when I next came into the country,\r
+would be that Barton cottage was taken: and I felt an immediate\r
+satisfaction and interest in the event, which nothing but a kind of\r
+prescience of what happiness I should experience from it, can account\r
+for. Must it not have been so, Marianne?" speaking to her in a lowered\r
+voice. Then continuing his former tone, he said, "And yet this house\r
+you would spoil, Mrs. Dashwood? You would rob it of its simplicity by\r
+imaginary improvement! and this dear parlour in which our acquaintance\r
+first began, and in which so many happy hours have been since spent by\r
+us together, you would degrade to the condition of a common entrance,\r
+and every body would be eager to pass through the room which has\r
+hitherto contained within itself more real accommodation and comfort\r
+than any other apartment of the handsomest dimensions in the world\r
+could possibly afford."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood again assured him that no alteration of the kind should\r
+be attempted.\r
+\r
+"You are a good woman," he warmly replied. "Your promise makes me\r
+easy. Extend it a little farther, and it will make me happy. Tell me\r
+that not only your house will remain the same, but that I shall ever\r
+find you and yours as unchanged as your dwelling; and that you will\r
+always consider me with the kindness which has made everything\r
+belonging to you so dear to me."\r
+\r
+The promise was readily given, and Willoughby's behaviour during the\r
+whole of the evening declared at once his affection and happiness.\r
+\r
+"Shall we see you tomorrow to dinner?" said Mrs. Dashwood, when he was\r
+leaving them. "I do not ask you to come in the morning, for we must\r
+walk to the park, to call on Lady Middleton."\r
+\r
+He engaged to be with them by four o'clock.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 15\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood's visit to Lady Middleton took place the next day, and\r
+two of her daughters went with her; but Marianne excused herself from\r
+being of the party, under some trifling pretext of employment; and her\r
+mother, who concluded that a promise had been made by Willoughby the\r
+night before of calling on her while they were absent, was perfectly\r
+satisfied with her remaining at home.\r
+\r
+On their return from the park they found Willoughby's curricle and\r
+servant in waiting at the cottage, and Mrs. Dashwood was convinced that\r
+her conjecture had been just. So far it was all as she had foreseen;\r
+but on entering the house she beheld what no foresight had taught her\r
+to expect. They were no sooner in the passage than Marianne came\r
+hastily out of the parlour apparently in violent affliction, with her\r
+handkerchief at her eyes; and without noticing them ran up stairs.\r
+Surprised and alarmed they proceeded directly into the room she had\r
+just quitted, where they found only Willoughby, who was leaning against\r
+the mantel-piece with his back towards them. He turned round on their\r
+coming in, and his countenance shewed that he strongly partook of the\r
+emotion which over-powered Marianne.\r
+\r
+"Is anything the matter with her?" cried Mrs. Dashwood as she\r
+entered--"is she ill?"\r
+\r
+"I hope not," he replied, trying to look cheerful; and with a forced\r
+smile presently added, "It is I who may rather expect to be ill--for I\r
+am now suffering under a very heavy disappointment!"\r
+\r
+"Disappointment?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, for I am unable to keep my engagement with you. Mrs. Smith has\r
+this morning exercised the privilege of riches upon a poor dependent\r
+cousin, by sending me on business to London. I have just received my\r
+dispatches, and taken my farewell of Allenham; and by way of\r
+exhilaration I am now come to take my farewell of you."\r
+\r
+"To London!--and are you going this morning?"\r
+\r
+"Almost this moment."\r
+\r
+"This is very unfortunate. But Mrs. Smith must be obliged;--and her\r
+business will not detain you from us long I hope."\r
+\r
+He coloured as he replied, "You are very kind, but I have no idea of\r
+returning into Devonshire immediately. My visits to Mrs. Smith are\r
+never repeated within the twelvemonth."\r
+\r
+"And is Mrs. Smith your only friend? Is Allenham the only house in the\r
+neighbourhood to which you will be welcome? For shame, Willoughby, can\r
+you wait for an invitation here?"\r
+\r
+His colour increased; and with his eyes fixed on the ground he only\r
+replied, "You are too good."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood looked at Elinor with surprise. Elinor felt equal\r
+amazement. For a few moments every one was silent. Mrs. Dashwood\r
+first spoke.\r
+\r
+"I have only to add, my dear Willoughby, that at Barton cottage you\r
+will always be welcome; for I will not press you to return here\r
+immediately, because you only can judge how far THAT might be pleasing\r
+to Mrs. Smith; and on this head I shall be no more disposed to question\r
+your judgment than to doubt your inclination."\r
+\r
+"My engagements at present," replied Willoughby, confusedly, "are of\r
+such a nature--that--I dare not flatter myself"--\r
+\r
+He stopt. Mrs. Dashwood was too much astonished to speak, and another\r
+pause succeeded. This was broken by Willoughby, who said with a faint\r
+smile, "It is folly to linger in this manner. I will not torment\r
+myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is\r
+impossible for me now to enjoy."\r
+\r
+He then hastily took leave of them all and left the room. They saw him\r
+step into his carriage, and in a minute it was out of sight.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood felt too much for speech, and instantly quitted the\r
+parlour to give way in solitude to the concern and alarm which this\r
+sudden departure occasioned.\r
+\r
+Elinor's uneasiness was at least equal to her mother's. She thought of\r
+what had just passed with anxiety and distrust. Willoughby's behaviour\r
+in taking leave of them, his embarrassment, and affectation of\r
+cheerfulness, and, above all, his unwillingness to accept her mother's\r
+invitation, a backwardness so unlike a lover, so unlike himself,\r
+greatly disturbed her. One moment she feared that no serious design\r
+had ever been formed on his side; and the next that some unfortunate\r
+quarrel had taken place between him and her sister;--the distress in\r
+which Marianne had quitted the room was such as a serious quarrel could\r
+most reasonably account for, though when she considered what Marianne's\r
+love for him was, a quarrel seemed almost impossible.\r
+\r
+But whatever might be the particulars of their separation, her sister's\r
+affliction was indubitable; and she thought with the tenderest\r
+compassion of that violent sorrow which Marianne was in all probability\r
+not merely giving way to as a relief, but feeding and encouraging as a\r
+duty.\r
+\r
+In about half an hour her mother returned, and though her eyes were\r
+red, her countenance was not uncheerful.\r
+\r
+"Our dear Willoughby is now some miles from Barton, Elinor," said she,\r
+as she sat down to work, "and with how heavy a heart does he travel?"\r
+\r
+"It is all very strange. So suddenly to be gone! It seems but the work\r
+of a moment. And last night he was with us so happy, so cheerful, so\r
+affectionate? And now, after only ten minutes notice--Gone too without\r
+intending to return!--Something more than what he owned to us must have\r
+happened. He did not speak, he did not behave like himself. YOU must\r
+have seen the difference as well as I. What can it be? Can they have\r
+quarrelled? Why else should he have shewn such unwillingness to accept\r
+your invitation here?"--\r
+\r
+"It was not inclination that he wanted, Elinor; I could plainly see\r
+THAT. He had not the power of accepting it. I have thought it all\r
+over I assure you, and I can perfectly account for every thing that at\r
+first seemed strange to me as well as to you."\r
+\r
+"Can you, indeed!"\r
+\r
+"Yes. I have explained it to myself in the most satisfactory way;--but\r
+you, Elinor, who love to doubt where you can--it will not satisfy YOU,\r
+I know; but you shall not talk ME out of my trust in it. I am\r
+persuaded that Mrs. Smith suspects his regard for Marianne, disapproves\r
+of it, (perhaps because she has other views for him,) and on that\r
+account is eager to get him away;--and that the business which she\r
+sends him off to transact is invented as an excuse to dismiss him.\r
+This is what I believe to have happened. He is, moreover, aware that\r
+she DOES disapprove the connection, he dares not therefore at present\r
+confess to her his engagement with Marianne, and he feels himself\r
+obliged, from his dependent situation, to give into her schemes, and\r
+absent himself from Devonshire for a while. You will tell me, I know,\r
+that this may or may NOT have happened; but I will listen to no cavil,\r
+unless you can point out any other method of understanding the affair\r
+as satisfactory at this. And now, Elinor, what have you to say?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing, for you have anticipated my answer."\r
+\r
+"Then you would have told me, that it might or might not have happened.\r
+Oh, Elinor, how incomprehensible are your feelings! You had rather\r
+take evil upon credit than good. You had rather look out for misery\r
+for Marianne, and guilt for poor Willoughby, than an apology for the\r
+latter. You are resolved to think him blameable, because he took leave\r
+of us with less affection than his usual behaviour has shewn. And is\r
+no allowance to be made for inadvertence, or for spirits depressed by\r
+recent disappointment? Are no probabilities to be accepted, merely\r
+because they are not certainties? Is nothing due to the man whom we\r
+have all such reason to love, and no reason in the world to think ill\r
+of? To the possibility of motives unanswerable in themselves, though\r
+unavoidably secret for a while? And, after all, what is it you suspect\r
+him of?"\r
+\r
+"I can hardly tell myself. But suspicion of something unpleasant is\r
+the inevitable consequence of such an alteration as we just witnessed\r
+in him. There is great truth, however, in what you have now urged of\r
+the allowances which ought to be made for him, and it is my wish to be\r
+candid in my judgment of every body. Willoughby may undoubtedly have\r
+very sufficient reasons for his conduct, and I will hope that he has.\r
+But it would have been more like Willoughby to acknowledge them at\r
+once. Secrecy may be advisable; but still I cannot help wondering at\r
+its being practiced by him."\r
+\r
+"Do not blame him, however, for departing from his character, where the\r
+deviation is necessary. But you really do admit the justice of what I\r
+have said in his defence?--I am happy--and he is acquitted."\r
+\r
+"Not entirely. It may be proper to conceal their engagement (if they\r
+ARE engaged) from Mrs. Smith--and if that is the case, it must be\r
+highly expedient for Willoughby to be but little in Devonshire at\r
+present. But this is no excuse for their concealing it from us."\r
+\r
+"Concealing it from us! my dear child, do you accuse Willoughby and\r
+Marianne of concealment? This is strange indeed, when your eyes have\r
+been reproaching them every day for incautiousness."\r
+\r
+"I want no proof of their affection," said Elinor; "but of their\r
+engagement I do."\r
+\r
+"I am perfectly satisfied of both."\r
+\r
+"Yet not a syllable has been said to you on the subject, by either of\r
+them."\r
+\r
+"I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly. Has\r
+not his behaviour to Marianne and to all of us, for at least the last\r
+fortnight, declared that he loved and considered her as his future\r
+wife, and that he felt for us the attachment of the nearest relation?\r
+Have we not perfectly understood each other? Has not my consent been\r
+daily asked by his looks, his manner, his attentive and affectionate\r
+respect? My Elinor, is it possible to doubt their engagement? How\r
+could such a thought occur to you? How is it to be supposed that\r
+Willoughby, persuaded as he must be of your sister's love, should leave\r
+her, and leave her perhaps for months, without telling her of his\r
+affection;--that they should part without a mutual exchange of\r
+confidence?"\r
+\r
+"I confess," replied Elinor, "that every circumstance except ONE is in\r
+favour of their engagement; but that ONE is the total silence of both\r
+on the subject, and with me it almost outweighs every other."\r
+\r
+"How strange this is! You must think wretchedly indeed of Willoughby,\r
+if, after all that has openly passed between them, you can doubt the\r
+nature of the terms on which they are together. Has he been acting a\r
+part in his behaviour to your sister all this time? Do you suppose him\r
+really indifferent to her?"\r
+\r
+"No, I cannot think that. He must and does love her I am sure."\r
+\r
+"But with a strange kind of tenderness, if he can leave her with such\r
+indifference, such carelessness of the future, as you attribute to him."\r
+\r
+"You must remember, my dear mother, that I have never considered this\r
+matter as certain. I have had my doubts, I confess; but they are\r
+fainter than they were, and they may soon be entirely done away. If we\r
+find they correspond, every fear of mine will be removed."\r
+\r
+"A mighty concession indeed! If you were to see them at the altar, you\r
+would suppose they were going to be married. Ungracious girl! But I\r
+require no such proof. Nothing in my opinion has ever passed to\r
+justify doubt; no secrecy has been attempted; all has been uniformly\r
+open and unreserved. You cannot doubt your sister's wishes. It must\r
+be Willoughby therefore whom you suspect. But why? Is he not a man of\r
+honour and feeling? Has there been any inconsistency on his side to\r
+create alarm? can he be deceitful?"\r
+\r
+"I hope not, I believe not," cried Elinor. "I love Willoughby,\r
+sincerely love him; and suspicion of his integrity cannot be more\r
+painful to yourself than to me. It has been involuntary, and I will\r
+not encourage it. I was startled, I confess, by the alteration in his\r
+manners this morning;--he did not speak like himself, and did not\r
+return your kindness with any cordiality. But all this may be\r
+explained by such a situation of his affairs as you have supposed. He\r
+had just parted from my sister, had seen her leave him in the greatest\r
+affliction; and if he felt obliged, from a fear of offending Mrs.\r
+Smith, to resist the temptation of returning here soon, and yet aware\r
+that by declining your invitation, by saying that he was going away for\r
+some time, he should seem to act an ungenerous, a suspicious part by\r
+our family, he might well be embarrassed and disturbed. In such a\r
+case, a plain and open avowal of his difficulties would have been more\r
+to his honour I think, as well as more consistent with his general\r
+character;--but I will not raise objections against any one's conduct\r
+on so illiberal a foundation, as a difference in judgment from myself,\r
+or a deviation from what I may think right and consistent."\r
+\r
+"You speak very properly. Willoughby certainly does not deserve to be\r
+suspected. Though WE have not known him long, he is no stranger in\r
+this part of the world; and who has ever spoken to his disadvantage?\r
+Had he been in a situation to act independently and marry immediately,\r
+it might have been odd that he should leave us without acknowledging\r
+everything to me at once: but this is not the case. It is an\r
+engagement in some respects not prosperously begun, for their marriage\r
+must be at a very uncertain distance; and even secrecy, as far as it\r
+can be observed, may now be very advisable."\r
+\r
+They were interrupted by the entrance of Margaret; and Elinor was then\r
+at liberty to think over the representations of her mother, to\r
+acknowledge the probability of many, and hope for the justice of all.\r
+\r
+They saw nothing of Marianne till dinner time, when she entered the\r
+room and took her place at the table without saying a word. Her eyes\r
+were red and swollen; and it seemed as if her tears were even then\r
+restrained with difficulty. She avoided the looks of them all, could\r
+neither eat nor speak, and after some time, on her mother's silently\r
+pressing her hand with tender compassion, her small degree of fortitude\r
+was quite overcome, she burst into tears and left the room.\r
+\r
+This violent oppression of spirits continued the whole evening. She\r
+was without any power, because she was without any desire of command\r
+over herself. The slightest mention of anything relative to Willoughby\r
+overpowered her in an instant; and though her family were most\r
+anxiously attentive to her comfort, it was impossible for them, if they\r
+spoke at all, to keep clear of every subject which her feelings\r
+connected with him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 16\r
+\r
+\r
+Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able\r
+to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She\r
+would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next\r
+morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than\r
+when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a\r
+disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the\r
+whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with a\r
+headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment;\r
+giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all\r
+attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough!\r
+\r
+When breakfast was over she walked out by herself, and wandered about\r
+the village of Allenham, indulging the recollection of past enjoyment\r
+and crying over the present reverse for the chief of the morning.\r
+\r
+The evening passed off in the equal indulgence of feeling. She played\r
+over every favourite song that she had been used to play to Willoughby,\r
+every air in which their voices had been oftenest joined, and sat at\r
+the instrument gazing on every line of music that he had written out\r
+for her, till her heart was so heavy that no farther sadness could be\r
+gained; and this nourishment of grief was every day applied. She spent\r
+whole hours at the pianoforte alternately singing and crying; her voice\r
+often totally suspended by her tears. In books too, as well as in\r
+music, she courted the misery which a contrast between the past and\r
+present was certain of giving. She read nothing but what they had been\r
+used to read together.\r
+\r
+Such violence of affliction indeed could not be supported for ever; it\r
+sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy; but these employments,\r
+to which she daily recurred, her solitary walks and silent meditations,\r
+still produced occasional effusions of sorrow as lively as ever.\r
+\r
+No letter from Willoughby came; and none seemed expected by Marianne.\r
+Her mother was surprised, and Elinor again became uneasy. But Mrs.\r
+Dashwood could find explanations whenever she wanted them, which at\r
+least satisfied herself.\r
+\r
+"Remember, Elinor," said she, "how very often Sir John fetches our\r
+letters himself from the post, and carries them to it. We have already\r
+agreed that secrecy may be necessary, and we must acknowledge that it\r
+could not be maintained if their correspondence were to pass through\r
+Sir John's hands."\r
+\r
+Elinor could not deny the truth of this, and she tried to find in it a\r
+motive sufficient for their silence. But there was one method so\r
+direct, so simple, and in her opinion so eligible of knowing the real\r
+state of the affair, and of instantly removing all mystery, that she\r
+could not help suggesting it to her mother.\r
+\r
+"Why do you not ask Marianne at once," said she, "whether she is or she\r
+is not engaged to Willoughby? From you, her mother, and so kind, so\r
+indulgent a mother, the question could not give offence. It would be\r
+the natural result of your affection for her. She used to be all\r
+unreserve, and to you more especially."\r
+\r
+"I would not ask such a question for the world. Supposing it possible\r
+that they are not engaged, what distress would not such an enquiry\r
+inflict! At any rate it would be most ungenerous. I should never\r
+deserve her confidence again, after forcing from her a confession of\r
+what is meant at present to be unacknowledged to any one. I know\r
+Marianne's heart: I know that she dearly loves me, and that I shall not\r
+be the last to whom the affair is made known, when circumstances make\r
+the revealment of it eligible. I would not attempt to force the\r
+confidence of any one; of a child much less; because a sense of duty\r
+would prevent the denial which her wishes might direct."\r
+\r
+Elinor thought this generosity overstrained, considering her sister's\r
+youth, and urged the matter farther, but in vain; common sense, common\r
+care, common prudence, were all sunk in Mrs. Dashwood's romantic\r
+delicacy.\r
+\r
+It was several days before Willoughby's name was mentioned before\r
+Marianne by any of her family; Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, indeed, were\r
+not so nice; their witticisms added pain to many a painful hour;--but\r
+one evening, Mrs. Dashwood, accidentally taking up a volume of\r
+Shakespeare, exclaimed,\r
+\r
+"We have never finished Hamlet, Marianne; our dear Willoughby went away\r
+before we could get through it. We will put it by, that when he comes\r
+again...But it may be months, perhaps, before THAT happens."\r
+\r
+"Months!" cried Marianne, with strong surprise. "No--nor many weeks."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood was sorry for what she had said; but it gave Elinor\r
+pleasure, as it produced a reply from Marianne so expressive of\r
+confidence in Willoughby and knowledge of his intentions.\r
+\r
+One morning, about a week after his leaving the country, Marianne was\r
+prevailed on to join her sisters in their usual walk, instead of\r
+wandering away by herself. Hitherto she had carefully avoided every\r
+companion in her rambles. If her sisters intended to walk on the\r
+downs, she directly stole away towards the lanes; if they talked of the\r
+valley, she was as speedy in climbing the hills, and could never be\r
+found when the others set off. But at length she was secured by the\r
+exertions of Elinor, who greatly disapproved such continual seclusion.\r
+They walked along the road through the valley, and chiefly in silence,\r
+for Marianne's MIND could not be controlled, and Elinor, satisfied with\r
+gaining one point, would not then attempt more. Beyond the entrance of\r
+the valley, where the country, though still rich, was less wild and\r
+more open, a long stretch of the road which they had travelled on first\r
+coming to Barton, lay before them; and on reaching that point, they\r
+stopped to look around them, and examine a prospect which formed the\r
+distance of their view from the cottage, from a spot which they had\r
+never happened to reach in any of their walks before.\r
+\r
+Amongst the objects in the scene, they soon discovered an animated one;\r
+it was a man on horseback riding towards them. In a few minutes they\r
+could distinguish him to be a gentleman; and in a moment afterwards\r
+Marianne rapturously exclaimed,\r
+\r
+"It is he; it is indeed;--I know it is!"--and was hastening to meet\r
+him, when Elinor cried out,\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Marianne, I think you are mistaken. It is not Willoughby.\r
+The person is not tall enough for him, and has not his air."\r
+\r
+"He has, he has," cried Marianne, "I am sure he has. His air, his\r
+coat, his horse. I knew how soon he would come."\r
+\r
+She walked eagerly on as she spoke; and Elinor, to screen Marianne from\r
+particularity, as she felt almost certain of its not being Willoughby,\r
+quickened her pace and kept up with her. They were soon within thirty\r
+yards of the gentleman. Marianne looked again; her heart sunk within\r
+her; and abruptly turning round, she was hurrying back, when the voices\r
+of both her sisters were raised to detain her; a third, almost as well\r
+known as Willoughby's, joined them in begging her to stop, and she\r
+turned round with surprise to see and welcome Edward Ferrars.\r
+\r
+He was the only person in the world who could at that moment be\r
+forgiven for not being Willoughby; the only one who could have gained a\r
+smile from her; but she dispersed her tears to smile on HIM, and in her\r
+sister's happiness forgot for a time her own disappointment.\r
+\r
+He dismounted, and giving his horse to his servant, walked back with\r
+them to Barton, whither he was purposely coming to visit them.\r
+\r
+He was welcomed by them all with great cordiality, but especially by\r
+Marianne, who showed more warmth of regard in her reception of him than\r
+even Elinor herself. To Marianne, indeed, the meeting between Edward\r
+and her sister was but a continuation of that unaccountable coldness\r
+which she had often observed at Norland in their mutual behaviour. On\r
+Edward's side, more particularly, there was a deficiency of all that a\r
+lover ought to look and say on such an occasion. He was confused,\r
+seemed scarcely sensible of pleasure in seeing them, looked neither\r
+rapturous nor gay, said little but what was forced from him by\r
+questions, and distinguished Elinor by no mark of affection. Marianne\r
+saw and listened with increasing surprise. She began almost to feel a\r
+dislike of Edward; and it ended, as every feeling must end with her, by\r
+carrying back her thoughts to Willoughby, whose manners formed a\r
+contrast sufficiently striking to those of his brother elect.\r
+\r
+After a short silence which succeeded the first surprise and enquiries\r
+of meeting, Marianne asked Edward if he came directly from London. No,\r
+he had been in Devonshire a fortnight.\r
+\r
+"A fortnight!" she repeated, surprised at his being so long in the same\r
+county with Elinor without seeing her before.\r
+\r
+He looked rather distressed as he added, that he had been staying with\r
+some friends near Plymouth.\r
+\r
+"Have you been lately in Sussex?" said Elinor.\r
+\r
+"I was at Norland about a month ago."\r
+\r
+"And how does dear, dear Norland look?" cried Marianne.\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear Norland," said Elinor, "probably looks much as it always\r
+does at this time of the year. The woods and walks thickly covered\r
+with dead leaves."\r
+\r
+"Oh," cried Marianne, "with what transporting sensation have I formerly\r
+seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven\r
+in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season,\r
+the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They\r
+are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as\r
+possible from the sight."\r
+\r
+"It is not every one," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead\r
+leaves."\r
+\r
+"No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But\r
+SOMETIMES they are."--As she said this, she sunk into a reverie for a\r
+few moments;--but rousing herself again, "Now, Edward," said she,\r
+calling his attention to the prospect, "here is Barton valley. Look up\r
+to it, and be tranquil if you can. Look at those hills! Did you ever\r
+see their equals? To the left is Barton park, amongst those woods and\r
+plantations. You may see the end of the house. And there, beneath\r
+that farthest hill, which rises with such grandeur, is our cottage."\r
+\r
+"It is a beautiful country," he replied; "but these bottoms must be\r
+dirty in winter."\r
+\r
+"How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?"\r
+\r
+"Because," replied he, smiling, "among the rest of the objects before\r
+me, I see a very dirty lane."\r
+\r
+"How strange!" said Marianne to herself as she walked on.\r
+\r
+"Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here? Are the Middletons pleasant\r
+people?"\r
+\r
+"No, not all," answered Marianne; "we could not be more unfortunately\r
+situated."\r
+\r
+"Marianne," cried her sister, "how can you say so? How can you be so\r
+unjust? They are a very respectable family, Mr. Ferrars; and towards\r
+us have behaved in the friendliest manner. Have you forgot, Marianne,\r
+how many pleasant days we have owed to them?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Marianne, in a low voice, "nor how many painful moments."\r
+\r
+Elinor took no notice of this; and directing her attention to their\r
+visitor, endeavoured to support something like discourse with him, by\r
+talking of their present residence, its conveniences, &c. extorting\r
+from him occasional questions and remarks. His coldness and reserve\r
+mortified her severely; she was vexed and half angry; but resolving to\r
+regulate her behaviour to him by the past rather than the present, she\r
+avoided every appearance of resentment or displeasure, and treated him\r
+as she thought he ought to be treated from the family connection.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 17\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood was surprised only for a moment at seeing him; for his\r
+coming to Barton was, in her opinion, of all things the most natural.\r
+Her joy and expression of regard long outlived her wonder. He received\r
+the kindest welcome from her; and shyness, coldness, reserve could not\r
+stand against such a reception. They had begun to fail him before he\r
+entered the house, and they were quite overcome by the captivating\r
+manners of Mrs. Dashwood. Indeed a man could not very well be in love\r
+with either of her daughters, without extending the passion to her; and\r
+Elinor had the satisfaction of seeing him soon become more like\r
+himself. His affections seemed to reanimate towards them all, and his\r
+interest in their welfare again became perceptible. He was not in\r
+spirits, however; he praised their house, admired its prospect, was\r
+attentive, and kind; but still he was not in spirits. The whole family\r
+perceived it, and Mrs. Dashwood, attributing it to some want of\r
+liberality in his mother, sat down to table indignant against all\r
+selfish parents.\r
+\r
+"What are Mrs. Ferrars's views for you at present, Edward?" said she,\r
+when dinner was over and they had drawn round the fire; "are you still\r
+to be a great orator in spite of yourself?"\r
+\r
+"No. I hope my mother is now convinced that I have no more talents than\r
+inclination for a public life!"\r
+\r
+"But how is your fame to be established? for famous you must be to\r
+satisfy all your family; and with no inclination for expense, no\r
+affection for strangers, no profession, and no assurance, you may find\r
+it a difficult matter."\r
+\r
+"I shall not attempt it. I have no wish to be distinguished; and have\r
+every reason to hope I never shall. Thank Heaven! I cannot be forced\r
+into genius and eloquence."\r
+\r
+"You have no ambition, I well know. Your wishes are all moderate."\r
+\r
+"As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe. I wish as\r
+well as every body else to be perfectly happy; but, like every body\r
+else it must be in my own way. Greatness will not make me so."\r
+\r
+"Strange that it would!" cried Marianne. "What have wealth or grandeur\r
+to do with happiness?"\r
+\r
+"Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"Elinor, for shame!" said Marianne, "money can only give happiness\r
+where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can\r
+afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," said Elinor, smiling, "we may come to the same point. YOUR\r
+competence and MY wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without\r
+them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of\r
+external comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than\r
+mine. Come, what is your competence?"\r
+\r
+"About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than THAT."\r
+\r
+Elinor laughed. "TWO thousand a year! ONE is my wealth! I guessed how\r
+it would end."\r
+\r
+"And yet two thousand a-year is a very moderate income," said Marianne.\r
+"A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller. I am sure I am not\r
+extravagant in my demands. A proper establishment of servants, a\r
+carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less."\r
+\r
+Elinor smiled again, to hear her sister describing so accurately their\r
+future expenses at Combe Magna.\r
+\r
+"Hunters!" repeated Edward--"but why must you have hunters? Every body\r
+does not hunt."\r
+\r
+Marianne coloured as she replied, "But most people do."\r
+\r
+"I wish," said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, "that somebody\r
+would give us all a large fortune apiece!"\r
+\r
+"Oh that they would!" cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with\r
+animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary\r
+happiness.\r
+\r
+"We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose," said Elinor, "in spite\r
+of the insufficiency of wealth."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear!" cried Margaret, "how happy I should be! I wonder what I\r
+should do with it!"\r
+\r
+Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point.\r
+\r
+"I should be puzzled to spend so large a fortune myself," said Mrs.\r
+Dashwood, "if my children were all to be rich without my help."\r
+\r
+"You must begin your improvements on this house," observed Elinor, "and\r
+your difficulties will soon vanish."\r
+\r
+"What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London," said\r
+Edward, "in such an event! What a happy day for booksellers,\r
+music-sellers, and print-shops! You, Miss Dashwood, would give a\r
+general commission for every new print of merit to be sent you--and as\r
+for Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music\r
+enough in London to content her. And books!--Thomson, Cowper,\r
+Scott--she would buy them all over and over again: she would buy up\r
+every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands;\r
+and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old\r
+twisted tree. Should not you, Marianne? Forgive me, if I am very\r
+saucy. But I was willing to shew you that I had not forgot our old\r
+disputes."\r
+\r
+"I love to be reminded of the past, Edward--whether it be melancholy or\r
+gay, I love to recall it--and you will never offend me by talking of\r
+former times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be\r
+spent--some of it, at least--my loose cash would certainly be employed\r
+in improving my collection of music and books."\r
+\r
+"And the bulk of your fortune would be laid out in annuities on the\r
+authors or their heirs."\r
+\r
+"No, Edward, I should have something else to do with it."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who\r
+wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever\r
+be in love more than once in their life--your opinion on that point is\r
+unchanged, I presume?"\r
+\r
+"Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is\r
+not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them."\r
+\r
+"Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see," said Elinor, "she is not\r
+at all altered."\r
+\r
+"She is only grown a little more grave than she was."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Edward," said Marianne, "you need not reproach me. You are not\r
+very gay yourself."\r
+\r
+"Why should you think so!" replied he, with a sigh. "But gaiety never\r
+was a part of MY character."\r
+\r
+"Nor do I think it a part of Marianne's," said Elinor; "I should hardly\r
+call her a lively girl--she is very earnest, very eager in all she\r
+does--sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation--but she\r
+is not often really merry."\r
+\r
+"I believe you are right," he replied, "and yet I have always set her\r
+down as a lively girl."\r
+\r
+"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said\r
+Elinor, "in a total misapprehension of character in some point or\r
+other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or\r
+stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the\r
+deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of\r
+themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them,\r
+without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."\r
+\r
+"But I thought it was right, Elinor," said Marianne, "to be guided\r
+wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were\r
+given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has\r
+always been your doctrine, I am sure."\r
+\r
+"No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of\r
+the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the\r
+behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess,\r
+of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with\r
+greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their\r
+sentiments or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?"\r
+\r
+"You have not been able to bring your sister over to your plan of\r
+general civility," said Edward to Elinor. "Do you gain no ground?"\r
+\r
+"Quite the contrary," replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne.\r
+\r
+"My judgment," he returned, "is all on your side of the question; but I\r
+am afraid my practice is much more on your sister's. I never wish to\r
+offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I\r
+am only kept back by my natural awkwardness. I have frequently thought\r
+that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I\r
+am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!"\r
+\r
+"Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers," said\r
+Elinor.\r
+\r
+"She knows her own worth too well for false shame," replied Edward.\r
+"Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or\r
+other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy\r
+and graceful, I should not be shy."\r
+\r
+"But you would still be reserved," said Marianne, "and that is worse."\r
+\r
+Edward started--"Reserved! Am I reserved, Marianne?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very."\r
+\r
+"I do not understand you," replied he, colouring. "Reserved!--how, in\r
+what manner? What am I to tell you? What can you suppose?"\r
+\r
+Elinor looked surprised at his emotion; but trying to laugh off the\r
+subject, she said to him, "Do not you know my sister well enough to\r
+understand what she means? Do not you know she calls every one\r
+reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as\r
+rapturously as herself?"\r
+\r
+Edward made no answer. His gravity and thoughtfulness returned on him\r
+in their fullest extent--and he sat for some time silent and dull.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 18\r
+\r
+\r
+Elinor saw, with great uneasiness the low spirits of her friend. His\r
+visit afforded her but a very partial satisfaction, while his own\r
+enjoyment in it appeared so imperfect. It was evident that he was\r
+unhappy; she wished it were equally evident that he still distinguished\r
+her by the same affection which once she had felt no doubt of\r
+inspiring; but hitherto the continuance of his preference seemed very\r
+uncertain; and the reservedness of his manner towards her contradicted\r
+one moment what a more animated look had intimated the preceding one.\r
+\r
+He joined her and Marianne in the breakfast-room the next morning\r
+before the others were down; and Marianne, who was always eager to\r
+promote their happiness as far as she could, soon left them to\r
+themselves. But before she was half way upstairs she heard the parlour\r
+door open, and, turning round, was astonished to see Edward himself\r
+come out.\r
+\r
+"I am going into the village to see my horses," said he, "as you are\r
+not yet ready for breakfast; I shall be back again presently."\r
+\r
+ ***\r
+\r
+Edward returned to them with fresh admiration of the surrounding\r
+country; in his walk to the village, he had seen many parts of the\r
+valley to advantage; and the village itself, in a much higher situation\r
+than the cottage, afforded a general view of the whole, which had\r
+exceedingly pleased him. This was a subject which ensured Marianne's\r
+attention, and she was beginning to describe her own admiration of\r
+these scenes, and to question him more minutely on the objects that had\r
+particularly struck him, when Edward interrupted her by saying, "You\r
+must not enquire too far, Marianne--remember I have no knowledge in the\r
+picturesque, and I shall offend you by my ignorance and want of taste\r
+if we come to particulars. I shall call hills steep, which ought to be\r
+bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and\r
+rugged; and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be\r
+indistinct through the soft medium of a hazy atmosphere. You must be\r
+satisfied with such admiration as I can honestly give. I call it a\r
+very fine country--the hills are steep, the woods seem full of fine\r
+timber, and the valley looks comfortable and snug--with rich meadows\r
+and several neat farm houses scattered here and there. It exactly\r
+answers my idea of a fine country, because it unites beauty with\r
+utility--and I dare say it is a picturesque one too, because you admire\r
+it; I can easily believe it to be full of rocks and promontories, grey\r
+moss and brush wood, but these are all lost on me. I know nothing of\r
+the picturesque."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid it is but too true," said Marianne; "but why should you\r
+boast of it?"\r
+\r
+"I suspect," said Elinor, "that to avoid one kind of affectation,\r
+Edward here falls into another. Because he believes many people\r
+pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really\r
+feel, and is disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater\r
+indifference and less discrimination in viewing them himself than he\r
+possesses. He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own."\r
+\r
+"It is very true," said Marianne, "that admiration of landscape scenery\r
+is become a mere jargon. Every body pretends to feel and tries to\r
+describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what\r
+picturesque beauty was. I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I\r
+have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to\r
+describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and\r
+meaning."\r
+\r
+"I am convinced," said Edward, "that you really feel all the delight in\r
+a fine prospect which you profess to feel. But, in return, your sister\r
+must allow me to feel no more than I profess. I like a fine prospect,\r
+but not on picturesque principles. I do not like crooked, twisted,\r
+blasted trees. I admire them much more if they are tall, straight, and\r
+flourishing. I do not like ruined, tattered cottages. I am not fond\r
+of nettles or thistles, or heath blossoms. I have more pleasure in a\r
+snug farm-house than a watch-tower--and a troop of tidy, happy villages\r
+please me better than the finest banditti in the world."\r
+\r
+Marianne looked with amazement at Edward, with compassion at her\r
+sister. Elinor only laughed.\r
+\r
+The subject was continued no farther; and Marianne remained\r
+thoughtfully silent, till a new object suddenly engaged her attention.\r
+She was sitting by Edward, and in taking his tea from Mrs. Dashwood,\r
+his hand passed so directly before her, as to make a ring, with a plait\r
+of hair in the centre, very conspicuous on one of his fingers.\r
+\r
+"I never saw you wear a ring before, Edward," she cried. "Is that\r
+Fanny's hair? I remember her promising to give you some. But I should\r
+have thought her hair had been darker."\r
+\r
+Marianne spoke inconsiderately what she really felt--but when she saw\r
+how much she had pained Edward, her own vexation at her want of thought\r
+could not be surpassed by his. He coloured very deeply, and giving a\r
+momentary glance at Elinor, replied, "Yes; it is my sister's hair. The\r
+setting always casts a different shade on it, you know."\r
+\r
+Elinor had met his eye, and looked conscious likewise. That the hair\r
+was her own, she instantaneously felt as well satisfied as Marianne;\r
+the only difference in their conclusions was, that what Marianne\r
+considered as a free gift from her sister, Elinor was conscious must\r
+have been procured by some theft or contrivance unknown to herself.\r
+She was not in a humour, however, to regard it as an affront, and\r
+affecting to take no notice of what passed, by instantly talking of\r
+something else, she internally resolved henceforward to catch every\r
+opportunity of eyeing the hair and of satisfying herself, beyond all\r
+doubt, that it was exactly the shade of her own.\r
+\r
+Edward's embarrassment lasted some time, and it ended in an absence of\r
+mind still more settled. He was particularly grave the whole morning.\r
+Marianne severely censured herself for what she had said; but her own\r
+forgiveness might have been more speedy, had she known how little\r
+offence it had given her sister.\r
+\r
+Before the middle of the day, they were visited by Sir John and Mrs.\r
+Jennings, who, having heard of the arrival of a gentleman at the\r
+cottage, came to take a survey of the guest. With the assistance of\r
+his mother-in-law, Sir John was not long in discovering that the name\r
+of Ferrars began with an F. and this prepared a future mine of raillery\r
+against the devoted Elinor, which nothing but the newness of their\r
+acquaintance with Edward could have prevented from being immediately\r
+sprung. But, as it was, she only learned, from some very significant\r
+looks, how far their penetration, founded on Margaret's instructions,\r
+extended.\r
+\r
+Sir John never came to the Dashwoods without either inviting them to\r
+dine at the park the next day, or to drink tea with them that evening.\r
+On the present occasion, for the better entertainment of their visitor,\r
+towards whose amusement he felt himself bound to contribute, he wished\r
+to engage them for both.\r
+\r
+"You MUST drink tea with us to night," said he, "for we shall be quite\r
+alone--and tomorrow you must absolutely dine with us, for we shall be a\r
+large party."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings enforced the necessity. "And who knows but you may raise\r
+a dance," said she. "And that will tempt YOU, Miss Marianne."\r
+\r
+"A dance!" cried Marianne. "Impossible! Who is to dance?"\r
+\r
+"Who! why yourselves, and the Careys, and Whitakers to be sure.--What!\r
+you thought nobody could dance because a certain person that shall be\r
+nameless is gone!"\r
+\r
+"I wish with all my soul," cried Sir John, "that Willoughby were among\r
+us again."\r
+\r
+This, and Marianne's blushing, gave new suspicions to Edward. "And who\r
+is Willoughby?" said he, in a low voice, to Miss Dashwood, by whom he\r
+was sitting.\r
+\r
+She gave him a brief reply. Marianne's countenance was more\r
+communicative. Edward saw enough to comprehend, not only the meaning\r
+of others, but such of Marianne's expressions as had puzzled him\r
+before; and when their visitors left them, he went immediately round\r
+her, and said, in a whisper, "I have been guessing. Shall I tell you\r
+my guess?"\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"Shall I tell you."\r
+\r
+"Certainly."\r
+\r
+"Well then; I guess that Mr. Willoughby hunts."\r
+\r
+Marianne was surprised and confused, yet she could not help smiling at\r
+the quiet archness of his manner, and after a moment's silence, said,\r
+\r
+"Oh, Edward! How can you?--But the time will come I hope...I am sure\r
+you will like him."\r
+\r
+"I do not doubt it," replied he, rather astonished at her earnestness\r
+and warmth; for had he not imagined it to be a joke for the good of her\r
+acquaintance in general, founded only on a something or a nothing\r
+between Mr. Willoughby and herself, he would not have ventured to\r
+mention it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 19\r
+\r
+\r
+Edward remained a week at the cottage; he was earnestly pressed by Mrs.\r
+Dashwood to stay longer; but, as if he were bent only on\r
+self-mortification, he seemed resolved to be gone when his enjoyment\r
+among his friends was at the height. His spirits, during the last two\r
+or three days, though still very unequal, were greatly improved--he\r
+grew more and more partial to the house and environs--never spoke of\r
+going away without a sigh--declared his time to be wholly\r
+disengaged--even doubted to what place he should go when he left\r
+them--but still, go he must. Never had any week passed so quickly--he\r
+could hardly believe it to be gone. He said so repeatedly; other\r
+things he said too, which marked the turn of his feelings and gave the\r
+lie to his actions. He had no pleasure at Norland; he detested being\r
+in town; but either to Norland or London, he must go. He valued their\r
+kindness beyond any thing, and his greatest happiness was in being with\r
+them. Yet, he must leave them at the end of a week, in spite of their\r
+wishes and his own, and without any restraint on his time.\r
+\r
+Elinor placed all that was astonishing in this way of acting to his\r
+mother's account; and it was happy for her that he had a mother whose\r
+character was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general excuse\r
+for every thing strange on the part of her son. Disappointed, however,\r
+and vexed as she was, and sometimes displeased with his uncertain\r
+behaviour to herself, she was very well disposed on the whole to regard\r
+his actions with all the candid allowances and generous qualifications,\r
+which had been rather more painfully extorted from her, for\r
+Willoughby's service, by her mother. His want of spirits, of openness,\r
+and of consistency, were most usually attributed to his want of\r
+independence, and his better knowledge of Mrs. Ferrars's disposition\r
+and designs. The shortness of his visit, the steadiness of his purpose\r
+in leaving them, originated in the same fettered inclination, the same\r
+inevitable necessity of temporizing with his mother. The old\r
+well-established grievance of duty against will, parent against child,\r
+was the cause of all. She would have been glad to know when these\r
+difficulties were to cease, this opposition was to yield,--when Mrs.\r
+Ferrars would be reformed, and her son be at liberty to be happy. But\r
+from such vain wishes she was forced to turn for comfort to the renewal\r
+of her confidence in Edward's affection, to the remembrance of every\r
+mark of regard in look or word which fell from him while at Barton, and\r
+above all to that flattering proof of it which he constantly wore round\r
+his finger.\r
+\r
+"I think, Edward," said Mrs. Dashwood, as they were at breakfast the\r
+last morning, "you would be a happier man if you had any profession to\r
+engage your time and give an interest to your plans and actions. Some\r
+inconvenience to your friends, indeed, might result from it--you would\r
+not be able to give them so much of your time. But (with a smile) you\r
+would be materially benefited in one particular at least--you would\r
+know where to go when you left them."\r
+\r
+"I do assure you," he replied, "that I have long thought on this point,\r
+as you think now. It has been, and is, and probably will always be a\r
+heavy misfortune to me, that I have had no necessary business to engage\r
+me, no profession to give me employment, or afford me any thing like\r
+independence. But unfortunately my own nicety, and the nicety of my\r
+friends, have made me what I am, an idle, helpless being. We never\r
+could agree in our choice of a profession. I always preferred the\r
+church, as I still do. But that was not smart enough for my family.\r
+They recommended the army. That was a great deal too smart for me.\r
+The law was allowed to be genteel enough; many young men, who had\r
+chambers in the Temple, made a very good appearance in the first\r
+circles, and drove about town in very knowing gigs. But I had no\r
+inclination for the law, even in this less abstruse study of it, which\r
+my family approved. As for the navy, it had fashion on its side, but I\r
+was too old when the subject was first started to enter it--and, at\r
+length, as there was no necessity for my having any profession at all,\r
+as I might be as dashing and expensive without a red coat on my back as\r
+with one, idleness was pronounced on the whole to be most advantageous\r
+and honourable, and a young man of eighteen is not in general so\r
+earnestly bent on being busy as to resist the solicitations of his\r
+friends to do nothing. I was therefore entered at Oxford and have been\r
+properly idle ever since."\r
+\r
+"The consequence of which, I suppose, will be," said Mrs. Dashwood,\r
+"since leisure has not promoted your own happiness, that your sons will\r
+be brought up to as many pursuits, employments, professions, and trades\r
+as Columella's."\r
+\r
+"They will be brought up," said he, in a serious accent, "to be as\r
+unlike myself as is possible. In feeling, in action, in condition, in\r
+every thing."\r
+\r
+"Come, come; this is all an effusion of immediate want of spirits,\r
+Edward. You are in a melancholy humour, and fancy that any one unlike\r
+yourself must be happy. But remember that the pain of parting from\r
+friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their\r
+education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but\r
+patience--or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope. Your\r
+mother will secure to you, in time, that independence you are so\r
+anxious for; it is her duty, and it will, it must ere long become her\r
+happiness to prevent your whole youth from being wasted in discontent.\r
+How much may not a few months do?"\r
+\r
+"I think," replied Edward, "that I may defy many months to produce any\r
+good to me."\r
+\r
+This desponding turn of mind, though it could not be communicated to\r
+Mrs. Dashwood, gave additional pain to them all in the parting, which\r
+shortly took place, and left an uncomfortable impression on Elinor's\r
+feelings especially, which required some trouble and time to subdue.\r
+But as it was her determination to subdue it, and to prevent herself\r
+from appearing to suffer more than what all her family suffered on his\r
+going away, she did not adopt the method so judiciously employed by\r
+Marianne, on a similar occasion, to augment and fix her sorrow, by\r
+seeking silence, solitude and idleness. Their means were as different\r
+as their objects, and equally suited to the advancement of each.\r
+\r
+Elinor sat down to her drawing-table as soon as he was out of the\r
+house, busily employed herself the whole day, neither sought nor\r
+avoided the mention of his name, appeared to interest herself almost as\r
+much as ever in the general concerns of the family, and if, by this\r
+conduct, she did not lessen her own grief, it was at least prevented\r
+from unnecessary increase, and her mother and sisters were spared much\r
+solicitude on her account.\r
+\r
+Such behaviour as this, so exactly the reverse of her own, appeared no\r
+more meritorious to Marianne, than her own had seemed faulty to her.\r
+The business of self-command she settled very easily;--with strong\r
+affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could have no merit.\r
+That her sister's affections WERE calm, she dared not deny, though she\r
+blushed to acknowledge it; and of the strength of her own, she gave a\r
+very striking proof, by still loving and respecting that sister, in\r
+spite of this mortifying conviction.\r
+\r
+Without shutting herself up from her family, or leaving the house in\r
+determined solitude to avoid them, or lying awake the whole night to\r
+indulge meditation, Elinor found every day afforded her leisure enough\r
+to think of Edward, and of Edward's behaviour, in every possible\r
+variety which the different state of her spirits at different times\r
+could produce,--with tenderness, pity, approbation, censure, and doubt.\r
+There were moments in abundance, when, if not by the absence of her\r
+mother and sisters, at least by the nature of their employments,\r
+conversation was forbidden among them, and every effect of solitude was\r
+produced. Her mind was inevitably at liberty; her thoughts could not\r
+be chained elsewhere; and the past and the future, on a subject so\r
+interesting, must be before her, must force her attention, and engross\r
+her memory, her reflection, and her fancy.\r
+\r
+From a reverie of this kind, as she sat at her drawing-table, she was\r
+roused one morning, soon after Edward's leaving them, by the arrival of\r
+company. She happened to be quite alone. The closing of the little\r
+gate, at the entrance of the green court in front of the house, drew\r
+her eyes to the window, and she saw a large party walking up to the\r
+door. Amongst them were Sir John and Lady Middleton and Mrs. Jennings,\r
+but there were two others, a gentleman and lady, who were quite unknown\r
+to her. She was sitting near the window, and as soon as Sir John\r
+perceived her, he left the rest of the party to the ceremony of\r
+knocking at the door, and stepping across the turf, obliged her to open\r
+the casement to speak to him, though the space was so short between the\r
+door and the window, as to make it hardly possible to speak at one\r
+without being heard at the other.\r
+\r
+"Well," said he, "we have brought you some strangers. How do you like\r
+them?"\r
+\r
+"Hush! they will hear you."\r
+\r
+"Never mind if they do. It is only the Palmers. Charlotte is very\r
+pretty, I can tell you. You may see her if you look this way."\r
+\r
+As Elinor was certain of seeing her in a couple of minutes, without\r
+taking that liberty, she begged to be excused.\r
+\r
+"Where is Marianne? Has she run away because we are come? I see her\r
+instrument is open."\r
+\r
+"She is walking, I believe."\r
+\r
+They were now joined by Mrs. Jennings, who had not patience enough to\r
+wait till the door was opened before she told HER story. She came\r
+hallooing to the window, "How do you do, my dear? How does Mrs.\r
+Dashwood do? And where are your sisters? What! all alone! you will be\r
+glad of a little company to sit with you. I have brought my other son\r
+and daughter to see you. Only think of their coming so suddenly! I\r
+thought I heard a carriage last night, while we were drinking our tea,\r
+but it never entered my head that it could be them. I thought of\r
+nothing but whether it might not be Colonel Brandon come back again; so\r
+I said to Sir John, I do think I hear a carriage; perhaps it is Colonel\r
+Brandon come back again"--\r
+\r
+Elinor was obliged to turn from her, in the middle of her story, to\r
+receive the rest of the party; Lady Middleton introduced the two\r
+strangers; Mrs. Dashwood and Margaret came down stairs at the same\r
+time, and they all sat down to look at one another, while Mrs. Jennings\r
+continued her story as she walked through the passage into the parlour,\r
+attended by Sir John.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Palmer was several years younger than Lady Middleton, and totally\r
+unlike her in every respect. She was short and plump, had a very\r
+pretty face, and the finest expression of good humour in it that could\r
+possibly be. Her manners were by no means so elegant as her sister's,\r
+but they were much more prepossessing. She came in with a smile,\r
+smiled all the time of her visit, except when she laughed, and smiled\r
+when she went away. Her husband was a grave looking young man of five\r
+or six and twenty, with an air of more fashion and sense than his wife,\r
+but of less willingness to please or be pleased. He entered the room\r
+with a look of self-consequence, slightly bowed to the ladies, without\r
+speaking a word, and, after briefly surveying them and their\r
+apartments, took up a newspaper from the table, and continued to read\r
+it as long as he staid.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Palmer, on the contrary, who was strongly endowed by nature with a\r
+turn for being uniformly civil and happy, was hardly seated before her\r
+admiration of the parlour and every thing in it burst forth.\r
+\r
+"Well! what a delightful room this is! I never saw anything so\r
+charming! Only think, Mama, how it is improved since I was here last!\r
+I always thought it such a sweet place, ma'am! (turning to Mrs.\r
+Dashwood) but you have made it so charming! Only look, sister, how\r
+delightful every thing is! How I should like such a house for myself!\r
+Should not you, Mr. Palmer?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Palmer made her no answer, and did not even raise his eyes from the\r
+newspaper.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Palmer does not hear me," said she, laughing; "he never does\r
+sometimes. It is so ridiculous!"\r
+\r
+This was quite a new idea to Mrs. Dashwood; she had never been used to\r
+find wit in the inattention of any one, and could not help looking with\r
+surprise at them both.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings, in the meantime, talked on as loud as she could, and\r
+continued her account of their surprise, the evening before, on seeing\r
+their friends, without ceasing till every thing was told. Mrs. Palmer\r
+laughed heartily at the recollection of their astonishment, and every\r
+body agreed, two or three times over, that it had been quite an\r
+agreeable surprise.\r
+\r
+"You may believe how glad we all were to see them," added Mrs.\r
+Jennings, leaning forward towards Elinor, and speaking in a low voice\r
+as if she meant to be heard by no one else, though they were seated on\r
+different sides of the room; "but, however, I can't help wishing they\r
+had not travelled quite so fast, nor made such a long journey of it,\r
+for they came all round by London upon account of some business, for\r
+you know (nodding significantly and pointing to her daughter) it was\r
+wrong in her situation. I wanted her to stay at home and rest this\r
+morning, but she would come with us; she longed so much to see you all!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Palmer laughed, and said it would not do her any harm.\r
+\r
+"She expects to be confined in February," continued Mrs. Jennings.\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton could no longer endure such a conversation, and\r
+therefore exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in\r
+the paper.\r
+\r
+"No, none at all," he replied, and read on.\r
+\r
+"Here comes Marianne," cried Sir John. "Now, Palmer, you shall see a\r
+monstrous pretty girl."\r
+\r
+He immediately went into the passage, opened the front door, and\r
+ushered her in himself. Mrs. Jennings asked her, as soon as she\r
+appeared, if she had not been to Allenham; and Mrs. Palmer laughed so\r
+heartily at the question, as to show she understood it. Mr. Palmer\r
+looked up on her entering the room, stared at her some minutes, and\r
+then returned to his newspaper. Mrs. Palmer's eye was now caught by\r
+the drawings which hung round the room. She got up to examine them.\r
+\r
+"Oh! dear, how beautiful these are! Well! how delightful! Do but\r
+look, mama, how sweet! I declare they are quite charming; I could look\r
+at them for ever." And then sitting down again, she very soon forgot\r
+that there were any such things in the room.\r
+\r
+When Lady Middleton rose to go away, Mr. Palmer rose also, laid down\r
+the newspaper, stretched himself and looked at them all around.\r
+\r
+"My love, have you been asleep?" said his wife, laughing.\r
+\r
+He made her no answer; and only observed, after again examining the\r
+room, that it was very low pitched, and that the ceiling was crooked.\r
+He then made his bow, and departed with the rest.\r
+\r
+Sir John had been very urgent with them all to spend the next day at\r
+the park. Mrs. Dashwood, who did not chuse to dine with them oftener\r
+than they dined at the cottage, absolutely refused on her own account;\r
+her daughters might do as they pleased. But they had no curiosity to\r
+see how Mr. and Mrs. Palmer ate their dinner, and no expectation of\r
+pleasure from them in any other way. They attempted, therefore,\r
+likewise, to excuse themselves; the weather was uncertain, and not\r
+likely to be good. But Sir John would not be satisfied--the carriage\r
+should be sent for them and they must come. Lady Middleton too, though\r
+she did not press their mother, pressed them. Mrs. Jennings and Mrs.\r
+Palmer joined their entreaties, all seemed equally anxious to avoid a\r
+family party; and the young ladies were obliged to yield.\r
+\r
+"Why should they ask us?" said Marianne, as soon as they were gone.\r
+"The rent of this cottage is said to be low; but we have it on very\r
+hard terms, if we are to dine at the park whenever any one is staying\r
+either with them, or with us."\r
+\r
+"They mean no less to be civil and kind to us now," said Elinor, "by\r
+these frequent invitations, than by those which we received from them a\r
+few weeks ago. The alteration is not in them, if their parties are\r
+grown tedious and dull. We must look for the change elsewhere."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 20\r
+\r
+\r
+As the Miss Dashwoods entered the drawing-room of the park the next\r
+day, at one door, Mrs. Palmer came running in at the other, looking as\r
+good humoured and merry as before. She took them all most\r
+affectionately by the hand, and expressed great delight in seeing them\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"I am so glad to see you!" said she, seating herself between Elinor and\r
+Marianne, "for it is so bad a day I was afraid you might not come,\r
+which would be a shocking thing, as we go away again tomorrow. We must\r
+go, for the Westons come to us next week you know. It was quite a\r
+sudden thing our coming at all, and I knew nothing of it till the\r
+carriage was coming to the door, and then Mr. Palmer asked me if I\r
+would go with him to Barton. He is so droll! He never tells me any\r
+thing! I am so sorry we cannot stay longer; however we shall meet again\r
+in town very soon, I hope."\r
+\r
+They were obliged to put an end to such an expectation.\r
+\r
+"Not go to town!" cried Mrs. Palmer, with a laugh, "I shall be quite\r
+disappointed if you do not. I could get the nicest house in the world for\r
+you, next door to ours, in Hanover-square. You must come, indeed. I\r
+am sure I shall be very happy to chaperon you at any time till I am\r
+confined, if Mrs. Dashwood should not like to go into public."\r
+\r
+They thanked her; but were obliged to resist all her entreaties.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my love," cried Mrs. Palmer to her husband, who just then entered\r
+the room--"you must help me to persuade the Miss Dashwoods to go to\r
+town this winter."\r
+\r
+Her love made no answer; and after slightly bowing to the ladies, began\r
+complaining of the weather.\r
+\r
+"How horrid all this is!" said he. "Such weather makes every thing and\r
+every body disgusting. Dullness is as much produced within doors as\r
+without, by rain. It makes one detest all one's acquaintance. What\r
+the devil does Sir John mean by not having a billiard room in his\r
+house? How few people know what comfort is! Sir John is as stupid as\r
+the weather."\r
+\r
+The rest of the company soon dropt in.\r
+\r
+"I am afraid, Miss Marianne," said Sir John, "you have not been able to\r
+take your usual walk to Allenham today."\r
+\r
+Marianne looked very grave and said nothing.\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't be so sly before us," said Mrs. Palmer; "for we know all\r
+about it, I assure you; and I admire your taste very much, for I think\r
+he is extremely handsome. We do not live a great way from him in the\r
+country, you know. Not above ten miles, I dare say."\r
+\r
+"Much nearer thirty," said her husband.\r
+\r
+"Ah, well! there is not much difference. I never was at his house; but\r
+they say it is a sweet pretty place."\r
+\r
+"As vile a spot as I ever saw in my life," said Mr. Palmer.\r
+\r
+Marianne remained perfectly silent, though her countenance betrayed her\r
+interest in what was said.\r
+\r
+"Is it very ugly?" continued Mrs. Palmer--"then it must be some other\r
+place that is so pretty I suppose."\r
+\r
+When they were seated in the dining room, Sir John observed with regret\r
+that they were only eight all together.\r
+\r
+"My dear," said he to his lady, "it is very provoking that we should be\r
+so few. Why did not you ask the Gilberts to come to us today?"\r
+\r
+"Did not I tell you, Sir John, when you spoke to me about it before,\r
+that it could not be done? They dined with us last."\r
+\r
+"You and I, Sir John," said Mrs. Jennings, "should not stand upon such\r
+ceremony."\r
+\r
+"Then you would be very ill-bred," cried Mr. Palmer.\r
+\r
+"My love you contradict every body," said his wife with her usual\r
+laugh. "Do you know that you are quite rude?"\r
+\r
+"I did not know I contradicted any body in calling your mother\r
+ill-bred."\r
+\r
+"Ay, you may abuse me as you please," said the good-natured old lady,\r
+"you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again.\r
+So there I have the whip hand of you."\r
+\r
+Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid\r
+of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her,\r
+as they must live together. It was impossible for any one to be more\r
+thoroughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs.\r
+Palmer. The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her\r
+husband gave her no pain; and when he scolded or abused her, she was\r
+highly diverted.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Palmer is so droll!" said she, in a whisper, to Elinor. "He is\r
+always out of humour."\r
+\r
+Elinor was not inclined, after a little observation, to give him credit\r
+for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill-natured or ill-bred as he\r
+wished to appear. His temper might perhaps be a little soured by\r
+finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable\r
+bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly\r
+woman,--but she knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any\r
+sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it.-- It was rather a wish of\r
+distinction, she believed, which produced his contemptuous treatment of\r
+every body, and his general abuse of every thing before him. It was\r
+the desire of appearing superior to other people. The motive was too\r
+common to be wondered at; but the means, however they might succeed by\r
+establishing his superiority in ill-breeding, were not likely to attach\r
+any one to him except his wife.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear Miss Dashwood," said Mrs. Palmer soon afterwards, "I have\r
+got such a favour to ask of you and your sister. Will you come and\r
+spend some time at Cleveland this Christmas? Now, pray do,--and come\r
+while the Westons are with us. You cannot think how happy I shall be!\r
+It will be quite delightful!--My love," applying to her husband, "don't\r
+you long to have the Miss Dashwoods come to Cleveland?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly," he replied, with a sneer--"I came into Devonshire with no\r
+other view."\r
+\r
+"There now,"--said his lady, "you see Mr. Palmer expects you; so you\r
+cannot refuse to come."\r
+\r
+They both eagerly and resolutely declined her invitation.\r
+\r
+"But indeed you must and shall come. I am sure you will like it of all\r
+things. The Westons will be with us, and it will be quite delightful.\r
+You cannot think what a sweet place Cleveland is; and we are so gay\r
+now, for Mr. Palmer is always going about the country canvassing\r
+against the election; and so many people came to dine with us that I\r
+never saw before, it is quite charming! But, poor fellow! it is very\r
+fatiguing to him! for he is forced to make every body like him."\r
+\r
+Elinor could hardly keep her countenance as she assented to the\r
+hardship of such an obligation.\r
+\r
+"How charming it will be," said Charlotte, "when he is in\r
+Parliament!--won't it? How I shall laugh! It will be so ridiculous to\r
+see all his letters directed to him with an M.P.--But do you know, he\r
+says, he will never frank for me? He declares he won't. Don't you,\r
+Mr. Palmer?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Palmer took no notice of her.\r
+\r
+"He cannot bear writing, you know," she continued--"he says it is quite\r
+shocking."\r
+\r
+"No," said he, "I never said any thing so irrational. Don't palm all\r
+your abuses of languages upon me."\r
+\r
+"There now; you see how droll he is. This is always the way with him!\r
+Sometimes he won't speak to me for half a day together, and then he\r
+comes out with something so droll--all about any thing in the world."\r
+\r
+She surprised Elinor very much as they returned into the drawing-room,\r
+by asking her whether she did not like Mr. Palmer excessively.\r
+\r
+"Certainly," said Elinor; "he seems very agreeable."\r
+\r
+"Well--I am so glad you do. I thought you would, he is so pleasant;\r
+and Mr. Palmer is excessively pleased with you and your sisters I can\r
+tell you, and you can't think how disappointed he will be if you don't\r
+come to Cleveland.--I can't imagine why you should object to it."\r
+\r
+Elinor was again obliged to decline her invitation; and by changing the\r
+subject, put a stop to her entreaties. She thought it probable that as\r
+they lived in the same county, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some\r
+more particular account of Willoughby's general character, than could\r
+be gathered from the Middletons' partial acquaintance with him; and she\r
+was eager to gain from any one, such a confirmation of his merits as\r
+might remove the possibility of fear from Marianne. She began by\r
+inquiring if they saw much of Mr. Willoughby at Cleveland, and whether\r
+they were intimately acquainted with him.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, yes; I know him extremely well," replied Mrs. Palmer;--"Not\r
+that I ever spoke to him, indeed; but I have seen him for ever in town.\r
+Somehow or other I never happened to be staying at Barton while he was\r
+at Allenham. Mama saw him here once before;--but I was with my uncle\r
+at Weymouth. However, I dare say we should have seen a great deal of\r
+him in Somersetshire, if it had not happened very unluckily that we\r
+should never have been in the country together. He is very little at\r
+Combe, I believe; but if he were ever so much there, I do not think Mr.\r
+Palmer would visit him, for he is in the opposition, you know, and\r
+besides it is such a way off. I know why you inquire about him, very\r
+well; your sister is to marry him. I am monstrous glad of it, for then\r
+I shall have her for a neighbour you know."\r
+\r
+"Upon my word," replied Elinor, "you know much more of the matter than\r
+I do, if you have any reason to expect such a match."\r
+\r
+"Don't pretend to deny it, because you know it is what every body talks\r
+of. I assure you I heard of it in my way through town."\r
+\r
+"My dear Mrs. Palmer!"\r
+\r
+"Upon my honour I did.--I met Colonel Brandon Monday morning in\r
+Bond-street, just before we left town, and he told me of it directly."\r
+\r
+"You surprise me very much. Colonel Brandon tell you of it! Surely\r
+you must be mistaken. To give such intelligence to a person who could\r
+not be interested in it, even if it were true, is not what I should\r
+expect Colonel Brandon to do."\r
+\r
+"But I do assure you it was so, for all that, and I will tell you how\r
+it happened. When we met him, he turned back and walked with us; and\r
+so we began talking of my brother and sister, and one thing and\r
+another, and I said to him, 'So, Colonel, there is a new family come to\r
+Barton cottage, I hear, and mama sends me word they are very pretty,\r
+and that one of them is going to be married to Mr. Willoughby of Combe\r
+Magna. Is it true, pray? for of course you must know, as you have been\r
+in Devonshire so lately.'"\r
+\r
+"And what did the Colonel say?"\r
+\r
+"Oh--he did not say much; but he looked as if he knew it to be true, so\r
+from that moment I set it down as certain. It will be quite\r
+delightful, I declare! When is it to take place?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Brandon was very well I hope?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes, quite well; and so full of your praises, he did nothing but\r
+say fine things of you."\r
+\r
+"I am flattered by his commendation. He seems an excellent man; and I\r
+think him uncommonly pleasing."\r
+\r
+"So do I.--He is such a charming man, that it is quite a pity he should\r
+be so grave and so dull. Mama says HE was in love with your sister\r
+too.-- I assure you it was a great compliment if he was, for he hardly\r
+ever falls in love with any body."\r
+\r
+"Is Mr. Willoughby much known in your part of Somersetshire?" said\r
+Elinor.\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes, extremely well; that is, I do not believe many people are\r
+acquainted with him, because Combe Magna is so far off; but they all\r
+think him extremely agreeable I assure you. Nobody is more liked than\r
+Mr. Willoughby wherever he goes, and so you may tell your sister. She\r
+is a monstrous lucky girl to get him, upon my honour; not but that he\r
+is much more lucky in getting her, because she is so very handsome and\r
+agreeable, that nothing can be good enough for her. However, I don't\r
+think her hardly at all handsomer than you, I assure you; for I think\r
+you both excessively pretty, and so does Mr. Palmer too I am sure,\r
+though we could not get him to own it last night."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Palmer's information respecting Willoughby was not very material;\r
+but any testimony in his favour, however small, was pleasing to her.\r
+\r
+"I am so glad we are got acquainted at last," continued\r
+Charlotte.--"And now I hope we shall always be great friends. You\r
+can't think how much I longed to see you! It is so delightful that you\r
+should live at the cottage! Nothing can be like it, to be sure! And I\r
+am so glad your sister is going to be well married! I hope you will be\r
+a great deal at Combe Magna. It is a sweet place, by all accounts."\r
+\r
+"You have been long acquainted with Colonel Brandon, have not you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, a great while; ever since my sister married.-- He was a\r
+particular friend of Sir John's. I believe," she added in a low voice,\r
+"he would have been very glad to have had me, if he could. Sir John\r
+and Lady Middleton wished it very much. But mama did not think the\r
+match good enough for me, otherwise Sir John would have mentioned it to\r
+the Colonel, and we should have been married immediately."\r
+\r
+"Did not Colonel Brandon know of Sir John's proposal to your mother\r
+before it was made? Had he never owned his affection to yourself?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, no; but if mama had not objected to it, I dare say he would have\r
+liked it of all things. He had not seen me then above twice, for it\r
+was before I left school. However, I am much happier as I am. Mr.\r
+Palmer is the kind of man I like."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 21\r
+\r
+\r
+The Palmers returned to Cleveland the next day, and the two families at\r
+Barton were again left to entertain each other. But this did not last\r
+long; Elinor had hardly got their last visitors out of her head, had\r
+hardly done wondering at Charlotte's being so happy without a cause, at\r
+Mr. Palmer's acting so simply, with good abilities, and at the strange\r
+unsuitableness which often existed between husband and wife, before Sir\r
+John's and Mrs. Jennings's active zeal in the cause of society,\r
+procured her some other new acquaintance to see and observe.\r
+\r
+In a morning's excursion to Exeter, they had met with two young ladies,\r
+whom Mrs. Jennings had the satisfaction of discovering to be her\r
+relations, and this was enough for Sir John to invite them directly to\r
+the park, as soon as their present engagements at Exeter were over.\r
+Their engagements at Exeter instantly gave way before such an\r
+invitation, and Lady Middleton was thrown into no little alarm on the\r
+return of Sir John, by hearing that she was very soon to receive a\r
+visit from two girls whom she had never seen in her life, and of whose\r
+elegance,--whose tolerable gentility even, she could have no proof; for\r
+the assurances of her husband and mother on that subject went for\r
+nothing at all. Their being her relations too made it so much the\r
+worse; and Mrs. Jennings's attempts at consolation were therefore\r
+unfortunately founded, when she advised her daughter not to care about\r
+their being so fashionable; because they were all cousins and must put\r
+up with one another. As it was impossible, however, now to prevent\r
+their coming, Lady Middleton resigned herself to the idea of it, with\r
+all the philosophy of a well-bred woman, contenting herself with merely\r
+giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times\r
+every day.\r
+\r
+The young ladies arrived: their appearance was by no means ungenteel or\r
+unfashionable. Their dress was very smart, their manners very civil,\r
+they were delighted with the house, and in raptures with the furniture,\r
+and they happened to be so doatingly fond of children that Lady\r
+Middleton's good opinion was engaged in their favour before they had\r
+been an hour at the Park. She declared them to be very agreeable girls\r
+indeed, which for her ladyship was enthusiastic admiration. Sir John's\r
+confidence in his own judgment rose with this animated praise, and he\r
+set off directly for the cottage to tell the Miss Dashwoods of the Miss\r
+Steeles' arrival, and to assure them of their being the sweetest girls\r
+in the world. From such commendation as this, however, there was not\r
+much to be learned; Elinor well knew that the sweetest girls in the\r
+world were to be met with in every part of England, under every\r
+possible variation of form, face, temper and understanding. Sir John\r
+wanted the whole family to walk to the Park directly and look at his\r
+guests. Benevolent, philanthropic man! It was painful to him even to\r
+keep a third cousin to himself.\r
+\r
+"Do come now," said he--"pray come--you must come--I declare you shall\r
+come--You can't think how you will like them. Lucy is monstrous\r
+pretty, and so good humoured and agreeable! The children are all\r
+hanging about her already, as if she was an old acquaintance. And they\r
+both long to see you of all things, for they have heard at Exeter that\r
+you are the most beautiful creatures in the world; and I have told them\r
+it is all very true, and a great deal more. You will be delighted with\r
+them I am sure. They have brought the whole coach full of playthings\r
+for the children. How can you be so cross as not to come? Why they\r
+are your cousins, you know, after a fashion. YOU are my cousins, and\r
+they are my wife's, so you must be related."\r
+\r
+But Sir John could not prevail. He could only obtain a promise of\r
+their calling at the Park within a day or two, and then left them in\r
+amazement at their indifference, to walk home and boast anew of their\r
+attractions to the Miss Steeles, as he had been already boasting of the\r
+Miss Steeles to them.\r
+\r
+When their promised visit to the Park and consequent introduction to\r
+these young ladies took place, they found in the appearance of the\r
+eldest, who was nearly thirty, with a very plain and not a sensible\r
+face, nothing to admire; but in the other, who was not more than two or\r
+three and twenty, they acknowledged considerable beauty; her features\r
+were pretty, and she had a sharp quick eye, and a smartness of air,\r
+which though it did not give actual elegance or grace, gave distinction\r
+to her person.-- Their manners were particularly civil, and Elinor soon\r
+allowed them credit for some kind of sense, when she saw with what\r
+constant and judicious attention they were making themselves agreeable\r
+to Lady Middleton. With her children they were in continual raptures,\r
+extolling their beauty, courting their notice, and humouring their\r
+whims; and such of their time as could be spared from the importunate\r
+demands which this politeness made on it, was spent in admiration of\r
+whatever her ladyship was doing, if she happened to be doing any thing,\r
+or in taking patterns of some elegant new dress, in which her\r
+appearance the day before had thrown them into unceasing delight.\r
+Fortunately for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond\r
+mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most\r
+rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands\r
+are exorbitant; but she will swallow any thing; and the excessive\r
+affection and endurance of the Miss Steeles towards her offspring were\r
+viewed therefore by Lady Middleton without the smallest surprise or\r
+distrust. She saw with maternal complacency all the impertinent\r
+encroachments and mischievous tricks to which her cousins submitted.\r
+She saw their sashes untied, their hair pulled about their ears, their\r
+work-bags searched, and their knives and scissors stolen away, and felt\r
+no doubt of its being a reciprocal enjoyment. It suggested no other\r
+surprise than that Elinor and Marianne should sit so composedly by,\r
+without claiming a share in what was passing.\r
+\r
+"John is in such spirits today!" said she, on his taking Miss Steeles's\r
+pocket handkerchief, and throwing it out of window--"He is full of\r
+monkey tricks."\r
+\r
+And soon afterwards, on the second boy's violently pinching one of the\r
+same lady's fingers, she fondly observed, "How playful William is!"\r
+\r
+"And here is my sweet little Annamaria," she added, tenderly caressing\r
+a little girl of three years old, who had not made a noise for the last\r
+two minutes; "And she is always so gentle and quiet--Never was there\r
+such a quiet little thing!"\r
+\r
+But unfortunately in bestowing these embraces, a pin in her ladyship's\r
+head dress slightly scratching the child's neck, produced from this\r
+pattern of gentleness such violent screams, as could hardly be outdone\r
+by any creature professedly noisy. The mother's consternation was\r
+excessive; but it could not surpass the alarm of the Miss Steeles, and\r
+every thing was done by all three, in so critical an emergency, which\r
+affection could suggest as likely to assuage the agonies of the little\r
+sufferer. She was seated in her mother's lap, covered with kisses, her\r
+wound bathed with lavender-water, by one of the Miss Steeles, who was\r
+on her knees to attend her, and her mouth stuffed with sugar plums by\r
+the other. With such a reward for her tears, the child was too wise to\r
+cease crying. She still screamed and sobbed lustily, kicked her two\r
+brothers for offering to touch her, and all their united soothings were\r
+ineffectual till Lady Middleton luckily remembering that in a scene of\r
+similar distress last week, some apricot marmalade had been\r
+successfully applied for a bruised temple, the same remedy was eagerly\r
+proposed for this unfortunate scratch, and a slight intermission of\r
+screams in the young lady on hearing it, gave them reason to hope that\r
+it would not be rejected.-- She was carried out of the room therefore\r
+in her mother's arms, in quest of this medicine, and as the two boys\r
+chose to follow, though earnestly entreated by their mother to stay\r
+behind, the four young ladies were left in a quietness which the room\r
+had not known for many hours.\r
+\r
+"Poor little creatures!" said Miss Steele, as soon as they were gone.\r
+"It might have been a very sad accident."\r
+\r
+"Yet I hardly know how," cried Marianne, "unless it had been under\r
+totally different circumstances. But this is the usual way of\r
+heightening alarm, where there is nothing to be alarmed at in reality."\r
+\r
+"What a sweet woman Lady Middleton is!" said Lucy Steele.\r
+\r
+Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not\r
+feel, however trivial the occasion; and upon Elinor therefore the whole\r
+task of telling lies when politeness required it, always fell. She did\r
+her best when thus called on, by speaking of Lady Middleton with more\r
+warmth than she felt, though with far less than Miss Lucy.\r
+\r
+"And Sir John too," cried the elder sister, "what a charming man he is!"\r
+\r
+Here too, Miss Dashwood's commendation, being only simple and just,\r
+came in without any eclat. She merely observed that he was perfectly\r
+good humoured and friendly.\r
+\r
+"And what a charming little family they have! I never saw such fine\r
+children in my life.--I declare I quite doat upon them already, and\r
+indeed I am always distractedly fond of children."\r
+\r
+"I should guess so," said Elinor, with a smile, "from what I have\r
+witnessed this morning."\r
+\r
+"I have a notion," said Lucy, "you think the little Middletons rather\r
+too much indulged; perhaps they may be the outside of enough; but it is\r
+so natural in Lady Middleton; and for my part, I love to see children\r
+full of life and spirits; I cannot bear them if they are tame and\r
+quiet."\r
+\r
+"I confess," replied Elinor, "that while I am at Barton Park, I never\r
+think of tame and quiet children with any abhorrence."\r
+\r
+A short pause succeeded this speech, which was first broken by Miss\r
+Steele, who seemed very much disposed for conversation, and who now\r
+said rather abruptly, "And how do you like Devonshire, Miss Dashwood?\r
+I suppose you were very sorry to leave Sussex."\r
+\r
+In some surprise at the familiarity of this question, or at least of\r
+the manner in which it was spoken, Elinor replied that she was.\r
+\r
+"Norland is a prodigious beautiful place, is not it?" added Miss Steele.\r
+\r
+"We have heard Sir John admire it excessively," said Lucy, who seemed\r
+to think some apology necessary for the freedom of her sister.\r
+\r
+"I think every one MUST admire it," replied Elinor, "who ever saw the\r
+place; though it is not to be supposed that any one can estimate its\r
+beauties as we do."\r
+\r
+"And had you a great many smart beaux there? I suppose you have not so\r
+many in this part of the world; for my part, I think they are a vast\r
+addition always."\r
+\r
+"But why should you think," said Lucy, looking ashamed of her sister,\r
+"that there are not as many genteel young men in Devonshire as Sussex?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, my dear, I'm sure I don't pretend to say that there an't. I'm\r
+sure there's a vast many smart beaux in Exeter; but you know, how could\r
+I tell what smart beaux there might be about Norland; and I was only\r
+afraid the Miss Dashwoods might find it dull at Barton, if they had not\r
+so many as they used to have. But perhaps you young ladies may not\r
+care about the beaux, and had as lief be without them as with them.\r
+For my part, I think they are vastly agreeable, provided they dress\r
+smart and behave civil. But I can't bear to see them dirty and nasty.\r
+Now there's Mr. Rose at Exeter, a prodigious smart young man, quite a\r
+beau, clerk to Mr. Simpson, you know, and yet if you do but meet him of\r
+a morning, he is not fit to be seen.-- I suppose your brother was quite\r
+a beau, Miss Dashwood, before he married, as he was so rich?"\r
+\r
+"Upon my word," replied Elinor, "I cannot tell you, for I do not\r
+perfectly comprehend the meaning of the word. But this I can say, that\r
+if he ever was a beau before he married, he is one still for there is\r
+not the smallest alteration in him."\r
+\r
+"Oh! dear! one never thinks of married men's being beaux--they have\r
+something else to do."\r
+\r
+"Lord! Anne," cried her sister, "you can talk of nothing but\r
+beaux;--you will make Miss Dashwood believe you think of nothing else."\r
+And then to turn the discourse, she began admiring the house and the\r
+furniture.\r
+\r
+This specimen of the Miss Steeles was enough. The vulgar freedom and\r
+folly of the eldest left her no recommendation, and as Elinor was not\r
+blinded by the beauty, or the shrewd look of the youngest, to her want\r
+of real elegance and artlessness, she left the house without any wish\r
+of knowing them better.\r
+\r
+Not so the Miss Steeles.--They came from Exeter, well provided with\r
+admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton, his family, and all his\r
+relations, and no niggardly proportion was now dealt out to his fair\r
+cousins, whom they declared to be the most beautiful, elegant,\r
+accomplished, and agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom\r
+they were particularly anxious to be better acquainted.-- And to be\r
+better acquainted therefore, Elinor soon found was their inevitable\r
+lot, for as Sir John was entirely on the side of the Miss Steeles,\r
+their party would be too strong for opposition, and that kind of\r
+intimacy must be submitted to, which consists of sitting an hour or two\r
+together in the same room almost every day. Sir John could do no more;\r
+but he did not know that any more was required: to be together was, in\r
+his opinion, to be intimate, and while his continual schemes for their\r
+meeting were effectual, he had not a doubt of their being established\r
+friends.\r
+\r
+To do him justice, he did every thing in his power to promote their\r
+unreserve, by making the Miss Steeles acquainted with whatever he knew\r
+or supposed of his cousins' situations in the most delicate\r
+particulars,--and Elinor had not seen them more than twice, before the\r
+eldest of them wished her joy on her sister's having been so lucky as\r
+to make a conquest of a very smart beau since she came to Barton.\r
+\r
+"'Twill be a fine thing to have her married so young to be sure," said\r
+she, "and I hear he is quite a beau, and prodigious handsome. And I\r
+hope you may have as good luck yourself soon,--but perhaps you may have\r
+a friend in the corner already."\r
+\r
+Elinor could not suppose that Sir John would be more nice in\r
+proclaiming his suspicions of her regard for Edward, than he had been\r
+with respect to Marianne; indeed it was rather his favourite joke of\r
+the two, as being somewhat newer and more conjectural; and since\r
+Edward's visit, they had never dined together without his drinking to\r
+her best affections with so much significancy and so many nods and\r
+winks, as to excite general attention. The letter F--had been likewise\r
+invariably brought forward, and found productive of such countless\r
+jokes, that its character as the wittiest letter in the alphabet had\r
+been long established with Elinor.\r
+\r
+The Miss Steeles, as she expected, had now all the benefit of these\r
+jokes, and in the eldest of them they raised a curiosity to know the\r
+name of the gentleman alluded to, which, though often impertinently\r
+expressed, was perfectly of a piece with her general inquisitiveness\r
+into the concerns of their family. But Sir John did not sport long\r
+with the curiosity which he delighted to raise, for he had at least as\r
+much pleasure in telling the name, as Miss Steele had in hearing it.\r
+\r
+"His name is Ferrars," said he, in a very audible whisper; "but pray do\r
+not tell it, for it's a great secret."\r
+\r
+"Ferrars!" repeated Miss Steele; "Mr. Ferrars is the happy man, is he?\r
+What! your sister-in-law's brother, Miss Dashwood? a very agreeable\r
+young man to be sure; I know him very well."\r
+\r
+"How can you say so, Anne?" cried Lucy, who generally made an amendment\r
+to all her sister's assertions. "Though we have seen him once or twice\r
+at my uncle's, it is rather too much to pretend to know him very well."\r
+\r
+Elinor heard all this with attention and surprise. "And who was this\r
+uncle? Where did he live? How came they acquainted?" She wished very\r
+much to have the subject continued, though she did not chuse to join in\r
+it herself; but nothing more of it was said, and for the first time in\r
+her life, she thought Mrs. Jennings deficient either in curiosity after\r
+petty information, or in a disposition to communicate it. The manner\r
+in which Miss Steele had spoken of Edward, increased her curiosity; for\r
+it struck her as being rather ill-natured, and suggested the suspicion\r
+of that lady's knowing, or fancying herself to know something to his\r
+disadvantage.--But her curiosity was unavailing, for no farther notice\r
+was taken of Mr. Ferrars's name by Miss Steele when alluded to, or even\r
+openly mentioned by Sir John.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 22\r
+\r
+\r
+Marianne, who had never much toleration for any thing like\r
+impertinence, vulgarity, inferiority of parts, or even difference of\r
+taste from herself, was at this time particularly ill-disposed, from\r
+the state of her spirits, to be pleased with the Miss Steeles, or to\r
+encourage their advances; and to the invariable coldness of her\r
+behaviour towards them, which checked every endeavour at intimacy on\r
+their side, Elinor principally attributed that preference of herself\r
+which soon became evident in the manners of both, but especially of\r
+Lucy, who missed no opportunity of engaging her in conversation, or of\r
+striving to improve their acquaintance by an easy and frank\r
+communication of her sentiments.\r
+\r
+Lucy was naturally clever; her remarks were often just and amusing; and\r
+as a companion for half an hour Elinor frequently found her agreeable;\r
+but her powers had received no aid from education: she was ignorant and\r
+illiterate; and her deficiency of all mental improvement, her want of\r
+information in the most common particulars, could not be concealed from\r
+Miss Dashwood, in spite of her constant endeavour to appear to\r
+advantage. Elinor saw, and pitied her for, the neglect of abilities\r
+which education might have rendered so respectable; but she saw, with\r
+less tenderness of feeling, the thorough want of delicacy, of\r
+rectitude, and integrity of mind, which her attentions, her\r
+assiduities, her flatteries at the Park betrayed; and she could have no\r
+lasting satisfaction in the company of a person who joined insincerity\r
+with ignorance; whose want of instruction prevented their meeting in\r
+conversation on terms of equality, and whose conduct toward others made\r
+every shew of attention and deference towards herself perfectly\r
+valueless.\r
+\r
+"You will think my question an odd one, I dare say," said Lucy to her\r
+one day, as they were walking together from the park to the\r
+cottage--"but pray, are you personally acquainted with your\r
+sister-in-law's mother, Mrs. Ferrars?"\r
+\r
+Elinor DID think the question a very odd one, and her countenance\r
+expressed it, as she answered that she had never seen Mrs. Ferrars.\r
+\r
+"Indeed!" replied Lucy; "I wonder at that, for I thought you must have\r
+seen her at Norland sometimes. Then, perhaps, you cannot tell me what\r
+sort of a woman she is?"\r
+\r
+"No," returned Elinor, cautious of giving her real opinion of Edward's\r
+mother, and not very desirous of satisfying what seemed impertinent\r
+curiosity-- "I know nothing of her."\r
+\r
+"I am sure you think me very strange, for enquiring about her in such a\r
+way," said Lucy, eyeing Elinor attentively as she spoke; "but perhaps\r
+there may be reasons--I wish I might venture; but however I hope you\r
+will do me the justice of believing that I do not mean to be\r
+impertinent."\r
+\r
+Elinor made her a civil reply, and they walked on for a few minutes in\r
+silence. It was broken by Lucy, who renewed the subject again by\r
+saying, with some hesitation,\r
+\r
+"I cannot bear to have you think me impertinently curious. I am sure I\r
+would rather do any thing in the world than be thought so by a person\r
+whose good opinion is so well worth having as yours. And I am sure I\r
+should not have the smallest fear of trusting YOU; indeed, I should be\r
+very glad of your advice how to manage in such an uncomfortable\r
+situation as I am; but, however, there is no occasion to trouble YOU.\r
+I am sorry you do not happen to know Mrs. Ferrars."\r
+\r
+"I am sorry I do NOT," said Elinor, in great astonishment, "if it could\r
+be of any use to YOU to know my opinion of her. But really I never\r
+understood that you were at all connected with that family, and\r
+therefore I am a little surprised, I confess, at so serious an inquiry\r
+into her character."\r
+\r
+"I dare say you are, and I am sure I do not at all wonder at it. But\r
+if I dared tell you all, you would not be so much surprised. Mrs.\r
+Ferrars is certainly nothing to me at present--but the time MAY\r
+come--how soon it will come must depend upon herself--when we may be\r
+very intimately connected."\r
+\r
+She looked down as she said this, amiably bashful, with only one side\r
+glance at her companion to observe its effect on her.\r
+\r
+"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "what do you mean? Are you acquainted\r
+with Mr. Robert Ferrars? Can you be?" And she did not feel much\r
+delighted with the idea of such a sister-in-law.\r
+\r
+"No," replied Lucy, "not to Mr. ROBERT Ferrars--I never saw him in my\r
+life; but," fixing her eyes upon Elinor, "to his eldest brother."\r
+\r
+What felt Elinor at that moment? Astonishment, that would have been as\r
+painful as it was strong, had not an immediate disbelief of the\r
+assertion attended it. She turned towards Lucy in silent amazement,\r
+unable to divine the reason or object of such a declaration; and though\r
+her complexion varied, she stood firm in incredulity, and felt in no\r
+danger of an hysterical fit, or a swoon.\r
+\r
+"You may well be surprised," continued Lucy; "for to be sure you could\r
+have had no idea of it before; for I dare say he never dropped the\r
+smallest hint of it to you or any of your family; because it was always\r
+meant to be a great secret, and I am sure has been faithfully kept so\r
+by me to this hour. Not a soul of all my relations know of it but\r
+Anne, and I never should have mentioned it to you, if I had not felt\r
+the greatest dependence in the world upon your secrecy; and I really\r
+thought my behaviour in asking so many questions about Mrs. Ferrars\r
+must seem so odd, that it ought to be explained. And I do not think\r
+Mr. Ferrars can be displeased, when he knows I have trusted you,\r
+because I know he has the highest opinion in the world of all your\r
+family, and looks upon yourself and the other Miss Dashwoods quite as\r
+his own sisters."--She paused.\r
+\r
+Elinor for a few moments remained silent. Her astonishment at what she\r
+heard was at first too great for words; but at length forcing herself\r
+to speak, and to speak cautiously, she said, with calmness of manner,\r
+which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude-- "May I ask\r
+if your engagement is of long standing?"\r
+\r
+"We have been engaged these four years."\r
+\r
+"Four years!"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+Elinor, though greatly shocked, still felt unable to believe it.\r
+\r
+"I did not know," said she, "that you were even acquainted till the\r
+other day."\r
+\r
+"Our acquaintance, however, is of many years date. He was under my\r
+uncle's care, you know, a considerable while."\r
+\r
+"Your uncle!"\r
+\r
+"Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?"\r
+\r
+"I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which\r
+increased with her increase of emotion.\r
+\r
+"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near\r
+Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me\r
+was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was\r
+formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he\r
+was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter\r
+into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of\r
+his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so\r
+prudent as I ought to have been.-- Though you do not know him so well\r
+as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible\r
+he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after\r
+a moment's reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward's\r
+honour and love, and her companion's falsehood--"Engaged to Mr. Edward\r
+Ferrars!--I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me,\r
+that really--I beg your pardon; but surely there must be some mistake\r
+of person or name. We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars."\r
+\r
+"We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling. "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the\r
+eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your\r
+sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the person I mean; you must allow\r
+that I am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who\r
+all my happiness depends."\r
+\r
+"It is strange," replied Elinor, in a most painful perplexity, "that I\r
+should never have heard him even mention your name."\r
+\r
+"No; considering our situation, it was not strange. Our first care has\r
+been to keep the matter secret.-- You knew nothing of me, or my family,\r
+and, therefore, there could be no OCCASION for ever mentioning my name\r
+to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister's\r
+suspecting any thing, THAT was reason enough for his not mentioning it."\r
+\r
+She was silent.--Elinor's security sunk; but her self-command did not\r
+sink with it.\r
+\r
+"Four years you have been engaged," said she with a firm voice.\r
+\r
+"Yes; and heaven knows how much longer we may have to wait. Poor\r
+Edward! It puts him quite out of heart." Then taking a small miniature\r
+from her pocket, she added, "To prevent the possibility of mistake, be\r
+so good as to look at this face. It does not do him justice, to be\r
+sure, but yet I think you cannot be deceived as to the person it was\r
+drew for.--I have had it above these three years."\r
+\r
+She put it into her hands as she spoke; and when Elinor saw the\r
+painting, whatever other doubts her fear of a too hasty decision, or\r
+her wish of detecting falsehood might suffer to linger in her mind, she\r
+could have none of its being Edward's face. She returned it almost\r
+instantly, acknowledging the likeness.\r
+\r
+"I have never been able," continued Lucy, "to give him my picture in\r
+return, which I am very much vexed at, for he has been always so\r
+anxious to get it! But I am determined to set for it the very first\r
+opportunity."\r
+\r
+"You are quite in the right," replied Elinor calmly. They then\r
+proceeded a few paces in silence. Lucy spoke first.\r
+\r
+"I am sure," said she, "I have no doubt in the world of your faithfully\r
+keeping this secret, because you must know of what importance it is to\r
+us, not to have it reach his mother; for she would never approve of it,\r
+I dare say. I shall have no fortune, and I fancy she is an exceeding\r
+proud woman."\r
+\r
+"I certainly did not seek your confidence," said Elinor; "but you do me\r
+no more than justice in imagining that I may be depended on. Your\r
+secret is safe with me; but pardon me if I express some surprise at so\r
+unnecessary a communication. You must at least have felt that my being\r
+acquainted with it could not add to its safety."\r
+\r
+As she said this, she looked earnestly at Lucy, hoping to discover\r
+something in her countenance; perhaps the falsehood of the greatest\r
+part of what she had been saying; but Lucy's countenance suffered no\r
+change.\r
+\r
+"I was afraid you would think I was taking a great liberty with you,"\r
+said she, "in telling you all this. I have not known you long to be\r
+sure, personally at least, but I have known you and all your family by\r
+description a great while; and as soon as I saw you, I felt almost as\r
+if you was an old acquaintance. Besides in the present case, I really\r
+thought some explanation was due to you after my making such particular\r
+inquiries about Edward's mother; and I am so unfortunate, that I have\r
+not a creature whose advice I can ask. Anne is the only person that\r
+knows of it, and she has no judgment at all; indeed, she does me a\r
+great deal more harm than good, for I am in constant fear of her\r
+betraying me. She does not know how to hold her tongue, as you must\r
+perceive, and I am sure I was in the greatest fright in the world\r
+t'other day, when Edward's name was mentioned by Sir John, lest she\r
+should out with it all. You can't think how much I go through in my\r
+mind from it altogether. I only wonder that I am alive after what I\r
+have suffered for Edward's sake these last four years. Every thing in\r
+such suspense and uncertainty; and seeing him so seldom--we can hardly\r
+meet above twice a-year. I am sure I wonder my heart is not quite\r
+broke."\r
+\r
+Here she took out her handkerchief; but Elinor did not feel very\r
+compassionate.\r
+\r
+"Sometimes." continued Lucy, after wiping her eyes, "I think whether it\r
+would not be better for us both to break off the matter entirely." As\r
+she said this, she looked directly at her companion. "But then at\r
+other times I have not resolution enough for it.-- I cannot bear the\r
+thoughts of making him so miserable, as I know the very mention of such\r
+a thing would do. And on my own account too--so dear as he is to me--I\r
+don't think I could be equal to it. What would you advise me to do in\r
+such a case, Miss Dashwood? What would you do yourself?"\r
+\r
+"Pardon me," replied Elinor, startled by the question; "but I can give\r
+you no advice under such circumstances. Your own judgment must direct\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"To be sure," continued Lucy, after a few minutes silence on both\r
+sides, "his mother must provide for him sometime or other; but poor\r
+Edward is so cast down by it! Did you not think him dreadful\r
+low-spirited when he was at Barton? He was so miserable when he left\r
+us at Longstaple, to go to you, that I was afraid you would think him\r
+quite ill."\r
+\r
+"Did he come from your uncle's, then, when he visited us?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes; he had been staying a fortnight with us. Did you think he\r
+came directly from town?"\r
+\r
+"No," replied Elinor, most feelingly sensible of every fresh\r
+circumstance in favour of Lucy's veracity; "I remember he told us, that\r
+he had been staying a fortnight with some friends near Plymouth." She\r
+remembered too, her own surprise at the time, at his mentioning nothing\r
+farther of those friends, at his total silence with respect even to\r
+their names.\r
+\r
+"Did not you think him sadly out of spirits?" repeated Lucy.\r
+\r
+"We did, indeed, particularly so when he first arrived."\r
+\r
+"I begged him to exert himself for fear you should suspect what was the\r
+matter; but it made him so melancholy, not being able to stay more than\r
+a fortnight with us, and seeing me so much affected.-- Poor fellow!--I\r
+am afraid it is just the same with him now; for he writes in wretched\r
+spirits. I heard from him just before I left Exeter;" taking a letter\r
+from her pocket and carelessly showing the direction to Elinor. "You\r
+know his hand, I dare say, a charming one it is; but that is not\r
+written so well as usual.--He was tired, I dare say, for he had just\r
+filled the sheet to me as full as possible."\r
+\r
+Elinor saw that it WAS his hand, and she could doubt no longer. This\r
+picture, she had allowed herself to believe, might have been\r
+accidentally obtained; it might not have been Edward's gift; but a\r
+correspondence between them by letter, could subsist only under a\r
+positive engagement, could be authorised by nothing else; for a few\r
+moments, she was almost overcome--her heart sunk within her, and she\r
+could hardly stand; but exertion was indispensably necessary; and she\r
+struggled so resolutely against the oppression of her feelings, that\r
+her success was speedy, and for the time complete.\r
+\r
+"Writing to each other," said Lucy, returning the letter into her\r
+pocket, "is the only comfort we have in such long separations. Yes, I\r
+have one other comfort in his picture, but poor Edward has not even\r
+THAT. If he had but my picture, he says he should be easy. I gave him\r
+a lock of my hair set in a ring when he was at Longstaple last, and\r
+that was some comfort to him, he said, but not equal to a picture.\r
+Perhaps you might notice the ring when you saw him?"\r
+\r
+"I did," said Elinor, with a composure of voice, under which was\r
+concealed an emotion and distress beyond any thing she had ever felt\r
+before. She was mortified, shocked, confounded.\r
+\r
+Fortunately for her, they had now reached the cottage, and the\r
+conversation could be continued no farther. After sitting with them a\r
+few minutes, the Miss Steeles returned to the Park, and Elinor was then\r
+at liberty to think and be wretched.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+[At this point in the first and second editions, Volume 1 ends.]\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 23\r
+\r
+\r
+However small Elinor's general dependence on Lucy's veracity might be,\r
+it was impossible for her on serious reflection to suspect it in the\r
+present case, where no temptation could be answerable to the folly of\r
+inventing a falsehood of such a description. What Lucy had asserted to\r
+be true, therefore, Elinor could not, dared not longer doubt; supported\r
+as it was too on every side by such probabilities and proofs, and\r
+contradicted by nothing but her own wishes. Their opportunity of\r
+acquaintance in the house of Mr. Pratt was a foundation for the rest,\r
+at once indisputable and alarming; and Edward's visit near Plymouth,\r
+his melancholy state of mind, his dissatisfaction at his own prospects,\r
+his uncertain behaviour towards herself, the intimate knowledge of the\r
+Miss Steeles as to Norland and their family connections, which had\r
+often surprised her, the picture, the letter, the ring, formed\r
+altogether such a body of evidence, as overcame every fear of\r
+condemning him unfairly, and established as a fact, which no partiality\r
+could set aside, his ill-treatment of herself.--Her resentment of such\r
+behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time\r
+made her feel only for herself; but other ideas, other considerations,\r
+soon arose. Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her? Had he\r
+feigned a regard for her which he did not feel? Was his engagement to\r
+Lucy an engagement of the heart? No; whatever it might once have been,\r
+she could not believe it such at present. His affection was all her\r
+own. She could not be deceived in that. Her mother, sisters, Fanny,\r
+all had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it was not an\r
+illusion of her own vanity. He certainly loved her. What a softener\r
+of the heart was this persuasion! How much could it not tempt her to\r
+forgive! He had been blamable, highly blamable, in remaining at\r
+Norland after he first felt her influence over him to be more than it\r
+ought to be. In that, he could not be defended; but if he had injured\r
+her, how much more had he injured himself; if her case were pitiable,\r
+his was hopeless. His imprudence had made her miserable for a while;\r
+but it seemed to have deprived himself of all chance of ever being\r
+otherwise. She might in time regain tranquillity; but HE, what had he\r
+to look forward to? Could he ever be tolerably happy with Lucy Steele;\r
+could he, were his affection for herself out of the question, with his\r
+integrity, his delicacy, and well-informed mind, be satisfied with a\r
+wife like her--illiterate, artful, and selfish?\r
+\r
+The youthful infatuation of nineteen would naturally blind him to every\r
+thing but her beauty and good nature; but the four succeeding\r
+years--years, which if rationally spent, give such improvement to the\r
+understanding, must have opened his eyes to her defects of education,\r
+while the same period of time, spent on her side in inferior society\r
+and more frivolous pursuits, had perhaps robbed her of that simplicity\r
+which might once have given an interesting character to her beauty.\r
+\r
+If in the supposition of his seeking to marry herself, his difficulties\r
+from his mother had seemed great, how much greater were they now likely\r
+to be, when the object of his engagement was undoubtedly inferior in\r
+connections, and probably inferior in fortune to herself. These\r
+difficulties, indeed, with a heart so alienated from Lucy, might not\r
+press very hard upon his patience; but melancholy was the state of the\r
+person by whom the expectation of family opposition and unkindness,\r
+could be felt as a relief!\r
+\r
+As these considerations occurred to her in painful succession, she wept\r
+for him, more than for herself. Supported by the conviction of having\r
+done nothing to merit her present unhappiness, and consoled by the\r
+belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought\r
+she could even now, under the first smart of the heavy blow, command\r
+herself enough to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother\r
+and sisters. And so well was she able to answer her own expectations,\r
+that when she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first\r
+suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have\r
+supposed from the appearance of the sisters, that Elinor was mourning\r
+in secret over obstacles which must divide her for ever from the object\r
+of her love, and that Marianne was internally dwelling on the\r
+perfections of a man, of whose whole heart she felt thoroughly\r
+possessed, and whom she expected to see in every carriage which drove\r
+near their house.\r
+\r
+The necessity of concealing from her mother and Marianne, what had been\r
+entrusted in confidence to herself, though it obliged her to unceasing\r
+exertion, was no aggravation of Elinor's distress. On the contrary it\r
+was a relief to her, to be spared the communication of what would give\r
+such affliction to them, and to be saved likewise from hearing that\r
+condemnation of Edward, which would probably flow from the excess of\r
+their partial affection for herself, and which was more than she felt\r
+equal to support.\r
+\r
+From their counsel, or their conversation, she knew she could receive\r
+no assistance, their tenderness and sorrow must add to her distress,\r
+while her self-command would neither receive encouragement from their\r
+example nor from their praise. She was stronger alone, and her own\r
+good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken,\r
+her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so\r
+poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.\r
+\r
+Much as she had suffered from her first conversation with Lucy on the\r
+subject, she soon felt an earnest wish of renewing it; and this for\r
+more reasons than one. She wanted to hear many particulars of their\r
+engagement repeated again, she wanted more clearly to understand what\r
+Lucy really felt for Edward, whether there were any sincerity in her\r
+declaration of tender regard for him, and she particularly wanted to\r
+convince Lucy, by her readiness to enter on the matter again, and her\r
+calmness in conversing on it, that she was no otherwise interested in\r
+it than as a friend, which she very much feared her involuntary\r
+agitation, in their morning discourse, must have left at least\r
+doubtful. That Lucy was disposed to be jealous of her appeared very\r
+probable: it was plain that Edward had always spoken highly in her\r
+praise, not merely from Lucy's assertion, but from her venturing to\r
+trust her on so short a personal acquaintance, with a secret so\r
+confessedly and evidently important. And even Sir John's joking\r
+intelligence must have had some weight. But indeed, while Elinor\r
+remained so well assured within herself of being really beloved by\r
+Edward, it required no other consideration of probabilities to make it\r
+natural that Lucy should be jealous; and that she was so, her very\r
+confidence was a proof. What other reason for the disclosure of the\r
+affair could there be, but that Elinor might be informed by it of\r
+Lucy's superior claims on Edward, and be taught to avoid him in future?\r
+She had little difficulty in understanding thus much of her rival's\r
+intentions, and while she was firmly resolved to act by her as every\r
+principle of honour and honesty directed, to combat her own affection\r
+for Edward and to see him as little as possible; she could not deny\r
+herself the comfort of endeavouring to convince Lucy that her heart was\r
+unwounded. And as she could now have nothing more painful to hear on\r
+the subject than had already been told, she did not mistrust her own\r
+ability of going through a repetition of particulars with composure.\r
+\r
+But it was not immediately that an opportunity of doing so could be\r
+commanded, though Lucy was as well disposed as herself to take\r
+advantage of any that occurred; for the weather was not often fine\r
+enough to allow of their joining in a walk, where they might most\r
+easily separate themselves from the others; and though they met at\r
+least every other evening either at the park or cottage, and chiefly at\r
+the former, they could not be supposed to meet for the sake of\r
+conversation. Such a thought would never enter either Sir John or Lady\r
+Middleton's head; and therefore very little leisure was ever given for\r
+a general chat, and none at all for particular discourse. They met for\r
+the sake of eating, drinking, and laughing together, playing at cards,\r
+or consequences, or any other game that was sufficiently noisy.\r
+\r
+One or two meetings of this kind had taken place, without affording\r
+Elinor any chance of engaging Lucy in private, when Sir John called at\r
+the cottage one morning, to beg, in the name of charity, that they\r
+would all dine with Lady Middleton that day, as he was obliged to\r
+attend the club at Exeter, and she would otherwise be quite alone,\r
+except her mother and the two Miss Steeles. Elinor, who foresaw a\r
+fairer opening for the point she had in view, in such a party as this\r
+was likely to be, more at liberty among themselves under the tranquil\r
+and well-bred direction of Lady Middleton than when her husband united\r
+them together in one noisy purpose, immediately accepted the\r
+invitation; Margaret, with her mother's permission, was equally\r
+compliant, and Marianne, though always unwilling to join any of their\r
+parties, was persuaded by her mother, who could not bear to have her\r
+seclude herself from any chance of amusement, to go likewise.\r
+\r
+The young ladies went, and Lady Middleton was happily preserved from\r
+the frightful solitude which had threatened her. The insipidity of the\r
+meeting was exactly such as Elinor had expected; it produced not one\r
+novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting\r
+than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and\r
+drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while\r
+they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of\r
+engaging Lucy's attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the\r
+removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor\r
+began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of\r
+finding time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in\r
+preparation for a round game.\r
+\r
+"I am glad," said Lady Middleton to Lucy, "you are not going to finish\r
+poor little Annamaria's basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt\r
+your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the dear\r
+little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I\r
+hope she will not much mind it."\r
+\r
+This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied,\r
+"Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting\r
+to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have\r
+been at my filigree already. I would not disappoint the little angel\r
+for all the world: and if you want me at the card-table now, I am\r
+resolved to finish the basket after supper."\r
+\r
+"You are very good, I hope it won't hurt your eyes--will you ring the\r
+bell for some working candles? My poor little girl would be sadly\r
+disappointed, I know, if the basket was not finished tomorrow, for\r
+though I told her it certainly would not, I am sure she depends upon\r
+having it done."\r
+\r
+Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with an\r
+alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste no\r
+greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child.\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton proposed a rubber of Casino to the others. No one made\r
+any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to the forms\r
+of general civility, exclaimed, "Your Ladyship will have the goodness\r
+to excuse ME--you know I detest cards. I shall go to the piano-forte;\r
+I have not touched it since it was tuned." And without farther\r
+ceremony, she turned away and walked to the instrument.\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that SHE had never made\r
+so rude a speech.\r
+\r
+"Marianne can never keep long from that instrument you know, ma'am,"\r
+said Elinor, endeavouring to smooth away the offence; "and I do not\r
+much wonder at it; for it is the very best toned piano-forte I ever\r
+heard."\r
+\r
+The remaining five were now to draw their cards.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," continued Elinor, "if I should happen to cut out, I may be\r
+of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and\r
+there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be\r
+impossible I think for her labour singly, to finish it this evening. I\r
+should like the work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I shall be very much obliged to you for your help," cried Lucy,\r
+"for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was;\r
+and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear Annamaria after\r
+all."\r
+\r
+"Oh! that would be terrible, indeed," said Miss Steele-- "Dear little\r
+soul, how I do love her!"\r
+\r
+"You are very kind," said Lady Middleton to Elinor; "and as you really\r
+like the work, perhaps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till\r
+another rubber, or will you take your chance now?"\r
+\r
+Elinor joyfully profited by the first of these proposals, and thus by a\r
+little of that address which Marianne could never condescend to\r
+practise, gained her own end, and pleased Lady Middleton at the same\r
+time. Lucy made room for her with ready attention, and the two fair\r
+rivals were thus seated side by side at the same table, and, with the\r
+utmost harmony, engaged in forwarding the same work. The pianoforte at\r
+which Marianne, wrapped up in her own music and her own thoughts, had\r
+by this time forgotten that any body was in the room besides herself,\r
+was luckily so near them that Miss Dashwood now judged she might\r
+safely, under the shelter of its noise, introduce the interesting\r
+subject, without any risk of being heard at the card-table.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 24\r
+\r
+\r
+In a firm, though cautious tone, Elinor thus began.\r
+\r
+"I should be undeserving of the confidence you have honoured me with,\r
+if I felt no desire for its continuance, or no farther curiosity on its\r
+subject. I will not apologize therefore for bringing it forward again."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," cried Lucy warmly, "for breaking the ice; you have set my\r
+heart at ease by it; for I was somehow or other afraid I had offended\r
+you by what I told you that Monday."\r
+\r
+"Offended me! How could you suppose so? Believe me," and Elinor spoke\r
+it with the truest sincerity, "nothing could be farther from my\r
+intention than to give you such an idea. Could you have a motive for\r
+the trust, that was not honourable and flattering to me?"\r
+\r
+"And yet I do assure you," replied Lucy, her little sharp eyes full of\r
+meaning, "there seemed to me to be a coldness and displeasure in your\r
+manner that made me quite uncomfortable. I felt sure that you was\r
+angry with me; and have been quarrelling with myself ever since, for\r
+having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my affairs. But I am\r
+very glad to find it was only my own fancy, and that you really do not\r
+blame me. If you knew what a consolation it was to me to relieve my\r
+heart speaking to you of what I am always thinking of every moment of\r
+my life, your compassion would make you overlook every thing else I am\r
+sure."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I can easily believe that it was a very great relief to you,\r
+to acknowledge your situation to me, and be assured that you shall\r
+never have reason to repent it. Your case is a very unfortunate one;\r
+you seem to me to be surrounded with difficulties, and you will have\r
+need of all your mutual affection to support you under them. Mr.\r
+Ferrars, I believe, is entirely dependent on his mother."\r
+\r
+"He has only two thousand pounds of his own; it would be madness to\r
+marry upon that, though for my own part, I could give up every prospect\r
+of more without a sigh. I have been always used to a very small\r
+income, and could struggle with any poverty for him; but I love him too\r
+well to be the selfish means of robbing him, perhaps, of all that his\r
+mother might give him if he married to please her. We must wait, it\r
+may be for many years. With almost every other man in the world, it\r
+would be an alarming prospect; but Edward's affection and constancy\r
+nothing can deprive me of I know."\r
+\r
+"That conviction must be every thing to you; and he is undoubtedly\r
+supported by the same trust in your's. If the strength of your\r
+reciprocal attachment had failed, as between many people, and under\r
+many circumstances it naturally would during a four years' engagement,\r
+your situation would have been pitiable, indeed."\r
+\r
+Lucy here looked up; but Elinor was careful in guarding her countenance\r
+from every expression that could give her words a suspicious tendency.\r
+\r
+"Edward's love for me," said Lucy, "has been pretty well put to the\r
+test, by our long, very long absence since we were first engaged, and\r
+it has stood the trial so well, that I should be unpardonable to doubt\r
+it now. I can safely say that he has never gave me one moment's alarm\r
+on that account from the first."\r
+\r
+Elinor hardly knew whether to smile or sigh at this assertion.\r
+\r
+Lucy went on. "I am rather of a jealous temper too by nature, and from\r
+our different situations in life, from his being so much more in the\r
+world than me, and our continual separation, I was enough inclined for\r
+suspicion, to have found out the truth in an instant, if there had been\r
+the slightest alteration in his behaviour to me when we met, or any\r
+lowness of spirits that I could not account for, or if he had talked\r
+more of one lady than another, or seemed in any respect less happy at\r
+Longstaple than he used to be. I do not mean to say that I am\r
+particularly observant or quick-sighted in general, but in such a case\r
+I am sure I could not be deceived."\r
+\r
+"All this," thought Elinor, "is very pretty; but it can impose upon\r
+neither of us."\r
+\r
+"But what," said she after a short silence, "are your views? or have\r
+you none but that of waiting for Mrs. Ferrars's death, which is a\r
+melancholy and shocking extremity?--Is her son determined to submit to\r
+this, and to all the tediousness of the many years of suspense in which\r
+it may involve you, rather than run the risk of her displeasure for a\r
+while by owning the truth?"\r
+\r
+"If we could be certain that it would be only for a while! But Mrs.\r
+Ferrars is a very headstrong proud woman, and in her first fit of anger\r
+upon hearing it, would very likely secure every thing to Robert, and\r
+the idea of that, for Edward's sake, frightens away all my inclination\r
+for hasty measures."\r
+\r
+"And for your own sake too, or you are carrying your disinterestedness\r
+beyond reason."\r
+\r
+Lucy looked at Elinor again, and was silent.\r
+\r
+"Do you know Mr. Robert Ferrars?" asked Elinor.\r
+\r
+"Not at all--I never saw him; but I fancy he is very unlike his\r
+brother--silly and a great coxcomb."\r
+\r
+"A great coxcomb!" repeated Miss Steele, whose ear had caught those\r
+words by a sudden pause in Marianne's music.-- "Oh, they are talking of\r
+their favourite beaux, I dare say."\r
+\r
+"No sister," cried Lucy, "you are mistaken there, our favourite beaux\r
+are NOT great coxcombs."\r
+\r
+"I can answer for it that Miss Dashwood's is not," said Mrs. Jennings,\r
+laughing heartily; "for he is one of the modestest, prettiest behaved\r
+young men I ever saw; but as for Lucy, she is such a sly little\r
+creature, there is no finding out who SHE likes."\r
+\r
+"Oh," cried Miss Steele, looking significantly round at them, "I dare\r
+say Lucy's beau is quite as modest and pretty behaved as Miss\r
+Dashwood's."\r
+\r
+Elinor blushed in spite of herself. Lucy bit her lip, and looked\r
+angrily at her sister. A mutual silence took place for some time.\r
+Lucy first put an end to it by saying in a lower tone, though Marianne\r
+was then giving them the powerful protection of a very magnificent\r
+concerto--\r
+\r
+"I will honestly tell you of one scheme which has lately come into my\r
+head, for bringing matters to bear; indeed I am bound to let you into\r
+the secret, for you are a party concerned. I dare say you have seen\r
+enough of Edward to know that he would prefer the church to every other\r
+profession; now my plan is that he should take orders as soon as he\r
+can, and then through your interest, which I am sure you would be kind\r
+enough to use out of friendship for him, and I hope out of some regard\r
+to me, your brother might be persuaded to give him Norland living;\r
+which I understand is a very good one, and the present incumbent not\r
+likely to live a great while. That would be enough for us to marry\r
+upon, and we might trust to time and chance for the rest."\r
+\r
+"I should always be happy," replied Elinor, "to show any mark of my\r
+esteem and friendship for Mr. Ferrars; but do you not perceive that my\r
+interest on such an occasion would be perfectly unnecessary? He is\r
+brother to Mrs. John Dashwood--THAT must be recommendation enough to\r
+her husband."\r
+\r
+"But Mrs. John Dashwood would not much approve of Edward's going into\r
+orders."\r
+\r
+"Then I rather suspect that my interest would do very little."\r
+\r
+They were again silent for many minutes. At length Lucy exclaimed with\r
+a deep sigh,\r
+\r
+"I believe it would be the wisest way to put an end to the business at\r
+once by dissolving the engagement. We seem so beset with difficulties\r
+on every side, that though it would make us miserable for a time, we\r
+should be happier perhaps in the end. But you will not give me your\r
+advice, Miss Dashwood?"\r
+\r
+"No," answered Elinor, with a smile, which concealed very agitated\r
+feelings, "on such a subject I certainly will not. You know very well\r
+that my opinion would have no weight with you, unless it were on the\r
+side of your wishes."\r
+\r
+"Indeed you wrong me," replied Lucy, with great solemnity; "I know\r
+nobody of whose judgment I think so highly as I do of yours; and I do\r
+really believe, that if you was to say to me, 'I advise you by all\r
+means to put an end to your engagement with Edward Ferrars, it will be\r
+more for the happiness of both of you,' I should resolve upon doing it\r
+immediately."\r
+\r
+Elinor blushed for the insincerity of Edward's future wife, and\r
+replied, "This compliment would effectually frighten me from giving any\r
+opinion on the subject had I formed one. It raises my influence much\r
+too high; the power of dividing two people so tenderly attached is too\r
+much for an indifferent person."\r
+\r
+"'Tis because you are an indifferent person," said Lucy, with some\r
+pique, and laying a particular stress on those words, "that your\r
+judgment might justly have such weight with me. If you could be\r
+supposed to be biased in any respect by your own feelings, your opinion\r
+would not be worth having."\r
+\r
+Elinor thought it wisest to make no answer to this, lest they might\r
+provoke each other to an unsuitable increase of ease and unreserve; and\r
+was even partly determined never to mention the subject again. Another\r
+pause therefore of many minutes' duration, succeeded this speech, and\r
+Lucy was still the first to end it.\r
+\r
+"Shall you be in town this winter, Miss Dashwood?" said she with all\r
+her accustomary complacency.\r
+\r
+"Certainly not."\r
+\r
+"I am sorry for that," returned the other, while her eyes brightened at\r
+the information, "it would have gave me such pleasure to meet you\r
+there! But I dare say you will go for all that. To be sure, your\r
+brother and sister will ask you to come to them."\r
+\r
+"It will not be in my power to accept their invitation if they do."\r
+\r
+"How unlucky that is! I had quite depended upon meeting you there.\r
+Anne and me are to go the latter end of January to some relations who\r
+have been wanting us to visit them these several years! But I only go\r
+for the sake of seeing Edward. He will be there in February, otherwise\r
+London would have no charms for me; I have not spirits for it."\r
+\r
+Elinor was soon called to the card-table by the conclusion of the first\r
+rubber, and the confidential discourse of the two ladies was therefore\r
+at an end, to which both of them submitted without any reluctance, for\r
+nothing had been said on either side to make them dislike each other\r
+less than they had done before; and Elinor sat down to the card table\r
+with the melancholy persuasion that Edward was not only without\r
+affection for the person who was to be his wife; but that he had not\r
+even the chance of being tolerably happy in marriage, which sincere\r
+affection on HER side would have given, for self-interest alone could\r
+induce a woman to keep a man to an engagement, of which she seemed so\r
+thoroughly aware that he was weary.\r
+\r
+From this time the subject was never revived by Elinor, and when\r
+entered on by Lucy, who seldom missed an opportunity of introducing it,\r
+and was particularly careful to inform her confidante, of her happiness\r
+whenever she received a letter from Edward, it was treated by the\r
+former with calmness and caution, and dismissed as soon as civility\r
+would allow; for she felt such conversations to be an indulgence which\r
+Lucy did not deserve, and which were dangerous to herself.\r
+\r
+The visit of the Miss Steeles at Barton Park was lengthened far beyond\r
+what the first invitation implied. Their favour increased; they could\r
+not be spared; Sir John would not hear of their going; and in spite of\r
+their numerous and long arranged engagements in Exeter, in spite of the\r
+absolute necessity of returning to fulfill them immediately, which was\r
+in full force at the end of every week, they were prevailed on to stay\r
+nearly two months at the park, and to assist in the due celebration of\r
+that festival which requires a more than ordinary share of private\r
+balls and large dinners to proclaim its importance.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 25\r
+\r
+\r
+Though Mrs. Jennings was in the habit of spending a large portion of\r
+the year at the houses of her children and friends, she was not without\r
+a settled habitation of her own. Since the death of her husband, who\r
+had traded with success in a less elegant part of the town, she had\r
+resided every winter in a house in one of the streets near Portman\r
+Square. Towards this home, she began on the approach of January to\r
+turn her thoughts, and thither she one day abruptly, and very\r
+unexpectedly by them, asked the elder Misses Dashwood to accompany her.\r
+Elinor, without observing the varying complexion of her sister, and the\r
+animated look which spoke no indifference to the plan, immediately gave\r
+a grateful but absolute denial for both, in which she believed herself\r
+to be speaking their united inclinations. The reason alleged was their\r
+determined resolution of not leaving their mother at that time of the\r
+year. Mrs. Jennings received the refusal with some surprise, and\r
+repeated her invitation immediately.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Lord! I am sure your mother can spare you very well, and I DO beg\r
+you will favour me with your company, for I've quite set my heart upon\r
+it. Don't fancy that you will be any inconvenience to me, for I shan't\r
+put myself at all out of my way for you. It will only be sending Betty\r
+by the coach, and I hope I can afford THAT. We three shall be able to\r
+go very well in my chaise; and when we are in town, if you do not like\r
+to go wherever I do, well and good, you may always go with one of my\r
+daughters. I am sure your mother will not object to it; for I have had\r
+such good luck in getting my own children off my hands that she will\r
+think me a very fit person to have the charge of you; and if I don't\r
+get one of you at least well married before I have done with you, it\r
+shall not be my fault. I shall speak a good word for you to all the\r
+young men, you may depend upon it."\r
+\r
+"I have a notion," said Sir John, "that Miss Marianne would not object\r
+to such a scheme, if her elder sister would come into it. It is very\r
+hard indeed that she should not have a little pleasure, because Miss\r
+Dashwood does not wish it. So I would advise you two, to set off for\r
+town, when you are tired of Barton, without saying a word to Miss\r
+Dashwood about it."\r
+\r
+"Nay," cried Mrs. Jennings, "I am sure I shall be monstrous glad of\r
+Miss Marianne's company, whether Miss Dashwood will go or not, only the\r
+more the merrier say I, and I thought it would be more comfortable for\r
+them to be together; because, if they got tired of me, they might talk\r
+to one another, and laugh at my old ways behind my back. But one or\r
+the other, if not both of them, I must have. Lord bless me! how do you\r
+think I can live poking by myself, I who have been always used till\r
+this winter to have Charlotte with me. Come, Miss Marianne, let us\r
+strike hands upon the bargain, and if Miss Dashwood will change her\r
+mind by and bye, why so much the better."\r
+\r
+"I thank you, ma'am, sincerely thank you," said Marianne, with warmth:\r
+"your invitation has insured my gratitude for ever, and it would give\r
+me such happiness, yes, almost the greatest happiness I am capable of,\r
+to be able to accept it. But my mother, my dearest, kindest mother,--I\r
+feel the justice of what Elinor has urged, and if she were to be made\r
+less happy, less comfortable by our absence--Oh! no, nothing should\r
+tempt me to leave her. It should not, must not be a struggle."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings repeated her assurance that Mrs. Dashwood could spare\r
+them perfectly well; and Elinor, who now understood her sister, and saw\r
+to what indifference to almost every thing else she was carried by her\r
+eagerness to be with Willoughby again, made no farther direct\r
+opposition to the plan, and merely referred it to her mother's\r
+decision, from whom however she scarcely expected to receive any\r
+support in her endeavour to prevent a visit, which she could not\r
+approve of for Marianne, and which on her own account she had\r
+particular reasons to avoid. Whatever Marianne was desirous of, her\r
+mother would be eager to promote--she could not expect to influence the\r
+latter to cautiousness of conduct in an affair respecting which she had\r
+never been able to inspire her with distrust; and she dared not explain\r
+the motive of her own disinclination for going to London. That\r
+Marianne, fastidious as she was, thoroughly acquainted with Mrs.\r
+Jennings' manners, and invariably disgusted by them, should overlook\r
+every inconvenience of that kind, should disregard whatever must be\r
+most wounding to her irritable feelings, in her pursuit of one object,\r
+was such a proof, so strong, so full, of the importance of that object\r
+to her, as Elinor, in spite of all that had passed, was not prepared to\r
+witness.\r
+\r
+On being informed of the invitation, Mrs. Dashwood, persuaded that such\r
+an excursion would be productive of much amusement to both her\r
+daughters, and perceiving through all her affectionate attention to\r
+herself, how much the heart of Marianne was in it, would not hear of\r
+their declining the offer upon HER account; insisted on their both\r
+accepting it directly; and then began to foresee, with her usual\r
+cheerfulness, a variety of advantages that would accrue to them all,\r
+from this separation.\r
+\r
+"I am delighted with the plan," she cried, "it is exactly what I could\r
+wish. Margaret and I shall be as much benefited by it as yourselves.\r
+When you and the Middletons are gone, we shall go on so quietly and\r
+happily together with our books and our music! You will find Margaret\r
+so improved when you come back again! I have a little plan of\r
+alteration for your bedrooms too, which may now be performed without\r
+any inconvenience to any one. It is very right that you SHOULD go to\r
+town; I would have every young woman of your condition in life\r
+acquainted with the manners and amusements of London. You will be\r
+under the care of a motherly good sort of woman, of whose kindness to\r
+you I can have no doubt. And in all probability you will see your\r
+brother, and whatever may be his faults, or the faults of his wife,\r
+when I consider whose son he is, I cannot bear to have you so wholly\r
+estranged from each other."\r
+\r
+"Though with your usual anxiety for our happiness," said Elinor, "you\r
+have been obviating every impediment to the present scheme which\r
+occurred to you, there is still one objection which, in my opinion,\r
+cannot be so easily removed."\r
+\r
+Marianne's countenance sunk.\r
+\r
+"And what," said Mrs. Dashwood, "is my dear prudent Elinor going to\r
+suggest? What formidable obstacle is she now to bring forward? Do let\r
+me hear a word about the expense of it."\r
+\r
+"My objection is this; though I think very well of Mrs. Jennings's\r
+heart, she is not a woman whose society can afford us pleasure, or\r
+whose protection will give us consequence."\r
+\r
+"That is very true," replied her mother, "but of her society,\r
+separately from that of other people, you will scarcely have any thing\r
+at all, and you will almost always appear in public with Lady\r
+Middleton."\r
+\r
+"If Elinor is frightened away by her dislike of Mrs. Jennings," said\r
+Marianne, "at least it need not prevent MY accepting her invitation. I\r
+have no such scruples, and I am sure I could put up with every\r
+unpleasantness of that kind with very little effort."\r
+\r
+Elinor could not help smiling at this display of indifference towards\r
+the manners of a person, to whom she had often had difficulty in\r
+persuading Marianne to behave with tolerable politeness; and resolved\r
+within herself, that if her sister persisted in going, she would go\r
+likewise, as she did not think it proper that Marianne should be left\r
+to the sole guidance of her own judgment, or that Mrs. Jennings should\r
+be abandoned to the mercy of Marianne for all the comfort of her\r
+domestic hours. To this determination she was the more easily\r
+reconciled, by recollecting that Edward Ferrars, by Lucy's account, was\r
+not to be in town before February; and that their visit, without any\r
+unreasonable abridgement, might be previously finished.\r
+\r
+"I will have you BOTH go," said Mrs. Dashwood; "these objections are\r
+nonsensical. You will have much pleasure in being in London, and\r
+especially in being together; and if Elinor would ever condescend to\r
+anticipate enjoyment, she would foresee it there from a variety of\r
+sources; she would, perhaps, expect some from improving her\r
+acquaintance with her sister-in-law's family."\r
+\r
+Elinor had often wished for an opportunity of attempting to weaken her\r
+mother's dependence on the attachment of Edward and herself, that the\r
+shock might be less when the whole truth were revealed, and now on this\r
+attack, though almost hopeless of success, she forced herself to begin\r
+her design by saying, as calmly as she could, "I like Edward Ferrars\r
+very much, and shall always be glad to see him; but as to the rest of\r
+the family, it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, whether I am\r
+ever known to them or not."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood smiled, and said nothing. Marianne lifted up her eyes in\r
+astonishment, and Elinor conjectured that she might as well have held\r
+her tongue.\r
+\r
+After very little farther discourse, it was finally settled that the\r
+invitation should be fully accepted. Mrs. Jennings received the\r
+information with a great deal of joy, and many assurances of kindness\r
+and care; nor was it a matter of pleasure merely to her. Sir John was\r
+delighted; for to a man, whose prevailing anxiety was the dread of\r
+being alone, the acquisition of two, to the number of inhabitants in\r
+London, was something. Even Lady Middleton took the trouble of being\r
+delighted, which was putting herself rather out of her way; and as for\r
+the Miss Steeles, especially Lucy, they had never been so happy in\r
+their lives as this intelligence made them.\r
+\r
+Elinor submitted to the arrangement which counteracted her wishes with\r
+less reluctance than she had expected to feel. With regard to herself,\r
+it was now a matter of unconcern whether she went to town or not, and\r
+when she saw her mother so thoroughly pleased with the plan, and her\r
+sister exhilarated by it in look, voice, and manner, restored to all\r
+her usual animation, and elevated to more than her usual gaiety, she\r
+could not be dissatisfied with the cause, and would hardly allow\r
+herself to distrust the consequence.\r
+\r
+Marianne's joy was almost a degree beyond happiness, so great was the\r
+perturbation of her spirits and her impatience to be gone. Her\r
+unwillingness to quit her mother was her only restorative to calmness;\r
+and at the moment of parting her grief on that score was excessive.\r
+Her mother's affliction was hardly less, and Elinor was the only one of\r
+the three, who seemed to consider the separation as any thing short of\r
+eternal.\r
+\r
+Their departure took place in the first week in January. The\r
+Middletons were to follow in about a week. The Miss Steeles kept their\r
+station at the park, and were to quit it only with the rest of the\r
+family.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 26\r
+\r
+\r
+Elinor could not find herself in the carriage with Mrs. Jennings, and\r
+beginning a journey to London under her protection, and as her guest,\r
+without wondering at her own situation, so short had their acquaintance\r
+with that lady been, so wholly unsuited were they in age and\r
+disposition, and so many had been her objections against such a measure\r
+only a few days before! But these objections had all, with that happy\r
+ardour of youth which Marianne and her mother equally shared, been\r
+overcome or overlooked; and Elinor, in spite of every occasional doubt\r
+of Willoughby's constancy, could not witness the rapture of delightful\r
+expectation which filled the whole soul and beamed in the eyes of\r
+Marianne, without feeling how blank was her own prospect, how cheerless\r
+her own state of mind in the comparison, and how gladly she would\r
+engage in the solicitude of Marianne's situation to have the same\r
+animating object in view, the same possibility of hope. A short, a\r
+very short time however must now decide what Willoughby's intentions\r
+were; in all probability he was already in town. Marianne's eagerness\r
+to be gone declared her dependence on finding him there; and Elinor was\r
+resolved not only upon gaining every new light as to his character\r
+which her own observation or the intelligence of others could give her,\r
+but likewise upon watching his behaviour to her sister with such\r
+zealous attention, as to ascertain what he was and what he meant,\r
+before many meetings had taken place. Should the result of her\r
+observations be unfavourable, she was determined at all events to open\r
+the eyes of her sister; should it be otherwise, her exertions would be\r
+of a different nature--she must then learn to avoid every selfish\r
+comparison, and banish every regret which might lessen her satisfaction\r
+in the happiness of Marianne.\r
+\r
+They were three days on their journey, and Marianne's behaviour as they\r
+travelled was a happy specimen of what future complaisance and\r
+companionableness to Mrs. Jennings might be expected to be. She sat in\r
+silence almost all the way, wrapt in her own meditations, and scarcely\r
+ever voluntarily speaking, except when any object of picturesque beauty\r
+within their view drew from her an exclamation of delight exclusively\r
+addressed to her sister. To atone for this conduct therefore, Elinor\r
+took immediate possession of the post of civility which she had\r
+assigned herself, behaved with the greatest attention to Mrs. Jennings,\r
+talked with her, laughed with her, and listened to her whenever she\r
+could; and Mrs. Jennings on her side treated them both with all\r
+possible kindness, was solicitous on every occasion for their ease and\r
+enjoyment, and only disturbed that she could not make them choose their\r
+own dinners at the inn, nor extort a confession of their preferring\r
+salmon to cod, or boiled fowls to veal cutlets. They reached town by\r
+three o'clock the third day, glad to be released, after such a journey,\r
+from the confinement of a carriage, and ready to enjoy all the luxury\r
+of a good fire.\r
+\r
+The house was handsome, and handsomely fitted up, and the young ladies\r
+were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment. It\r
+had formerly been Charlotte's, and over the mantelpiece still hung a\r
+landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having\r
+spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect.\r
+\r
+As dinner was not to be ready in less than two hours from their\r
+arrival, Elinor determined to employ the interval in writing to her\r
+mother, and sat down for that purpose. In a few moments Marianne did\r
+the same. "I am writing home, Marianne," said Elinor; "had not you\r
+better defer your letter for a day or two?"\r
+\r
+"I am NOT going to write to my mother," replied Marianne, hastily, and\r
+as if wishing to avoid any farther inquiry. Elinor said no more; it\r
+immediately struck her that she must then be writing to Willoughby; and\r
+the conclusion which as instantly followed was, that, however\r
+mysteriously they might wish to conduct the affair, they must be\r
+engaged. This conviction, though not entirely satisfactory, gave her\r
+pleasure, and she continued her letter with greater alacrity.\r
+Marianne's was finished in a very few minutes; in length it could be no\r
+more than a note; it was then folded up, sealed, and directed with\r
+eager rapidity. Elinor thought she could distinguish a large W in the\r
+direction; and no sooner was it complete than Marianne, ringing the\r
+bell, requested the footman who answered it to get that letter conveyed\r
+for her to the two-penny post. This decided the matter at once.\r
+\r
+Her spirits still continued very high; but there was a flutter in them\r
+which prevented their giving much pleasure to her sister, and this\r
+agitation increased as the evening drew on. She could scarcely eat any\r
+dinner, and when they afterwards returned to the drawing room, seemed\r
+anxiously listening to the sound of every carriage.\r
+\r
+It was a great satisfaction to Elinor that Mrs. Jennings, by being much\r
+engaged in her own room, could see little of what was passing. The tea\r
+things were brought in, and already had Marianne been disappointed more\r
+than once by a rap at a neighbouring door, when a loud one was suddenly\r
+heard which could not be mistaken for one at any other house, Elinor\r
+felt secure of its announcing Willoughby's approach, and Marianne,\r
+starting up, moved towards the door. Every thing was silent; this\r
+could not be borne many seconds; she opened the door, advanced a few\r
+steps towards the stairs, and after listening half a minute, returned\r
+into the room in all the agitation which a conviction of having heard\r
+him would naturally produce; in the ecstasy of her feelings at that\r
+instant she could not help exclaiming, "Oh, Elinor, it is Willoughby,\r
+indeed it is!" and seemed almost ready to throw herself into his arms,\r
+when Colonel Brandon appeared.\r
+\r
+It was too great a shock to be borne with calmness, and she immediately\r
+left the room. Elinor was disappointed too; but at the same time her\r
+regard for Colonel Brandon ensured his welcome with her; and she felt\r
+particularly hurt that a man so partial to her sister should perceive\r
+that she experienced nothing but grief and disappointment in seeing\r
+him. She instantly saw that it was not unnoticed by him, that he even\r
+observed Marianne as she quitted the room, with such astonishment and\r
+concern, as hardly left him the recollection of what civility demanded\r
+towards herself.\r
+\r
+"Is your sister ill?" said he.\r
+\r
+Elinor answered in some distress that she was, and then talked of\r
+head-aches, low spirits, and over fatigues; and of every thing to which\r
+she could decently attribute her sister's behaviour.\r
+\r
+He heard her with the most earnest attention, but seeming to recollect\r
+himself, said no more on the subject, and began directly to speak of\r
+his pleasure at seeing them in London, making the usual inquiries about\r
+their journey, and the friends they had left behind.\r
+\r
+In this calm kind of way, with very little interest on either side,\r
+they continued to talk, both of them out of spirits, and the thoughts\r
+of both engaged elsewhere. Elinor wished very much to ask whether\r
+Willoughby were then in town, but she was afraid of giving him pain by\r
+any enquiry after his rival; and at length, by way of saying something,\r
+she asked if he had been in London ever since she had seen him last.\r
+"Yes," he replied, with some embarrassment, "almost ever since; I have\r
+been once or twice at Delaford for a few days, but it has never been in\r
+my power to return to Barton."\r
+\r
+This, and the manner in which it was said, immediately brought back to\r
+her remembrance all the circumstances of his quitting that place, with\r
+the uneasiness and suspicions they had caused to Mrs. Jennings, and she\r
+was fearful that her question had implied much more curiosity on the\r
+subject than she had ever felt.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings soon came in. "Oh! Colonel," said she, with her usual\r
+noisy cheerfulness, "I am monstrous glad to see you--sorry I could not\r
+come before--beg your pardon, but I have been forced to look about me a\r
+little, and settle my matters; for it is a long while since I have been\r
+at home, and you know one has always a world of little odd things to do\r
+after one has been away for any time; and then I have had Cartwright to\r
+settle with-- Lord, I have been as busy as a bee ever since dinner!\r
+But pray, Colonel, how came you to conjure out that I should be in town\r
+today?"\r
+\r
+"I had the pleasure of hearing it at Mr. Palmer's, where I have been\r
+dining."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you did; well, and how do they all do at their house? How does\r
+Charlotte do? I warrant you she is a fine size by this time."\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Palmer appeared quite well, and I am commissioned to tell you,\r
+that you will certainly see her to-morrow."\r
+\r
+"Ay, to be sure, I thought as much. Well, Colonel, I have brought two\r
+young ladies with me, you see--that is, you see but one of them now,\r
+but there is another somewhere. Your friend, Miss Marianne, too--which\r
+you will not be sorry to hear. I do not know what you and Mr.\r
+Willoughby will do between you about her. Ay, it is a fine thing to be\r
+young and handsome. Well! I was young once, but I never was very\r
+handsome--worse luck for me. However, I got a very good husband, and I\r
+don't know what the greatest beauty can do more. Ah! poor man! he has\r
+been dead these eight years and better. But Colonel, where have you\r
+been to since we parted? And how does your business go on? Come,\r
+come, let's have no secrets among friends."\r
+\r
+He replied with his accustomary mildness to all her inquiries, but\r
+without satisfying her in any. Elinor now began to make the tea, and\r
+Marianne was obliged to appear again.\r
+\r
+After her entrance, Colonel Brandon became more thoughtful and silent\r
+than he had been before, and Mrs. Jennings could not prevail on him to\r
+stay long. No other visitor appeared that evening, and the ladies were\r
+unanimous in agreeing to go early to bed.\r
+\r
+Marianne rose the next morning with recovered spirits and happy looks.\r
+The disappointment of the evening before seemed forgotten in the\r
+expectation of what was to happen that day. They had not long finished\r
+their breakfast before Mrs. Palmer's barouche stopped at the door, and\r
+in a few minutes she came laughing into the room: so delighted to see\r
+them all, that it was hard to say whether she received most pleasure\r
+from meeting her mother or the Miss Dashwoods again. So surprised at\r
+their coming to town, though it was what she had rather expected all\r
+along; so angry at their accepting her mother's invitation after having\r
+declined her own, though at the same time she would never have forgiven\r
+them if they had not come!\r
+\r
+"Mr. Palmer will be so happy to see you," said she; "What do you think\r
+he said when he heard of your coming with Mama? I forget what it was\r
+now, but it was something so droll!"\r
+\r
+After an hour or two spent in what her mother called comfortable chat,\r
+or in other words, in every variety of inquiry concerning all their\r
+acquaintance on Mrs. Jennings's side, and in laughter without cause on\r
+Mrs. Palmer's, it was proposed by the latter that they should all\r
+accompany her to some shops where she had business that morning, to\r
+which Mrs. Jennings and Elinor readily consented, as having likewise\r
+some purchases to make themselves; and Marianne, though declining it at\r
+first was induced to go likewise.\r
+\r
+Wherever they went, she was evidently always on the watch. In Bond\r
+Street especially, where much of their business lay, her eyes were in\r
+constant inquiry; and in whatever shop the party were engaged, her mind\r
+was equally abstracted from every thing actually before them, from all\r
+that interested and occupied the others. Restless and dissatisfied\r
+every where, her sister could never obtain her opinion of any article\r
+of purchase, however it might equally concern them both: she received\r
+no pleasure from anything; was only impatient to be at home again, and\r
+could with difficulty govern her vexation at the tediousness of Mrs.\r
+Palmer, whose eye was caught by every thing pretty, expensive, or new;\r
+who was wild to buy all, could determine on none, and dawdled away her\r
+time in rapture and indecision.\r
+\r
+It was late in the morning before they returned home; and no sooner had\r
+they entered the house than Marianne flew eagerly up stairs, and when\r
+Elinor followed, she found her turning from the table with a sorrowful\r
+countenance, which declared that no Willoughby had been there.\r
+\r
+"Has no letter been left here for me since we went out?" said she to\r
+the footman who then entered with the parcels. She was answered in the\r
+negative. "Are you quite sure of it?" she replied. "Are you certain\r
+that no servant, no porter has left any letter or note?"\r
+\r
+The man replied that none had.\r
+\r
+"How very odd!" said she, in a low and disappointed voice, as she\r
+turned away to the window.\r
+\r
+"How odd, indeed!" repeated Elinor within herself, regarding her sister\r
+with uneasiness. "If she had not known him to be in town she would not\r
+have written to him, as she did; she would have written to Combe Magna;\r
+and if he is in town, how odd that he should neither come nor write!\r
+Oh! my dear mother, you must be wrong in permitting an engagement\r
+between a daughter so young, a man so little known, to be carried on in\r
+so doubtful, so mysterious a manner! I long to inquire; and how will\r
+MY interference be borne."\r
+\r
+She determined, after some consideration, that if appearances continued\r
+many days longer as unpleasant as they now were, she would represent in\r
+the strongest manner to her mother the necessity of some serious\r
+enquiry into the affair.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Palmer and two elderly ladies of Mrs. Jennings's intimate\r
+acquaintance, whom she had met and invited in the morning, dined with\r
+them. The former left them soon after tea to fulfill her evening\r
+engagements; and Elinor was obliged to assist in making a whist table\r
+for the others. Marianne was of no use on these occasions, as she\r
+would never learn the game; but though her time was therefore at her\r
+own disposal, the evening was by no means more productive of pleasure\r
+to her than to Elinor, for it was spent in all the anxiety of\r
+expectation and the pain of disappointment. She sometimes endeavoured\r
+for a few minutes to read; but the book was soon thrown aside, and she\r
+returned to the more interesting employment of walking backwards and\r
+forwards across the room, pausing for a moment whenever she came to the\r
+window, in hopes of distinguishing the long-expected rap.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 27\r
+\r
+\r
+"If this open weather holds much longer," said Mrs. Jennings, when they\r
+met at breakfast the following morning, "Sir John will not like leaving\r
+Barton next week; 'tis a sad thing for sportsmen to lose a day's\r
+pleasure. Poor souls! I always pity them when they do; they seem to\r
+take it so much to heart."\r
+\r
+"That is true," cried Marianne, in a cheerful voice, and walking to the\r
+window as she spoke, to examine the day. "I had not thought of that.\r
+This weather will keep many sportsmen in the country."\r
+\r
+It was a lucky recollection, all her good spirits were restored by it.\r
+"It is charming weather for THEM indeed," she continued, as she sat\r
+down to the breakfast table with a happy countenance. "How much they\r
+must enjoy it! But" (with a little return of anxiety) "it cannot be\r
+expected to last long. At this time of the year, and after such a\r
+series of rain, we shall certainly have very little more of it. Frosts\r
+will soon set in, and in all probability with severity. In another day\r
+or two perhaps; this extreme mildness can hardly last longer--nay,\r
+perhaps it may freeze tonight!"\r
+\r
+"At any rate," said Elinor, wishing to prevent Mrs. Jennings from\r
+seeing her sister's thoughts as clearly as she did, "I dare say we\r
+shall have Sir John and Lady Middleton in town by the end of next week."\r
+\r
+"Ay, my dear, I'll warrant you we do. Mary always has her own way."\r
+\r
+"And now," silently conjectured Elinor, "she will write to Combe by\r
+this day's post."\r
+\r
+But if she DID, the letter was written and sent away with a privacy\r
+which eluded all her watchfulness to ascertain the fact. Whatever the\r
+truth of it might be, and far as Elinor was from feeling thorough\r
+contentment about it, yet while she saw Marianne in spirits, she could\r
+not be very uncomfortable herself. And Marianne was in spirits; happy\r
+in the mildness of the weather, and still happier in her expectation of\r
+a frost.\r
+\r
+The morning was chiefly spent in leaving cards at the houses of Mrs.\r
+Jennings's acquaintance to inform them of her being in town; and\r
+Marianne was all the time busy in observing the direction of the wind,\r
+watching the variations of the sky and imagining an alteration in the\r
+air.\r
+\r
+"Don't you find it colder than it was in the morning, Elinor? There\r
+seems to me a very decided difference. I can hardly keep my hands warm\r
+even in my muff. It was not so yesterday, I think. The clouds seem\r
+parting too, the sun will be out in a moment, and we shall have a clear\r
+afternoon."\r
+\r
+Elinor was alternately diverted and pained; but Marianne persevered,\r
+and saw every night in the brightness of the fire, and every morning in\r
+the appearance of the atmosphere, the certain symptoms of approaching\r
+frost.\r
+\r
+The Miss Dashwoods had no greater reason to be dissatisfied with Mrs.\r
+Jennings's style of living, and set of acquaintance, than with her\r
+behaviour to themselves, which was invariably kind. Every thing in her\r
+household arrangements was conducted on the most liberal plan, and\r
+excepting a few old city friends, whom, to Lady Middleton's regret, she\r
+had never dropped, she visited no one to whom an introduction could at\r
+all discompose the feelings of her young companions. Pleased to find\r
+herself more comfortably situated in that particular than she had\r
+expected, Elinor was very willing to compound for the want of much real\r
+enjoyment from any of their evening parties, which, whether at home or\r
+abroad, formed only for cards, could have little to amuse her.\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon, who had a general invitation to the house, was with\r
+them almost every day; he came to look at Marianne and talk to Elinor,\r
+who often derived more satisfaction from conversing with him than from\r
+any other daily occurrence, but who saw at the same time with much\r
+concern his continued regard for her sister. She feared it was a\r
+strengthening regard. It grieved her to see the earnestness with which\r
+he often watched Marianne, and his spirits were certainly worse than\r
+when at Barton.\r
+\r
+About a week after their arrival, it became certain that Willoughby was\r
+also arrived. His card was on the table when they came in from the\r
+morning's drive.\r
+\r
+"Good God!" cried Marianne, "he has been here while we were out."\r
+Elinor, rejoiced to be assured of his being in London, now ventured to\r
+say, "Depend upon it, he will call again tomorrow." But Marianne\r
+seemed hardly to hear her, and on Mrs. Jennings's entrance, escaped with\r
+the precious card.\r
+\r
+This event, while it raised the spirits of Elinor, restored to those of\r
+her sister all, and more than all, their former agitation. From this\r
+moment her mind was never quiet; the expectation of seeing him every\r
+hour of the day, made her unfit for any thing. She insisted on being\r
+left behind, the next morning, when the others went out.\r
+\r
+Elinor's thoughts were full of what might be passing in Berkeley Street\r
+during their absence; but a moment's glance at her sister when they\r
+returned was enough to inform her, that Willoughby had paid no second\r
+visit there. A note was just then brought in, and laid on the table.\r
+\r
+"For me!" cried Marianne, stepping hastily forward.\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am, for my mistress."\r
+\r
+But Marianne, not convinced, took it instantly up.\r
+\r
+"It is indeed for Mrs. Jennings; how provoking!"\r
+\r
+"You are expecting a letter, then?" said Elinor, unable to be longer\r
+silent.\r
+\r
+"Yes, a little--not much."\r
+\r
+After a short pause. "You have no confidence in me, Marianne."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Elinor, this reproach from YOU--you who have confidence in no\r
+one!"\r
+\r
+"Me!" returned Elinor in some confusion; "indeed, Marianne, I have\r
+nothing to tell."\r
+\r
+"Nor I," answered Marianne with energy, "our situations then are alike.\r
+We have neither of us any thing to tell; you, because you do not\r
+communicate, and I, because I conceal nothing."\r
+\r
+Elinor, distressed by this charge of reserve in herself, which she was\r
+not at liberty to do away, knew not how, under such circumstances, to\r
+press for greater openness in Marianne.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings soon appeared, and the note being given her, she read it\r
+aloud. It was from Lady Middleton, announcing their arrival in Conduit\r
+Street the night before, and requesting the company of her mother and\r
+cousins the following evening. Business on Sir John's part, and a\r
+violent cold on her own, prevented their calling in Berkeley Street.\r
+The invitation was accepted; but when the hour of appointment drew\r
+near, necessary as it was in common civility to Mrs. Jennings, that\r
+they should both attend her on such a visit, Elinor had some difficulty\r
+in persuading her sister to go, for still she had seen nothing of\r
+Willoughby; and therefore was not more indisposed for amusement abroad,\r
+than unwilling to run the risk of his calling again in her absence.\r
+\r
+Elinor found, when the evening was over, that disposition is not\r
+materially altered by a change of abode, for although scarcely settled\r
+in town, Sir John had contrived to collect around him, nearly twenty\r
+young people, and to amuse them with a ball. This was an affair,\r
+however, of which Lady Middleton did not approve. In the country, an\r
+unpremeditated dance was very allowable; but in London, where the\r
+reputation of elegance was more important and less easily attained, it\r
+was risking too much for the gratification of a few girls, to have it\r
+known that Lady Middleton had given a small dance of eight or nine\r
+couple, with two violins, and a mere side-board collation.\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were of the party; from the former, whom they had\r
+not seen before since their arrival in town, as he was careful to avoid\r
+the appearance of any attention to his mother-in-law, and therefore\r
+never came near her, they received no mark of recognition on their\r
+entrance. He looked at them slightly, without seeming to know who they\r
+were, and merely nodded to Mrs. Jennings from the other side of the\r
+room. Marianne gave one glance round the apartment as she entered: it\r
+was enough--HE was not there--and she sat down, equally ill-disposed to\r
+receive or communicate pleasure. After they had been assembled about\r
+an hour, Mr. Palmer sauntered towards the Miss Dashwoods to express his\r
+surprise on seeing them in town, though Colonel Brandon had been first\r
+informed of their arrival at his house, and he had himself said\r
+something very droll on hearing that they were to come.\r
+\r
+"I thought you were both in Devonshire," said he.\r
+\r
+"Did you?" replied Elinor.\r
+\r
+"When do you go back again?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know." And thus ended their discourse.\r
+\r
+Never had Marianne been so unwilling to dance in her life, as she was\r
+that evening, and never so much fatigued by the exercise. She\r
+complained of it as they returned to Berkeley Street.\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye," said Mrs. Jennings, "we know the reason of all that very\r
+well; if a certain person who shall be nameless, had been there, you\r
+would not have been a bit tired: and to say the truth it was not very\r
+pretty of him not to give you the meeting when he was invited."\r
+\r
+"Invited!" cried Marianne.\r
+\r
+"So my daughter Middleton told me, for it seems Sir John met him\r
+somewhere in the street this morning." Marianne said no more, but\r
+looked exceedingly hurt. Impatient in this situation to be doing\r
+something that might lead to her sister's relief, Elinor resolved to\r
+write the next morning to her mother, and hoped by awakening her fears\r
+for the health of Marianne, to procure those inquiries which had been\r
+so long delayed; and she was still more eagerly bent on this measure by\r
+perceiving after breakfast on the morrow, that Marianne was again\r
+writing to Willoughby, for she could not suppose it to be to any other\r
+person.\r
+\r
+About the middle of the day, Mrs. Jennings went out by herself on\r
+business, and Elinor began her letter directly, while Marianne, too\r
+restless for employment, too anxious for conversation, walked from one\r
+window to the other, or sat down by the fire in melancholy meditation.\r
+Elinor was very earnest in her application to her mother, relating all\r
+that had passed, her suspicions of Willoughby's inconstancy, urging her\r
+by every plea of duty and affection to demand from Marianne an account\r
+of her real situation with respect to him.\r
+\r
+Her letter was scarcely finished, when a rap foretold a visitor, and\r
+Colonel Brandon was announced. Marianne, who had seen him from the\r
+window, and who hated company of any kind, left the room before he\r
+entered it. He looked more than usually grave, and though expressing\r
+satisfaction at finding Miss Dashwood alone, as if he had somewhat in\r
+particular to tell her, sat for some time without saying a word.\r
+Elinor, persuaded that he had some communication to make in which her\r
+sister was concerned, impatiently expected its opening. It was not the\r
+first time of her feeling the same kind of conviction; for, more than\r
+once before, beginning with the observation of "your sister looks\r
+unwell to-day," or "your sister seems out of spirits," he had appeared\r
+on the point, either of disclosing, or of inquiring, something\r
+particular about her. After a pause of several minutes, their silence\r
+was broken, by his asking her in a voice of some agitation, when he was\r
+to congratulate her on the acquisition of a brother? Elinor was not\r
+prepared for such a question, and having no answer ready, was obliged\r
+to adopt the simple and common expedient, of asking what he meant? He\r
+tried to smile as he replied, "your sister's engagement to Mr.\r
+Willoughby is very generally known."\r
+\r
+"It cannot be generally known," returned Elinor, "for her own family do\r
+not know it."\r
+\r
+He looked surprised and said, "I beg your pardon, I am afraid my\r
+inquiry has been impertinent; but I had not supposed any secrecy\r
+intended, as they openly correspond, and their marriage is universally\r
+talked of."\r
+\r
+"How can that be? By whom can you have heard it mentioned?"\r
+\r
+"By many--by some of whom you know nothing, by others with whom you are\r
+most intimate, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, and the Middletons. But\r
+still I might not have believed it, for where the mind is perhaps\r
+rather unwilling to be convinced, it will always find something to\r
+support its doubts, if I had not, when the servant let me in today,\r
+accidentally seen a letter in his hand, directed to Mr. Willoughby in\r
+your sister's writing. I came to inquire, but I was convinced before I\r
+could ask the question. Is every thing finally settled? Is it\r
+impossible to-? But I have no right, and I could have no chance of\r
+succeeding. Excuse me, Miss Dashwood. I believe I have been wrong in\r
+saying so much, but I hardly know what to do, and on your prudence I\r
+have the strongest dependence. Tell me that it is all absolutely\r
+resolved on, that any attempt, that in short concealment, if\r
+concealment be possible, is all that remains."\r
+\r
+These words, which conveyed to Elinor a direct avowal of his love for\r
+her sister, affected her very much. She was not immediately able to\r
+say anything, and even when her spirits were recovered, she debated for\r
+a short time, on the answer it would be most proper to give. The real\r
+state of things between Willoughby and her sister was so little known\r
+to herself, that in endeavouring to explain it, she might be as liable\r
+to say too much as too little. Yet as she was convinced that\r
+Marianne's affection for Willoughby, could leave no hope of Colonel\r
+Brandon's success, whatever the event of that affection might be, and\r
+at the same time wished to shield her conduct from censure, she thought\r
+it most prudent and kind, after some consideration, to say more than\r
+she really knew or believed. She acknowledged, therefore, that though\r
+she had never been informed by themselves of the terms on which they\r
+stood with each other, of their mutual affection she had no doubt, and\r
+of their correspondence she was not astonished to hear.\r
+\r
+He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak,\r
+rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion,\r
+"to your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby that he\r
+may endeavour to deserve her,"--took leave, and went away.\r
+\r
+Elinor derived no comfortable feelings from this conversation, to\r
+lessen the uneasiness of her mind on other points; she was left, on the\r
+contrary, with a melancholy impression of Colonel Brandon's\r
+unhappiness, and was prevented even from wishing it removed, by her\r
+anxiety for the very event that must confirm it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 28\r
+\r
+\r
+Nothing occurred during the next three or four days, to make Elinor\r
+regret what she had done, in applying to her mother; for Willoughby\r
+neither came nor wrote. They were engaged about the end of that time\r
+to attend Lady Middleton to a party, from which Mrs. Jennings was kept\r
+away by the indisposition of her youngest daughter; and for this party,\r
+Marianne, wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming\r
+equally indifferent whether she went or staid, prepared, without one\r
+look of hope or one expression of pleasure. She sat by the\r
+drawing-room fire after tea, till the moment of Lady Middleton's\r
+arrival, without once stirring from her seat, or altering her attitude,\r
+lost in her own thoughts, and insensible of her sister's presence; and\r
+when at last they were told that Lady Middleton waited for them at the\r
+door, she started as if she had forgotten that any one was expected.\r
+\r
+They arrived in due time at the place of destination, and as soon as\r
+the string of carriages before them would allow, alighted, ascended the\r
+stairs, heard their names announced from one landing-place to another\r
+in an audible voice, and entered a room splendidly lit up, quite full\r
+of company, and insufferably hot. When they had paid their tribute of\r
+politeness by curtsying to the lady of the house, they were permitted\r
+to mingle in the crowd, and take their share of the heat and\r
+inconvenience, to which their arrival must necessarily add. After some\r
+time spent in saying little or doing less, Lady Middleton sat down to\r
+Cassino, and as Marianne was not in spirits for moving about, she and\r
+Elinor luckily succeeding to chairs, placed themselves at no great\r
+distance from the table.\r
+\r
+They had not remained in this manner long, before Elinor perceived\r
+Willoughby, standing within a few yards of them, in earnest\r
+conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman. She soon\r
+caught his eye, and he immediately bowed, but without attempting to\r
+speak to her, or to approach Marianne, though he could not but see her;\r
+and then continued his discourse with the same lady. Elinor turned\r
+involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by\r
+her. At that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance\r
+glowing with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him\r
+instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her.\r
+\r
+"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "he is there--he is there--Oh! why does\r
+he not look at me? why cannot I speak to him?"\r
+\r
+"Pray, pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray what you\r
+feel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet."\r
+\r
+This however was more than she could believe herself; and to be\r
+composed at such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne, it\r
+was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience which affected\r
+every feature.\r
+\r
+At last he turned round again, and regarded them both; she started up,\r
+and pronouncing his name in a tone of affection, held out her hand to\r
+him. He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor than\r
+Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe\r
+her attitude, inquired in a hurried manner after Mrs. Dashwood, and\r
+asked how long they had been in town. Elinor was robbed of all\r
+presence of mind by such an address, and was unable to say a word. But\r
+the feelings of her sister were instantly expressed. Her face was\r
+crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion,\r
+"Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? Have you not\r
+received my letters? Will you not shake hands with me?"\r
+\r
+He could not then avoid it, but her touch seemed painful to him, and he\r
+held her hand only for a moment. During all this time he was evidently\r
+struggling for composure. Elinor watched his countenance and saw its\r
+expression becoming more tranquil. After a moment's pause, he spoke\r
+with calmness.\r
+\r
+"I did myself the honour of calling in Berkeley Street last Tuesday,\r
+and very much regretted that I was not fortunate enough to find\r
+yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home. My card was not lost, I hope."\r
+\r
+"But have you not received my notes?" cried Marianne in the wildest\r
+anxiety. "Here is some mistake I am sure--some dreadful mistake. What\r
+can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven's sake tell\r
+me, what is the matter?"\r
+\r
+He made no reply; his complexion changed and all his embarrassment\r
+returned; but as if, on catching the eye of the young lady with whom he\r
+had been previously talking, he felt the necessity of instant exertion,\r
+he recovered himself again, and after saying, "Yes, I had the pleasure\r
+of receiving the information of your arrival in town, which you were so\r
+good as to send me," turned hastily away with a slight bow and joined\r
+his friend.\r
+\r
+Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into\r
+her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried\r
+to screen her from the observation of others, while reviving her with\r
+lavender water.\r
+\r
+"Go to him, Elinor," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "and force\r
+him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again--must speak to him\r
+instantly.-- I cannot rest--I shall not have a moment's peace till this\r
+is explained--some dreadful misapprehension or other.-- Oh go to him\r
+this moment."\r
+\r
+"How can that be done? No, my dearest Marianne, you must wait. This is\r
+not the place for explanations. Wait only till tomorrow."\r
+\r
+With difficulty however could she prevent her from following him\r
+herself; and to persuade her to check her agitation, to wait, at least,\r
+with the appearance of composure, till she might speak to him with more\r
+privacy and more effect, was impossible; for Marianne continued\r
+incessantly to give way in a low voice to the misery of her feelings,\r
+by exclamations of wretchedness. In a short time Elinor saw Willoughby\r
+quit the room by the door towards the staircase, and telling Marianne\r
+that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that\r
+evening, as a fresh argument for her to be calm. She instantly begged\r
+her sister would entreat Lady Middleton to take them home, as she was\r
+too miserable to stay a minute longer.\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton, though in the middle of a rubber, on being informed\r
+that Marianne was unwell, was too polite to object for a moment to her\r
+wish of going away, and making over her cards to a friend, they\r
+departed as soon the carriage could be found. Scarcely a word was\r
+spoken during their return to Berkeley Street. Marianne was in a\r
+silent agony, too much oppressed even for tears; but as Mrs. Jennings\r
+was luckily not come home, they could go directly to their own room,\r
+where hartshorn restored her a little to herself. She was soon\r
+undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her\r
+sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings,\r
+had leisure enough for thinking over the past.\r
+\r
+That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and\r
+Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it,\r
+seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own\r
+wishes, SHE could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or\r
+misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of\r
+sentiment could account for it. Her indignation would have been still\r
+stronger than it was, had she not witnessed that embarrassment which\r
+seemed to speak a consciousness of his own misconduct, and prevented\r
+her from believing him so unprincipled as to have been sporting with\r
+the affections of her sister from the first, without any design that\r
+would bear investigation. Absence might have weakened his regard, and\r
+convenience might have determined him to overcome it, but that such a\r
+regard had formerly existed she could not bring herself to doubt.\r
+\r
+As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already\r
+have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in\r
+its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest\r
+concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she\r
+could ESTEEM Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in\r
+future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance\r
+that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery\r
+of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby--in an immediate and\r
+irreconcilable rupture with him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 29\r
+\r
+\r
+Before the house-maid had lit their fire the next day, or the sun\r
+gained any power over a cold, gloomy morning in January, Marianne, only\r
+half dressed, was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake\r
+of all the little light she could command from it, and writing as fast\r
+as a continual flow of tears would permit her. In this situation,\r
+Elinor, roused from sleep by her agitation and sobs, first perceived\r
+her; and after observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety,\r
+said, in a tone of the most considerate gentleness,\r
+\r
+"Marianne, may I ask-?"\r
+\r
+"No, Elinor," she replied, "ask nothing; you will soon know all."\r
+\r
+The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no\r
+longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return\r
+of the same excessive affliction. It was some minutes before she could\r
+go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still\r
+obliged her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proofs enough of\r
+her feeling how more than probable it was that she was writing for the\r
+last time to Willoughby.\r
+\r
+Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power; and\r
+she would have tried to sooth and tranquilize her still more, had not\r
+Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous\r
+irritability, not to speak to her for the world. In such\r
+circumstances, it was better for both that they should not be long\r
+together; and the restless state of Marianne's mind not only prevented\r
+her from remaining in the room a moment after she was dressed, but\r
+requiring at once solitude and continual change of place, made her\r
+wander about the house till breakfast time, avoiding the sight of every\r
+body.\r
+\r
+At breakfast she neither ate, nor attempted to eat any thing; and\r
+Elinor's attention was then all employed, not in urging her, not in\r
+pitying her, nor in appearing to regard her, but in endeavouring to\r
+engage Mrs. Jennings's notice entirely to herself.\r
+\r
+As this was a favourite meal with Mrs. Jennings, it lasted a\r
+considerable time, and they were just setting themselves, after it,\r
+round the common working table, when a letter was delivered to\r
+Marianne, which she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a\r
+death-like paleness, instantly ran out of the room. Elinor, who saw as\r
+plainly by this, as if she had seen the direction, that it must come\r
+from Willoughby, felt immediately such a sickness at heart as made her\r
+hardly able to hold up her head, and sat in such a general tremour as\r
+made her fear it impossible to escape Mrs. Jennings's notice. That good\r
+lady, however, saw only that Marianne had received a letter from\r
+Willoughby, which appeared to her a very good joke, and which she\r
+treated accordingly, by hoping, with a laugh, that she would find it to\r
+her liking. Of Elinor's distress, she was too busily employed in\r
+measuring lengths of worsted for her rug, to see any thing at all; and\r
+calmly continuing her talk, as soon as Marianne disappeared, she said,\r
+\r
+"Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so desperately in love in my\r
+life! MY girls were nothing to her, and yet they used to be foolish\r
+enough; but as for Miss Marianne, she is quite an altered creature. I\r
+hope, from the bottom of my heart, he won't keep her waiting much\r
+longer, for it is quite grievous to see her look so ill and forlorn.\r
+Pray, when are they to be married?"\r
+\r
+Elinor, though never less disposed to speak than at that moment,\r
+obliged herself to answer such an attack as this, and, therefore,\r
+trying to smile, replied, "And have you really, Ma'am, talked yourself\r
+into a persuasion of my sister's being engaged to Mr. Willoughby? I\r
+thought it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to\r
+imply more; and I must beg, therefore, that you will not deceive\r
+yourself any longer. I do assure you that nothing would surprise me\r
+more than to hear of their being going to be married."\r
+\r
+"For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! how can you talk so? Don't we\r
+all know that it must be a match, that they were over head and ears in\r
+love with each other from the first moment they met? Did not I see\r
+them together in Devonshire every day, and all day long; and did not I\r
+know that your sister came to town with me on purpose to buy wedding\r
+clothes? Come, come, this won't do. Because you are so sly about it\r
+yourself, you think nobody else has any senses; but it is no such\r
+thing, I can tell you, for it has been known all over town this ever so\r
+long. I tell every body of it and so does Charlotte."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, Ma'am," said Elinor, very seriously, "you are mistaken.\r
+Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and\r
+you will find that you have though you will not believe me now."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more,\r
+and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried\r
+away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne\r
+stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand,\r
+and two or three others laying by her. Elinor drew near, but without\r
+saying a word; and seating herself on the bed, took her hand, kissed\r
+her affectionately several times, and then gave way to a burst of\r
+tears, which at first was scarcely less violent than Marianne's. The\r
+latter, though unable to speak, seemed to feel all the tenderness of\r
+this behaviour, and after some time thus spent in joint affliction, she\r
+put all the letters into Elinor's hands; and then covering her face\r
+with her handkerchief, almost screamed with agony. Elinor, who knew\r
+that such grief, shocking as it was to witness it, must have its\r
+course, watched by her till this excess of suffering had somewhat spent\r
+itself, and then turning eagerly to Willoughby's letter, read as\r
+follows:\r
+\r
+ "Bond Street, January.\r
+ "MY DEAR MADAM,\r
+\r
+ "I have just had the honour of receiving your\r
+ letter, for which I beg to return my sincere\r
+ acknowledgments. I am much concerned to find there\r
+ was anything in my behaviour last night that did\r
+ not meet your approbation; and though I am quite at\r
+ a loss to discover in what point I could be so\r
+ unfortunate as to offend you, I entreat your\r
+ forgiveness of what I can assure you to have been\r
+ perfectly unintentional. I shall never reflect on\r
+ my former acquaintance with your family in Devonshire\r
+ without the most grateful pleasure, and flatter\r
+ myself it will not be broken by any mistake or\r
+ misapprehension of my actions. My esteem for your\r
+ whole family is very sincere; but if I have been so\r
+ unfortunate as to give rise to a belief of more than\r
+ I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach myself\r
+ for not having been more guarded in my professions\r
+ of that esteem. That I should ever have meant more\r
+ you will allow to be impossible, when you understand\r
+ that my affections have been long engaged elsewhere,\r
+ and it will not be many weeks, I believe, before\r
+ this engagement is fulfilled. It is with great\r
+ regret that I obey your commands in returning the\r
+ letters with which I have been honoured from you,\r
+ and the lock of hair, which you so obligingly bestowed\r
+ on me.\r
+\r
+ "I am, dear Madam,\r
+ "Your most obedient\r
+ "humble servant,\r
+ "JOHN WILLOUGHBY."\r
+\r
+\r
+With what indignation such a letter as this must be read by Miss\r
+Dashwood, may be imagined. Though aware, before she began it, that it\r
+must bring a confession of his inconstancy, and confirm their\r
+separation for ever, she was not aware that such language could be\r
+suffered to announce it; nor could she have supposed Willoughby capable\r
+of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and\r
+delicate feeling--so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to\r
+send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing\r
+with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no\r
+breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever--a letter of\r
+which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be\r
+deep in hardened villainy.\r
+\r
+She paused over it for some time with indignant astonishment; then read\r
+it again and again; but every perusal only served to increase her\r
+abhorrence of the man, and so bitter were her feelings against him,\r
+that she dared not trust herself to speak, lest she might wound\r
+Marianne still deeper by treating their disengagement, not as a loss to\r
+her of any possible good but as an escape from the worst and most\r
+irremediable of all evils, a connection, for life, with an unprincipled\r
+man, as a deliverance the most real, a blessing the most important.\r
+\r
+In her earnest meditations on the contents of the letter, on the\r
+depravity of that mind which could dictate it, and probably, on the\r
+very different mind of a very different person, who had no other\r
+connection whatever with the affair than what her heart gave him with\r
+every thing that passed, Elinor forgot the immediate distress of her\r
+sister, forgot that she had three letters on her lap yet unread, and so\r
+entirely forgot how long she had been in the room, that when on hearing\r
+a carriage drive up to the door, she went to the window to see who\r
+could be coming so unreasonably early, she was all astonishment to\r
+perceive Mrs. Jennings's chariot, which she knew had not been ordered\r
+till one. Determined not to quit Marianne, though hopeless of\r
+contributing, at present, to her ease, she hurried away to excuse\r
+herself from attending Mrs. Jennings, on account of her sister being\r
+indisposed. Mrs. Jennings, with a thoroughly good-humoured concern for\r
+its cause, admitted the excuse most readily, and Elinor, after seeing\r
+her safe off, returned to Marianne, whom she found attempting to rise\r
+from the bed, and whom she reached just in time to prevent her from\r
+falling on the floor, faint and giddy from a long want of proper rest\r
+and food; for it was many days since she had any appetite, and many\r
+nights since she had really slept; and now, when her mind was no longer\r
+supported by the fever of suspense, the consequence of all this was\r
+felt in an aching head, a weakened stomach, and a general nervous\r
+faintness. A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for her directly,\r
+made her more comfortable, and she was at last able to express some\r
+sense of her kindness, by saying,\r
+\r
+"Poor Elinor! how unhappy I make you!"\r
+\r
+"I only wish," replied her sister, "there were any thing I COULD do,\r
+which might be of comfort to you."\r
+\r
+This, as every thing else would have been, was too much for Marianne,\r
+who could only exclaim, in the anguish of her heart, "Oh! Elinor, I am\r
+miserable, indeed," before her voice was entirely lost in sobs.\r
+\r
+Elinor could no longer witness this torrent of unresisted grief in\r
+silence.\r
+\r
+"Exert yourself, dear Marianne," she cried, "if you would not kill\r
+yourself and all who love you. Think of your mother; think of her\r
+misery while YOU suffer: for her sake you must exert yourself."\r
+\r
+"I cannot, I cannot," cried Marianne; "leave me, leave me, if I\r
+distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so.\r
+Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of\r
+exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, YOU cannot have an idea of what I\r
+suffer."\r
+\r
+"Do you call ME happy, Marianne? Ah! if you knew!--And can you believe\r
+me to be so, while I see you so wretched!"\r
+\r
+"Forgive me, forgive me," throwing her arms round her sister's neck; "I\r
+know you feel for me; I know what a heart you have; but yet you\r
+are--you must be happy; Edward loves you--what, oh what, can do away\r
+such happiness as that?"\r
+\r
+"Many, many circumstances," said Elinor, solemnly.\r
+\r
+"No, no, no," cried Marianne wildly, "he loves you, and only you. You\r
+CAN have no grief."\r
+\r
+"I can have no pleasure while I see you in this state."\r
+\r
+"And you will never see me otherwise. Mine is a misery which nothing\r
+can do away."\r
+\r
+"You must not talk so, Marianne. Have you no comforts? no friends? Is\r
+your loss such as leaves no opening for consolation? Much as you\r
+suffer now, think of what you would have suffered if the discovery of\r
+his character had been delayed to a later period--if your engagement\r
+had been carried on for months and months, as it might have been,\r
+before he chose to put an end to it. Every additional day of unhappy\r
+confidence, on your side, would have made the blow more dreadful."\r
+\r
+"Engagement!" cried Marianne, "there has been no engagement."\r
+\r
+"No engagement!"\r
+\r
+"No, he is not so unworthy as you believe him. He has broken no faith\r
+with me."\r
+\r
+"But he told you that he loved you."\r
+\r
+"Yes--no--never absolutely. It was every day implied, but never\r
+professedly declared. Sometimes I thought it had been--but it never\r
+was."\r
+\r
+"Yet you wrote to him?"--\r
+\r
+"Yes--could that be wrong after all that had passed?-- But I cannot\r
+talk."\r
+\r
+Elinor said no more, and turning again to the three letters which now\r
+raised a much stronger curiosity than before, directly ran over the\r
+contents of all. The first, which was what her sister had sent him on\r
+their arrival in town, was to this effect.\r
+\r
+ Berkeley Street, January.\r
+\r
+ "How surprised you will be, Willoughby, on\r
+ receiving this; and I think you will feel something\r
+ more than surprise, when you know that I am in town.\r
+ An opportunity of coming hither, though with Mrs.\r
+ Jennings, was a temptation we could not resist.\r
+ I wish you may receive this in time to come here\r
+ to-night, but I will not depend on it. At any rate\r
+ I shall expect you to-morrow. For the present, adieu.\r
+\r
+ "M.D."\r
+\r
+Her second note, which had been written on the morning after the dance\r
+at the Middletons', was in these words:--\r
+\r
+ "I cannot express my disappointment in having\r
+ missed you the day before yesterday, nor my astonishment\r
+ at not having received any answer to a note which\r
+ I sent you above a week ago. I have been expecting\r
+ to hear from you, and still more to see you, every\r
+ hour of the day. Pray call again as soon as possible,\r
+ and explain the reason of my having expected this\r
+ in vain. You had better come earlier another time,\r
+ because we are generally out by one. We were last\r
+ night at Lady Middleton's, where there was a dance.\r
+ I have been told that you were asked to be of the\r
+ party. But could it be so? You must be very much\r
+ altered indeed since we parted, if that could be\r
+ the case, and you not there. But I will not suppose\r
+ this possible, and I hope very soon to receive your\r
+ personal assurance of its being otherwise.\r
+\r
+ "M.D."\r
+\r
+The contents of her last note to him were these:--\r
+\r
+ "What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your\r
+ behaviour last night? Again I demand an explanation\r
+ of it. I was prepared to meet you with the pleasure\r
+ which our separation naturally produced, with the\r
+ familiarity which our intimacy at Barton appeared\r
+ to me to justify. I was repulsed indeed! I have\r
+ passed a wretched night in endeavouring to excuse\r
+ a conduct which can scarcely be called less than\r
+ insulting; but though I have not yet been able to\r
+ form any reasonable apology for your behaviour,\r
+ I am perfectly ready to hear your justification of\r
+ it. You have perhaps been misinformed, or purposely\r
+ deceived, in something concerning me, which may have\r
+ lowered me in your opinion. Tell me what it is,\r
+ explain the grounds on which you acted, and I shall\r
+ be satisfied, in being able to satisfy you. It\r
+ would grieve me indeed to be obliged to think ill\r
+ of you; but if I am to do it, if I am to learn that\r
+ you are not what we have hitherto believed you, that\r
+ your regard for us all was insincere, that your\r
+ behaviour to me was intended only to deceive, let\r
+ it be told as soon as possible. My feelings are at\r
+ present in a state of dreadful indecision; I wish\r
+ to acquit you, but certainty on either side will be\r
+ ease to what I now suffer. If your sentiments are\r
+ no longer what they were, you will return my notes,\r
+ and the lock of my hair which is in your possession.\r
+\r
+ "M.D."\r
+\r
+That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been\r
+so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby's sake, would have been unwilling\r
+to believe. But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the\r
+impropriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently\r
+grieving over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs\r
+of tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely\r
+condemned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished\r
+the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any\r
+one would have written in the same situation.\r
+\r
+"I felt myself," she added, "to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if\r
+the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other."\r
+\r
+"I can believe it," said Elinor; "but unfortunately he did not feel the\r
+same."\r
+\r
+"He DID feel the same, Elinor--for weeks and weeks he felt it. I know\r
+he did. Whatever may have changed him now, (and nothing but the\r
+blackest art employed against me can have done it), I was once as dear\r
+to him as my own soul could wish. This lock of hair, which now he can\r
+so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest\r
+supplication. Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his\r
+voice at that moment! Have you forgot the last evening of our being\r
+together at Barton? The morning that we parted too! When he told me\r
+that it might be many weeks before we met again--his distress--can I\r
+ever forget his distress?"\r
+\r
+For a moment or two she could say no more; but when this emotion had\r
+passed away, she added, in a firmer tone,\r
+\r
+"Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not by Willoughby."\r
+\r
+"Dearest Marianne, who but himself? By whom can he have been\r
+instigated?"\r
+\r
+"By all the world, rather than by his own heart. I could rather\r
+believe every creature of my acquaintance leagued together to ruin me\r
+in his opinion, than believe his nature capable of such cruelty. This\r
+woman of whom he writes--whoever she be--or any one, in short, but your\r
+own dear self, mama, and Edward, may have been so barbarous to bely me.\r
+Beyond you three, is there a creature in the world whom I would not\r
+rather suspect of evil than Willoughby, whose heart I know so well?"\r
+\r
+Elinor would not contend, and only replied, "Whoever may have been so\r
+detestably your enemy, let them be cheated of their malignant triumph,\r
+my dear sister, by seeing how nobly the consciousness of your own\r
+innocence and good intentions supports your spirits. It is a\r
+reasonable and laudable pride which resists such malevolence."\r
+\r
+"No, no," cried Marianne, "misery such as mine has no pride. I care\r
+not who knows that I am wretched. The triumph of seeing me so may be\r
+open to all the world. Elinor, Elinor, they who suffer little may be\r
+proud and independent as they like--may resist insult, or return\r
+mortification--but I cannot. I must feel--I must be wretched--and they\r
+are welcome to enjoy the consciousness of it that can."\r
+\r
+"But for my mother's sake and mine--"\r
+\r
+"I would do more than for my own. But to appear happy when I am so\r
+miserable--Oh! who can require it?"\r
+\r
+Again they were both silent. Elinor was employed in walking\r
+thoughtfully from the fire to the window, from the window to the fire,\r
+without knowing that she received warmth from one, or discerning\r
+objects through the other; and Marianne, seated at the foot of the bed,\r
+with her head leaning against one of its posts, again took up\r
+Willoughby's letter, and, after shuddering over every sentence,\r
+exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"It is too much! Oh, Willoughby, Willoughby, could this be yours!\r
+Cruel, cruel--nothing can acquit you. Elinor, nothing can. Whatever\r
+he might have heard against me--ought he not to have suspended his\r
+belief? ought he not to have told me of it, to have given me the power\r
+of clearing myself? 'The lock of hair, (repeating it from the letter,)\r
+which you so obligingly bestowed on me'--That is unpardonable.\r
+Willoughby, where was your heart when you wrote those words? Oh,\r
+barbarously insolent!--Elinor, can he be justified?"\r
+\r
+"No, Marianne, in no possible way."\r
+\r
+"And yet this woman--who knows what her art may have been?--how long it\r
+may have been premeditated, and how deeply contrived by her!--Who is\r
+she?--Who can she be?--Whom did I ever hear him talk of as young and\r
+attractive among his female acquaintance?--Oh! no one, no one--he\r
+talked to me only of myself."\r
+\r
+Another pause ensued; Marianne was greatly agitated, and it ended thus.\r
+\r
+"Elinor, I must go home. I must go and comfort mama. Can not we be\r
+gone to-morrow?"\r
+\r
+"To-morrow, Marianne!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, why should I stay here? I came only for Willoughby's sake--and\r
+now who cares for me? Who regards me?"\r
+\r
+"It would be impossible to go to-morrow. We owe Mrs. Jennings much more\r
+than civility; and civility of the commonest kind must prevent such a\r
+hasty removal as that."\r
+\r
+"Well then, another day or two, perhaps; but I cannot stay here long, I\r
+cannot stay to endure the questions and remarks of all these people.\r
+The Middletons and Palmers--how am I to bear their pity? The pity of\r
+such a woman as Lady Middleton! Oh, what would HE say to that!"\r
+\r
+Elinor advised her to lie down again, and for a moment she did so; but\r
+no attitude could give her ease; and in restless pain of mind and body\r
+she moved from one posture to another, till growing more and more\r
+hysterical, her sister could with difficulty keep her on the bed at\r
+all, and for some time was fearful of being constrained to call for\r
+assistance. Some lavender drops, however, which she was at length\r
+persuaded to take, were of use; and from that time till Mrs. Jennings\r
+returned, she continued on the bed quiet and motionless.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 30\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings came immediately to their room on her return, and without\r
+waiting to have her request of admittance answered, opened the door and\r
+walked in with a look of real concern.\r
+\r
+"How do you do my dear?"--said she in a voice of great compassion to\r
+Marianne, who turned away her face without attempting to answer.\r
+\r
+"How is she, Miss Dashwood?--Poor thing! she looks very bad.-- No\r
+wonder. Ay, it is but too true. He is to be married very soon--a\r
+good-for-nothing fellow! I have no patience with him. Mrs. Taylor\r
+told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular\r
+friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed\r
+it; and I was almost ready to sink as it was. Well, said I, all I can\r
+say is, that if this be true, he has used a young lady of my\r
+acquaintance abominably ill, and I wish with all my soul his wife may\r
+plague his heart out. And so I shall always say, my dear, you may\r
+depend on it. I have no notion of men's going on in this way; and if\r
+ever I meet him again, I will give him such a dressing as he has not\r
+had this many a day. But there is one comfort, my dear Miss Marianne;\r
+he is not the only young man in the world worth having; and with your\r
+pretty face you will never want admirers. Well, poor thing! I won't\r
+disturb her any longer, for she had better have her cry out at once and\r
+have done with. The Parrys and Sandersons luckily are coming tonight\r
+you know, and that will amuse her."\r
+\r
+She then went away, walking on tiptoe out of the room, as if she\r
+supposed her young friend's affliction could be increased by noise.\r
+\r
+Marianne, to the surprise of her sister, determined on dining with\r
+them. Elinor even advised her against it. But "no, she would go down;\r
+she could bear it very well, and the bustle about her would be less."\r
+Elinor, pleased to have her governed for a moment by such a motive,\r
+though believing it hardly possible that she could sit out the dinner,\r
+said no more; and adjusting her dress for her as well as she could,\r
+while Marianne still remained on the bed, was ready to assist her into\r
+the dining room as soon as they were summoned to it.\r
+\r
+When there, though looking most wretchedly, she ate more and was calmer\r
+than her sister had expected. Had she tried to speak, or had she been\r
+conscious of half Mrs. Jennings's well-meant but ill-judged attentions\r
+to her, this calmness could not have been maintained; but not a\r
+syllable escaped her lips; and the abstraction of her thoughts\r
+preserved her in ignorance of every thing that was passing before her.\r
+\r
+Elinor, who did justice to Mrs. Jennings's kindness, though its\r
+effusions were often distressing, and sometimes almost ridiculous, made\r
+her those acknowledgments, and returned her those civilities, which her\r
+sister could not make or return for herself. Their good friend saw\r
+that Marianne was unhappy, and felt that every thing was due to her\r
+which might make her at all less so. She treated her therefore, with\r
+all the indulgent fondness of a parent towards a favourite child on the\r
+last day of its holidays. Marianne was to have the best place by the\r
+fire, was to be tempted to eat by every delicacy in the house, and to\r
+be amused by the relation of all the news of the day. Had not Elinor,\r
+in the sad countenance of her sister, seen a check to all mirth, she\r
+could have been entertained by Mrs. Jennings's endeavours to cure a\r
+disappointment in love, by a variety of sweetmeats and olives, and a\r
+good fire. As soon, however, as the consciousness of all this was\r
+forced by continual repetition on Marianne, she could stay no longer.\r
+With a hasty exclamation of Misery, and a sign to her sister not to\r
+follow her, she directly got up and hurried out of the room.\r
+\r
+"Poor soul!" cried Mrs. Jennings, as soon as she was gone, "how it\r
+grieves me to see her! And I declare if she is not gone away without\r
+finishing her wine! And the dried cherries too! Lord! nothing seems\r
+to do her any good. I am sure if I knew of any thing she would like, I\r
+would send all over the town for it. Well, it is the oddest thing to\r
+me, that a man should use such a pretty girl so ill! But when there is\r
+plenty of money on one side, and next to none on the other, Lord bless\r
+you! they care no more about such things!--"\r
+\r
+"The lady then--Miss Grey I think you called her--is very rich?"\r
+\r
+"Fifty thousand pounds, my dear. Did you ever see her? a smart,\r
+stylish girl they say, but not handsome. I remember her aunt very\r
+well, Biddy Henshawe; she married a very wealthy man. But the family\r
+are all rich together. Fifty thousand pounds! and by all accounts, it\r
+won't come before it's wanted; for they say he is all to pieces. No\r
+wonder! dashing about with his curricle and hunters! Well, it don't\r
+signify talking; but when a young man, be who he will, comes and makes\r
+love to a pretty girl, and promises marriage, he has no business to fly\r
+off from his word only because he grows poor, and a richer girl is\r
+ready to have him. Why don't he, in such a case, sell his horses, let\r
+his house, turn off his servants, and make a thorough reform at once? I\r
+warrant you, Miss Marianne would have been ready to wait till matters\r
+came round. But that won't do now-a-days; nothing in the way of\r
+pleasure can ever be given up by the young men of this age."\r
+\r
+"Do you know what kind of a girl Miss Grey is? Is she said to be\r
+amiable?"\r
+\r
+"I never heard any harm of her; indeed I hardly ever heard her\r
+mentioned; except that Mrs. Taylor did say this morning, that one day\r
+Miss Walker hinted to her, that she believed Mr. and Mrs. Ellison would\r
+not be sorry to have Miss Grey married, for she and Mrs. Ellison could\r
+never agree."--\r
+\r
+"And who are the Ellisons?"\r
+\r
+"Her guardians, my dear. But now she is of age and may choose for\r
+herself; and a pretty choice she has made!--What now," after pausing a\r
+moment--"your poor sister is gone to her own room, I suppose, to moan\r
+by herself. Is there nothing one can get to comfort her? Poor dear,\r
+it seems quite cruel to let her be alone. Well, by-and-by we shall\r
+have a few friends, and that will amuse her a little. What shall we\r
+play at? She hates whist I know; but is there no round game she cares\r
+for?"\r
+\r
+"Dear ma'am, this kindness is quite unnecessary. Marianne, I dare say,\r
+will not leave her room again this evening. I shall persuade her if I\r
+can to go early to bed, for I am sure she wants rest."\r
+\r
+"Aye, I believe that will be best for her. Let her name her own\r
+supper, and go to bed. Lord! no wonder she has been looking so bad and\r
+so cast down this last week or two, for this matter I suppose has been\r
+hanging over her head as long as that. And so the letter that came\r
+today finished it! Poor soul! I am sure if I had had a notion of it,\r
+I would not have joked her about it for all my money. But then you\r
+know, how should I guess such a thing? I made sure of its being\r
+nothing but a common love letter, and you know young people like to be\r
+laughed at about them. Lord! how concerned Sir John and my daughters\r
+will be when they hear it! If I had my senses about me I might have\r
+called in Conduit Street in my way home, and told them of it. But I\r
+shall see them tomorrow."\r
+\r
+"It would be unnecessary I am sure, for you to caution Mrs. Palmer and\r
+Sir John against ever naming Mr. Willoughby, or making the slightest\r
+allusion to what has passed, before my sister. Their own good-nature\r
+must point out to them the real cruelty of appearing to know any thing\r
+about it when she is present; and the less that may ever be said to\r
+myself on the subject, the more my feelings will be spared, as you my\r
+dear madam will easily believe."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Lord! yes, that I do indeed. It must be terrible for you to hear\r
+it talked of; and as for your sister, I am sure I would not mention a\r
+word about it to her for the world. You saw I did not all dinner time.\r
+No more would Sir John, nor my daughters, for they are all very\r
+thoughtful and considerate; especially if I give them a hint, as I\r
+certainly will. For my part, I think the less that is said about such\r
+things, the better, the sooner 'tis blown over and forgot. And what\r
+does talking ever do you know?"\r
+\r
+"In this affair it can only do harm; more so perhaps than in many cases\r
+of a similar kind, for it has been attended by circumstances which, for\r
+the sake of every one concerned in it, make it unfit to become the\r
+public conversation. I must do THIS justice to Mr. Willoughby--he has\r
+broken no positive engagement with my sister."\r
+\r
+"Law, my dear! Don't pretend to defend him. No positive engagement\r
+indeed! after taking her all over Allenham House, and fixing on the\r
+very rooms they were to live in hereafter!"\r
+\r
+Elinor, for her sister's sake, could not press the subject farther, and\r
+she hoped it was not required of her for Willoughby's; since, though\r
+Marianne might lose much, he could gain very little by the enforcement\r
+of the real truth. After a short silence on both sides, Mrs. Jennings,\r
+with all her natural hilarity, burst forth again.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill-wind, for it will be\r
+all the better for Colonel Brandon. He will have her at last; aye,\r
+that he will. Mind me, now, if they an't married by Mid-summer. Lord!\r
+how he'll chuckle over this news! I hope he will come tonight. It\r
+will be all to one a better match for your sister. Two thousand a year\r
+without debt or drawback--except the little love-child, indeed; aye, I\r
+had forgot her; but she may be 'prenticed out at a small cost, and then\r
+what does it signify? Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you;\r
+exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and\r
+conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered\r
+with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in\r
+one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were\r
+there! Then, there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a\r
+very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for;\r
+and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile\r
+from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit\r
+up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages\r
+that pass along. Oh! 'tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in the\r
+village, and the parsonage-house within a stone's throw. To my fancy,\r
+a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to\r
+send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour nearer than\r
+your mother. Well, I shall spirit up the Colonel as soon as I can.\r
+One shoulder of mutton, you know, drives another down. If we CAN but\r
+put Willoughby out of her head!"\r
+\r
+"Ay, if we can do THAT, Ma'am," said Elinor, "we shall do very well\r
+with or without Colonel Brandon." And then rising, she went away to\r
+join Marianne, whom she found, as she expected, in her own room,\r
+leaning, in silent misery, over the small remains of a fire, which,\r
+till Elinor's entrance, had been her only light.\r
+\r
+"You had better leave me," was all the notice that her sister received\r
+from her.\r
+\r
+"I will leave you," said Elinor, "if you will go to bed." But this,\r
+from the momentary perverseness of impatient suffering, she at first\r
+refused to do. Her sister's earnest, though gentle persuasion,\r
+however, soon softened her to compliance, and Elinor saw her lay her\r
+aching head on the pillow, and as she hoped, in a way to get some quiet\r
+rest before she left her.\r
+\r
+In the drawing-room, whither she then repaired, she was soon joined by\r
+Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand.\r
+\r
+"My dear," said she, entering, "I have just recollected that I have\r
+some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was\r
+tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. My poor\r
+husband! how fond he was of it! Whenever he had a touch of his old\r
+colicky gout, he said it did him more good than any thing else in the\r
+world. Do take it to your sister."\r
+\r
+"Dear Ma'am," replied Elinor, smiling at the difference of the\r
+complaints for which it was recommended, "how good you are! But I have\r
+just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think\r
+nothing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me\r
+leave, I will drink the wine myself."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings, though regretting that she had not been five minutes\r
+earlier, was satisfied with the compromise; and Elinor, as she\r
+swallowed the chief of it, reflected, that though its effects on a\r
+colicky gout were, at present, of little importance to her, its healing\r
+powers, on a disappointed heart might be as reasonably tried on herself\r
+as on her sister.\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon came in while the party were at tea, and by his manner\r
+of looking round the room for Marianne, Elinor immediately fancied that\r
+he neither expected nor wished to see her there, and, in short, that he\r
+was already aware of what occasioned her absence. Mrs. Jennings was\r
+not struck by the same thought; for soon after his entrance, she walked\r
+across the room to the tea-table where Elinor presided, and whispered--\r
+"The Colonel looks as grave as ever you see. He knows nothing of it;\r
+do tell him, my dear."\r
+\r
+He shortly afterwards drew a chair close to hers, and, with a look\r
+which perfectly assured her of his good information, inquired after her\r
+sister.\r
+\r
+"Marianne is not well," said she. "She has been indisposed all day,\r
+and we have persuaded her to go to bed."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps, then," he hesitatingly replied, "what I heard this morning\r
+may be--there may be more truth in it than I could believe possible at\r
+first."\r
+\r
+"What did you hear?"\r
+\r
+"That a gentleman, whom I had reason to think--in short, that a man,\r
+whom I KNEW to be engaged--but how shall I tell you? If you know it\r
+already, as surely you must, I may be spared."\r
+\r
+"You mean," answered Elinor, with forced calmness, "Mr. Willoughby's\r
+marriage with Miss Grey. Yes, we DO know it all. This seems to have\r
+been a day of general elucidation, for this very morning first unfolded\r
+it to us. Mr. Willoughby is unfathomable! Where did you hear it?"\r
+\r
+"In a stationer's shop in Pall Mall, where I had business. Two ladies\r
+were waiting for their carriage, and one of them was giving the other\r
+an account of the intended match, in a voice so little attempting\r
+concealment, that it was impossible for me not to hear all. The name\r
+of Willoughby, John Willoughby, frequently repeated, first caught my\r
+attention; and what followed was a positive assertion that every thing\r
+was now finally settled respecting his marriage with Miss Grey--it was\r
+no longer to be a secret--it would take place even within a few weeks,\r
+with many particulars of preparations and other matters. One thing,\r
+especially, I remember, because it served to identify the man still\r
+more:--as soon as the ceremony was over, they were to go to Combe\r
+Magna, his seat in Somersetshire. My astonishment!--but it would be\r
+impossible to describe what I felt. The communicative lady I learnt,\r
+on inquiry, for I stayed in the shop till they were gone, was a Mrs.\r
+Ellison, and that, as I have been since informed, is the name of Miss\r
+Grey's guardian."\r
+\r
+"It is. But have you likewise heard that Miss Grey has fifty thousand\r
+pounds? In that, if in any thing, we may find an explanation."\r
+\r
+"It may be so; but Willoughby is capable--at least I think"--he stopped\r
+a moment; then added in a voice which seemed to distrust itself, "And\r
+your sister--how did she--"\r
+\r
+"Her sufferings have been very severe. I have only to hope that they\r
+may be proportionately short. It has been, it is a most cruel\r
+affliction. Till yesterday, I believe, she never doubted his regard;\r
+and even now, perhaps--but I am almost convinced that he never was\r
+really attached to her. He has been very deceitful! and, in some\r
+points, there seems a hardness of heart about him."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Colonel Brandon, "there is, indeed! But your sister does\r
+not--I think you said so--she does not consider quite as you do?"\r
+\r
+"You know her disposition, and may believe how eagerly she would still\r
+justify him if she could."\r
+\r
+He made no answer; and soon afterwards, by the removal of the\r
+tea-things, and the arrangement of the card parties, the subject was\r
+necessarily dropped. Mrs. Jennings, who had watched them with pleasure\r
+while they were talking, and who expected to see the effect of Miss\r
+Dashwood's communication, in such an instantaneous gaiety on Colonel\r
+Brandon's side, as might have become a man in the bloom of youth, of\r
+hope and happiness, saw him, with amazement, remain the whole evening\r
+more serious and thoughtful than usual.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 31\r
+\r
+\r
+From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the\r
+next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had\r
+closed her eyes.\r
+\r
+Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and\r
+before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and\r
+again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on\r
+Elinor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on\r
+Marianne's, as before. Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as\r
+unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every\r
+consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she\r
+was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at\r
+another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third\r
+could resist it with energy. In one thing, however, she was uniform,\r
+when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the\r
+presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to\r
+endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs.\r
+Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion.\r
+\r
+"No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried; "she cannot feel. Her kindness\r
+is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness. All that she wants\r
+is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it."\r
+\r
+Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her\r
+sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable\r
+refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her\r
+on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished\r
+manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be\r
+that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an\r
+excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected\r
+from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she\r
+judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on\r
+herself. Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together\r
+in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs.\r
+Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own\r
+weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though\r
+Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.\r
+\r
+With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling,\r
+from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying,\r
+\r
+"Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good."\r
+\r
+Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed before her\r
+a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition,\r
+explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and\r
+instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room\r
+to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances\r
+of his letter. The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The\r
+hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her;\r
+and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an\r
+ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had\r
+never suffered.\r
+\r
+The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her\r
+moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could\r
+reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with\r
+passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its\r
+object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still\r
+referring her to the letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was\r
+calm enough to read it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled\r
+every page. Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and\r
+relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by\r
+Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards\r
+them both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection\r
+for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each\r
+other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it.\r
+\r
+All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was\r
+dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken\r
+confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone.\r
+Elinor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne\r
+to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of\r
+patience till their mother's wishes could be known; and at length she\r
+obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy\r
+till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself;\r
+and positively refusing Elinor's offered attendance, went out alone for\r
+the rest of the morning. Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the\r
+pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne's\r
+letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then\r
+sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat\r
+her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the\r
+drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings's going away, remained fixed at the table\r
+where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over\r
+her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly\r
+over its effect on her mother.\r
+\r
+In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when\r
+Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was\r
+startled by a rap at the door.\r
+\r
+"Who can this be?" cried Elinor. "So early too! I thought we HAD been\r
+safe."\r
+\r
+Marianne moved to the window--\r
+\r
+"It is Colonel Brandon!" said she, with vexation. "We are never safe\r
+from HIM."\r
+\r
+"He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home."\r
+\r
+"I will not trust to THAT," retreating to her own room. "A man who has\r
+nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on\r
+that of others."\r
+\r
+The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on\r
+injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon DID come in; and Elinor, who\r
+was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who\r
+saw THAT solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his\r
+anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister\r
+for esteeming him so lightly.\r
+\r
+"I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first\r
+salutation, "and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more\r
+easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you\r
+alone, which I was very desirous of doing. My object--my wish--my sole\r
+wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means of\r
+giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but\r
+conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's mind. My regard for\r
+her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by\r
+relating some circumstances which nothing but a VERY sincere\r
+regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am\r
+justified--though where so many hours have been spent in convincing\r
+myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be\r
+wrong?" He stopped.\r
+\r
+"I understand you," said Elinor. "You have something to tell me of Mr.\r
+Willoughby, that will open his character farther. Your telling it will\r
+be the greatest act of friendship that can be shewn Marianne. MY\r
+gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to\r
+that end, and HERS must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me\r
+hear it."\r
+\r
+"You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but\r
+this will give you no idea--I must go farther back. You will find me a\r
+very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A\r
+short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it SHALL be\r
+a short one. On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can I have little\r
+temptation to be diffuse."\r
+\r
+He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went\r
+on.\r
+\r
+"You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be\r
+supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a conversation\r
+between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a\r
+dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in\r
+some measure, your sister Marianne."\r
+\r
+"Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have NOT forgotten it." He looked pleased\r
+by this remembrance, and added,\r
+\r
+"If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender\r
+recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well\r
+in mind as person. The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of\r
+fancy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an\r
+orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father. Our\r
+ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were\r
+playfellows and friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not\r
+love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as\r
+perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you\r
+might think me incapable of having ever felt. Hers, for me, was, I\r
+believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and\r
+it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate. At\r
+seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married--married\r
+against her inclination to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our\r
+family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be\r
+said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian.\r
+My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her. I had hoped\r
+that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for\r
+some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she\r
+experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though\r
+she had promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate! I have\r
+never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of\r
+eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my\r
+cousin's maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation\r
+far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement,\r
+till my father's point was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too\r
+far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so\r
+young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at\r
+least I should not have now to lament it. This however was not the\r
+case. My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what\r
+they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.\r
+The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so\r
+inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. She resigned\r
+herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it\r
+been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the\r
+remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a\r
+husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or\r
+restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their\r
+marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should\r
+fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps--but I meant to promote the\r
+happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose\r
+had procured my exchange. The shock which her marriage had given me,"\r
+he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling\r
+weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years\r
+afterwards, of her divorce. It was THAT which threw this gloom,--even\r
+now the recollection of what I suffered--"\r
+\r
+He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about\r
+the room. Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his\r
+distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took\r
+her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few\r
+minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure.\r
+\r
+"It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned\r
+to England. My first care, when I DID arrive, was of course to seek\r
+for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could\r
+not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to\r
+fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of\r
+sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor\r
+sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my\r
+brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months\r
+before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it,\r
+that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to\r
+dispose of it for some immediate relief. At last, however, and after I\r
+had been six months in England, I DID find her. Regard for a former\r
+servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to\r
+visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and\r
+there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate\r
+sister. So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every\r
+kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before\r
+me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom\r
+I had once doted. What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no\r
+right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it--I have\r
+pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the\r
+last stage of a consumption, was--yes, in such a situation it was my\r
+greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time\r
+for a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her\r
+placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited\r
+her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her\r
+last moments."\r
+\r
+Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in\r
+an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend.\r
+\r
+"Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended," said he, "by the resemblance\r
+I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their\r
+fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet\r
+disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier\r
+marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other\r
+be. But to what does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing\r
+you for nothing. Ah! Miss Dashwood--a subject such as this--untouched\r
+for fourteen years--it is dangerous to handle it at all! I WILL be\r
+more collected--more concise. She left to my care her only child, a\r
+little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then\r
+about three years old. She loved the child, and had always kept it\r
+with her. It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I\r
+have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her\r
+education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I\r
+had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at\r
+school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my\r
+brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the\r
+possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford. I\r
+called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in\r
+general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now\r
+three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I\r
+removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very\r
+respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four\r
+or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I\r
+had every reason to be pleased with her situation. But last February,\r
+almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed\r
+her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire,\r
+to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her\r
+father there for his health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man,\r
+and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with\r
+a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would\r
+give no clue, though she certainly knew all. He, her father, a\r
+well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe,\r
+give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house,\r
+while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance\r
+they chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was\r
+convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the\r
+business. In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all\r
+the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture. What I\r
+thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too."\r
+\r
+"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be--could Willoughby!"--\r
+\r
+"The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a\r
+letter from herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from\r
+Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party\r
+to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly,\r
+which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body,\r
+and which I believe gave offence to some. Little did Mr. Willoughby\r
+imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in\r
+breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom\r
+he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have\r
+availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of\r
+your sister? No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel\r
+for another would do. He had left the girl whose youth and innocence\r
+he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no\r
+creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had\r
+left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor\r
+relieved her."\r
+\r
+"This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor.\r
+\r
+"His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than\r
+both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what\r
+I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on\r
+being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt\r
+for all your sakes. When I came to you last week and found you alone,\r
+I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when\r
+it WAS known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but\r
+now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived; to\r
+see your sister--but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering\r
+with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet\r
+reclaim him. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what\r
+were his designs on her. Whatever they may have been, however, she may\r
+now, and hereafter doubtless WILL turn with gratitude towards her own\r
+condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she\r
+considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and\r
+pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as\r
+strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which\r
+must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have its use\r
+with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They\r
+proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the\r
+contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them.\r
+Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it,\r
+must strengthen every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in\r
+communicating to her what I have told you. You must know best what\r
+will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed\r
+it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have\r
+suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family\r
+afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to\r
+raise myself at the expense of others."\r
+\r
+Elinor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness;\r
+attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to\r
+Marianne, from the communication of what had passed.\r
+\r
+"I have been more pained," said she, "by her endeavors to acquit him\r
+than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most\r
+perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first\r
+she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have\r
+you," she continued, after a short silence, "ever seen Mr. Willoughby\r
+since you left him at Barton?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," he replied gravely, "once I have. One meeting was unavoidable."\r
+\r
+Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,\r
+\r
+"What? have you met him to--"\r
+\r
+"I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most\r
+reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which\r
+was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to\r
+defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the\r
+meeting, therefore, never got abroad."\r
+\r
+Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a\r
+soldier she presumed not to censure it.\r
+\r
+"Such," said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, "has been the unhappy\r
+resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly\r
+have I discharged my trust!"\r
+\r
+"Is she still in town?"\r
+\r
+"No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near\r
+her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there\r
+she remains."\r
+\r
+Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor\r
+from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again\r
+the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion\r
+and esteem for him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 32\r
+\r
+\r
+When the particulars of this conversation were repeated by Miss\r
+Dashwood to her sister, as they very soon were, the effect on her was\r
+not entirely such as the former had hoped to see. Not that Marianne\r
+appeared to distrust the truth of any part of it, for she listened to\r
+it all with the most steady and submissive attention, made neither\r
+objection nor remark, attempted no vindication of Willoughby, and\r
+seemed to shew by her tears that she felt it to be impossible. But\r
+though this behaviour assured Elinor that the conviction of this guilt\r
+WAS carried home to her mind, though she saw with satisfaction the\r
+effect of it, in her no longer avoiding Colonel Brandon when he called,\r
+in her speaking to him, even voluntarily speaking, with a kind of\r
+compassionate respect, and though she saw her spirits less violently\r
+irritated than before, she did not see her less wretched. Her mind did\r
+become settled, but it was settled in a gloomy dejection. She felt the\r
+loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the\r
+loss of his heart; his seduction and desertion of Miss Williams, the\r
+misery of that poor girl, and the doubt of what his designs might ONCE\r
+have been on herself, preyed altogether so much on her spirits, that\r
+she could not bring herself to speak of what she felt even to Elinor;\r
+and, brooding over her sorrows in silence, gave more pain to her sister\r
+than could have been communicated by the most open and most frequent\r
+confession of them.\r
+\r
+To give the feelings or the language of Mrs. Dashwood on receiving and\r
+answering Elinor's letter would be only to give a repetition of what\r
+her daughters had already felt and said; of a disappointment hardly\r
+less painful than Marianne's, and an indignation even greater than\r
+Elinor's. Long letters from her, quickly succeeding each other,\r
+arrived to tell all that she suffered and thought; to express her\r
+anxious solicitude for Marianne, and entreat she would bear up with\r
+fortitude under this misfortune. Bad indeed must the nature of\r
+Marianne's affliction be, when her mother could talk of fortitude!\r
+mortifying and humiliating must be the origin of those regrets, which\r
+SHE could wish her not to indulge!\r
+\r
+Against the interest of her own individual comfort, Mrs. Dashwood had\r
+determined that it would be better for Marianne to be any where, at\r
+that time, than at Barton, where every thing within her view would be\r
+bringing back the past in the strongest and most afflicting manner, by\r
+constantly placing Willoughby before her, such as she had always seen\r
+him there. She recommended it to her daughters, therefore, by all\r
+means not to shorten their visit to Mrs. Jennings; the length of which,\r
+though never exactly fixed, had been expected by all to comprise at\r
+least five or six weeks. A variety of occupations, of objects, and of\r
+company, which could not be procured at Barton, would be inevitable\r
+there, and might yet, she hoped, cheat Marianne, at times, into some\r
+interest beyond herself, and even into some amusement, much as the\r
+ideas of both might now be spurned by her.\r
+\r
+From all danger of seeing Willoughby again, her mother considered her\r
+to be at least equally safe in town as in the country, since his\r
+acquaintance must now be dropped by all who called themselves her\r
+friends. Design could never bring them in each other's way: negligence\r
+could never leave them exposed to a surprise; and chance had less in\r
+its favour in the crowd of London than even in the retirement of\r
+Barton, where it might force him before her while paying that visit at\r
+Allenham on his marriage, which Mrs. Dashwood, from foreseeing at first\r
+as a probable event, had brought herself to expect as a certain one.\r
+\r
+She had yet another reason for wishing her children to remain where\r
+they were; a letter from her son-in-law had told her that he and his\r
+wife were to be in town before the middle of February, and she judged\r
+it right that they should sometimes see their brother.\r
+\r
+Marianne had promised to be guided by her mother's opinion, and she\r
+submitted to it therefore without opposition, though it proved\r
+perfectly different from what she wished and expected, though she felt\r
+it to be entirely wrong, formed on mistaken grounds, and that by\r
+requiring her longer continuance in London it deprived her of the only\r
+possible alleviation of her wretchedness, the personal sympathy of her\r
+mother, and doomed her to such society and such scenes as must prevent\r
+her ever knowing a moment's rest.\r
+\r
+But it was a matter of great consolation to her, that what brought evil\r
+to herself would bring good to her sister; and Elinor, on the other\r
+hand, suspecting that it would not be in her power to avoid Edward\r
+entirely, comforted herself by thinking, that though their longer stay\r
+would therefore militate against her own happiness, it would be better\r
+for Marianne than an immediate return into Devonshire.\r
+\r
+Her carefulness in guarding her sister from ever hearing Willoughby's\r
+name mentioned, was not thrown away. Marianne, though without knowing\r
+it herself, reaped all its advantage; for neither Mrs. Jennings, nor\r
+Sir John, nor even Mrs. Palmer herself, ever spoke of him before her.\r
+Elinor wished that the same forbearance could have extended towards\r
+herself, but that was impossible, and she was obliged to listen day\r
+after day to the indignation of them all.\r
+\r
+Sir John, could not have thought it possible. "A man of whom he had\r
+always had such reason to think well! Such a good-natured fellow! He\r
+did not believe there was a bolder rider in England! It was an\r
+unaccountable business. He wished him at the devil with all his heart.\r
+He would not speak another word to him, meet him where he might, for\r
+all the world! No, not if it were to be by the side of Barton covert,\r
+and they were kept watching for two hours together. Such a scoundrel\r
+of a fellow! such a deceitful dog! It was only the last time they met\r
+that he had offered him one of Folly's puppies! and this was the end of\r
+it!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry. "She was determined to\r
+drop his acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she\r
+had never been acquainted with him at all. She wished with all her\r
+heart Combe Magna was not so near Cleveland; but it did not signify,\r
+for it was a great deal too far off to visit; she hated him so much\r
+that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should\r
+tell everybody she saw, how good-for-nothing he was."\r
+\r
+The rest of Mrs. Palmer's sympathy was shewn in procuring all the\r
+particulars in her power of the approaching marriage, and communicating\r
+them to Elinor. She could soon tell at what coachmaker's the new\r
+carriage was building, by what painter Mr. Willoughby's portrait was\r
+drawn, and at what warehouse Miss Grey's clothes might be seen.\r
+\r
+The calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton on the occasion was a\r
+happy relief to Elinor's spirits, oppressed as they often were by the\r
+clamorous kindness of the others. It was a great comfort to her to be\r
+sure of exciting no interest in ONE person at least among their circle\r
+of friends: a great comfort to know that there was ONE who would meet\r
+her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for\r
+her sister's health.\r
+\r
+Every qualification is raised at times, by the circumstances of the\r
+moment, to more than its real value; and she was sometimes worried down\r
+by officious condolence to rate good-breeding as more indispensable to\r
+comfort than good-nature.\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton expressed her sense of the affair about once every day,\r
+or twice, if the subject occurred very often, by saying, "It is very\r
+shocking, indeed!" and by the means of this continual though gentle\r
+vent, was able not only to see the Miss Dashwoods from the first\r
+without the smallest emotion, but very soon to see them without\r
+recollecting a word of the matter; and having thus supported the\r
+dignity of her own sex, and spoken her decided censure of what was\r
+wrong in the other, she thought herself at liberty to attend to the\r
+interest of her own assemblies, and therefore determined (though rather\r
+against the opinion of Sir John) that as Mrs. Willoughby would at once\r
+be a woman of elegance and fortune, to leave her card with her as soon\r
+as she married.\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon's delicate, unobtrusive enquiries were never unwelcome\r
+to Miss Dashwood. He had abundantly earned the privilege of intimate\r
+discussion of her sister's disappointment, by the friendly zeal with\r
+which he had endeavoured to soften it, and they always conversed with\r
+confidence. His chief reward for the painful exertion of disclosing\r
+past sorrows and present humiliations, was given in the pitying eye\r
+with which Marianne sometimes observed him, and the gentleness of her\r
+voice whenever (though it did not often happen) she was obliged, or\r
+could oblige herself to speak to him. THESE assured him that his\r
+exertion had produced an increase of good-will towards himself, and\r
+THESE gave Elinor hopes of its being farther augmented hereafter; but\r
+Mrs. Jennings, who knew nothing of all this, who knew only that the\r
+Colonel continued as grave as ever, and that she could neither prevail\r
+on him to make the offer himself, nor commission her to make it for\r
+him, began, at the end of two days, to think that, instead of\r
+Midsummer, they would not be married till Michaelmas, and by the end of\r
+a week that it would not be a match at all. The good understanding\r
+between the Colonel and Miss Dashwood seemed rather to declare that the\r
+honours of the mulberry-tree, the canal, and the yew arbour, would all\r
+be made over to HER; and Mrs. Jennings had, for some time ceased to\r
+think at all of Mrs. Ferrars.\r
+\r
+Early in February, within a fortnight from the receipt of Willoughby's\r
+letter, Elinor had the painful office of informing her sister that he\r
+was married. She had taken care to have the intelligence conveyed to\r
+herself, as soon as it was known that the ceremony was over, as she was\r
+desirous that Marianne should not receive the first notice of it from\r
+the public papers, which she saw her eagerly examining every morning.\r
+\r
+She received the news with resolute composure; made no observation on\r
+it, and at first shed no tears; but after a short time they would burst\r
+out, and for the rest of the day, she was in a state hardly less\r
+pitiable than when she first learnt to expect the event.\r
+\r
+The Willoughbys left town as soon as they were married; and Elinor now\r
+hoped, as there could be no danger of her seeing either of them, to\r
+prevail on her sister, who had never yet left the house since the blow\r
+first fell, to go out again by degrees as she had done before.\r
+\r
+About this time the two Miss Steeles, lately arrived at their cousin's\r
+house in Bartlett's Buildings, Holburn, presented themselves again\r
+before their more grand relations in Conduit and Berkeley Streets; and\r
+were welcomed by them all with great cordiality.\r
+\r
+Elinor only was sorry to see them. Their presence always gave her\r
+pain, and she hardly knew how to make a very gracious return to the\r
+overpowering delight of Lucy in finding her STILL in town.\r
+\r
+"I should have been quite disappointed if I had not found you here\r
+STILL," said she repeatedly, with a strong emphasis on the word. "But\r
+I always thought I SHOULD. I was almost sure you would not leave\r
+London yet awhile; though you TOLD me, you know, at Barton, that you\r
+should not stay above a MONTH. But I thought, at the time, that you\r
+would most likely change your mind when it came to the point. It would\r
+have been such a great pity to have went away before your brother and\r
+sister came. And now to be sure you will be in no hurry to be gone. I\r
+am amazingly glad you did not keep to YOUR WORD."\r
+\r
+Elinor perfectly understood her, and was forced to use all her\r
+self-command to make it appear that she did NOT.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Jennings, "and how did you travel?"\r
+\r
+"Not in the stage, I assure you," replied Miss Steele, with quick\r
+exultation; "we came post all the way, and had a very smart beau to\r
+attend us. Dr. Davies was coming to town, and so we thought we'd join\r
+him in a post-chaise; and he behaved very genteelly, and paid ten or\r
+twelve shillings more than we did."\r
+\r
+"Oh, oh!" cried Mrs. Jennings; "very pretty, indeed! and the Doctor is\r
+a single man, I warrant you."\r
+\r
+"There now," said Miss Steele, affectedly simpering, "everybody laughs\r
+at me so about the Doctor, and I cannot think why. My cousins say they\r
+are sure I have made a conquest; but for my part I declare I never\r
+think about him from one hour's end to another. 'Lord! here comes your\r
+beau, Nancy,' my cousin said t'other day, when she saw him crossing the\r
+street to the house. My beau, indeed! said I--I cannot think who you\r
+mean. The Doctor is no beau of mine."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye, that is very pretty talking--but it won't do--the Doctor is\r
+the man, I see."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed!" replied her cousin, with affected earnestness, "and I beg\r
+you will contradict it, if you ever hear it talked of."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings directly gave her the gratifying assurance that she\r
+certainly would NOT, and Miss Steele was made completely happy.\r
+\r
+"I suppose you will go and stay with your brother and sister, Miss\r
+Dashwood, when they come to town," said Lucy, returning, after a\r
+cessation of hostile hints, to the charge.\r
+\r
+"No, I do not think we shall."\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, I dare say you will."\r
+\r
+Elinor would not humour her by farther opposition.\r
+\r
+"What a charming thing it is that Mrs. Dashwood can spare you both for\r
+so long a time together!"\r
+\r
+"Long a time, indeed!" interposed Mrs. Jennings. "Why, their visit is\r
+but just begun!"\r
+\r
+Lucy was silenced.\r
+\r
+"I am sorry we cannot see your sister, Miss Dashwood," said Miss\r
+Steele. "I am sorry she is not well--" for Marianne had left the room\r
+on their arrival.\r
+\r
+"You are very good. My sister will be equally sorry to miss the\r
+pleasure of seeing you; but she has been very much plagued lately with\r
+nervous head-aches, which make her unfit for company or conversation."\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear, that is a great pity! but such old friends as Lucy and\r
+me!--I think she might see US; and I am sure we would not speak a word."\r
+\r
+Elinor, with great civility, declined the proposal. Her sister was\r
+perhaps laid down upon the bed, or in her dressing gown, and therefore\r
+not able to come to them.\r
+\r
+"Oh, if that's all," cried Miss Steele, "we can just as well go and see\r
+HER."\r
+\r
+Elinor began to find this impertinence too much for her temper; but she\r
+was saved the trouble of checking it, by Lucy's sharp reprimand, which\r
+now, as on many occasions, though it did not give much sweetness to the\r
+manners of one sister, was of advantage in governing those of the other.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 33\r
+\r
+\r
+After some opposition, Marianne yielded to her sister's entreaties, and\r
+consented to go out with her and Mrs. Jennings one morning for half an\r
+hour. She expressly conditioned, however, for paying no visits, and\r
+would do no more than accompany them to Gray's in Sackville Street,\r
+where Elinor was carrying on a negotiation for the exchange of a few\r
+old-fashioned jewels of her mother.\r
+\r
+When they stopped at the door, Mrs. Jennings recollected that there was\r
+a lady at the other end of the street on whom she ought to call; and as\r
+she had no business at Gray's, it was resolved, that while her young\r
+friends transacted their's, she should pay her visit and return for\r
+them.\r
+\r
+On ascending the stairs, the Miss Dashwoods found so many people before\r
+them in the room, that there was not a person at liberty to tend to\r
+their orders; and they were obliged to wait. All that could be done\r
+was, to sit down at that end of the counter which seemed to promise the\r
+quickest succession; one gentleman only was standing there, and it is\r
+probable that Elinor was not without hope of exciting his politeness to\r
+a quicker despatch. But the correctness of his eye, and the delicacy\r
+of his taste, proved to be beyond his politeness. He was giving orders\r
+for a toothpick-case for himself, and till its size, shape, and\r
+ornaments were determined, all of which, after examining and debating\r
+for a quarter of an hour over every toothpick-case in the shop, were\r
+finally arranged by his own inventive fancy, he had no leisure to\r
+bestow any other attention on the two ladies, than what was comprised\r
+in three or four very broad stares; a kind of notice which served to\r
+imprint on Elinor the remembrance of a person and face, of strong,\r
+natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of\r
+fashion.\r
+\r
+Marianne was spared from the troublesome feelings of contempt and\r
+resentment, on this impertinent examination of their features, and on\r
+the puppyism of his manner in deciding on all the different horrors of\r
+the different toothpick-cases presented to his inspection, by remaining\r
+unconscious of it all; for she was as well able to collect her thoughts\r
+within herself, and be as ignorant of what was passing around her, in\r
+Mr. Gray's shop, as in her own bedroom.\r
+\r
+At last the affair was decided. The ivory, the gold, and the pearls,\r
+all received their appointment, and the gentleman having named the last\r
+day on which his existence could be continued without the possession of\r
+the toothpick-case, drew on his gloves with leisurely care, and\r
+bestowing another glance on the Miss Dashwoods, but such a one as\r
+seemed rather to demand than express admiration, walked off with a\r
+happy air of real conceit and affected indifference.\r
+\r
+Elinor lost no time in bringing her business forward, was on the point\r
+of concluding it, when another gentleman presented himself at her side.\r
+She turned her eyes towards his face, and found him with some surprise\r
+to be her brother.\r
+\r
+Their affection and pleasure in meeting was just enough to make a very\r
+creditable appearance in Mr. Gray's shop. John Dashwood was really far\r
+from being sorry to see his sisters again; it rather gave them\r
+satisfaction; and his inquiries after their mother were respectful and\r
+attentive.\r
+\r
+Elinor found that he and Fanny had been in town two days.\r
+\r
+"I wished very much to call upon you yesterday," said he, "but it was\r
+impossible, for we were obliged to take Harry to see the wild beasts at\r
+Exeter Exchange; and we spent the rest of the day with Mrs. Ferrars.\r
+Harry was vastly pleased. THIS morning I had fully intended to call on\r
+you, if I could possibly find a spare half hour, but one has always so\r
+much to do on first coming to town. I am come here to bespeak Fanny a\r
+seal. But tomorrow I think I shall certainly be able to call in\r
+Berkeley Street, and be introduced to your friend Mrs. Jennings. I\r
+understand she is a woman of very good fortune. And the Middletons\r
+too, you must introduce me to THEM. As my mother-in-law's relations, I\r
+shall be happy to show them every respect. They are excellent\r
+neighbours to you in the country, I understand."\r
+\r
+"Excellent indeed. Their attention to our comfort, their friendliness\r
+in every particular, is more than I can express."\r
+\r
+"I am extremely glad to hear it, upon my word; extremely glad indeed.\r
+But so it ought to be; they are people of large fortune, they are\r
+related to you, and every civility and accommodation that can serve to\r
+make your situation pleasant might be reasonably expected. And so you\r
+are most comfortably settled in your little cottage and want for\r
+nothing! Edward brought us a most charming account of the place: the\r
+most complete thing of its kind, he said, that ever was, and you all\r
+seemed to enjoy it beyond any thing. It was a great satisfaction to us\r
+to hear it, I assure you."\r
+\r
+Elinor did feel a little ashamed of her brother; and was not sorry to\r
+be spared the necessity of answering him, by the arrival of Mrs.\r
+Jennings's servant, who came to tell her that his mistress waited for\r
+them at the door.\r
+\r
+Mr. Dashwood attended them down stairs, was introduced to Mrs. Jennings\r
+at the door of her carriage, and repeating his hope of being able to\r
+call on them the next day, took leave.\r
+\r
+His visit was duly paid. He came with a pretence at an apology from\r
+their sister-in-law, for not coming too; "but she was so much engaged\r
+with her mother, that really she had no leisure for going any where."\r
+Mrs. Jennings, however, assured him directly, that she should not stand\r
+upon ceremony, for they were all cousins, or something like it, and she\r
+should certainly wait on Mrs. John Dashwood very soon, and bring her\r
+sisters to see her. His manners to THEM, though calm, were perfectly\r
+kind; to Mrs. Jennings, most attentively civil; and on Colonel\r
+Brandon's coming in soon after himself, he eyed him with a curiosity\r
+which seemed to say, that he only wanted to know him to be rich, to be\r
+equally civil to HIM.\r
+\r
+After staying with them half an hour, he asked Elinor to walk with him\r
+to Conduit Street, and introduce him to Sir John and Lady Middleton.\r
+The weather was remarkably fine, and she readily consented. As soon as\r
+they were out of the house, his enquiries began.\r
+\r
+"Who is Colonel Brandon? Is he a man of fortune?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; he has very good property in Dorsetshire."\r
+\r
+"I am glad of it. He seems a most gentlemanlike man; and I think,\r
+Elinor, I may congratulate you on the prospect of a very respectable\r
+establishment in life."\r
+\r
+"Me, brother! what do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"He likes you. I observed him narrowly, and am convinced of it. What\r
+is the amount of his fortune?"\r
+\r
+"I believe about two thousand a year."\r
+\r
+"Two thousand a-year;" and then working himself up to a pitch of\r
+enthusiastic generosity, he added, "Elinor, I wish with all my heart it\r
+were TWICE as much, for your sake."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I believe you," replied Elinor; "but I am very sure that\r
+Colonel Brandon has not the smallest wish of marrying ME."\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken, Elinor; you are very much mistaken. A very little\r
+trouble on your side secures him. Perhaps just at present he may be\r
+undecided; the smallness of your fortune may make him hang back; his\r
+friends may all advise him against it. But some of those little\r
+attentions and encouragements which ladies can so easily give will fix\r
+him, in spite of himself. And there can be no reason why you should\r
+not try for him. It is not to be supposed that any prior attachment on\r
+your side--in short, you know as to an attachment of that kind, it is\r
+quite out of the question, the objections are insurmountable--you have\r
+too much sense not to see all that. Colonel Brandon must be the man;\r
+and no civility shall be wanting on my part to make him pleased with\r
+you and your family. It is a match that must give universal\r
+satisfaction. In short, it is a kind of thing that"--lowering his\r
+voice to an important whisper--"will be exceedingly welcome to ALL\r
+PARTIES." Recollecting himself, however, he added, "That is, I mean to\r
+say--your friends are all truly anxious to see you well settled; Fanny\r
+particularly, for she has your interest very much at heart, I assure\r
+you. And her mother too, Mrs. Ferrars, a very good-natured woman, I am\r
+sure it would give her great pleasure; she said as much the other day."\r
+\r
+Elinor would not vouchsafe any answer.\r
+\r
+"It would be something remarkable, now," he continued, "something\r
+droll, if Fanny should have a brother and I a sister settling at the\r
+same time. And yet it is not very unlikely."\r
+\r
+"Is Mr. Edward Ferrars," said Elinor, with resolution, "going to be\r
+married?"\r
+\r
+"It is not actually settled, but there is such a thing in agitation.\r
+He has a most excellent mother. Mrs. Ferrars, with the utmost\r
+liberality, will come forward, and settle on him a thousand a year, if\r
+the match takes place. The lady is the Hon. Miss Morton, only daughter\r
+of the late Lord Morton, with thirty thousand pounds. A very desirable\r
+connection on both sides, and I have not a doubt of its taking place in\r
+time. A thousand a-year is a great deal for a mother to give away, to\r
+make over for ever; but Mrs. Ferrars has a noble spirit. To give you\r
+another instance of her liberality:--The other day, as soon as we came\r
+to town, aware that money could not be very plenty with us just now,\r
+she put bank-notes into Fanny's hands to the amount of two hundred\r
+pounds. And extremely acceptable it is, for we must live at a great\r
+expense while we are here."\r
+\r
+He paused for her assent and compassion; and she forced herself to say,\r
+\r
+"Your expenses both in town and country must certainly be considerable;\r
+but your income is a large one."\r
+\r
+"Not so large, I dare say, as many people suppose. I do not mean to\r
+complain, however; it is undoubtedly a comfortable one, and I hope will\r
+in time be better. The enclosure of Norland Common, now carrying on,\r
+is a most serious drain. And then I have made a little purchase within\r
+this half year; East Kingham Farm, you must remember the place, where\r
+old Gibson used to live. The land was so very desirable for me in\r
+every respect, so immediately adjoining my own property, that I felt it\r
+my duty to buy it. I could not have answered it to my conscience to\r
+let it fall into any other hands. A man must pay for his convenience;\r
+and it HAS cost me a vast deal of money."\r
+\r
+"More than you think it really and intrinsically worth."\r
+\r
+"Why, I hope not that. I might have sold it again, the next day, for\r
+more than I gave: but, with regard to the purchase-money, I might have\r
+been very unfortunate indeed; for the stocks were at that time so low,\r
+that if I had not happened to have the necessary sum in my banker's\r
+hands, I must have sold out to very great loss."\r
+\r
+Elinor could only smile.\r
+\r
+"Other great and inevitable expenses too we have had on first coming to\r
+Norland. Our respected father, as you well know, bequeathed all the\r
+Stanhill effects that remained at Norland (and very valuable they were)\r
+to your mother. Far be it from me to repine at his doing so; he had an\r
+undoubted right to dispose of his own property as he chose, but, in\r
+consequence of it, we have been obliged to make large purchases of\r
+linen, china, &c. to supply the place of what was taken away. You may\r
+guess, after all these expenses, how very far we must be from being\r
+rich, and how acceptable Mrs. Ferrars's kindness is."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," said Elinor; "and assisted by her liberality, I hope you\r
+may yet live to be in easy circumstances."\r
+\r
+"Another year or two may do much towards it," he gravely replied; "but\r
+however there is still a great deal to be done. There is not a stone\r
+laid of Fanny's green-house, and nothing but the plan of the\r
+flower-garden marked out."\r
+\r
+"Where is the green-house to be?"\r
+\r
+"Upon the knoll behind the house. The old walnut trees are all come\r
+down to make room for it. It will be a very fine object from many\r
+parts of the park, and the flower-garden will slope down just before\r
+it, and be exceedingly pretty. We have cleared away all the old thorns\r
+that grew in patches over the brow."\r
+\r
+Elinor kept her concern and her censure to herself; and was very\r
+thankful that Marianne was not present, to share the provocation.\r
+\r
+Having now said enough to make his poverty clear, and to do away the\r
+necessity of buying a pair of ear-rings for each of his sisters, in his\r
+next visit at Gray's his thoughts took a cheerfuller turn, and he began\r
+to congratulate Elinor on having such a friend as Mrs. Jennings.\r
+\r
+"She seems a most valuable woman indeed--Her house, her style of\r
+living, all bespeak an exceeding good income; and it is an acquaintance\r
+that has not only been of great use to you hitherto, but in the end may\r
+prove materially advantageous.--Her inviting you to town is certainly a\r
+vast thing in your favour; and indeed, it speaks altogether so great a\r
+regard for you, that in all probability when she dies you will not be\r
+forgotten.-- She must have a great deal to leave."\r
+\r
+"Nothing at all, I should rather suppose; for she has only her\r
+jointure, which will descend to her children."\r
+\r
+"But it is not to be imagined that she lives up to her income. Few\r
+people of common prudence will do THAT; and whatever she saves, she\r
+will be able to dispose of."\r
+\r
+"And do you not think it more likely that she should leave it to her\r
+daughters, than to us?"\r
+\r
+"Her daughters are both exceedingly well married, and therefore I\r
+cannot perceive the necessity of her remembering them farther.\r
+Whereas, in my opinion, by her taking so much notice of you, and\r
+treating you in this kind of way, she has given you a sort of claim on\r
+her future consideration, which a conscientious woman would not\r
+disregard. Nothing can be kinder than her behaviour; and she can\r
+hardly do all this, without being aware of the expectation it raises."\r
+\r
+"But she raises none in those most concerned. Indeed, brother, your\r
+anxiety for our welfare and prosperity carries you too far."\r
+\r
+"Why, to be sure," said he, seeming to recollect himself, "people have\r
+little, have very little in their power. But, my dear Elinor, what is\r
+the matter with Marianne?-- she looks very unwell, has lost her colour,\r
+and is grown quite thin. Is she ill?"\r
+\r
+"She is not well, she has had a nervous complaint on her for several\r
+weeks."\r
+\r
+"I am sorry for that. At her time of life, any thing of an illness\r
+destroys the bloom for ever! Hers has been a very short one! She was\r
+as handsome a girl last September, as I ever saw; and as likely to\r
+attract the man. There was something in her style of beauty, to please\r
+them particularly. I remember Fanny used to say that she would marry\r
+sooner and better than you did; not but what she is exceedingly fond of\r
+YOU, but so it happened to strike her. She will be mistaken, however.\r
+I question whether Marianne NOW, will marry a man worth more than five\r
+or six hundred a-year, at the utmost, and I am very much deceived if\r
+YOU do not do better. Dorsetshire! I know very little of Dorsetshire;\r
+but, my dear Elinor, I shall be exceedingly glad to know more of it;\r
+and I think I can answer for your having Fanny and myself among the\r
+earliest and best pleased of your visitors."\r
+\r
+Elinor tried very seriously to convince him that there was no\r
+likelihood of her marrying Colonel Brandon; but it was an expectation\r
+of too much pleasure to himself to be relinquished, and he was really\r
+resolved on seeking an intimacy with that gentleman, and promoting the\r
+marriage by every possible attention. He had just compunction enough\r
+for having done nothing for his sisters himself, to be exceedingly\r
+anxious that everybody else should do a great deal; and an offer from\r
+Colonel Brandon, or a legacy from Mrs. Jennings, was the easiest means\r
+of atoning for his own neglect.\r
+\r
+They were lucky enough to find Lady Middleton at home, and Sir John\r
+came in before their visit ended. Abundance of civilities passed on\r
+all sides. Sir John was ready to like anybody, and though Mr. Dashwood\r
+did not seem to know much about horses, he soon set him down as a very\r
+good-natured fellow: while Lady Middleton saw enough of fashion in his\r
+appearance to think his acquaintance worth having; and Mr. Dashwood\r
+went away delighted with both.\r
+\r
+"I shall have a charming account to carry to Fanny," said he, as he\r
+walked back with his sister. "Lady Middleton is really a most elegant\r
+woman! Such a woman as I am sure Fanny will be glad to know. And Mrs.\r
+Jennings too, an exceedingly well-behaved woman, though not so elegant\r
+as her daughter. Your sister need not have any scruple even of\r
+visiting HER, which, to say the truth, has been a little the case, and\r
+very naturally; for we only knew that Mrs. Jennings was the widow of a\r
+man who had got all his money in a low way; and Fanny and Mrs. Ferrars\r
+were both strongly prepossessed, that neither she nor her daughters\r
+were such kind of women as Fanny would like to associate with. But now\r
+I can carry her a most satisfactory account of both."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 34\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. John Dashwood had so much confidence in her husband's judgment,\r
+that she waited the very next day both on Mrs. Jennings and her\r
+daughter; and her confidence was rewarded by finding even the former,\r
+even the woman with whom her sisters were staying, by no means unworthy\r
+her notice; and as for Lady Middleton, she found her one of the most\r
+charming women in the world!\r
+\r
+Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood. There was a\r
+kind of cold hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually\r
+attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an insipid\r
+propriety of demeanor, and a general want of understanding.\r
+\r
+The same manners, however, which recommended Mrs. John Dashwood to the\r
+good opinion of Lady Middleton did not suit the fancy of Mrs. Jennings,\r
+and to HER she appeared nothing more than a little proud-looking woman\r
+of uncordial address, who met her husband's sisters without any\r
+affection, and almost without having anything to say to them; for of\r
+the quarter of an hour bestowed on Berkeley Street, she sat at least\r
+seven minutes and a half in silence.\r
+\r
+Elinor wanted very much to know, though she did not chuse to ask,\r
+whether Edward was then in town; but nothing would have induced Fanny\r
+voluntarily to mention his name before her, till able to tell her that\r
+his marriage with Miss Morton was resolved on, or till her husband's\r
+expectations on Colonel Brandon were answered; because she believed\r
+them still so very much attached to each other, that they could not be\r
+too sedulously divided in word and deed on every occasion. The\r
+intelligence however, which SHE would not give, soon flowed from\r
+another quarter. Lucy came very shortly to claim Elinor's compassion\r
+on being unable to see Edward, though he had arrived in town with Mr.\r
+and Mrs. Dashwood. He dared not come to Bartlett's Buildings for fear\r
+of detection, and though their mutual impatience to meet, was not to be\r
+told, they could do nothing at present but write.\r
+\r
+Edward assured them himself of his being in town, within a very short\r
+time, by twice calling in Berkeley Street. Twice was his card found on\r
+the table, when they returned from their morning's engagements. Elinor\r
+was pleased that he had called; and still more pleased that she had\r
+missed him.\r
+\r
+The Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons, that,\r
+though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined to\r
+give them--a dinner; and soon after their acquaintance began, invited\r
+them to dine in Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house\r
+for three months. Their sisters and Mrs. Jennings were invited\r
+likewise, and John Dashwood was careful to secure Colonel Brandon, who,\r
+always glad to be where the Miss Dashwoods were, received his eager\r
+civilities with some surprise, but much more pleasure. They were to\r
+meet Mrs. Ferrars; but Elinor could not learn whether her sons were to\r
+be of the party. The expectation of seeing HER, however, was enough to\r
+make her interested in the engagement; for though she could now meet\r
+Edward's mother without that strong anxiety which had once promised to\r
+attend such an introduction, though she could now see her with perfect\r
+indifference as to her opinion of herself, her desire of being in\r
+company with Mrs. Ferrars, her curiosity to know what she was like, was\r
+as lively as ever.\r
+\r
+The interest with which she thus anticipated the party, was soon\r
+afterwards increased, more powerfully than pleasantly, by her hearing\r
+that the Miss Steeles were also to be at it.\r
+\r
+So well had they recommended themselves to Lady Middleton, so agreeable\r
+had their assiduities made them to her, that though Lucy was certainly\r
+not so elegant, and her sister not even genteel, she was as ready as\r
+Sir John to ask them to spend a week or two in Conduit Street; and it\r
+happened to be particularly convenient to the Miss Steeles, as soon as\r
+the Dashwoods' invitation was known, that their visit should begin a\r
+few days before the party took place.\r
+\r
+Their claims to the notice of Mrs. John Dashwood, as the nieces of the\r
+gentleman who for many years had had the care of her brother, might not\r
+have done much, however, towards procuring them seats at her table; but\r
+as Lady Middleton's guests they must be welcome; and Lucy, who had long\r
+wanted to be personally known to the family, to have a nearer view of\r
+their characters and her own difficulties, and to have an opportunity\r
+of endeavouring to please them, had seldom been happier in her life,\r
+than she was on receiving Mrs. John Dashwood's card.\r
+\r
+On Elinor its effect was very different. She began immediately to\r
+determine, that Edward who lived with his mother, must be asked as his\r
+mother was, to a party given by his sister; and to see him for the\r
+first time, after all that passed, in the company of Lucy!--she hardly\r
+knew how she could bear it!\r
+\r
+These apprehensions, perhaps, were not founded entirely on reason, and\r
+certainly not at all on truth. They were relieved however, not by her\r
+own recollection, but by the good will of Lucy, who believed herself to\r
+be inflicting a severe disappointment when she told her that Edward\r
+certainly would not be in Harley Street on Tuesday, and even hoped to\r
+be carrying the pain still farther by persuading her that he was kept\r
+away by the extreme affection for herself, which he could not conceal\r
+when they were together.\r
+\r
+The important Tuesday came that was to introduce the two young ladies\r
+to this formidable mother-in-law.\r
+\r
+"Pity me, dear Miss Dashwood!" said Lucy, as they walked up the stairs\r
+together--for the Middletons arrived so directly after Mrs. Jennings,\r
+that they all followed the servant at the same time--"There is nobody\r
+here but you, that can feel for me.--I declare I can hardly stand.\r
+Good gracious!--In a moment I shall see the person that all my\r
+happiness depends on--that is to be my mother!"--\r
+\r
+Elinor could have given her immediate relief by suggesting the\r
+possibility of its being Miss Morton's mother, rather than her own,\r
+whom they were about to behold; but instead of doing that, she assured\r
+her, and with great sincerity, that she did pity her--to the utter\r
+amazement of Lucy, who, though really uncomfortable herself, hoped at\r
+least to be an object of irrepressible envy to Elinor.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman, upright, even to formality, in\r
+her figure, and serious, even to sourness, in her aspect. Her\r
+complexion was sallow; and her features small, without beauty, and\r
+naturally without expression; but a lucky contraction of the brow had\r
+rescued her countenance from the disgrace of insipidity, by giving it\r
+the strong characters of pride and ill nature. She was not a woman of\r
+many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the\r
+number of her ideas; and of the few syllables that did escape her, not\r
+one fell to the share of Miss Dashwood, whom she eyed with the spirited\r
+determination of disliking her at all events.\r
+\r
+Elinor could not NOW be made unhappy by this behaviour.-- A few months\r
+ago it would have hurt her exceedingly; but it was not in Mrs. Ferrars'\r
+power to distress her by it now;--and the difference of her manners to\r
+the Miss Steeles, a difference which seemed purposely made to humble\r
+her more, only amused her. She could not but smile to see the\r
+graciousness of both mother and daughter towards the very person-- for\r
+Lucy was particularly distinguished--whom of all others, had they known\r
+as much as she did, they would have been most anxious to mortify; while\r
+she herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat\r
+pointedly slighted by both. But while she smiled at a graciousness so\r
+misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean-spirited folly from which\r
+it sprung, nor observe the studied attentions with which the Miss\r
+Steeles courted its continuance, without thoroughly despising them all\r
+four.\r
+\r
+Lucy was all exultation on being so honorably distinguished; and Miss\r
+Steele wanted only to be teazed about Dr. Davies to be perfectly happy.\r
+\r
+The dinner was a grand one, the servants were numerous, and every thing\r
+bespoke the Mistress's inclination for show, and the Master's ability\r
+to support it. In spite of the improvements and additions which were\r
+making to the Norland estate, and in spite of its owner having once\r
+been within some thousand pounds of being obliged to sell out at a\r
+loss, nothing gave any symptom of that indigence which he had tried to\r
+infer from it;--no poverty of any kind, except of conversation,\r
+appeared--but there, the deficiency was considerable. John Dashwood\r
+had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing, and his wife\r
+had still less. But there was no peculiar disgrace in this; for it was\r
+very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all\r
+laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being\r
+agreeable--Want of sense, either natural or improved--want of\r
+elegance--want of spirits--or want of temper.\r
+\r
+When the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room after dinner, this poverty\r
+was particularly evident, for the gentlemen HAD supplied the discourse\r
+with some variety--the variety of politics, inclosing land, and\r
+breaking horses--but then it was all over; and one subject only engaged\r
+the ladies till coffee came in, which was the comparative heights of\r
+Harry Dashwood, and Lady Middleton's second son William, who were\r
+nearly of the same age.\r
+\r
+Had both the children been there, the affair might have been determined\r
+too easily by measuring them at once; but as Harry only was present, it\r
+was all conjectural assertion on both sides; and every body had a right\r
+to be equally positive in their opinion, and to repeat it over and over\r
+again as often as they liked.\r
+\r
+The parties stood thus:\r
+\r
+The two mothers, though each really convinced that her own son was the\r
+tallest, politely decided in favour of the other.\r
+\r
+The two grandmothers, with not less partiality, but more sincerity,\r
+were equally earnest in support of their own descendant.\r
+\r
+Lucy, who was hardly less anxious to please one parent than the other,\r
+thought the boys were both remarkably tall for their age, and could not\r
+conceive that there could be the smallest difference in the world\r
+between them; and Miss Steele, with yet greater address gave it, as\r
+fast as she could, in favour of each.\r
+\r
+Elinor, having once delivered her opinion on William's side, by which\r
+she offended Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny still more, did not see the\r
+necessity of enforcing it by any farther assertion; and Marianne, when\r
+called on for hers, offended them all, by declaring that she had no\r
+opinion to give, as she had never thought about it.\r
+\r
+Before her removing from Norland, Elinor had painted a very pretty pair\r
+of screens for her sister-in-law, which being now just mounted and\r
+brought home, ornamented her present drawing room; and these screens,\r
+catching the eye of John Dashwood on his following the other gentlemen\r
+into the room, were officiously handed by him to Colonel Brandon for\r
+his admiration.\r
+\r
+"These are done by my eldest sister," said he; "and you, as a man of\r
+taste, will, I dare say, be pleased with them. I do not know whether\r
+you have ever happened to see any of her performances before, but she\r
+is in general reckoned to draw extremely well."\r
+\r
+The Colonel, though disclaiming all pretensions to connoisseurship,\r
+warmly admired the screens, as he would have done any thing painted by\r
+Miss Dashwood; and on the curiosity of the others being of course\r
+excited, they were handed round for general inspection. Mrs. Ferrars,\r
+not aware of their being Elinor's work, particularly requested to look\r
+at them; and after they had received gratifying testimony of Lady\r
+Middletons's approbation, Fanny presented them to her mother,\r
+considerately informing her, at the same time, that they were done by\r
+Miss Dashwood.\r
+\r
+"Hum"--said Mrs. Ferrars--"very pretty,"--and without regarding them at\r
+all, returned them to her daughter.\r
+\r
+Perhaps Fanny thought for a moment that her mother had been quite rude\r
+enough,--for, colouring a little, she immediately said,\r
+\r
+"They are very pretty, ma'am--an't they?" But then again, the dread of\r
+having been too civil, too encouraging herself, probably came over her,\r
+for she presently added,\r
+\r
+"Do you not think they are something in Miss Morton's style of\r
+painting, Ma'am?--She DOES paint most delightfully!--How beautifully\r
+her last landscape is done!"\r
+\r
+"Beautifully indeed! But SHE does every thing well."\r
+\r
+Marianne could not bear this.--She was already greatly displeased with\r
+Mrs. Ferrars; and such ill-timed praise of another, at Elinor's\r
+expense, though she had not any notion of what was principally meant by\r
+it, provoked her immediately to say with warmth,\r
+\r
+"This is admiration of a very particular kind!--what is Miss Morton to\r
+us?--who knows, or who cares, for her?--it is Elinor of whom WE think\r
+and speak."\r
+\r
+And so saying, she took the screens out of her sister-in-law's hands,\r
+to admire them herself as they ought to be admired.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Ferrars looked exceedingly angry, and drawing herself up more\r
+stiffly than ever, pronounced in retort this bitter philippic, "Miss\r
+Morton is Lord Morton's daughter."\r
+\r
+Fanny looked very angry too, and her husband was all in a fright at his\r
+sister's audacity. Elinor was much more hurt by Marianne's warmth than\r
+she had been by what produced it; but Colonel Brandon's eyes, as they\r
+were fixed on Marianne, declared that he noticed only what was amiable\r
+in it, the affectionate heart which could not bear to see a sister\r
+slighted in the smallest point.\r
+\r
+Marianne's feelings did not stop here. The cold insolence of Mrs.\r
+Ferrars's general behaviour to her sister, seemed, to her, to foretell\r
+such difficulties and distresses to Elinor, as her own wounded heart\r
+taught her to think of with horror; and urged by a strong impulse of\r
+affectionate sensibility, she moved after a moment, to her sister's\r
+chair, and putting one arm round her neck, and one cheek close to hers,\r
+said in a low, but eager, voice,\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear Elinor, don't mind them. Don't let them make YOU unhappy."\r
+\r
+She could say no more; her spirits were quite overcome, and hiding her\r
+face on Elinor's shoulder, she burst into tears. Every body's\r
+attention was called, and almost every body was concerned.--Colonel\r
+Brandon rose up and went to them without knowing what he did.--Mrs.\r
+Jennings, with a very intelligent "Ah! poor dear," immediately gave her\r
+her salts; and Sir John felt so desperately enraged against the author\r
+of this nervous distress, that he instantly changed his seat to one\r
+close by Lucy Steele, and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of\r
+the whole shocking affair.\r
+\r
+In a few minutes, however, Marianne was recovered enough to put an end\r
+to the bustle, and sit down among the rest; though her spirits retained\r
+the impression of what had passed, the whole evening.\r
+\r
+"Poor Marianne!" said her brother to Colonel Brandon, in a low voice,\r
+as soon as he could secure his attention,-- "She has not such good\r
+health as her sister,--she is very nervous,--she has not Elinor's\r
+constitution;--and one must allow that there is something very trying\r
+to a young woman who HAS BEEN a beauty in the loss of her personal\r
+attractions. You would not think it perhaps, but Marianne WAS\r
+remarkably handsome a few months ago; quite as handsome as Elinor.--\r
+Now you see it is all gone."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 35\r
+\r
+\r
+Elinor's curiosity to see Mrs. Ferrars was satisfied.-- She had found\r
+in her every thing that could tend to make a farther connection between\r
+the families undesirable.-- She had seen enough of her pride, her\r
+meanness, and her determined prejudice against herself, to comprehend\r
+all the difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement, and\r
+retarded the marriage, of Edward and herself, had he been otherwise\r
+free;--and she had seen almost enough to be thankful for her OWN sake,\r
+that one greater obstacle preserved her from suffering under any other\r
+of Mrs. Ferrars's creation, preserved her from all dependence upon her\r
+caprice, or any solicitude for her good opinion. Or at least, if she\r
+did not bring herself quite to rejoice in Edward's being fettered to\r
+Lucy, she determined, that had Lucy been more amiable, she OUGHT to\r
+have rejoiced.\r
+\r
+She wondered that Lucy's spirits could be so very much elevated by the\r
+civility of Mrs. Ferrars;--that her interest and her vanity should so\r
+very much blind her as to make the attention which seemed only paid her\r
+because she was NOT ELINOR, appear a compliment to herself--or to allow\r
+her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her, because\r
+her real situation was unknown. But that it was so, had not only been\r
+declared by Lucy's eyes at the time, but was declared over again the\r
+next morning more openly, for at her particular desire, Lady Middleton\r
+set her down in Berkeley Street on the chance of seeing Elinor alone,\r
+to tell her how happy she was.\r
+\r
+The chance proved a lucky one, for a message from Mrs. Palmer soon\r
+after she arrived, carried Mrs. Jennings away.\r
+\r
+"My dear friend," cried Lucy, as soon as they were by themselves, "I\r
+come to talk to you of my happiness. Could anything be so flattering\r
+as Mrs. Ferrars's way of treating me yesterday? So exceeding affable\r
+as she was!--You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her;--but\r
+the very moment I was introduced, there was such an affability in her\r
+behaviour as really should seem to say, she had quite took a fancy to\r
+me. Now was not it so?-- You saw it all; and was not you quite struck\r
+with it?"\r
+\r
+"She was certainly very civil to you."\r
+\r
+"Civil!--Did you see nothing but only civility?-- I saw a vast deal\r
+more. Such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me!--No pride,\r
+no hauteur, and your sister just the same--all sweetness and\r
+affability!"\r
+\r
+Elinor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to\r
+own that she had reason for her happiness; and Elinor was obliged to go\r
+on.--\r
+\r
+"Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement," said she, "nothing\r
+could be more flattering than their treatment of you;--but as that was\r
+not the case"--\r
+\r
+"I guessed you would say so,"--replied Lucy quickly--"but there was no\r
+reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did\r
+not, and her liking me is every thing. You shan't talk me out of my\r
+satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no\r
+difficulties at all, to what I used to think. Mrs. Ferrars is a\r
+charming woman, and so is your sister. They are both delightful women,\r
+indeed!--I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs.\r
+Dashwood was!"\r
+\r
+To this Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any.\r
+\r
+"Are you ill, Miss Dashwood?--you seem low--you don't speak;--sure you\r
+an't well."\r
+\r
+"I never was in better health."\r
+\r
+"I am glad of it with all my heart; but really you did not look it. I\r
+should be sorry to have YOU ill; you, that have been the greatest\r
+comfort to me in the world!--Heaven knows what I should have done\r
+without your friendship."--\r
+\r
+Elinor tried to make a civil answer, though doubting her own success.\r
+But it seemed to satisfy Lucy, for she directly replied,\r
+\r
+"Indeed I am perfectly convinced of your regard for me, and next to\r
+Edward's love, it is the greatest comfort I have.--Poor Edward!--But\r
+now there is one good thing, we shall be able to meet, and meet pretty\r
+often, for Lady Middleton's delighted with Mrs. Dashwood, so we shall\r
+be a good deal in Harley Street, I dare say, and Edward spends half his\r
+time with his sister--besides, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Ferrars will\r
+visit now;--and Mrs. Ferrars and your sister were both so good to say\r
+more than once, they should always be glad to see me.-- They are such\r
+charming women!--I am sure if ever you tell your sister what I think of\r
+her, you cannot speak too high."\r
+\r
+But Elinor would not give her any encouragement to hope that she SHOULD\r
+tell her sister. Lucy continued.\r
+\r
+"I am sure I should have seen it in a moment, if Mrs. Ferrars had took\r
+a dislike to me. If she had only made me a formal courtesy, for\r
+instance, without saying a word, and never after had took any notice of\r
+me, and never looked at me in a pleasant way--you know what I mean--if\r
+I had been treated in that forbidding sort of way, I should have gave\r
+it all up in despair. I could not have stood it. For where she DOES\r
+dislike, I know it is most violent."\r
+\r
+Elinor was prevented from making any reply to this civil triumph, by\r
+the door's being thrown open, the servant's announcing Mr. Ferrars, and\r
+Edward's immediately walking in.\r
+\r
+It was a very awkward moment; and the countenance of each shewed that\r
+it was so. They all looked exceedingly foolish; and Edward seemed to\r
+have as great an inclination to walk out of the room again, as to\r
+advance farther into it. The very circumstance, in its unpleasantest\r
+form, which they would each have been most anxious to avoid, had fallen\r
+on them.--They were not only all three together, but were together\r
+without the relief of any other person. The ladies recovered\r
+themselves first. It was not Lucy's business to put herself forward,\r
+and the appearance of secrecy must still be kept up. She could\r
+therefore only LOOK her tenderness, and after slightly addressing him,\r
+said no more.\r
+\r
+But Elinor had more to do; and so anxious was she, for his sake and her\r
+own, to do it well, that she forced herself, after a moment's\r
+recollection, to welcome him, with a look and manner that were almost\r
+easy, and almost open; and another struggle, another effort still\r
+improved them. She would not allow the presence of Lucy, nor the\r
+consciousness of some injustice towards herself, to deter her from\r
+saying that she was happy to see him, and that she had very much\r
+regretted being from home, when he called before in Berkeley Street.\r
+She would not be frightened from paying him those attentions which, as\r
+a friend and almost a relation, were his due, by the observant eyes of\r
+Lucy, though she soon perceived them to be narrowly watching her.\r
+\r
+Her manners gave some re-assurance to Edward, and he had courage enough\r
+to sit down; but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in\r
+a proportion, which the case rendered reasonable, though his sex might\r
+make it rare; for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy's, nor\r
+could his conscience have quite the ease of Elinor's.\r
+\r
+Lucy, with a demure and settled air, seemed determined to make no\r
+contribution to the comfort of the others, and would not say a word;\r
+and almost every thing that WAS said, proceeded from Elinor, who was\r
+obliged to volunteer all the information about her mother's health,\r
+their coming to town, &c. which Edward ought to have inquired about,\r
+but never did.\r
+\r
+Her exertions did not stop here; for she soon afterwards felt herself\r
+so heroically disposed as to determine, under pretence of fetching\r
+Marianne, to leave the others by themselves; and she really did it, and\r
+THAT in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away several minutes on\r
+the landing-place, with the most high-minded fortitude, before she went\r
+to her sister. When that was once done, however, it was time for the\r
+raptures of Edward to cease; for Marianne's joy hurried her into the\r
+drawing-room immediately. Her pleasure in seeing him was like every\r
+other of her feelings, strong in itself, and strongly spoken. She met\r
+him with a hand that would be taken, and a voice that expressed the\r
+affection of a sister.\r
+\r
+"Dear Edward!" she cried, "this is a moment of great happiness!--This\r
+would almost make amends for every thing!"\r
+\r
+Edward tried to return her kindness as it deserved, but before such\r
+witnesses he dared not say half what he really felt. Again they all\r
+sat down, and for a moment or two all were silent; while Marianne was\r
+looking with the most speaking tenderness, sometimes at Edward and\r
+sometimes at Elinor, regretting only that their delight in each other\r
+should be checked by Lucy's unwelcome presence. Edward was the first\r
+to speak, and it was to notice Marianne's altered looks, and express\r
+his fear of her not finding London agree with her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't think of me!" she replied with spirited earnestness, though\r
+her eyes were filled with tears as she spoke, "don't think of MY\r
+health. Elinor is well, you see. That must be enough for us both."\r
+\r
+This remark was not calculated to make Edward or Elinor more easy, nor\r
+to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no\r
+very benignant expression.\r
+\r
+"Do you like London?" said Edward, willing to say any thing that might\r
+introduce another subject.\r
+\r
+"Not at all. I expected much pleasure in it, but I have found none.\r
+The sight of you, Edward, is the only comfort it has afforded; and\r
+thank Heaven! you are what you always were!"\r
+\r
+She paused--no one spoke.\r
+\r
+"I think, Elinor," she presently added, "we must employ Edward to take\r
+care of us in our return to Barton. In a week or two, I suppose, we\r
+shall be going; and, I trust, Edward will not be very unwilling to\r
+accept the charge."\r
+\r
+Poor Edward muttered something, but what it was, nobody knew, not even\r
+himself. But Marianne, who saw his agitation, and could easily trace\r
+it to whatever cause best pleased herself, was perfectly satisfied, and\r
+soon talked of something else.\r
+\r
+"We spent such a day, Edward, in Harley Street yesterday! So dull, so\r
+wretchedly dull!--But I have much to say to you on that head, which\r
+cannot be said now."\r
+\r
+And with this admirable discretion did she defer the assurance of her\r
+finding their mutual relatives more disagreeable than ever, and of her\r
+being particularly disgusted with his mother, till they were more in\r
+private.\r
+\r
+"But why were you not there, Edward?--Why did you not come?"\r
+\r
+"I was engaged elsewhere."\r
+\r
+"Engaged! But what was that, when such friends were to be met?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps, Miss Marianne," cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge on\r
+her, "you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they have no\r
+mind to keep them, little as well as great."\r
+\r
+Elinor was very angry, but Marianne seemed entirely insensible of the\r
+sting; for she calmly replied,\r
+\r
+"Not so, indeed; for, seriously speaking, I am very sure that\r
+conscience only kept Edward from Harley Street. And I really believe\r
+he HAS the most delicate conscience in the world; the most scrupulous\r
+in performing every engagement, however minute, and however it may make\r
+against his interest or pleasure. He is the most fearful of giving\r
+pain, of wounding expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish,\r
+of any body I ever saw. Edward, it is so, and I will say it. What!\r
+are you never to hear yourself praised!--Then you must be no friend of\r
+mine; for those who will accept of my love and esteem, must submit to\r
+my open commendation."\r
+\r
+The nature of her commendation, in the present case, however, happened\r
+to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two thirds of her\r
+auditors, and was so very unexhilarating to Edward, that he very soon\r
+got up to go away.\r
+\r
+"Going so soon!" said Marianne; "my dear Edward, this must not be."\r
+\r
+And drawing him a little aside, she whispered her persuasion that Lucy\r
+could not stay much longer. But even this encouragement failed, for he\r
+would go; and Lucy, who would have outstaid him, had his visit lasted\r
+two hours, soon afterwards went away.\r
+\r
+"What can bring her here so often?" said Marianne, on her leaving them.\r
+"Could not she see that we wanted her gone!--how teazing to Edward!"\r
+\r
+"Why so?--we were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest known\r
+to him of any. It is but natural that he should like to see her as\r
+well as ourselves."\r
+\r
+Marianne looked at her steadily, and said, "You know, Elinor, that this\r
+is a kind of talking which I cannot bear. If you only hope to have\r
+your assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you\r
+ought to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it. I\r
+cannot descend to be tricked out of assurances, that are not really\r
+wanted."\r
+\r
+She then left the room; and Elinor dared not follow her to say more,\r
+for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give\r
+no information that would convince Marianne; and painful as the\r
+consequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was\r
+obliged to submit to it. All that she could hope, was that Edward\r
+would not often expose her or himself to the distress of hearing\r
+Marianne's mistaken warmth, nor to the repetition of any other part of\r
+the pain that had attended their recent meeting--and this she had every\r
+reason to expect.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 36\r
+\r
+\r
+Within a few days after this meeting, the newspapers announced to the\r
+world, that the lady of Thomas Palmer, Esq. was safely delivered of a\r
+son and heir; a very interesting and satisfactory paragraph, at least\r
+to all those intimate connections who knew it before.\r
+\r
+This event, highly important to Mrs. Jennings's happiness, produced a\r
+temporary alteration in the disposal of her time, and influenced, in a\r
+like degree, the engagements of her young friends; for as she wished to\r
+be as much as possible with Charlotte, she went thither every morning as\r
+soon as she was dressed, and did not return till late in the evening;\r
+and the Miss Dashwoods, at the particular request of the Middletons,\r
+spent the whole of every day in Conduit Street. For their own comfort\r
+they would much rather have remained, at least all the morning, in Mrs.\r
+Jennings's house; but it was not a thing to be urged against the wishes\r
+of everybody. Their hours were therefore made over to Lady Middleton and\r
+the two Miss Steeles, by whom their company, in fact was as little\r
+valued, as it was professedly sought.\r
+\r
+They had too much sense to be desirable companions to the former; and\r
+by the latter they were considered with a jealous eye, as intruding on\r
+THEIR ground, and sharing the kindness which they wanted to monopolize.\r
+Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behaviour to\r
+Elinor and Marianne, she did not really like them at all. Because they\r
+neither flattered herself nor her children, she could not believe them\r
+good-natured; and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them\r
+satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical;\r
+but THAT did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily\r
+given.\r
+\r
+Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the\r
+idleness of one, and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was\r
+ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was\r
+proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would\r
+despise her for offering. Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the\r
+three, by their presence; and it was in their power to reconcile her to\r
+it entirely. Would either of them only have given her a full and\r
+minute account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr. Willoughby,\r
+she would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the\r
+best place by the fire after dinner, which their arrival occasioned.\r
+But this conciliation was not granted; for though she often threw out\r
+expressions of pity for her sister to Elinor, and more than once dropt\r
+a reflection on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne, no effect was\r
+produced, but a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in\r
+the latter. An effort even yet lighter might have made her their\r
+friend. Would they only have laughed at her about the Doctor! But so\r
+little were they, anymore than the others, inclined to oblige her, that\r
+if Sir John dined from home, she might spend a whole day without\r
+hearing any other raillery on the subject, than what she was kind\r
+enough to bestow on herself.\r
+\r
+All these jealousies and discontents, however, were so totally\r
+unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings, that she thought it a delightful thing\r
+for the girls to be together; and generally congratulated her young\r
+friends every night, on having escaped the company of a stupid old\r
+woman so long. She joined them sometimes at Sir John's, sometimes at\r
+her own house; but wherever it was, she always came in excellent\r
+spirits, full of delight and importance, attributing Charlotte's well\r
+doing to her own care, and ready to give so exact, so minute a detail\r
+of her situation, as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire.\r
+One thing DID disturb her; and of that she made her daily complaint.\r
+Mr. Palmer maintained the common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex,\r
+of all infants being alike; and though she could plainly perceive, at\r
+different times, the most striking resemblance between this baby and\r
+every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his\r
+father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like\r
+every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to\r
+acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the\r
+world.\r
+\r
+I come now to the relation of a misfortune, which about this time\r
+befell Mrs. John Dashwood. It so happened that while her two sisters\r
+with Mrs. Jennings were first calling on her in Harley Street, another\r
+of her acquaintance had dropt in--a circumstance in itself not\r
+apparently likely to produce evil to her. But while the imaginations\r
+of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our\r
+conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness\r
+must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance. In the present\r
+instance, this last-arrived lady allowed her fancy to so far outrun\r
+truth and probability, that on merely hearing the name of the Miss\r
+Dashwoods, and understanding them to be Mr. Dashwood's sisters, she\r
+immediately concluded them to be staying in Harley Street; and this\r
+misconstruction produced within a day or two afterwards, cards of\r
+invitation for them as well as for their brother and sister, to a small\r
+musical party at her house. The consequence of which was, that Mrs.\r
+John Dashwood was obliged to submit not only to the exceedingly great\r
+inconvenience of sending her carriage for the Miss Dashwoods, but, what\r
+was still worse, must be subject to all the unpleasantness of appearing\r
+to treat them with attention: and who could tell that they might not\r
+expect to go out with her a second time? The power of disappointing\r
+them, it was true, must always be hers. But that was not enough; for\r
+when people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be\r
+wrong, they feel injured by the expectation of any thing better from\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Marianne had now been brought by degrees, so much into the habit of\r
+going out every day, that it was become a matter of indifference to\r
+her, whether she went or not: and she prepared quietly and mechanically\r
+for every evening's engagement, though without expecting the smallest\r
+amusement from any, and very often without knowing, till the last\r
+moment, where it was to take her.\r
+\r
+To her dress and appearance she was grown so perfectly indifferent, as\r
+not to bestow half the consideration on it, during the whole of her\r
+toilet, which it received from Miss Steele in the first five minutes of\r
+their being together, when it was finished. Nothing escaped HER minute\r
+observation and general curiosity; she saw every thing, and asked every\r
+thing; was never easy till she knew the price of every part of\r
+Marianne's dress; could have guessed the number of her gowns altogether\r
+with better judgment than Marianne herself, and was not without hopes\r
+of finding out before they parted, how much her washing cost per week,\r
+and how much she had every year to spend upon herself. The\r
+impertinence of these kind of scrutinies, moreover, was generally\r
+concluded with a compliment, which though meant as its douceur, was\r
+considered by Marianne as the greatest impertinence of all; for after\r
+undergoing an examination into the value and make of her gown, the\r
+colour of her shoes, and the arrangement of her hair, she was almost\r
+sure of being told that upon "her word she looked vastly smart, and she\r
+dared to say she would make a great many conquests."\r
+\r
+With such encouragement as this, was she dismissed on the present\r
+occasion, to her brother's carriage; which they were ready to enter\r
+five minutes after it stopped at the door, a punctuality not very\r
+agreeable to their sister-in-law, who had preceded them to the house of\r
+her acquaintance, and was there hoping for some delay on their part\r
+that might inconvenience either herself or her coachman.\r
+\r
+The events of this evening were not very remarkable. The party, like\r
+other musical parties, comprehended a great many people who had real\r
+taste for the performance, and a great many more who had none at all;\r
+and the performers themselves were, as usual, in their own estimation,\r
+and that of their immediate friends, the first private performers in\r
+England.\r
+\r
+As Elinor was neither musical, nor affecting to be so, she made no\r
+scruple of turning her eyes from the grand pianoforte, whenever it\r
+suited her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp, and\r
+violoncello, would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the\r
+room. In one of these excursive glances she perceived among a group of\r
+young men, the very he, who had given them a lecture on toothpick-cases\r
+at Gray's. She perceived him soon afterwards looking at herself, and\r
+speaking familiarly to her brother; and had just determined to find out\r
+his name from the latter, when they both came towards her, and Mr.\r
+Dashwood introduced him to her as Mr. Robert Ferrars.\r
+\r
+He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow\r
+which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was\r
+exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy. Happy\r
+had it been for her, if her regard for Edward had depended less on his\r
+own merit, than on the merit of his nearest relations! For then his\r
+brother's bow must have given the finishing stroke to what the\r
+ill-humour of his mother and sister would have begun. But while she\r
+wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that\r
+the emptiness of conceit of the one, put her out of all charity with\r
+the modesty and worth of the other. Why they WERE different, Robert\r
+exclaimed to her himself in the course of a quarter of an hour's\r
+conversation; for, talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme\r
+GAUCHERIE which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper\r
+society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any\r
+natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education;\r
+while he himself, though probably without any particular, any material\r
+superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school,\r
+was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man.\r
+\r
+"Upon my soul," he added, "I believe it is nothing more; and so I often\r
+tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. 'My dear Madam,' I\r
+always say to her, 'you must make yourself easy. The evil is now\r
+irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you\r
+be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to\r
+place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his\r
+life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself,\r
+instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been\r
+prevented.' This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and\r
+my mother is perfectly convinced of her error."\r
+\r
+Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because, whatever might be her\r
+general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not\r
+think of Edward's abode in Mr. Pratt's family, with any satisfaction.\r
+\r
+"You reside in Devonshire, I think,"--was his next observation, "in a\r
+cottage near Dawlish."\r
+\r
+Elinor set him right as to its situation; and it seemed rather\r
+surprising to him that anybody could live in Devonshire, without living\r
+near Dawlish. He bestowed his hearty approbation however on their\r
+species of house.\r
+\r
+"For my own part," said he, "I am excessively fond of a cottage; there\r
+is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest,\r
+if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one\r
+myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself\r
+down at any time, and collect a few friends about me, and be happy. I\r
+advise every body who is going to build, to build a cottage. My friend\r
+Lord Courtland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice,\r
+and laid before me three different plans of Bonomi's. I was to decide\r
+on the best of them. 'My dear Courtland,' said I, immediately throwing\r
+them all into the fire, 'do not adopt either of them, but by all means\r
+build a cottage.' And that I fancy, will be the end of it.\r
+\r
+"Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a\r
+cottage; but this is all a mistake. I was last month at my friend\r
+Elliott's, near Dartford. Lady Elliott wished to give a dance. 'But\r
+how can it be done?' said she; 'my dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is\r
+to be managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten\r
+couple, and where can the supper be?' I immediately saw that there\r
+could be no difficulty in it, so I said, 'My dear Lady Elliott, do not\r
+be uneasy. The dining parlour will admit eighteen couple with ease;\r
+card-tables may be placed in the drawing-room; the library may be open\r
+for tea and other refreshments; and let the supper be set out in the\r
+saloon.' Lady Elliott was delighted with the thought. We measured the\r
+dining-room, and found it would hold exactly eighteen couple, and the\r
+affair was arranged precisely after my plan. So that, in fact, you\r
+see, if people do but know how to set about it, every comfort may be as\r
+well enjoyed in a cottage as in the most spacious dwelling."\r
+\r
+Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the\r
+compliment of rational opposition.\r
+\r
+As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister,\r
+his mind was equally at liberty to fix on any thing else; and a thought\r
+struck him during the evening, which he communicated to his wife, for\r
+her approbation, when they got home. The consideration of Mrs.\r
+Dennison's mistake, in supposing his sisters their guests, had\r
+suggested the propriety of their being really invited to become such,\r
+while Mrs. Jennings's engagements kept her from home. The expense would\r
+be nothing, the inconvenience not more; and it was altogether an\r
+attention which the delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be\r
+requisite to its complete enfranchisement from his promise to his\r
+father. Fanny was startled at the proposal.\r
+\r
+"I do not see how it can be done," said she, "without affronting Lady\r
+Middleton, for they spend every day with her; otherwise I should be\r
+exceedingly glad to do it. You know I am always ready to pay them any\r
+attention in my power, as my taking them out this evening shews. But\r
+they are Lady Middleton's visitors. How can I ask them away from her?"\r
+\r
+Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her\r
+objection. "They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit\r
+Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the\r
+same number of days to such near relations."\r
+\r
+Fanny paused a moment, and then, with fresh vigor, said,\r
+\r
+"My love I would ask them with all my heart, if it was in my power.\r
+But I had just settled within myself to ask the Miss Steeles to spend a\r
+few days with us. They are very well behaved, good kind of girls; and\r
+I think the attention is due to them, as their uncle did so very well\r
+by Edward. We can ask your sisters some other year, you know; but the\r
+Miss Steeles may not be in town any more. I am sure you will like\r
+them; indeed, you DO like them, you know, very much already, and so\r
+does my mother; and they are such favourites with Harry!"\r
+\r
+Mr. Dashwood was convinced. He saw the necessity of inviting the Miss\r
+Steeles immediately, and his conscience was pacified by the resolution\r
+of inviting his sisters another year; at the same time, however, slyly\r
+suspecting that another year would make the invitation needless, by\r
+bringing Elinor to town as Colonel Brandon's wife, and Marianne as\r
+THEIR visitor.\r
+\r
+Fanny, rejoicing in her escape, and proud of the ready wit that had\r
+procured it, wrote the next morning to Lucy, to request her company and\r
+her sister's, for some days, in Harley Street, as soon as Lady\r
+Middleton could spare them. This was enough to make Lucy really and\r
+reasonably happy. Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for her,\r
+herself; cherishing all her hopes, and promoting all her views! Such\r
+an opportunity of being with Edward and his family was, above all\r
+things, the most material to her interest, and such an invitation the\r
+most gratifying to her feelings! It was an advantage that could not be\r
+too gratefully acknowledged, nor too speedily made use of; and the\r
+visit to Lady Middleton, which had not before had any precise limits,\r
+was instantly discovered to have been always meant to end in two days'\r
+time.\r
+\r
+When the note was shown to Elinor, as it was within ten minutes after\r
+its arrival, it gave her, for the first time, some share in the\r
+expectations of Lucy; for such a mark of uncommon kindness, vouchsafed\r
+on so short an acquaintance, seemed to declare that the good-will\r
+towards her arose from something more than merely malice against\r
+herself; and might be brought, by time and address, to do every thing\r
+that Lucy wished. Her flattery had already subdued the pride of Lady\r
+Middleton, and made an entry into the close heart of Mrs. John\r
+Dashwood; and these were effects that laid open the probability of\r
+greater.\r
+\r
+The Miss Steeles removed to Harley Street, and all that reached Elinor\r
+of their influence there, strengthened her expectation of the event.\r
+Sir John, who called on them more than once, brought home such accounts\r
+of the favour they were in, as must be universally striking. Mrs.\r
+Dashwood had never been so much pleased with any young women in her\r
+life, as she was with them; had given each of them a needle book made\r
+by some emigrant; called Lucy by her Christian name; and did not know\r
+whether she should ever be able to part with them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+[At this point in the first and second editions, Volume II ended.]\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 37\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Palmer was so well at the end of a fortnight, that her mother felt\r
+it no longer necessary to give up the whole of her time to her; and,\r
+contenting herself with visiting her once or twice a day, returned from\r
+that period to her own home, and her own habits, in which she found the\r
+Miss Dashwoods very ready to resume their former share.\r
+\r
+About the third or fourth morning after their being thus resettled in\r
+Berkeley Street, Mrs. Jennings, on returning from her ordinary visit to\r
+Mrs. Palmer, entered the drawing-room, where Elinor was sitting by\r
+herself, with an air of such hurrying importance as prepared her to\r
+hear something wonderful; and giving her time only to form that idea,\r
+began directly to justify it, by saying,\r
+\r
+"Lord! my dear Miss Dashwood! have you heard the news?"\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am. What is it?"\r
+\r
+"Something so strange! But you shall hear it all.-- When I got to Mr.\r
+Palmer's, I found Charlotte quite in a fuss about the child. She was\r
+sure it was very ill--it cried, and fretted, and was all over pimples.\r
+So I looked at it directly, and, 'Lord! my dear,' says I, 'it is\r
+nothing in the world, but the red gum--' and nurse said just the same.\r
+But Charlotte, she would not be satisfied, so Mr. Donavan was sent for;\r
+and luckily he happened to just come in from Harley Street, so he\r
+stepped over directly, and as soon as ever Mama, he said\r
+just as we did, that it was nothing in the world but the red gum, and\r
+then Charlotte was easy. And so, just as he was going away again, it\r
+came into my head, I am sure I do not know how I happened to think of\r
+it, but it came into my head to ask him if there was any news. So upon\r
+that, he smirked, and simpered, and looked grave, and seemed to know\r
+something or other, and at last he said in a whisper, 'For fear any\r
+unpleasant report should reach the young ladies under your care as to\r
+their sister's indisposition, I think it advisable to say, that I\r
+believe there is no great reason for alarm; I hope Mrs. Dashwood will\r
+do very well.'"\r
+\r
+"What! is Fanny ill?"\r
+\r
+"That is exactly what I said, my dear. 'Lord!' says I, 'is Mrs.\r
+Dashwood ill?' So then it all came out; and the long and the short of\r
+the matter, by all I can learn, seems to be this. Mr. Edward Ferrars,\r
+the very young man I used to joke with you about (but however, as it\r
+turns out, I am monstrous glad there was never any thing in it), Mr.\r
+Edward Ferrars, it seems, has been engaged above this twelvemonth to my\r
+cousin Lucy!--There's for you, my dear!--And not a creature knowing a\r
+syllable of the matter, except Nancy!--Could you have believed such a\r
+thing possible?-- There is no great wonder in their liking one another;\r
+but that matters should be brought so forward between them, and nobody\r
+suspect it!--THAT is strange!--I never happened to see them together,\r
+or I am sure I should have found it out directly. Well, and so this\r
+was kept a great secret, for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, and neither she nor\r
+your brother or sister suspected a word of the matter;--till this very\r
+morning, poor Nancy, who, you know, is a well-meaning creature, but no\r
+conjurer, popt it all out. 'Lord!' thinks she to herself, 'they are\r
+all so fond of Lucy, to be sure they will make no difficulty about it;'\r
+and so, away she went to your sister, who was sitting all alone at her\r
+carpet-work, little suspecting what was to come--for she had just been\r
+saying to your brother, only five minutes before, that she thought to\r
+make a match between Edward and some Lord's daughter or other, I forget\r
+who. So you may think what a blow it was to all her vanity and pride.\r
+She fell into violent hysterics immediately, with such screams as\r
+reached your brother's ears, as he was sitting in his own dressing-room\r
+down stairs, thinking about writing a letter to his steward in the\r
+country. So up he flew directly, and a terrible scene took place, for\r
+Lucy was come to them by that time, little dreaming what was going on.\r
+Poor soul! I pity HER. And I must say, I think she was used very\r
+hardly; for your sister scolded like any fury, and soon drove her into\r
+a fainting fit. Nancy, she fell upon her knees, and cried bitterly;\r
+and your brother, he walked about the room, and said he did not know\r
+what to do. Mrs. Dashwood declared they should not stay a minute\r
+longer in the house, and your brother was forced to go down upon HIS\r
+knees too, to persuade her to let them stay till they had packed up\r
+their clothes. THEN she fell into hysterics again, and he was so\r
+frightened that he would send for Mr. Donavan, and Mr. Donavan found\r
+the house in all this uproar. The carriage was at the door ready to\r
+take my poor cousins away, and they were just stepping in as he came\r
+off; poor Lucy in such a condition, he says, she could hardly walk; and\r
+Nancy, she was almost as bad. I declare, I have no patience with your\r
+sister; and I hope, with all my heart, it will be a match in spite of\r
+her. Lord! what a taking poor Mr. Edward will be in when he hears of\r
+it! To have his love used so scornfully! for they say he is monstrous\r
+fond of her, as well he may. I should not wonder, if he was to be in\r
+the greatest passion!--and Mr. Donavan thinks just the same. He and I\r
+had a great deal of talk about it; and the best of all is, that he is\r
+gone back again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs.\r
+Ferrars is told of it, for she was sent for as soon as ever my cousins\r
+left the house, for your sister was sure SHE would be in hysterics too;\r
+and so she may, for what I care. I have no pity for either of them. I\r
+have no notion of people's making such a to-do about money and\r
+greatness. There is no reason on earth why Mr. Edward and Lucy should\r
+not marry; for I am sure Mrs. Ferrars may afford to do very well by her\r
+son, and though Lucy has next to nothing herself, she knows better than\r
+any body how to make the most of every thing; I dare say, if Mrs.\r
+Ferrars would only allow him five hundred a-year, she would make as\r
+good an appearance with it as any body else would with eight. Lord!\r
+how snug they might live in such another cottage as yours--or a little\r
+bigger--with two maids, and two men; and I believe I could help them to\r
+a housemaid, for my Betty has a sister out of place, that would fit\r
+them exactly."\r
+\r
+Here Mrs. Jennings ceased, and as Elinor had had time enough to collect\r
+her thoughts, she was able to give such an answer, and make such\r
+observations, as the subject might naturally be supposed to produce.\r
+Happy to find that she was not suspected of any extraordinary interest\r
+in it; that Mrs. Jennings (as she had of late often hoped might be the\r
+case) had ceased to imagine her at all attached to Edward; and happy\r
+above all the rest, in the absence of Marianne, she felt very well able\r
+to speak of the affair without embarrassment, and to give her judgment,\r
+as she believed, with impartiality on the conduct of every one\r
+concerned in it.\r
+\r
+She could hardly determine what her own expectation of its event really\r
+was; though she earnestly tried to drive away the notion of its being\r
+possible to end otherwise at last, than in the marriage of Edward and\r
+Lucy. What Mrs. Ferrars would say and do, though there could not be a\r
+doubt of its nature, she was anxious to hear; and still more anxious to\r
+know how Edward would conduct himself. For HIM she felt much\r
+compassion;--for Lucy very little--and it cost her some pains to\r
+procure that little;--for the rest of the party none at all.\r
+\r
+As Mrs. Jennings could talk on no other subject, Elinor soon saw the\r
+necessity of preparing Marianne for its discussion. No time was to be\r
+lost in undeceiving her, in making her acquainted with the real truth,\r
+and in endeavouring to bring her to hear it talked of by others,\r
+without betraying that she felt any uneasiness for her sister, or any\r
+resentment against Edward.\r
+\r
+Elinor's office was a painful one.--She was going to remove what she\r
+really believed to be her sister's chief consolation,--to give such\r
+particulars of Edward as she feared would ruin him for ever in her good\r
+opinion,-and to make Marianne, by a resemblance in their situations,\r
+which to HER fancy would seem strong, feel all her own disappointment\r
+over again. But unwelcome as such a task must be, it was necessary to\r
+be done, and Elinor therefore hastened to perform it.\r
+\r
+She was very far from wishing to dwell on her own feelings, or to\r
+represent herself as suffering much, any otherwise than as the\r
+self-command she had practised since her first knowledge of Edward's\r
+engagement, might suggest a hint of what was practicable to Marianne.\r
+Her narration was clear and simple; and though it could not be given\r
+without emotion, it was not accompanied by violent agitation, nor\r
+impetuous grief.--THAT belonged rather to the hearer, for Marianne\r
+listened with horror, and cried excessively. Elinor was to be the\r
+comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and\r
+all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure\r
+of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but\r
+of imprudence, was readily offered.\r
+\r
+But Marianne for some time would give credit to neither. Edward seemed\r
+a second Willoughby; and acknowledging as Elinor did, that she HAD\r
+loved him most sincerely, could she feel less than herself! As for\r
+Lucy Steele, she considered her so totally unamiable, so absolutely\r
+incapable of attaching a sensible man, that she could not be persuaded\r
+at first to believe, and afterwards to pardon, any former affection of\r
+Edward for her. She would not even admit it to have been natural; and\r
+Elinor left her to be convinced that it was so, by that which only\r
+could convince her, a better knowledge of mankind.\r
+\r
+Her first communication had reached no farther than to state the fact\r
+of the engagement, and the length of time it had existed.--Marianne's\r
+feelings had then broken in, and put an end to all regularity of\r
+detail; and for some time all that could be done was to soothe her\r
+distress, lessen her alarms, and combat her resentment. The first\r
+question on her side, which led to farther particulars, was,--\r
+\r
+"How long has this been known to you, Elinor? has he written to you?"\r
+\r
+"I have known it these four months. When Lucy first came to Barton\r
+Park last November, she told me in confidence of her engagement."\r
+\r
+At these words, Marianne's eyes expressed the astonishment which her\r
+lips could not utter. After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"Four months!--Have you known of this four months?"\r
+\r
+Elinor confirmed it.\r
+\r
+"What!--while attending me in all my misery, has this been on your\r
+heart?--And I have reproached you for being happy!"--\r
+\r
+"It was not fit that you should then know how much I was the reverse!"\r
+\r
+"Four months!"--cried Marianne again.--"So calm!--so cheerful!--how\r
+have you been supported?"--\r
+\r
+"By feeling that I was doing my duty.--My promise to Lucy, obliged me\r
+to be secret. I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint of\r
+the truth; and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in\r
+them a solicitude about me, which it could not be in my power to\r
+satisfy."\r
+\r
+Marianne seemed much struck.\r
+\r
+"I have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother," added\r
+Elinor; "and once or twice I have attempted it;--but without betraying\r
+my trust, I never could have convinced you."\r
+\r
+"Four months!--and yet you loved him!"--\r
+\r
+"Yes. But I did not love only him;--and while the comfort of others was\r
+dear to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much I felt.\r
+Now, I can think and speak of it with little emotion. I would not have\r
+you suffer on my account; for I assure you I no longer suffer\r
+materially myself. I have many things to support me. I am not\r
+conscious of having provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my\r
+own, I have borne it as much as possible without spreading it farther.\r
+I acquit Edward of essential misconduct. I wish him very happy; and I\r
+am so sure of his always doing his duty, that though now he may harbour\r
+some regret, in the end he must become so. Lucy does not want sense,\r
+and that is the foundation on which every thing good may be built.--And\r
+after all, Marianne, after all that is bewitching in the idea of a\r
+single and constant attachment, and all that can be said of one's\r
+happiness depending entirely on any particular person, it is not\r
+meant--it is not fit--it is not possible that it should be so.-- Edward\r
+will marry Lucy; he will marry a woman superior in person and\r
+understanding to half her sex; and time and habit will teach him to\r
+forget that he ever thought another superior to HER."--\r
+\r
+"If such is your way of thinking," said Marianne, "if the loss of what\r
+is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your\r
+resolution, your self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be\r
+wondered at.--They are brought more within my comprehension."\r
+\r
+"I understand you.--You do not suppose that I have ever felt much.--For\r
+four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without\r
+being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it\r
+would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to\r
+you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least.-- It was told\r
+me,--it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose\r
+prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought,\r
+with triumph.-- This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to\r
+oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most\r
+deeply interested;--and it has not been only once;--I have had her\r
+hopes and exultation to listen to again and again.-- I have known\r
+myself to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one\r
+circumstance that could make me less desire the connection.--Nothing\r
+has proved him unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to\r
+me.-- I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and\r
+the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an\r
+attachment, without enjoying its advantages.-- And all this has been\r
+going on at a time, when, as you know too well, it has not been my only\r
+unhappiness.-- If you can think me capable of ever feeling--surely you\r
+may suppose that I have suffered NOW. The composure of mind with which\r
+I have brought myself at present to consider the matter, the\r
+consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of\r
+constant and painful exertion;--they did not spring up of\r
+themselves;--they did not occur to relieve my spirits at first.-- No,\r
+Marianne.--THEN, if I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing\r
+could have kept me entirely--not even what I owed to my dearest\r
+friends--from openly shewing that I was VERY unhappy."--\r
+\r
+Marianne was quite subdued.--\r
+\r
+"Oh! Elinor," she cried, "you have made me hate myself for ever.--How\r
+barbarous have I been to you!--you, who have been my only comfort, who\r
+have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only\r
+suffering for me!--Is this my gratitude?--Is this the only return I can\r
+make you?--Because your merit cries out upon myself, I have been trying\r
+to do it away."\r
+\r
+The tenderest caresses followed this confession. In such a frame of\r
+mind as she was now in, Elinor had no difficulty in obtaining from her\r
+whatever promise she required; and at her request, Marianne engaged\r
+never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of\r
+bitterness;--to meet Lucy without betraying the smallest increase of\r
+dislike to her;--and even to see Edward himself, if chance should bring\r
+them together, without any diminution of her usual cordiality.-- These\r
+were great concessions;--but where Marianne felt that she had injured,\r
+no reparation could be too much for her to make.\r
+\r
+She performed her promise of being discreet, to admiration.--She\r
+attended to all that Mrs. Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an\r
+unchanging complexion, dissented from her in nothing, and was heard\r
+three times to say, "Yes, ma'am."--She listened to her praise of Lucy\r
+with only moving from one chair to another, and when Mrs. Jennings\r
+talked of Edward's affection, it cost her only a spasm in her\r
+throat.--Such advances towards heroism in her sister, made Elinor feel\r
+equal to any thing herself.\r
+\r
+The next morning brought a farther trial of it, in a visit from their\r
+brother, who came with a most serious aspect to talk over the dreadful\r
+affair, and bring them news of his wife.\r
+\r
+"You have heard, I suppose," said he with great solemnity, as soon as\r
+he was seated, "of the very shocking discovery that took place under\r
+our roof yesterday."\r
+\r
+They all looked their assent; it seemed too awful a moment for speech.\r
+\r
+"Your sister," he continued, "has suffered dreadfully. Mrs. Ferrars\r
+too--in short it has been a scene of such complicated distress--but I\r
+will hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us\r
+quite overcome. Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday. But I\r
+would not alarm you too much. Donavan says there is nothing materially\r
+to be apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution\r
+equal to any thing. She has borne it all, with the fortitude of an\r
+angel! She says she never shall think well of anybody again; and one\r
+cannot wonder at it, after being so deceived!--meeting with such\r
+ingratitude, where so much kindness had been shewn, so much confidence\r
+had been placed! It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart,\r
+that she had asked these young women to her house; merely because she\r
+thought they deserved some attention, were harmless, well-behaved\r
+girls, and would be pleasant companions; for otherwise we both wished\r
+very much to have invited you and Marianne to be with us, while your\r
+kind friend there, was attending her daughter. And now to be so\r
+rewarded! 'I wish, with all my heart,' says poor Fanny in her\r
+affectionate way, 'that we had asked your sisters instead of them.'"\r
+\r
+Here he stopped to be thanked; which being done, he went on.\r
+\r
+"What poor Mrs. Ferrars suffered, when first Fanny broke it to her, is\r
+not to be described. While she with the truest affection had been\r
+planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that\r
+he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person!--such a\r
+suspicion could never have entered her head! If she suspected ANY\r
+prepossession elsewhere, it could not be in THAT quarter. 'THERE, to\r
+be sure,' said she, 'I might have thought myself safe.' She was quite\r
+in an agony. We consulted together, however, as to what should be\r
+done, and at last she determined to send for Edward. He came. But I\r
+am sorry to relate what ensued. All that Mrs. Ferrars could say to\r
+make him put an end to the engagement, assisted too as you may well\r
+suppose by my arguments, and Fanny's entreaties, was of no avail.\r
+Duty, affection, every thing was disregarded. I never thought Edward\r
+so stubborn, so unfeeling before. His mother explained to him her\r
+liberal designs, in case of his marrying Miss Morton; told him she\r
+would settle on him the Norfolk estate, which, clear of land-tax,\r
+brings in a good thousand a-year; offered even, when matters grew\r
+desperate, to make it twelve hundred; and in opposition to this, if he\r
+still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain\r
+penury that must attend the match. His own two thousand pounds she\r
+protested should be his all; she would never see him again; and so far\r
+would she be from affording him the smallest assistance, that if he\r
+were to enter into any profession with a view of better support, she\r
+would do all in her power to prevent him advancing in it."\r
+\r
+Here Marianne, in an ecstasy of indignation, clapped her hands\r
+together, and cried, "Gracious God! can this be possible!"\r
+\r
+"Well may you wonder, Marianne," replied her brother, "at the obstinacy\r
+which could resist such arguments as these. Your exclamation is very\r
+natural."\r
+\r
+Marianne was going to retort, but she remembered her promises, and\r
+forbore.\r
+\r
+"All this, however," he continued, "was urged in vain. Edward said\r
+very little; but what he did say, was in the most determined manner.\r
+Nothing should prevail on him to give up his engagement. He would\r
+stand to it, cost him what it might."\r
+\r
+"Then," cried Mrs. Jennings with blunt sincerity, no longer able to be\r
+silent, "he has acted like an honest man! I beg your pardon, Mr.\r
+Dashwood, but if he had done otherwise, I should have thought him a\r
+rascal. I have some little concern in the business, as well as\r
+yourself, for Lucy Steele is my cousin, and I believe there is not a\r
+better kind of girl in the world, nor one who more deserves a good\r
+husband."\r
+\r
+John Dashwood was greatly astonished; but his nature was calm, not open\r
+to provocation, and he never wished to offend anybody, especially\r
+anybody of good fortune. He therefore replied, without any resentment,\r
+\r
+"I would by no means speak disrespectfully of any relation of yours,\r
+madam. Miss Lucy Steele is, I dare say, a very deserving young woman,\r
+but in the present case you know, the connection must be impossible.\r
+And to have entered into a secret engagement with a young man under her\r
+uncle's care, the son of a woman especially of such very large fortune\r
+as Mrs. Ferrars, is perhaps, altogether a little extraordinary. In\r
+short, I do not mean to reflect upon the behaviour of any person whom\r
+you have a regard for, Mrs. Jennings. We all wish her extremely happy;\r
+and Mrs. Ferrars's conduct throughout the whole, has been such as every\r
+conscientious, good mother, in like circumstances, would adopt. It has\r
+been dignified and liberal. Edward has drawn his own lot, and I fear\r
+it will be a bad one."\r
+\r
+Marianne sighed out her similar apprehension; and Elinor's heart wrung\r
+for the feelings of Edward, while braving his mother's threats, for a\r
+woman who could not reward him.\r
+\r
+"Well, sir," said Mrs. Jennings, "and how did it end?"\r
+\r
+"I am sorry to say, ma'am, in a most unhappy rupture:-- Edward is\r
+dismissed for ever from his mother's notice. He left her house\r
+yesterday, but where he is gone, or whether he is still in town, I do\r
+not know; for WE of course can make no inquiry."\r
+\r
+"Poor young man!--and what is to become of him?"\r
+\r
+"What, indeed, ma'am! It is a melancholy consideration. Born to the\r
+prospect of such affluence! I cannot conceive a situation more\r
+deplorable. The interest of two thousand pounds--how can a man live on\r
+it?--and when to that is added the recollection, that he might, but for\r
+his own folly, within three months have been in the receipt of two\r
+thousand, five hundred a-year (for Miss Morton has thirty thousand\r
+pounds,) I cannot picture to myself a more wretched condition. We must\r
+all feel for him; and the more so, because it is totally out of our\r
+power to assist him."\r
+\r
+"Poor young man!" cried Mrs. Jennings, "I am sure he should be very\r
+welcome to bed and board at my house; and so I would tell him if I\r
+could see him. It is not fit that he should be living about at his own\r
+charge now, at lodgings and taverns."\r
+\r
+Elinor's heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though she\r
+could not forbear smiling at the form of it.\r
+\r
+"If he would only have done as well by himself," said John Dashwood,\r
+"as all his friends were disposed to do by him, he might now have been\r
+in his proper situation, and would have wanted for nothing. But as it\r
+is, it must be out of anybody's power to assist him. And there is one\r
+thing more preparing against him, which must be worse than all--his\r
+mother has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle\r
+THAT estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward's, on\r
+proper conditions. I left her this morning with her lawyer, talking\r
+over the business."\r
+\r
+"Well!" said Mrs. Jennings, "that is HER revenge. Everybody has a way\r
+of their own. But I don't think mine would be, to make one son\r
+independent, because another had plagued me."\r
+\r
+Marianne got up and walked about the room.\r
+\r
+"Can anything be more galling to the spirit of a man," continued John,\r
+"than to see his younger brother in possession of an estate which might\r
+have been his own? Poor Edward! I feel for him sincerely."\r
+\r
+A few minutes more spent in the same kind of effusion, concluded his\r
+visit; and with repeated assurances to his sisters that he really\r
+believed there was no material danger in Fanny's indisposition, and\r
+that they need not therefore be very uneasy about it, he went away;\r
+leaving the three ladies unanimous in their sentiments on the present\r
+occasion, as far at least as it regarded Mrs. Ferrars's conduct, the\r
+Dashwoods', and Edward's.\r
+\r
+Marianne's indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room; and\r
+as her vehemence made reserve impossible in Elinor, and unnecessary in\r
+Mrs. Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique upon the\r
+party.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 38\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings was very warm in her praise of Edward's conduct, but only\r
+Elinor and Marianne understood its true merit. THEY only knew how\r
+little he had had to tempt him to be disobedient, and how small was the\r
+consolation, beyond the consciousness of doing right, that could remain\r
+to him in the loss of friends and fortune. Elinor gloried in his\r
+integrity; and Marianne forgave all his offences in compassion for his\r
+punishment. But though confidence between them was, by this public\r
+discovery, restored to its proper state, it was not a subject on which\r
+either of them were fond of dwelling when alone. Elinor avoided it\r
+upon principle, as tending to fix still more upon her thoughts, by the\r
+too warm, too positive assurances of Marianne, that belief of Edward's\r
+continued affection for herself which she rather wished to do away; and\r
+Marianne's courage soon failed her, in trying to converse upon a topic\r
+which always left her more dissatisfied with herself than ever, by the\r
+comparison it necessarily produced between Elinor's conduct and her own.\r
+\r
+She felt all the force of that comparison; but not as her sister had\r
+hoped, to urge her to exertion now; she felt it with all the pain of\r
+continual self-reproach, regretted most bitterly that she had never\r
+exerted herself before; but it brought only the torture of penitence,\r
+without the hope of amendment. Her mind was so much weakened that she\r
+still fancied present exertion impossible, and therefore it only\r
+dispirited her more.\r
+\r
+Nothing new was heard by them, for a day or two afterwards, of affairs\r
+in Harley Street, or Bartlett's Buildings. But though so much of the\r
+matter was known to them already, that Mrs. Jennings might have had\r
+enough to do in spreading that knowledge farther, without seeking after\r
+more, she had resolved from the first to pay a visit of comfort and\r
+inquiry to her cousins as soon as she could; and nothing but the\r
+hindrance of more visitors than usual, had prevented her going to them\r
+within that time.\r
+\r
+The third day succeeding their knowledge of the particulars, was so\r
+fine, so beautiful a Sunday as to draw many to Kensington Gardens,\r
+though it was only the second week in March. Mrs. Jennings and Elinor\r
+were of the number; but Marianne, who knew that the Willoughbys were\r
+again in town, and had a constant dread of meeting them, chose rather\r
+to stay at home, than venture into so public a place.\r
+\r
+An intimate acquaintance of Mrs. Jennings joined them soon after they\r
+entered the Gardens, and Elinor was not sorry that by her continuing\r
+with them, and engaging all Mrs. Jennings's conversation, she was\r
+herself left to quiet reflection. She saw nothing of the Willoughbys,\r
+nothing of Edward, and for some time nothing of anybody who could by\r
+any chance whether grave or gay, be interesting to her. But at last\r
+she found herself with some surprise, accosted by Miss Steele, who,\r
+though looking rather shy, expressed great satisfaction in meeting\r
+them, and on receiving encouragement from the particular kindness of\r
+Mrs. Jennings, left her own party for a short time, to join their's.\r
+Mrs. Jennings immediately whispered to Elinor,\r
+\r
+"Get it all out of her, my dear. She will tell you any thing if you\r
+ask. You see I cannot leave Mrs. Clarke."\r
+\r
+It was lucky, however, for Mrs. Jennings's curiosity and Elinor's too,\r
+that she would tell any thing WITHOUT being asked; for nothing would\r
+otherwise have been learnt.\r
+\r
+"I am so glad to meet you;" said Miss Steele, taking her familiarly by\r
+the arm--"for I wanted to see you of all things in the world." And\r
+then lowering her voice, "I suppose Mrs. Jennings has heard all about\r
+it. Is she angry?"\r
+\r
+"Not at all, I believe, with you."\r
+\r
+"That is a good thing. And Lady Middleton, is SHE angry?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot suppose it possible that she should be."\r
+\r
+"I am monstrous glad of it. Good gracious! I have had such a time of\r
+it! I never saw Lucy in such a rage in my life. She vowed at first\r
+she would never trim me up a new bonnet, nor do any thing else for me\r
+again, so long as she lived; but now she is quite come to, and we are\r
+as good friends as ever. Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put\r
+in the feather last night. There now, YOU are going to laugh at me\r
+too. But why should not I wear pink ribbons? I do not care if it IS\r
+the Doctor's favourite colour. I am sure, for my part, I should never\r
+have known he DID like it better than any other colour, if he had not\r
+happened to say so. My cousins have been so plaguing me! I declare\r
+sometimes I do not know which way to look before them."\r
+\r
+She had wandered away to a subject on which Elinor had nothing to say,\r
+and therefore soon judged it expedient to find her way back again to\r
+the first.\r
+\r
+"Well, but Miss Dashwood," speaking triumphantly, "people may say what\r
+they chuse about Mr. Ferrars's declaring he would not have Lucy, for it\r
+is no such thing I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for such\r
+ill-natured reports to be spread abroad. Whatever Lucy might think\r
+about it herself, you know, it was no business of other people to set\r
+it down for certain."\r
+\r
+"I never heard any thing of the kind hinted at before, I assure you,"\r
+said Elinor.\r
+\r
+"Oh, did not you? But it WAS said, I know, very well, and by more than\r
+one; for Miss Godby told Miss Sparks, that nobody in their senses could\r
+expect Mr. Ferrars to give up a woman like Miss Morton, with thirty\r
+thousand pounds to her fortune, for Lucy Steele that had nothing at\r
+all; and I had it from Miss Sparks myself. And besides that, my cousin\r
+Richard said himself, that when it came to the point he was afraid Mr.\r
+Ferrars would be off; and when Edward did not come near us for three\r
+days, I could not tell what to think myself; and I believe in my heart\r
+Lucy gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your brother's\r
+Wednesday, and we saw nothing of him not all Thursday, Friday, and\r
+Saturday, and did not know what was become of him. Once Lucy thought\r
+to write to him, but then her spirits rose against that. However this\r
+morning he came just as we came home from church; and then it all came\r
+out, how he had been sent for Wednesday to Harley Street, and been\r
+talked to by his mother and all of them, and how he had declared before\r
+them all that he loved nobody but Lucy, and nobody but Lucy would he\r
+have. And how he had been so worried by what passed, that as soon as\r
+he had went away from his mother's house, he had got upon his horse,\r
+and rid into the country, some where or other; and how he had stayed\r
+about at an inn all Thursday and Friday, on purpose to get the better\r
+of it. And after thinking it all over and over again, he said, it\r
+seemed to him as if, now he had no fortune, and no nothing at all, it\r
+would be quite unkind to keep her on to the engagement, because it must\r
+be for her loss, for he had nothing but two thousand pounds, and no\r
+hope of any thing else; and if he was to go into orders, as he had some\r
+thoughts, he could get nothing but a curacy, and how was they to live\r
+upon that?--He could not bear to think of her doing no better, and so\r
+he begged, if she had the least mind for it, to put an end to the\r
+matter directly, and leave him shift for himself. I heard him say all\r
+this as plain as could possibly be. And it was entirely for HER sake,\r
+and upon HER account, that he said a word about being off, and not upon\r
+his own. I will take my oath he never dropt a syllable of being tired\r
+of her, or of wishing to marry Miss Morton, or any thing like it. But,\r
+to be sure, Lucy would not give ear to such kind of talking; so she\r
+told him directly (with a great deal about sweet and love, you know,\r
+and all that--Oh, la! one can't repeat such kind of things you\r
+know)--she told him directly, she had not the least mind in the world\r
+to be off, for she could live with him upon a trifle, and how little so\r
+ever he might have, she should be very glad to have it all, you know,\r
+or something of the kind. So then he was monstrous happy, and talked\r
+on some time about what they should do, and they agreed he should take\r
+orders directly, and they must wait to be married till he got a living.\r
+And just then I could not hear any more, for my cousin called from\r
+below to tell me Mrs. Richardson was come in her coach, and would take\r
+one of us to Kensington Gardens; so I was forced to go into the room\r
+and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go, but she did\r
+not care to leave Edward; so I just run up stairs and put on a pair of\r
+silk stockings and came off with the Richardsons."\r
+\r
+"I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them," said Elinor;\r
+"you were all in the same room together, were not you?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, not us. La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make love\r
+when any body else is by? Oh, for shame!--To be sure you must know\r
+better than that. (Laughing affectedly.)--No, no; they were shut up in\r
+the drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at the\r
+door."\r
+\r
+"How!" cried Elinor; "have you been repeating to me what you only\r
+learnt yourself by listening at the door? I am sorry I did not know it\r
+before; for I certainly would not have suffered you to give me\r
+particulars of a conversation which you ought not to have known\r
+yourself. How could you behave so unfairly by your sister?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, la! there is nothing in THAT. I only stood at the door, and heard\r
+what I could. And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me;\r
+for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets\r
+together, she never made any bones of hiding in a closet, or behind a\r
+chimney-board, on purpose to hear what we said."\r
+\r
+Elinor tried to talk of something else; but Miss Steele could not be\r
+kept beyond a couple of minutes, from what was uppermost in her mind.\r
+\r
+"Edward talks of going to Oxford soon," said she; "but now he is\r
+lodging at No. --, Pall Mall. What an ill-natured woman his mother is,\r
+an't she? And your brother and sister were not very kind! However, I\r
+shan't say anything against them to YOU; and to be sure they did send\r
+us home in their own chariot, which was more than I looked for. And\r
+for my part, I was all in a fright for fear your sister should ask us\r
+for the huswifes she had gave us a day or two before; but, however,\r
+nothing was said about them, and I took care to keep mine out of sight.\r
+Edward have got some business at Oxford, he says; so he must go there\r
+for a time; and after THAT, as soon as he can light upon a Bishop, he\r
+will be ordained. I wonder what curacy he will get!--Good gracious!\r
+(giggling as she spoke) I'd lay my life I know what my cousins will\r
+say, when they hear of it. They will tell me I should write to the\r
+Doctor, to get Edward the curacy of his new living. I know they will;\r
+but I am sure I would not do such a thing for all the world.-- 'La!' I\r
+shall say directly, 'I wonder how you could think of such a thing? I\r
+write to the Doctor, indeed!'"\r
+\r
+"Well," said Elinor, "it is a comfort to be prepared against the worst.\r
+You have got your answer ready."\r
+\r
+Miss Steele was going to reply on the same subject, but the approach of\r
+her own party made another more necessary.\r
+\r
+"Oh, la! here come the Richardsons. I had a vast deal more to say to\r
+you, but I must not stay away from them not any longer. I assure you\r
+they are very genteel people. He makes a monstrous deal of money, and\r
+they keep their own coach. I have not time to speak to Mrs. Jennings\r
+about it myself, but pray tell her I am quite happy to hear she is not\r
+in anger against us, and Lady Middleton the same; and if anything\r
+should happen to take you and your sister away, and Mrs. Jennings\r
+should want company, I am sure we should be very glad to come and stay\r
+with her for as long a time as she likes. I suppose Lady Middleton\r
+won't ask us any more this bout. Good-by; I am sorry Miss Marianne was\r
+not here. Remember me kindly to her. La! if you have not got your\r
+spotted muslin on!--I wonder you was not afraid of its being torn."\r
+\r
+Such was her parting concern; for after this, she had time only to pay\r
+her farewell compliments to Mrs. Jennings, before her company was\r
+claimed by Mrs. Richardson; and Elinor was left in possession of\r
+knowledge which might feed her powers of reflection some time, though\r
+she had learnt very little more than what had been already foreseen and\r
+foreplanned in her own mind. Edward's marriage with Lucy was as firmly\r
+determined on, and the time of its taking place remained as absolutely\r
+uncertain, as she had concluded it would be;--every thing depended,\r
+exactly after her expectation, on his getting that preferment, of\r
+which, at present, there seemed not the smallest chance.\r
+\r
+As soon as they returned to the carriage, Mrs. Jennings was eager for\r
+information; but as Elinor wished to spread as little as possible\r
+intelligence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she\r
+confined herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as\r
+she felt assured that Lucy, for the sake of her own consequence, would\r
+choose to have known. The continuance of their engagement, and the\r
+means that were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her\r
+communication; and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following\r
+natural remark.\r
+\r
+"Wait for his having a living!--ay, we all know how THAT will\r
+end:--they will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it,\r
+will set down upon a curacy of fifty pounds a-year, with the interest\r
+of his two thousand pounds, and what little matter Mr. Steele and Mr.\r
+Pratt can give her.--Then they will have a child every year! and Lord\r
+help 'em! how poor they will be!--I must see what I can give them\r
+towards furnishing their house. Two maids and two men, indeed!--as I\r
+talked of t'other day.--No, no, they must get a stout girl of all\r
+works.-- Betty's sister would never do for them NOW."\r
+\r
+The next morning brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from\r
+Lucy herself. It was as follows:\r
+\r
+ "Bartlett's Building, March.\r
+\r
+ "I hope my dear Miss Dashwood will excuse the\r
+ liberty I take of writing to her; but I know your\r
+ friendship for me will make you pleased to hear such\r
+ a good account of myself and my dear Edward, after\r
+ all the troubles we have went through lately,\r
+ therefore will make no more apologies, but proceed\r
+ to say that, thank God! though we have suffered\r
+ dreadfully, we are both quite well now, and as happy\r
+ as we must always be in one another's love. We have\r
+ had great trials, and great persecutions, but\r
+ however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge\r
+ many friends, yourself not the least among them,\r
+ whose great kindness I shall always thankfully\r
+ remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of\r
+ it. I am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise\r
+ dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours with\r
+ him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of our\r
+ parting, though earnestly did I, as I thought my\r
+ duty required, urge him to it for prudence sake,\r
+ and would have parted for ever on the spot, would\r
+ he consent to it; but he said it should never be,\r
+ he did not regard his mother's anger, while he could\r
+ have my affections; our prospects are not very\r
+ bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for\r
+ the best; he will be ordained shortly; and should\r
+ it ever be in your power to recommend him to any\r
+ body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you\r
+ will not forget us, and dear Mrs. Jennings too,\r
+ trust she will speak a good word for us to Sir John,\r
+ or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able to\r
+ assist us.--Poor Anne was much to blame for what\r
+ she did, but she did it for the best, so I say\r
+ nothing; hope Mrs. Jennings won't think it too much\r
+ trouble to give us a call, should she come this way\r
+ any morning, 'twould be a great kindness, and my\r
+ cousins would be proud to know her.--My paper reminds\r
+ me to conclude; and begging to be most gratefully\r
+ and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John,\r
+ and Lady Middleton, and the dear children, when you\r
+ chance to see them, and love to Miss Marianne,\r
+\r
+ "I am, &c."\r
+\r
+As soon as Elinor had finished it, she performed what she concluded to\r
+be its writer's real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs.\r
+Jennings, who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and\r
+praise.\r
+\r
+"Very well indeed!--how prettily she writes!--aye, that was quite\r
+proper to let him be off if he would. That was just like Lucy.--Poor\r
+soul! I wish I COULD get him a living, with all my heart.--She calls me\r
+dear Mrs. Jennings, you see. She is a good-hearted girl as ever\r
+lived.--Very well upon my word. That sentence is very prettily turned.\r
+Yes, yes, I will go and see her, sure enough. How attentive she is, to\r
+think of every body!--Thank you, my dear, for shewing it me. It is as\r
+pretty a letter as ever I saw, and does Lucy's head and heart great\r
+credit."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 39\r
+\r
+\r
+The Miss Dashwoods had now been rather more than two months in town,\r
+and Marianne's impatience to be gone increased every day. She sighed\r
+for the air, the liberty, the quiet of the country; and fancied that if\r
+any place could give her ease, Barton must do it. Elinor was hardly\r
+less anxious than herself for their removal, and only so much less bent\r
+on its being effected immediately, as that she was conscious of the\r
+difficulties of so long a journey, which Marianne could not be brought\r
+to acknowledge. She began, however, seriously to turn her thoughts\r
+towards its accomplishment, and had already mentioned their wishes to\r
+their kind hostess, who resisted them with all the eloquence of her\r
+good-will, when a plan was suggested, which, though detaining them from\r
+home yet a few weeks longer, appeared to Elinor altogether much more\r
+eligible than any other. The Palmers were to remove to Cleveland about\r
+the end of March, for the Easter holidays; and Mrs. Jennings, with both\r
+her friends, received a very warm invitation from Charlotte to go with\r
+them. This would not, in itself, have been sufficient for the delicacy\r
+of Miss Dashwood;--but it was inforced with so much real politeness by\r
+Mr. Palmer himself, as, joined to the very great amendment of his\r
+manners towards them since her sister had been known to be unhappy,\r
+induced her to accept it with pleasure.\r
+\r
+When she told Marianne what she had done, however, her first reply was\r
+not very auspicious.\r
+\r
+"Cleveland!"--she cried, with great agitation. "No, I cannot go to\r
+Cleveland."--\r
+\r
+"You forget," said Elinor gently, "that its situation is not...that it\r
+is not in the neighbourhood of..."\r
+\r
+"But it is in Somersetshire.--I cannot go into Somersetshire.--There,\r
+where I looked forward to going...No, Elinor, you cannot expect me to\r
+go there."\r
+\r
+Elinor would not argue upon the propriety of overcoming such\r
+feelings;--she only endeavoured to counteract them by working on\r
+others;--represented it, therefore, as a measure which would fix the\r
+time of her returning to that dear mother, whom she so much wished to\r
+see, in a more eligible, more comfortable manner, than any other plan\r
+could do, and perhaps without any greater delay. From Cleveland, which\r
+was within a few miles of Bristol, the distance to Barton was not\r
+beyond one day, though a long day's journey; and their mother's servant\r
+might easily come there to attend them down; and as there could be no\r
+occasion of their staying above a week at Cleveland, they might now be\r
+at home in little more than three weeks' time. As Marianne's affection\r
+for her mother was sincere, it must triumph with little difficulty,\r
+over the imaginary evils she had started.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings was so far from being weary of her guests, that she\r
+pressed them very earnestly to return with her again from Cleveland.\r
+Elinor was grateful for the attention, but it could not alter her\r
+design; and their mother's concurrence being readily gained, every\r
+thing relative to their return was arranged as far as it could be;--and\r
+Marianne found some relief in drawing up a statement of the hours that\r
+were yet to divide her from Barton.\r
+\r
+"Ah! Colonel, I do not know what you and I shall do without the Miss\r
+Dashwoods;"--was Mrs. Jennings's address to him when he first called on\r
+her, after their leaving her was settled--"for they are quite resolved\r
+upon going home from the Palmers;--and how forlorn we shall be, when I\r
+come back!--Lord! we shall sit and gape at one another as dull as two\r
+cats."\r
+\r
+Perhaps Mrs. Jennings was in hopes, by this vigorous sketch of their\r
+future ennui, to provoke him to make that offer, which might give\r
+himself an escape from it;--and if so, she had soon afterwards good\r
+reason to think her object gained; for, on Elinor's moving to the\r
+window to take more expeditiously the dimensions of a print, which she\r
+was going to copy for her friend, he followed her to it with a look of\r
+particular meaning, and conversed with her there for several minutes.\r
+The effect of his discourse on the lady too, could not escape her\r
+observation, for though she was too honorable to listen, and had even\r
+changed her seat, on purpose that she might NOT hear, to one close by\r
+the piano forte on which Marianne was playing, she could not keep\r
+herself from seeing that Elinor changed colour, attended with\r
+agitation, and was too intent on what he said to pursue her\r
+employment.-- Still farther in confirmation of her hopes, in the\r
+interval of Marianne's turning from one lesson to another, some words\r
+of the Colonel's inevitably reached her ear, in which he seemed to be\r
+apologising for the badness of his house. This set the matter beyond a\r
+doubt. She wondered, indeed, at his thinking it necessary to do so;\r
+but supposed it to be the proper etiquette. What Elinor said in reply\r
+she could not distinguish, but judged from the motion of her lips, that\r
+she did not think THAT any material objection;--and Mrs. Jennings\r
+commended her in her heart for being so honest. They then talked on\r
+for a few minutes longer without her catching a syllable, when another\r
+lucky stop in Marianne's performance brought her these words in the\r
+Colonel's calm voice,--\r
+\r
+"I am afraid it cannot take place very soon."\r
+\r
+Astonished and shocked at so unlover-like a speech, she was almost\r
+ready to cry out, "Lord! what should hinder it?"--but checking her\r
+desire, confined herself to this silent ejaculation.\r
+\r
+"This is very strange!--sure he need not wait to be older."\r
+\r
+This delay on the Colonel's side, however, did not seem to offend or\r
+mortify his fair companion in the least, for on their breaking up the\r
+conference soon afterwards, and moving different ways, Mrs. Jennings\r
+very plainly heard Elinor say, and with a voice which shewed her to\r
+feel what she said,\r
+\r
+"I shall always think myself very much obliged to you."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Jennings was delighted with her gratitude, and only wondered that\r
+after hearing such a sentence, the Colonel should be able to take leave\r
+of them, as he immediately did, with the utmost sang-froid, and go away\r
+without making her any reply!--She had not thought her old friend could\r
+have made so indifferent a suitor.\r
+\r
+What had really passed between them was to this effect.\r
+\r
+"I have heard," said he, with great compassion, "of the injustice your\r
+friend Mr. Ferrars has suffered from his family; for if I understand\r
+the matter right, he has been entirely cast off by them for persevering\r
+in his engagement with a very deserving young woman.-- Have I been\r
+rightly informed?--Is it so?--"\r
+\r
+Elinor told him that it was.\r
+\r
+"The cruelty, the impolitic cruelty,"--he replied, with great\r
+feeling,--"of dividing, or attempting to divide, two young people long\r
+attached to each other, is terrible.-- Mrs. Ferrars does not know what\r
+she may be doing--what she may drive her son to. I have seen Mr.\r
+Ferrars two or three times in Harley Street, and am much pleased with\r
+him. He is not a young man with whom one can be intimately acquainted\r
+in a short time, but I have seen enough of him to wish him well for his\r
+own sake, and as a friend of yours, I wish it still more. I understand\r
+that he intends to take orders. Will you be so good as to tell him\r
+that the living of Delaford, now just vacant, as I am informed by this\r
+day's post, is his, if he think it worth his acceptance--but THAT,\r
+perhaps, so unfortunately circumstanced as he is now, it may be\r
+nonsense to appear to doubt; I only wish it were more valuable.-- It\r
+is a rectory, but a small one; the late incumbent, I believe, did not\r
+make more than 200 L per annum, and though it is certainly capable of\r
+improvement, I fear, not to such an amount as to afford him a very\r
+comfortable income. Such as it is, however, my pleasure in presenting\r
+it to him, will be very great. Pray assure him of it."\r
+\r
+Elinor's astonishment at this commission could hardly have been\r
+greater, had the Colonel been really making her an offer of his hand.\r
+The preferment, which only two days before she had considered as\r
+hopeless for Edward, was already provided to enable him to marry;--and\r
+SHE, of all people in the world, was fixed on to bestow it!--Her\r
+emotion was such as Mrs. Jennings had attributed to a very different\r
+cause;--but whatever minor feelings less pure, less pleasing, might\r
+have a share in that emotion, her esteem for the general benevolence,\r
+and her gratitude for the particular friendship, which together\r
+prompted Colonel Brandon to this act, were strongly felt, and warmly\r
+expressed. She thanked him for it with all her heart, spoke of\r
+Edward's principles and disposition with that praise which she knew\r
+them to deserve; and promised to undertake the commission with\r
+pleasure, if it were really his wish to put off so agreeable an office\r
+to another. But at the same time, she could not help thinking that no\r
+one could so well perform it as himself. It was an office in short,\r
+from which, unwilling to give Edward the pain of receiving an\r
+obligation from HER, she would have been very glad to be spared\r
+herself;-- but Colonel Brandon, on motives of equal delicacy, declining\r
+it likewise, still seemed so desirous of its being given through her\r
+means, that she would not on any account make farther opposition.\r
+Edward, she believed, was still in town, and fortunately she had heard\r
+his address from Miss Steele. She could undertake therefore to inform\r
+him of it, in the course of the day. After this had been settled,\r
+Colonel Brandon began to talk of his own advantage in securing so\r
+respectable and agreeable a neighbour, and THEN it was that he\r
+mentioned with regret, that the house was small and indifferent;--an\r
+evil which Elinor, as Mrs. Jennings had supposed her to do, made very\r
+light of, at least as far as regarded its size.\r
+\r
+"The smallness of the house," said she, "I cannot imagine any\r
+inconvenience to them, for it will be in proportion to their family and\r
+income."\r
+\r
+By which the Colonel was surprised to find that SHE was considering Mr.\r
+Ferrars's marriage as the certain consequence of the presentation; for\r
+he did not suppose it possible that Delaford living could supply such\r
+an income, as anybody in his style of life would venture to settle\r
+on--and he said so.\r
+\r
+"This little rectory CAN do no more than make Mr. Ferrars comfortable\r
+as a bachelor; it cannot enable him to marry. I am sorry to say that\r
+my patronage ends with this; and my interest is hardly more extensive.\r
+If, however, by an unforeseen chance it should be in my power to serve\r
+him farther, I must think very differently of him from what I now do,\r
+if I am not as ready to be useful to him then as I sincerely wish I\r
+could be at present. What I am now doing indeed, seems nothing at all,\r
+since it can advance him so little towards what must be his principal,\r
+his only object of happiness. His marriage must still be a distant\r
+good;--at least, I am afraid it cannot take place very soon.--"\r
+\r
+Such was the sentence which, when misunderstood, so justly offended the\r
+delicate feelings of Mrs. Jennings; but after this narration of what\r
+really passed between Colonel Brandon and Elinor, while they stood at\r
+the window, the gratitude expressed by the latter on their parting, may\r
+perhaps appear in general, not less reasonably excited, nor less\r
+properly worded than if it had arisen from an offer of marriage.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 40\r
+\r
+\r
+"Well, Miss Dashwood," said Mrs. Jennings, sagaciously smiling, as soon\r
+as the gentleman had withdrawn, "I do not ask you what the Colonel has\r
+been saying to you; for though, upon my honour, I TRIED to keep out of\r
+hearing, I could not help catching enough to understand his business.\r
+And I assure you I never was better pleased in my life, and I wish you\r
+joy of it with all my heart."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, ma'am," said Elinor. "It is a matter of great joy to me;\r
+and I feel the goodness of Colonel Brandon most sensibly. There are\r
+not many men who would act as he has done. Few people who have so\r
+compassionate a heart! I never was more astonished in my life."\r
+\r
+"Lord! my dear, you are very modest. I an't the least astonished at it\r
+in the world, for I have often thought of late, there was nothing more\r
+likely to happen."\r
+\r
+"You judged from your knowledge of the Colonel's general benevolence;\r
+but at least you could not foresee that the opportunity would so very\r
+soon occur."\r
+\r
+"Opportunity!" repeated Mrs. Jennings--"Oh! as to that, when a man has\r
+once made up his mind to such a thing, somehow or other he will soon\r
+find an opportunity. Well, my dear, I wish you joy of it again and\r
+again; and if ever there was a happy couple in the world, I think I\r
+shall soon know where to look for them."\r
+\r
+"You mean to go to Delaford after them I suppose," said Elinor, with a\r
+faint smile.\r
+\r
+"Aye, my dear, that I do, indeed. And as to the house being a bad one,\r
+I do not know what the Colonel would be at, for it is as good a one as\r
+ever I saw."\r
+\r
+"He spoke of its being out of repair."\r
+\r
+"Well, and whose fault is that? why don't he repair it?--who should do\r
+it but himself?"\r
+\r
+They were interrupted by the servant's coming in to announce the\r
+carriage being at the door; and Mrs. Jennings immediately preparing to\r
+go, said,--\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear, I must be gone before I have had half my talk out.\r
+But, however, we may have it all over in the evening; for we shall be\r
+quite alone. I do not ask you to go with me, for I dare say your mind\r
+is too full of the matter to care for company; and besides, you must\r
+long to tell your sister all about it."\r
+\r
+Marianne had left the room before the conversation began.\r
+\r
+"Certainly, ma'am, I shall tell Marianne of it; but I shall not mention\r
+it at present to any body else."\r
+\r
+"Oh! very well," said Mrs. Jennings rather disappointed. "Then you\r
+would not have me tell it to Lucy, for I think of going as far as\r
+Holborn to-day."\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am, not even Lucy if you please. One day's delay will not be\r
+very material; and till I have written to Mr. Ferrars, I think it ought\r
+not to be mentioned to any body else. I shall do THAT directly. It is\r
+of importance that no time should be lost with him, for he will of\r
+course have much to do relative to his ordination."\r
+\r
+This speech at first puzzled Mrs. Jennings exceedingly. Why Mr.\r
+Ferrars was to have been written to about it in such a hurry, she could\r
+not immediately comprehend. A few moments' reflection, however,\r
+produced a very happy idea, and she exclaimed;--\r
+\r
+"Oh, ho!--I understand you. Mr. Ferrars is to be the man. Well, so\r
+much the better for him. Ay, to be sure, he must be ordained in\r
+readiness; and I am very glad to find things are so forward between\r
+you. But, my dear, is not this rather out of character? Should not\r
+the Colonel write himself?--sure, he is the proper person."\r
+\r
+Elinor did not quite understand the beginning of Mrs. Jennings's\r
+speech, neither did she think it worth inquiring into; and therefore\r
+only replied to its conclusion.\r
+\r
+"Colonel Brandon is so delicate a man, that he rather wished any one to\r
+announce his intentions to Mr. Ferrars than himself."\r
+\r
+"And so YOU are forced to do it. Well THAT is an odd kind of delicacy!\r
+However, I will not disturb you (seeing her preparing to write.) You\r
+know your own concerns best. So goodby, my dear. I have not heard of\r
+any thing to please me so well since Charlotte was brought to bed."\r
+\r
+And away she went; but returning again in a moment,\r
+\r
+"I have just been thinking of Betty's sister, my dear. I should be\r
+very glad to get her so good a mistress. But whether she would do for\r
+a lady's maid, I am sure I can't tell. She is an excellent housemaid,\r
+and works very well at her needle. However, you will think of all that\r
+at your leisure."\r
+\r
+"Certainly, ma'am," replied Elinor, not hearing much of what she said,\r
+and more anxious to be alone, than to be mistress of the subject.\r
+\r
+How she should begin--how she should express herself in her note to\r
+Edward, was now all her concern. The particular circumstances between\r
+them made a difficulty of that which to any other person would have\r
+been the easiest thing in the world; but she equally feared to say too\r
+much or too little, and sat deliberating over her paper, with the pen\r
+in her hand, till broken in on by the entrance of Edward himself.\r
+\r
+He had met Mrs. Jennings at the door in her way to the carriage, as he\r
+came to leave his farewell card; and she, after apologising for not\r
+returning herself, had obliged him to enter, by saying that Miss\r
+Dashwood was above, and wanted to speak with him on very particular\r
+business.\r
+\r
+Elinor had just been congratulating herself, in the midst of her\r
+perplexity, that however difficult it might be to express herself\r
+properly by letter, it was at least preferable to giving the\r
+information by word of mouth, when her visitor entered, to force her\r
+upon this greatest exertion of all. Her astonishment and confusion\r
+were very great on his so sudden appearance. She had not seen him\r
+before since his engagement became public, and therefore not since his\r
+knowing her to be acquainted with it; which, with the consciousness of\r
+what she had been thinking of, and what she had to tell him, made her\r
+feel particularly uncomfortable for some minutes. He too was much\r
+distressed; and they sat down together in a most promising state of\r
+embarrassment.--Whether he had asked her pardon for his intrusion on\r
+first coming into the room, he could not recollect; but determining to\r
+be on the safe side, he made his apology in form as soon as he could\r
+say any thing, after taking a chair.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Jennings told me," said he, "that you wished to speak with me, at\r
+least I understood her so--or I certainly should not have intruded on\r
+you in such a manner; though at the same time, I should have been\r
+extremely sorry to leave London without seeing you and your sister;\r
+especially as it will most likely be some time--it is not probable that\r
+I should soon have the pleasure of meeting you again. I go to Oxford\r
+tomorrow."\r
+\r
+"You would not have gone, however," said Elinor, recovering herself,\r
+and determined to get over what she so much dreaded as soon as\r
+possible, "without receiving our good wishes, even if we had not been\r
+able to give them in person. Mrs. Jennings was quite right in what she\r
+said. I have something of consequence to inform you of, which I was on\r
+the point of communicating by paper. I am charged with a most\r
+agreeable office (breathing rather faster than usual as she spoke.)\r
+Colonel Brandon, who was here only ten minutes ago, has desired me to\r
+say, that understanding you mean to take orders, he has great pleasure\r
+in offering you the living of Delaford now just vacant, and only wishes\r
+it were more valuable. Allow me to congratulate you on having so\r
+respectable and well-judging a friend, and to join in his wish that the\r
+living--it is about two hundred a-year--were much more considerable,\r
+and such as might better enable you to--as might be more than a\r
+temporary accommodation to yourself--such, in short, as might establish\r
+all your views of happiness."\r
+\r
+What Edward felt, as he could not say it himself, it cannot be expected\r
+that any one else should say for him. He LOOKED all the astonishment\r
+which such unexpected, such unthought-of information could not fail of\r
+exciting; but he said only these two words,\r
+\r
+"Colonel Brandon!"\r
+\r
+"Yes," continued Elinor, gathering more resolution, as some of the\r
+worst was over, "Colonel Brandon means it as a testimony of his concern\r
+for what has lately passed--for the cruel situation in which the\r
+unjustifiable conduct of your family has placed you--a concern which I\r
+am sure Marianne, myself, and all your friends, must share; and\r
+likewise as a proof of his high esteem for your general character, and\r
+his particular approbation of your behaviour on the present occasion."\r
+\r
+"Colonel Brandon give ME a living!--Can it be possible?"\r
+\r
+"The unkindness of your own relations has made you astonished to find\r
+friendship any where."\r
+\r
+"No," replied he, with sudden consciousness, "not to find it in YOU;\r
+for I cannot be ignorant that to you, to your goodness, I owe it\r
+all.--I feel it--I would express it if I could--but, as you well know,\r
+I am no orator."\r
+\r
+"You are very much mistaken. I do assure you that you owe it entirely,\r
+at least almost entirely, to your own merit, and Colonel Brandon's\r
+discernment of it. I have had no hand in it. I did not even know,\r
+till I understood his design, that the living was vacant; nor had it\r
+ever occurred to me that he might have had such a living in his gift.\r
+As a friend of mine, of my family, he may, perhaps--indeed I know he\r
+HAS, still greater pleasure in bestowing it; but, upon my word, you owe\r
+nothing to my solicitation."\r
+\r
+Truth obliged her to acknowledge some small share in the action, but\r
+she was at the same time so unwilling to appear as the benefactress of\r
+Edward, that she acknowledged it with hesitation; which probably\r
+contributed to fix that suspicion in his mind which had recently\r
+entered it. For a short time he sat deep in thought, after Elinor had\r
+ceased to speak;--at last, and as if it were rather an effort, he said,\r
+\r
+"Colonel Brandon seems a man of great worth and respectability. I have\r
+always heard him spoken of as such, and your brother I know esteems him\r
+highly. He is undoubtedly a sensible man, and in his manners perfectly\r
+the gentleman."\r
+\r
+"Indeed," replied Elinor, "I believe that you will find him, on farther\r
+acquaintance, all that you have heard him to be, and as you will be\r
+such very near neighbours (for I understand the parsonage is almost\r
+close to the mansion-house,) it is particularly important that he\r
+SHOULD be all this."\r
+\r
+Edward made no answer; but when she had turned away her head, gave her\r
+a look so serious, so earnest, so uncheerful, as seemed to say, that he\r
+might hereafter wish the distance between the parsonage and the\r
+mansion-house much greater.\r
+\r
+"Colonel Brandon, I think, lodges in St. James Street," said he, soon\r
+afterwards, rising from his chair.\r
+\r
+Elinor told him the number of the house.\r
+\r
+"I must hurry away then, to give him those thanks which you will not\r
+allow me to give YOU; to assure him that he has made me a very--an\r
+exceedingly happy man."\r
+\r
+Elinor did not offer to detain him; and they parted, with a very\r
+earnest assurance on HER side of her unceasing good wishes for his\r
+happiness in every change of situation that might befall him; on HIS,\r
+with rather an attempt to return the same good will, than the power of\r
+expressing it.\r
+\r
+"When I see him again," said Elinor to herself, as the door shut him\r
+out, "I shall see him the husband of Lucy."\r
+\r
+And with this pleasing anticipation, she sat down to reconsider the\r
+past, recall the words and endeavour to comprehend all the feelings of\r
+Edward; and, of course, to reflect on her own with discontent.\r
+\r
+When Mrs. Jennings came home, though she returned from seeing people\r
+whom she had never seen before, and of whom therefore she must have a\r
+great deal to say, her mind was so much more occupied by the important\r
+secret in her possession, than by anything else, that she reverted to\r
+it again as soon as Elinor appeared.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear," she cried, "I sent you up the young man. Did not I\r
+do right?--And I suppose you had no great difficulty--You did not find\r
+him very unwilling to accept your proposal?"\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am; THAT was not very likely."\r
+\r
+"Well, and how soon will he be ready?--For it seems all to depend upon\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"Really," said Elinor, "I know so little of these kind of forms, that I\r
+can hardly even conjecture as to the time, or the preparation\r
+necessary; but I suppose two or three months will complete his\r
+ordination."\r
+\r
+"Two or three months!" cried Mrs. Jennings; "Lord! my dear, how calmly\r
+you talk of it; and can the Colonel wait two or three months! Lord\r
+bless me!--I am sure it would put ME quite out of patience!--And though\r
+one would be very glad to do a kindness by poor Mr. Ferrars, I do think\r
+it is not worth while to wait two or three months for him. Sure\r
+somebody else might be found that would do as well; somebody that is in\r
+orders already."\r
+\r
+"My dear ma'am," said Elinor, "what can you be thinking of?-- Why,\r
+Colonel Brandon's only object is to be of use to Mr. Ferrars."\r
+\r
+"Lord bless you, my dear!--Sure you do not mean to persuade me that the\r
+Colonel only marries you for the sake of giving ten guineas to Mr.\r
+Ferrars!"\r
+\r
+The deception could not continue after this; and an explanation\r
+immediately took place, by which both gained considerable amusement for\r
+the moment, without any material loss of happiness to either, for Mrs.\r
+Jennings only exchanged one form of delight for another, and still\r
+without forfeiting her expectation of the first.\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye, the parsonage is but a small one," said she, after the first\r
+ebullition of surprise and satisfaction was over, "and very likely MAY\r
+be out of repair; but to hear a man apologising, as I thought, for a\r
+house that to my knowledge has five sitting rooms on the ground-floor,\r
+and I think the housekeeper told me could make up fifteen beds!--and to\r
+you too, that had been used to live in Barton cottage!-- It seems quite\r
+ridiculous. But, my dear, we must touch up the Colonel to do some\r
+thing to the parsonage, and make it comfortable for them, before Lucy\r
+goes to it."\r
+\r
+"But Colonel Brandon does not seem to have any idea of the living's\r
+being enough to allow them to marry."\r
+\r
+"The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; because he has two thousand a-year\r
+himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less. Take my word\r
+for it, that, if I am alive, I shall be paying a visit at Delaford\r
+Parsonage before Michaelmas; and I am sure I shan't go if Lucy an't\r
+there."\r
+\r
+Elinor was quite of her opinion, as to the probability of their not\r
+waiting for any thing more.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 41\r
+\r
+\r
+Edward, having carried his thanks to Colonel Brandon, proceeded with\r
+his happiness to Lucy; and such was the excess of it by the time he\r
+reached Bartlett's Buildings, that she was able to assure Mrs.\r
+Jennings, who called on her again the next day with her\r
+congratulations, that she had never seen him in such spirits before in\r
+her life.\r
+\r
+Her own happiness, and her own spirits, were at least very certain; and\r
+she joined Mrs. Jennings most heartily in her expectation of their\r
+being all comfortably together in Delaford Parsonage before Michaelmas.\r
+So far was she, at the same time, from any backwardness to give Elinor\r
+that credit which Edward WOULD give her, that she spoke of her\r
+friendship for them both with the most grateful warmth, was ready to\r
+own all their obligation to her, and openly declared that no exertion\r
+for their good on Miss Dashwood's part, either present or future, would\r
+ever surprise her, for she believed her capable of doing any thing in\r
+the world for those she really valued. As for Colonel Brandon, she was\r
+not only ready to worship him as a saint, but was moreover truly\r
+anxious that he should be treated as one in all worldly concerns;\r
+anxious that his tithes should be raised to the utmost; and scarcely\r
+resolved to avail herself, at Delaford, as far as she possibly could,\r
+of his servants, his carriage, his cows, and his poultry.\r
+\r
+It was now above a week since John Dashwood had called in Berkeley\r
+Street, and as since that time no notice had been taken by them of his\r
+wife's indisposition, beyond one verbal enquiry, Elinor began to feel\r
+it necessary to pay her a visit.--This was an obligation, however,\r
+which not only opposed her own inclination, but which had not the\r
+assistance of any encouragement from her companions. Marianne, not\r
+contented with absolutely refusing to go herself, was very urgent to\r
+prevent her sister's going at all; and Mrs. Jennings, though her\r
+carriage was always at Elinor's service, so very much disliked Mrs.\r
+John Dashwood, that not even her curiosity to see how she looked after\r
+the late discovery, nor her strong desire to affront her by taking\r
+Edward's part, could overcome her unwillingness to be in her company\r
+again. The consequence was, that Elinor set out by herself to pay a\r
+visit, for which no one could really have less inclination, and to run\r
+the risk of a tete-a-tete with a woman, whom neither of the others had\r
+so much reason to dislike.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood was denied; but before the carriage could turn from the\r
+house, her husband accidentally came out. He expressed great pleasure\r
+in meeting Elinor, told her that he had been just going to call in\r
+Berkeley Street, and, assuring her that Fanny would be very glad to see\r
+her, invited her to come in.\r
+\r
+They walked up stairs in to the drawing-room.--Nobody was there.\r
+\r
+"Fanny is in her own room, I suppose," said he:--"I will go to her\r
+presently, for I am sure she will not have the least objection in the\r
+world to seeing YOU.-- Very far from it, indeed. NOW especially there\r
+cannot be--but however, you and Marianne were always great\r
+favourites.--Why would not Marianne come?"--\r
+\r
+Elinor made what excuse she could for her.\r
+\r
+"I am not sorry to see you alone," he replied, "for I have a good deal\r
+to say to you. This living of Colonel Brandon's--can it be true?--has\r
+he really given it to Edward?--I heard it yesterday by chance, and was\r
+coming to you on purpose to enquire farther about it."\r
+\r
+"It is perfectly true.--Colonel Brandon has given the living of\r
+Delaford to Edward."\r
+\r
+"Really!--Well, this is very astonishing!--no relationship!--no\r
+connection between them!--and now that livings fetch such a\r
+price!--what was the value of this?"\r
+\r
+"About two hundred a year."\r
+\r
+"Very well--and for the next presentation to a living of that\r
+value--supposing the late incumbent to have been old and sickly, and\r
+likely to vacate it soon--he might have got I dare say--fourteen\r
+hundred pounds. And how came he not to have settled that matter before\r
+this person's death?--NOW indeed it would be too late to sell it, but a\r
+man of Colonel Brandon's sense!--I wonder he should be so improvident\r
+in a point of such common, such natural, concern!--Well, I am convinced\r
+that there is a vast deal of inconsistency in almost every human\r
+character. I suppose, however--on recollection--that the case may\r
+probably be THIS. Edward is only to hold the living till the person to\r
+whom the Colonel has really sold the presentation, is old enough to\r
+take it.--Aye, aye, that is the fact, depend upon it."\r
+\r
+Elinor contradicted it, however, very positively; and by relating that\r
+she had herself been employed in conveying the offer from Colonel\r
+Brandon to Edward, and, therefore, must understand the terms on which\r
+it was given, obliged him to submit to her authority.\r
+\r
+"It is truly astonishing!"--he cried, after hearing what she\r
+said--"what could be the Colonel's motive?"\r
+\r
+"A very simple one--to be of use to Mr. Ferrars."\r
+\r
+"Well, well; whatever Colonel Brandon may be, Edward is a very lucky\r
+man.--You will not mention the matter to Fanny, however, for though I\r
+have broke it to her, and she bears it vastly well,--she will not like\r
+to hear it much talked of."\r
+\r
+Elinor had some difficulty here to refrain from observing, that she\r
+thought Fanny might have borne with composure, an acquisition of wealth\r
+to her brother, by which neither she nor her child could be possibly\r
+impoverished.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Ferrars," added he, lowering his voice to the tone becoming so\r
+important a subject, "knows nothing about it at present, and I believe\r
+it will be best to keep it entirely concealed from her as long as may\r
+be.-- When the marriage takes place, I fear she must hear of it all."\r
+\r
+"But why should such precaution be used?--Though it is not to be\r
+supposed that Mrs. Ferrars can have the smallest satisfaction in\r
+knowing that her son has money enough to live upon,--for THAT must be\r
+quite out of the question; yet why, upon her late behaviour, is she\r
+supposed to feel at all?--She has done with her son, she cast him off\r
+for ever, and has made all those over whom she had any influence, cast\r
+him off likewise. Surely, after doing so, she cannot be imagined\r
+liable to any impression of sorrow or of joy on his account--she cannot\r
+be interested in any thing that befalls him.-- She would not be so weak\r
+as to throw away the comfort of a child, and yet retain the anxiety of\r
+a parent!"\r
+\r
+"Ah! Elinor," said John, "your reasoning is very good, but it is\r
+founded on ignorance of human nature. When Edward's unhappy match\r
+takes place, depend upon it his mother will feel as much as if she had\r
+never discarded him; and, therefore every circumstance that may\r
+accelerate that dreadful event, must be concealed from her as much as\r
+possible. Mrs. Ferrars can never forget that Edward is her son."\r
+\r
+"You surprise me; I should think it must nearly have escaped her memory\r
+by THIS time."\r
+\r
+"You wrong her exceedingly. Mrs. Ferrars is one of the most\r
+affectionate mothers in the world."\r
+\r
+Elinor was silent.\r
+\r
+"We think NOW,"--said Mr. Dashwood, after a short pause, "of ROBERT'S\r
+marrying Miss Morton."\r
+\r
+Elinor, smiling at the grave and decisive importance of her brother's\r
+tone, calmly replied,\r
+\r
+"The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair."\r
+\r
+"Choice!--how do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"I only mean that I suppose, from your manner of speaking, it must be\r
+the same to Miss Morton whether she marry Edward or Robert."\r
+\r
+"Certainly, there can be no difference; for Robert will now to all\r
+intents and purposes be considered as the eldest son;--and as to any\r
+thing else, they are both very agreeable young men: I do not know that\r
+one is superior to the other."\r
+\r
+Elinor said no more, and John was also for a short time silent.--His\r
+reflections ended thus.\r
+\r
+"Of ONE thing, my dear sister," kindly taking her hand, and speaking in\r
+an awful whisper,--"I may assure you;--and I WILL do it, because I know\r
+it must gratify you. I have good reason to think--indeed I have it\r
+from the best authority, or I should not repeat it, for otherwise it\r
+would be very wrong to say any thing about it--but I have it from the\r
+very best authority--not that I ever precisely heard Mrs. Ferrars say\r
+it herself--but her daughter DID, and I have it from her--That in\r
+short, whatever objections there might be against a certain--a certain\r
+connection--you understand me--it would have been far preferable to\r
+her, it would not have given her half the vexation that THIS does. I\r
+was exceedingly pleased to hear that Mrs. Ferrars considered it in that\r
+light--a very gratifying circumstance you know to us all. 'It would\r
+have been beyond comparison,' she said, 'the least evil of the two, and\r
+she would be glad to compound NOW for nothing worse.' But however, all\r
+that is quite out of the question--not to be thought of or\r
+mentioned--as to any attachment you know--it never could be--all that\r
+is gone by. But I thought I would just tell you of this, because I\r
+knew how much it must please you. Not that you have any reason to\r
+regret, my dear Elinor. There is no doubt of your doing exceedingly\r
+well--quite as well, or better, perhaps, all things considered. Has\r
+Colonel Brandon been with you lately?"\r
+\r
+Elinor had heard enough, if not to gratify her vanity, and raise her\r
+self-importance, to agitate her nerves and fill her mind;--and she was\r
+therefore glad to be spared from the necessity of saying much in reply\r
+herself, and from the danger of hearing any thing more from her\r
+brother, by the entrance of Mr. Robert Ferrars. After a few moments'\r
+chat, John Dashwood, recollecting that Fanny was yet uninformed of her\r
+sister's being there, quitted the room in quest of her; and Elinor was\r
+left to improve her acquaintance with Robert, who, by the gay\r
+unconcern, the happy self-complacency of his manner while enjoying so\r
+unfair a division of his mother's love and liberality, to the prejudice\r
+of his banished brother, earned only by his own dissipated course of\r
+life, and that brother's integrity, was confirming her most\r
+unfavourable opinion of his head and heart.\r
+\r
+They had scarcely been two minutes by themselves, before he began to\r
+speak of Edward; for he, too, had heard of the living, and was very\r
+inquisitive on the subject. Elinor repeated the particulars of it, as\r
+she had given them to John; and their effect on Robert, though very\r
+different, was not less striking than it had been on HIM. He laughed\r
+most immoderately. The idea of Edward's being a clergyman, and living\r
+in a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure;--and when to\r
+that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a\r
+white surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith\r
+and Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.\r
+\r
+Elinor, while she waited in silence and immovable gravity, the\r
+conclusion of such folly, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed\r
+on him with a look that spoke all the contempt it excited. It was a\r
+look, however, very well bestowed, for it relieved her own feelings,\r
+and gave no intelligence to him. He was recalled from wit to wisdom,\r
+not by any reproof of hers, but by his own sensibility.\r
+\r
+"We may treat it as a joke," said he, at last, recovering from the\r
+affected laugh which had considerably lengthened out the genuine gaiety\r
+of the moment--"but, upon my soul, it is a most serious business. Poor\r
+Edward! he is ruined for ever. I am extremely sorry for it--for I\r
+know him to be a very good-hearted creature; as well-meaning a fellow\r
+perhaps, as any in the world. You must not judge of him, Miss\r
+Dashwood, from YOUR slight acquaintance.--Poor Edward!--His manners are\r
+certainly not the happiest in nature.--But we are not all born, you\r
+know, with the same powers,--the same address.-- Poor fellow!--to see\r
+him in a circle of strangers!--to be sure it was pitiable enough!--but\r
+upon my soul, I believe he has as good a heart as any in the kingdom;\r
+and I declare and protest to you I never was so shocked in my life, as\r
+when it all burst forth. I could not believe it.-- My mother was the\r
+first person who told me of it; and I, feeling myself called on to act\r
+with resolution, immediately said to her, 'My dear madam, I do not know\r
+what you may intend to do on the occasion, but as for myself, I must\r
+say, that if Edward does marry this young woman, I never will see him\r
+again.' That was what I said immediately.-- I was most uncommonly\r
+shocked, indeed!--Poor Edward!--he has done for himself\r
+completely--shut himself out for ever from all decent society!--but, as\r
+I directly said to my mother, I am not in the least surprised at it;\r
+from his style of education, it was always to be expected. My poor\r
+mother was half frantic."\r
+\r
+"Have you ever seen the lady?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; once, while she was staying in this house, I happened to drop in\r
+for ten minutes; and I saw quite enough of her. The merest awkward\r
+country girl, without style, or elegance, and almost without beauty.--\r
+I remember her perfectly. Just the kind of girl I should suppose\r
+likely to captivate poor Edward. I offered immediately, as soon as my\r
+mother related the affair to me, to talk to him myself, and dissuade\r
+him from the match; but it was too late THEN, I found, to do any thing,\r
+for unluckily, I was not in the way at first, and knew nothing of it\r
+till after the breach had taken place, when it was not for me, you\r
+know, to interfere. But had I been informed of it a few hours\r
+earlier--I think it is most probable--that something might have been\r
+hit on. I certainly should have represented it to Edward in a very\r
+strong light. 'My dear fellow,' I should have said, 'consider what you\r
+are doing. You are making a most disgraceful connection, and such a\r
+one as your family are unanimous in disapproving.' I cannot help\r
+thinking, in short, that means might have been found. But now it is\r
+all too late. He must be starved, you know;--that is certain;\r
+absolutely starved."\r
+\r
+He had just settled this point with great composure, when the entrance\r
+of Mrs. John Dashwood put an end to the subject. But though SHE never\r
+spoke of it out of her own family, Elinor could see its influence on\r
+her mind, in the something like confusion of countenance with which she\r
+entered, and an attempt at cordiality in her behaviour to herself. She\r
+even proceeded so far as to be concerned to find that Elinor and her\r
+sister were so soon to leave town, as she had hoped to see more of\r
+them;--an exertion in which her husband, who attended her into the\r
+room, and hung enamoured over her accents, seemed to distinguish every\r
+thing that was most affectionate and graceful.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 42\r
+\r
+\r
+One other short call in Harley Street, in which Elinor received her\r
+brother's congratulations on their travelling so far towards Barton\r
+without any expense, and on Colonel Brandon's being to follow them to\r
+Cleveland in a day or two, completed the intercourse of the brother and\r
+sisters in town;--and a faint invitation from Fanny, to come to Norland\r
+whenever it should happen to be in their way, which of all things was\r
+the most unlikely to occur, with a more warm, though less public,\r
+assurance, from John to Elinor, of the promptitude with which he should\r
+come to see her at Delaford, was all that foretold any meeting in the\r
+country.\r
+\r
+It amused her to observe that all her friends seemed determined to send\r
+her to Delaford;--a place, in which, of all others, she would now least\r
+chuse to visit, or wish to reside; for not only was it considered as\r
+her future home by her brother and Mrs. Jennings, but even Lucy, when\r
+they parted, gave her a pressing invitation to visit her there.\r
+\r
+Very early in April, and tolerably early in the day, the two parties\r
+from Hanover Square and Berkeley Street set out from their respective\r
+homes, to meet, by appointment, on the road. For the convenience of\r
+Charlotte and her child, they were to be more than two days on their\r
+journey, and Mr. Palmer, travelling more expeditiously with Colonel\r
+Brandon, was to join them at Cleveland soon after their arrival.\r
+\r
+Marianne, few as had been her hours of comfort in London, and eager as\r
+she had long been to quit it, could not, when it came to the point, bid\r
+adieu to the house in which she had for the last time enjoyed those\r
+hopes, and that confidence, in Willoughby, which were now extinguished\r
+for ever, without great pain. Nor could she leave the place in which\r
+Willoughby remained, busy in new engagements, and new schemes, in which\r
+SHE could have no share, without shedding many tears.\r
+\r
+Elinor's satisfaction, at the moment of removal, was more positive.\r
+She had no such object for her lingering thoughts to fix on, she left\r
+no creature behind, from whom it would give her a moment's regret to be\r
+divided for ever, she was pleased to be free herself from the\r
+persecution of Lucy's friendship, she was grateful for bringing her\r
+sister away unseen by Willoughby since his marriage, and she looked\r
+forward with hope to what a few months of tranquility at Barton might\r
+do towards restoring Marianne's peace of mind, and confirming her own.\r
+\r
+Their journey was safely performed. The second day brought them into\r
+the cherished, or the prohibited, county of Somerset, for as such was\r
+it dwelt on by turns in Marianne's imagination; and in the forenoon of\r
+the third they drove up to Cleveland.\r
+\r
+Cleveland was a spacious, modern-built house, situated on a sloping\r
+lawn. It had no park, but the pleasure-grounds were tolerably\r
+extensive; and like every other place of the same degree of importance,\r
+it had its open shrubbery, and closer wood walk, a road of smooth\r
+gravel winding round a plantation, led to the front, the lawn was\r
+dotted over with timber, the house itself was under the guardianship of\r
+the fir, the mountain-ash, and the acacia, and a thick screen of them\r
+altogether, interspersed with tall Lombardy poplars, shut out the\r
+offices.\r
+\r
+Marianne entered the house with a heart swelling with emotion from the\r
+consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty\r
+from Combe Magna; and before she had been five minutes within its\r
+walls, while the others were busily helping Charlotte to show her child\r
+to the housekeeper, she quitted it again, stealing away through the\r
+winding shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a\r
+distant eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering\r
+over a wide tract of country to the south-east, could fondly rest on\r
+the farthest ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their\r
+summits Combe Magna might be seen.\r
+\r
+In such moments of precious, invaluable misery, she rejoiced in tears\r
+of agony to be at Cleveland; and as she returned by a different circuit\r
+to the house, feeling all the happy privilege of country liberty, of\r
+wandering from place to place in free and luxurious solitude, she\r
+resolved to spend almost every hour of every day while she remained\r
+with the Palmers, in the indulgence of such solitary rambles.\r
+\r
+She returned just in time to join the others as they quitted the house,\r
+on an excursion through its more immediate premises; and the rest of\r
+the morning was easily whiled away, in lounging round the kitchen\r
+garden, examining the bloom upon its walls, and listening to the\r
+gardener's lamentations upon blights, in dawdling through the\r
+green-house, where the loss of her favourite plants, unwarily exposed,\r
+and nipped by the lingering frost, raised the laughter of\r
+Charlotte,--and in visiting her poultry-yard, where, in the\r
+disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid, by hens forsaking their nests, or\r
+being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid decrease of a promising young\r
+brood, she found fresh sources of merriment.\r
+\r
+The morning was fine and dry, and Marianne, in her plan of employment\r
+abroad, had not calculated for any change of weather during their stay\r
+at Cleveland. With great surprise therefore, did she find herself\r
+prevented by a settled rain from going out again after dinner. She had\r
+depended on a twilight walk to the Grecian temple, and perhaps all over\r
+the grounds, and an evening merely cold or damp would not have deterred\r
+her from it; but a heavy and settled rain even SHE could not fancy dry\r
+or pleasant weather for walking.\r
+\r
+Their party was small, and the hours passed quietly away. Mrs. Palmer\r
+had her child, and Mrs. Jennings her carpet-work; they talked of the\r
+friends they had left behind, arranged Lady Middleton's engagements,\r
+and wondered whether Mr. Palmer and Colonel Brandon would get farther\r
+than Reading that night. Elinor, however little concerned in it,\r
+joined in their discourse; and Marianne, who had the knack of finding\r
+her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by\r
+the family in general, soon procured herself a book.\r
+\r
+Nothing was wanting on Mrs. Palmer's side that constant and friendly\r
+good humour could do, to make them feel themselves welcome. The\r
+openness and heartiness of her manner more than atoned for that want of\r
+recollection and elegance which made her often deficient in the forms\r
+of politeness; her kindness, recommended by so pretty a face, was\r
+engaging; her folly, though evident was not disgusting, because it was\r
+not conceited; and Elinor could have forgiven every thing but her laugh.\r
+\r
+The two gentlemen arrived the next day to a very late dinner, affording\r
+a pleasant enlargement of the party, and a very welcome variety to\r
+their conversation, which a long morning of the same continued rain had\r
+reduced very low.\r
+\r
+Elinor had seen so little of Mr. Palmer, and in that little had seen so\r
+much variety in his address to her sister and herself, that she knew\r
+not what to expect to find him in his own family. She found him,\r
+however, perfectly the gentleman in his behaviour to all his visitors,\r
+and only occasionally rude to his wife and her mother; she found him\r
+very capable of being a pleasant companion, and only prevented from\r
+being so always, by too great an aptitude to fancy himself as much\r
+superior to people in general, as he must feel himself to be to Mrs.\r
+Jennings and Charlotte. For the rest of his character and habits, they\r
+were marked, as far as Elinor could perceive, with no traits at all\r
+unusual in his sex and time of life. He was nice in his eating,\r
+uncertain in his hours; fond of his child, though affecting to slight\r
+it; and idled away the mornings at billiards, which ought to have been\r
+devoted to business. She liked him, however, upon the whole, much\r
+better than she had expected, and in her heart was not sorry that she\r
+could like him no more;--not sorry to be driven by the observation of\r
+his Epicurism, his selfishness, and his conceit, to rest with\r
+complacency on the remembrance of Edward's generous temper, simple\r
+taste, and diffident feelings.\r
+\r
+Of Edward, or at least of some of his concerns, she now received\r
+intelligence from Colonel Brandon, who had been into Dorsetshire\r
+lately; and who, treating her at once as the disinterested friend of\r
+Mr. Ferrars, and the kind confidante of himself, talked to her a\r
+great deal of the parsonage at Delaford, described its deficiencies,\r
+and told her what he meant to do himself towards removing them.--His\r
+behaviour to her in this, as well as in every other particular, his\r
+open pleasure in meeting her after an absence of only ten days, his\r
+readiness to converse with her, and his deference for her opinion,\r
+might very well justify Mrs. Jennings's persuasion of his attachment,\r
+and would have been enough, perhaps, had not Elinor still, as from the\r
+first, believed Marianne his real favourite, to make her suspect it\r
+herself. But as it was, such a notion had scarcely ever entered her\r
+head, except by Mrs. Jennings's suggestion; and she could not help\r
+believing herself the nicest observer of the two;--she watched his\r
+eyes, while Mrs. Jennings thought only of his behaviour;--and while his\r
+looks of anxious solicitude on Marianne's feeling, in her head and\r
+throat, the beginning of a heavy cold, because unexpressed by words,\r
+entirely escaped the latter lady's observation;--SHE could discover in\r
+them the quick feelings, and needless alarm of a lover.\r
+\r
+Two delightful twilight walks on the third and fourth evenings of her\r
+being there, not merely on the dry gravel of the shrubbery, but all\r
+over the grounds, and especially in the most distant parts of them,\r
+where there was something more of wildness than in the rest, where the\r
+trees were the oldest, and the grass was the longest and wettest,\r
+had--assisted by the still greater imprudence of sitting in her wet\r
+shoes and stockings--given Marianne a cold so violent as, though for a\r
+day or two trifled with or denied, would force itself by increasing\r
+ailments on the concern of every body, and the notice of herself.\r
+Prescriptions poured in from all quarters, and as usual, were all\r
+declined. Though heavy and feverish, with a pain in her limbs, and a\r
+cough, and a sore throat, a good night's rest was to cure her entirely;\r
+and it was with difficulty that Elinor prevailed on her, when she went\r
+to bed, to try one or two of the simplest of the remedies.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 43\r
+\r
+\r
+Marianne got up the next morning at her usual time; to every inquiry\r
+replied that she was better, and tried to prove herself so, by engaging\r
+in her accustomary employments. But a day spent in sitting shivering\r
+over the fire with a book in her hand, which she was unable to read, or\r
+in lying, weary and languid, on a sofa, did not speak much in favour of\r
+her amendment; and when, at last, she went early to bed, more and more\r
+indisposed, Colonel Brandon was only astonished at her sister's\r
+composure, who, though attending and nursing her the whole day, against\r
+Marianne's inclination, and forcing proper medicines on her at night,\r
+trusted, like Marianne, to the certainty and efficacy of sleep, and\r
+felt no real alarm.\r
+\r
+A very restless and feverish night, however, disappointed the\r
+expectation of both; and when Marianne, after persisting in rising,\r
+confessed herself unable to sit up, and returned voluntarily to her\r
+bed, Elinor was very ready to adopt Mrs. Jennings's advice, of sending\r
+for the Palmers' apothecary.\r
+\r
+He came, examined his patient, and though encouraging Miss Dashwood to\r
+expect that a very few days would restore her sister to health, yet, by\r
+pronouncing her disorder to have a putrid tendency, and allowing the\r
+word "infection" to pass his lips, gave instant alarm to Mrs. Palmer,\r
+on her baby's account. Mrs. Jennings, who had been inclined from the\r
+first to think Marianne's complaint more serious than Elinor, now\r
+looked very grave on Mr. Harris's report, and confirming Charlotte's\r
+fears and caution, urged the necessity of her immediate removal with\r
+her infant; and Mr. Palmer, though treating their apprehensions as\r
+idle, found the anxiety and importunity of his wife too great to be\r
+withstood. Her departure, therefore, was fixed on; and within an hour\r
+after Mr. Harris's arrival, she set off, with her little boy and his\r
+nurse, for the house of a near relation of Mr. Palmer's, who lived a\r
+few miles on the other side of Bath; whither her husband promised, at\r
+her earnest entreaty, to join her in a day or two; and whither she was\r
+almost equally urgent with her mother to accompany her. Mrs. Jennings,\r
+however, with a kindness of heart which made Elinor really love her,\r
+declared her resolution of not stirring from Cleveland as long as\r
+Marianne remained ill, and of endeavouring, by her own attentive care,\r
+to supply to her the place of the mother she had taken her from; and\r
+Elinor found her on every occasion a most willing and active helpmate,\r
+desirous to share in all her fatigues, and often by her better\r
+experience in nursing, of material use.\r
+\r
+Poor Marianne, languid and low from the nature of her malady, and\r
+feeling herself universally ill, could no longer hope that tomorrow\r
+would find her recovered; and the idea of what tomorrow would have\r
+produced, but for this unlucky illness, made every ailment severe; for\r
+on that day they were to have begun their journey home; and, attended\r
+the whole way by a servant of Mrs. Jennings, were to have taken their\r
+mother by surprise on the following forenoon. The little she said was\r
+all in lamentation of this inevitable delay; though Elinor tried to\r
+raise her spirits, and make her believe, as she THEN really believed\r
+herself, that it would be a very short one.\r
+\r
+The next day produced little or no alteration in the state of the\r
+patient; she certainly was not better, and, except that there was no\r
+amendment, did not appear worse. Their party was now farther reduced;\r
+for Mr. Palmer, though very unwilling to go as well from real humanity\r
+and good-nature, as from a dislike of appearing to be frightened away\r
+by his wife, was persuaded at last by Colonel Brandon to perform his\r
+promise of following her; and while he was preparing to go, Colonel\r
+Brandon himself, with a much greater exertion, began to talk of going\r
+likewise.--Here, however, the kindness of Mrs. Jennings interposed most\r
+acceptably; for to send the Colonel away while his love was in so much\r
+uneasiness on her sister's account, would be to deprive them both, she\r
+thought, of every comfort; and therefore telling him at once that his\r
+stay at Cleveland was necessary to herself, that she should want him to\r
+play at piquet of an evening, while Miss Dashwood was above with her\r
+sister, &c. she urged him so strongly to remain, that he, who was\r
+gratifying the first wish of his own heart by a compliance, could not\r
+long even affect to demur; especially as Mrs. Jennings's entreaty was\r
+warmly seconded by Mr. Palmer, who seemed to feel a relief to himself,\r
+in leaving behind him a person so well able to assist or advise Miss\r
+Dashwood in any emergence.\r
+\r
+Marianne was, of course, kept in ignorance of all these arrangements.\r
+She knew not that she had been the means of sending the owners of\r
+Cleveland away, in about seven days from the time of their arrival. It\r
+gave her no surprise that she saw nothing of Mrs. Palmer; and as it\r
+gave her likewise no concern, she never mentioned her name.\r
+\r
+Two days passed away from the time of Mr. Palmer's departure, and her\r
+situation continued, with little variation, the same. Mr. Harris, who\r
+attended her every day, still talked boldly of a speedy recovery, and\r
+Miss Dashwood was equally sanguine; but the expectation of the others\r
+was by no means so cheerful. Mrs. Jennings had determined very early\r
+in the seizure that Marianne would never get over it, and Colonel\r
+Brandon, who was chiefly of use in listening to Mrs. Jennings's\r
+forebodings, was not in a state of mind to resist their influence. He\r
+tried to reason himself out of fears, which the different judgment of\r
+the apothecary seemed to render absurd; but the many hours of each day\r
+in which he was left entirely alone, were but too favourable for the\r
+admission of every melancholy idea, and he could not expel from his\r
+mind the persuasion that he should see Marianne no more.\r
+\r
+On the morning of the third day however, the gloomy anticipations of\r
+both were almost done away; for when Mr. Harris arrived, he declared\r
+his patient materially better. Her pulse was much stronger, and every\r
+symptom more favourable than on the preceding visit. Elinor, confirmed\r
+in every pleasant hope, was all cheerfulness; rejoicing that in her\r
+letters to her mother, she had pursued her own judgment rather than her\r
+friend's, in making very light of the indisposition which delayed them\r
+at Cleveland; and almost fixing on the time when Marianne would be able\r
+to travel.\r
+\r
+But the day did not close so auspiciously as it began.-- Towards the\r
+evening Marianne became ill again, growing more heavy, restless, and\r
+uncomfortable than before. Her sister, however, still sanguine, was\r
+willing to attribute the change to nothing more than the fatigue of\r
+having sat up to have her bed made; and carefully administering the\r
+cordials prescribed, saw her, with satisfaction, sink at last into a\r
+slumber, from which she expected the most beneficial effects. Her\r
+sleep, though not so quiet as Elinor wished to see it, lasted a\r
+considerable time; and anxious to observe the result of it herself, she\r
+resolved to sit with her during the whole of it. Mrs. Jennings,\r
+knowing nothing of any change in the patient, went unusually early to\r
+bed; her maid, who was one of the principal nurses, was recreating\r
+herself in the housekeeper's room, and Elinor remained alone with\r
+Marianne.\r
+\r
+The repose of the latter became more and more disturbed; and her\r
+sister, who watched, with unremitting attention her continual change of\r
+posture, and heard the frequent but inarticulate sounds of complaint\r
+which passed her lips, was almost wishing to rouse her from so painful\r
+a slumber, when Marianne, suddenly awakened by some accidental noise in\r
+the house, started hastily up, and, with feverish wildness, cried out,--\r
+\r
+"Is mama coming?--"\r
+\r
+"Not yet," cried the other, concealing her terror, and assisting\r
+Marianne to lie down again, "but she will be here, I hope, before it is\r
+long. It is a great way, you know, from hence to Barton."\r
+\r
+"But she must not go round by London," cried Marianne, in the same\r
+hurried manner. "I shall never see her, if she goes by London."\r
+\r
+Elinor perceived with alarm that she was not quite herself, and, while\r
+attempting to soothe her, eagerly felt her pulse. It was lower and\r
+quicker than ever! and Marianne, still talking wildly of mama, her\r
+alarm increased so rapidly, as to determine her on sending instantly\r
+for Mr. Harris, and despatching a messenger to Barton for her mother.\r
+To consult with Colonel Brandon on the best means of effecting the\r
+latter, was a thought which immediately followed the resolution of its\r
+performance; and as soon she had rung up the maid to take her place by\r
+her sister, she hastened down to the drawing-room, where she knew he\r
+was generally to be found at a much later hour than the present.\r
+\r
+It was no time for hesitation. Her fears and her difficulties were\r
+immediately before him. Her fears, he had no courage, no confidence to\r
+attempt the removal of:--he listened to them in silent despondence;--but\r
+her difficulties were instantly obviated, for with a readiness that\r
+seemed to speak the occasion, and the service pre-arranged in his mind,\r
+he offered himself as the messenger who should fetch Mrs. Dashwood.\r
+Elinor made no resistance that was not easily overcome. She thanked him\r
+with brief, though fervent gratitude, and while he went to hurry off his\r
+servant with a message to Mr. Harris, and an order for post-horses\r
+directly, she wrote a few lines to her mother.\r
+\r
+The comfort of such a friend at that moment as Colonel Brandon--or such\r
+a companion for her mother,--how gratefully was it felt!--a companion\r
+whose judgment would guide, whose attendance must relieve, and whose\r
+friendship might soothe her!--as far as the shock of such a summons\r
+COULD be lessened to her, his presence, his manners, his assistance,\r
+would lessen it.\r
+\r
+HE, meanwhile, whatever he might feel, acted with all the firmness of a\r
+collected mind, made every necessary arrangement with the utmost\r
+despatch, and calculated with exactness the time in which she might\r
+look for his return. Not a moment was lost in delay of any kind. The\r
+horses arrived, even before they were expected, and Colonel Brandon\r
+only pressing her hand with a look of solemnity, and a few words spoken\r
+too low to reach her ear, hurried into the carriage. It was then about\r
+twelve o'clock, and she returned to her sister's apartment to wait for\r
+the arrival of the apothecary, and to watch by her the rest of the\r
+night. It was a night of almost equal suffering to both. Hour after\r
+hour passed away in sleepless pain and delirium on Marianne's side, and\r
+in the most cruel anxiety on Elinor's, before Mr. Harris appeared. Her\r
+apprehensions once raised, paid by their excess for all her former\r
+security; and the servant who sat up with her, for she would not allow\r
+Mrs. Jennings to be called, only tortured her more, by hints of what\r
+her mistress had always thought.\r
+\r
+Marianne's ideas were still, at intervals, fixed incoherently on her\r
+mother, and whenever she mentioned her name, it gave a pang to the\r
+heart of poor Elinor, who, reproaching herself for having trifled with\r
+so many days of illness, and wretched for some immediate relief,\r
+fancied that all relief might soon be in vain, that every thing had\r
+been delayed too long, and pictured to herself her suffering mother\r
+arriving too late to see this darling child, or to see her rational.\r
+\r
+She was on the point of sending again for Mr. Harris, or if HE could\r
+not come, for some other advice, when the former--but not till after\r
+five o'clock--arrived. His opinion, however, made some little amends\r
+for his delay, for though acknowledging a very unexpected and\r
+unpleasant alteration in his patient, he would not allow the danger to\r
+be material, and talked of the relief which a fresh mode of treatment\r
+must procure, with a confidence which, in a lesser degree, was\r
+communicated to Elinor. He promised to call again in the course of\r
+three or four hours, and left both the patient and her anxious\r
+attendant more composed than he had found them.\r
+\r
+With strong concern, and with many reproaches for not being called to\r
+their aid, did Mrs. Jennings hear in the morning of what had passed.\r
+Her former apprehensions, now with greater reason restored, left her no\r
+doubt of the event; and though trying to speak comfort to Elinor, her\r
+conviction of her sister's danger would not allow her to offer the\r
+comfort of hope. Her heart was really grieved. The rapid decay, the\r
+early death of a girl so young, so lovely as Marianne, must have struck\r
+a less interested person with concern. On Mrs. Jennings's compassion\r
+she had other claims. She had been for three months her companion, was\r
+still under her care, and she was known to have been greatly injured,\r
+and long unhappy. The distress of her sister too, particularly a\r
+favourite, was before her;--and as for their mother, when Mrs. Jennings\r
+considered that Marianne might probably be to HER what Charlotte was to\r
+herself, her sympathy in HER sufferings was very sincere.\r
+\r
+Mr. Harris was punctual in his second visit;--but he came to be\r
+disappointed in his hopes of what the last would produce. His\r
+medicines had failed;--the fever was unabated; and Marianne only more\r
+quiet--not more herself--remained in a heavy stupor. Elinor, catching\r
+all, and more than all, his fears in a moment, proposed to call in\r
+further advice. But he judged it unnecessary: he had still something\r
+more to try, some more fresh application, of whose success he was as\r
+confident as the last, and his visit concluded with encouraging\r
+assurances which reached the ear, but could not enter the heart of Miss\r
+Dashwood. She was calm, except when she thought of her mother; but she\r
+was almost hopeless; and in this state she continued till noon,\r
+scarcely stirring from her sister's bed, her thoughts wandering from\r
+one image of grief, one suffering friend to another, and her spirits\r
+oppressed to the utmost by the conversation of Mrs. Jennings, who\r
+scrupled not to attribute the severity and danger of this attack to the\r
+many weeks of previous indisposition which Marianne's disappointment\r
+had brought on. Elinor felt all the reasonableness of the idea, and it\r
+gave fresh misery to her reflections.\r
+\r
+About noon, however, she began--but with a caution--a dread of\r
+disappointment which for some time kept her silent, even to her\r
+friend--to fancy, to hope she could perceive a slight amendment in her\r
+sister's pulse;--she waited, watched, and examined it again and\r
+again;--and at last, with an agitation more difficult to bury under\r
+exterior calmness, than all her foregoing distress, ventured to\r
+communicate her hopes. Mrs. Jennings, though forced, on examination,\r
+to acknowledge a temporary revival, tried to keep her young friend from\r
+indulging a thought of its continuance;--and Elinor, conning over every\r
+injunction of distrust, told herself likewise not to hope. But it was\r
+too late. Hope had already entered; and feeling all its anxious\r
+flutter, she bent over her sister to watch--she hardly knew for what.\r
+Half an hour passed away, and the favourable symptom yet blessed her.\r
+Others even arose to confirm it. Her breath, her skin, her lips, all\r
+flattered Elinor with signs of amendment; and Marianne fixed her eyes\r
+on her with a rational, though languid, gaze. Anxiety and hope now\r
+oppressed her in equal degrees, and left her no moment of tranquillity\r
+till the arrival of Mr. Harris at four o'clock;--when his assurances,\r
+his felicitations on a recovery in her sister even surpassing his\r
+expectation, gave her confidence, comfort, and tears of joy.\r
+\r
+Marianne was in every respect materially better, and he declared her\r
+entirely out of danger. Mrs. Jennings, perhaps satisfied with the\r
+partial justification of her forebodings which had been found in their\r
+late alarm, allowed herself to trust in his judgment, and admitted,\r
+with unfeigned joy, and soon with unequivocal cheerfulness, the\r
+probability of an entire recovery.\r
+\r
+Elinor could not be cheerful. Her joy was of a different kind, and led\r
+to any thing rather than to gaiety. Marianne restored to life, health,\r
+friends, and to her doting mother, was an idea to fill her heart with\r
+sensations of exquisite comfort, and expand it in fervent\r
+gratitude;--but it led to no outward demonstrations of joy, no words,\r
+no smiles. All within Elinor's breast was satisfaction, silent and\r
+strong.\r
+\r
+She continued by the side of her sister, with little intermission the\r
+whole afternoon, calming every fear, satisfying every inquiry of her\r
+enfeebled spirits, supplying every succour, and watching almost every\r
+look and every breath. The possibility of a relapse would of course,\r
+in some moments, occur to remind her of what anxiety was--but when she\r
+saw, on her frequent and minute examination, that every symptom of\r
+recovery continued, and saw Marianne at six o'clock sink into a quiet,\r
+steady, and to all appearance comfortable, sleep, she silenced every\r
+doubt.\r
+\r
+The time was now drawing on, when Colonel Brandon might be expected\r
+back. At ten o'clock, she trusted, or at least not much later her\r
+mother would be relieved from the dreadful suspense in which she must\r
+now be travelling towards them. The Colonel, too!--perhaps scarcely\r
+less an object of pity!--Oh!--how slow was the progress of time which\r
+yet kept them in ignorance!\r
+\r
+At seven o'clock, leaving Marianne still sweetly asleep, she joined\r
+Mrs. Jennings in the drawing-room to tea. Of breakfast she had been\r
+kept by her fears, and of dinner by their sudden reverse, from eating\r
+much;--and the present refreshment, therefore, with such feelings of\r
+content as she brought to it, was particularly welcome. Mrs. Jennings\r
+would have persuaded her, at its conclusion, to take some rest before\r
+her mother's arrival, and allow HER to take her place by Marianne; but\r
+Elinor had no sense of fatigue, no capability of sleep at that moment\r
+about her, and she was not to be kept away from her sister an\r
+unnecessary instant. Mrs. Jennings therefore attending her up stairs\r
+into the sick chamber, to satisfy herself that all continued right,\r
+left her there again to her charge and her thoughts, and retired to her\r
+own room to write letters and sleep.\r
+\r
+The night was cold and stormy. The wind roared round the house, and\r
+the rain beat against the windows; but Elinor, all happiness within,\r
+regarded it not. Marianne slept through every blast; and the\r
+travellers--they had a rich reward in store, for every present\r
+inconvenience.\r
+\r
+The clock struck eight. Had it been ten, Elinor would have been\r
+convinced that at that moment she heard a carriage driving up to the\r
+house; and so strong was the persuasion that she DID, in spite of the\r
+ALMOST impossibility of their being already come, that she moved into\r
+the adjoining dressing-closet and opened a window shutter, to be\r
+satisfied of the truth. She instantly saw that her ears had not\r
+deceived her. The flaring lamps of a carriage were immediately in\r
+view. By their uncertain light she thought she could discern it to be\r
+drawn by four horses; and this, while it told the excess of her poor\r
+mother's alarm, gave some explanation to such unexpected rapidity.\r
+\r
+Never in her life had Elinor found it so difficult to be calm, as at\r
+that moment. The knowledge of what her mother must be feeling as the\r
+carriage stopt at the door--of her doubt--her dread--perhaps her\r
+despair!--and of what SHE had to tell!--with such knowledge it was\r
+impossible to be calm. All that remained to be done was to be speedy;\r
+and, therefore staying only till she could leave Mrs. Jennings's maid\r
+with her sister, she hurried down stairs.\r
+\r
+The bustle in the vestibule, as she passed along an inner lobby,\r
+assured her that they were already in the house. She rushed to the\r
+drawing-room,--she entered it,--and saw only Willoughby.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 44\r
+\r
+\r
+Elinor, starting back with a look of horror at the sight of him, obeyed\r
+the first impulse of her heart in turning instantly to quit the room,\r
+and her hand was already on the lock, when its action was suspended by\r
+his hastily advancing, and saying, in a voice rather of command than\r
+supplication,\r
+\r
+"Miss Dashwood, for half an hour--for ten minutes--I entreat you to\r
+stay."\r
+\r
+"No, sir," she replied with firmness, "I shall NOT stay. Your business\r
+cannot be with ME. The servants, I suppose, forgot to tell you that\r
+Mr. Palmer was not in the house."\r
+\r
+"Had they told me," he cried with vehemence, "that Mr. Palmer and all\r
+his relations were at the devil, it would not have turned me from the\r
+door. My business is with you, and only you."\r
+\r
+"With me!"--in the utmost amazement--"well, sir,--be quick--and if you\r
+can--less violent."\r
+\r
+"Sit down, and I will be both."\r
+\r
+She hesitated; she knew not what to do. The possibility of Colonel\r
+Brandon's arriving and finding her there, came across her. But she had\r
+promised to hear him, and her curiosity no less than her honor was\r
+engaged. After a moment's recollection, therefore, concluding that\r
+prudence required dispatch, and that her acquiescence would best\r
+promote it, she walked silently towards the table, and sat down. He\r
+took the opposite chair, and for half a minute not a word was said by\r
+either.\r
+\r
+"Pray be quick, sir,"--said Elinor, impatiently;--"I have no time to\r
+spare."\r
+\r
+He was sitting in an attitude of deep meditation, and seemed not to\r
+hear her.\r
+\r
+"Your sister," said he, with abruptness, a moment afterwards--"is out\r
+of danger. I heard it from the servant. God be praised!--But is it\r
+true? is it really true?"\r
+\r
+Elinor would not speak. He repeated the inquiry with yet greater\r
+eagerness.\r
+\r
+"For God's sake tell me, is she out of danger, or is she not?"\r
+\r
+"We hope she is."\r
+\r
+He rose up, and walked across the room.\r
+\r
+"Had I known as much half an hour ago--But since I AM here,"--speaking\r
+with a forced vivacity as he returned to his seat--"what does it\r
+signify?--For once, Miss Dashwood--it will be the last time,\r
+perhaps--let us be cheerful together.--I am in a fine mood for\r
+gaiety.-- Tell me honestly"--a deeper glow overspreading his\r
+cheeks--"do you think me most a knave or a fool?"\r
+\r
+Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to\r
+think that he must be in liquor;--the strangeness of such a visit, and\r
+of such manners, seemed no otherwise intelligible; and with this\r
+impression she immediately rose, saying,\r
+\r
+"Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe--I am not\r
+at leisure to remain with you longer.-- Whatever your business may be\r
+with me, it will be better recollected and explained to-morrow."\r
+\r
+"I understand you," he replied, with an expressive smile, and a voice\r
+perfectly calm; "yes, I am very drunk.-- A pint of porter with my cold\r
+beef at Marlborough was enough to over-set me."\r
+\r
+"At Marlborough!"--cried Elinor, more and more at a loss to understand\r
+what he would be at.\r
+\r
+"Yes,--I left London this morning at eight o'clock, and the only ten\r
+minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a\r
+nuncheon at Marlborough."\r
+\r
+The steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he\r
+spoke, convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might\r
+bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she\r
+said, after a moment's recollection,\r
+\r
+"Mr. Willoughby, you OUGHT to feel, and I certainly DO--that after what\r
+has passed--your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon\r
+my notice, requires a very particular excuse.--What is it, that you\r
+mean by it?"--\r
+\r
+"I mean,"--said he, with serious energy--"if I can, to make you hate me\r
+one degree less than you do NOW. I mean to offer some kind of\r
+explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart\r
+to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a\r
+blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like\r
+forgiveness from Ma--from your sister."\r
+\r
+"Is this the real reason of your coming?"\r
+\r
+"Upon my soul it is,"--was his answer, with a warmth which brought all\r
+the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made\r
+her think him sincere.\r
+\r
+"If that is all, you may be satisfied already,--for Marianne DOES--she\r
+has LONG forgiven you."\r
+\r
+"Has she?"--he cried, in the same eager tone.-- "Then she has forgiven\r
+me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again,\r
+and on more reasonable grounds.--NOW will you listen to me?"\r
+\r
+Elinor bowed her assent.\r
+\r
+"I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and\r
+thoughtfulness on his own,--"how YOU may have accounted for my\r
+behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have\r
+imputed to me.-- Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me,--it is\r
+worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first\r
+became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view\r
+in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged\r
+to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before.\r
+Your sister's lovely person and interesting manners could not but\r
+please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a\r
+kind--It is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what SHE\r
+was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at first I must\r
+confess, my vanity only was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness,\r
+thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had\r
+always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every\r
+means in my power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design\r
+of returning her affection."\r
+\r
+Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most\r
+angry contempt, stopped him, by saying,\r
+\r
+"It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me\r
+to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by\r
+any thing.-- Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the\r
+subject."\r
+\r
+"I insist on you hearing the whole of it," he replied, "My fortune was\r
+never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of\r
+associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since\r
+my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and\r
+though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet\r
+that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for\r
+some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a\r
+woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not\r
+a thing to be thought of;--and with a meanness, selfishness,\r
+cruelty--which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss\r
+Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much--I was acting in this manner,\r
+trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it.--But\r
+one thing may be said for me: even in that horrid state of selfish\r
+vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I meditated, because I\r
+did not THEN know what it was to love. But have I ever known it?--Well\r
+may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my\r
+feelings to vanity, to avarice?--or, what is more, could I have\r
+sacrificed hers?-- But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty,\r
+which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its\r
+horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that\r
+could make it a blessing."\r
+\r
+"You did then," said Elinor, a little softened, "believe yourself at\r
+one time attached to her?"\r
+\r
+"To have resisted such attractions, to have withstood such\r
+tenderness!--Is there a man on earth who could have done it?--Yes, I\r
+found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the\r
+happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my\r
+intentions were strictly honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even\r
+THEN, however, when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I\r
+allowed myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment\r
+of doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my\r
+circumstances were so greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here--nor\r
+will I stop for YOU to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than\r
+absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already\r
+bound. The event has proved, that I was a cunning fool, providing with\r
+great circumspection for a possible opportunity of making myself\r
+contemptible and wretched for ever. At last, however, my resolution\r
+was taken, and I had determined, as soon as I could engage her alone,\r
+to justify the attentions I had so invariably paid her, and openly\r
+assure her of an affection which I had already taken such pains to\r
+display. But in the interim--in the interim of the very few hours that\r
+were to pass, before I could have an opportunity of speaking with her\r
+in private--a circumstance occurred--an unlucky circumstance, to ruin\r
+all my resolution, and with it all my comfort. A discovery took\r
+place,"--here he hesitated and looked down.--"Mrs. Smith had somehow or\r
+other been informed, I imagine by some distant relation, whose interest\r
+it was to deprive me of her favour, of an affair, a connection--but I\r
+need not explain myself farther," he added, looking at her with an\r
+heightened colour and an enquiring eye--"your particular intimacy--you\r
+have probably heard the whole story long ago."\r
+\r
+"I have," returned Elinor, colouring likewise, and hardening her heart\r
+anew against any compassion for him, "I have heard it all. And how you\r
+will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I\r
+confess is beyond my comprehension."\r
+\r
+"Remember," cried Willoughby, "from whom you received the account.\r
+Could it be an impartial one? I acknowledge that her situation and her\r
+character ought to have been respected by me. I do not mean to justify\r
+myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I have\r
+nothing to urge--that because she was injured she was irreproachable,\r
+and because I was a libertine, SHE must be a saint. If the violence of\r
+her passions, the weakness of her understanding--I do not mean,\r
+however, to defend myself. Her affection for me deserved better\r
+treatment, and I often, with great self-reproach, recall the tenderness\r
+which, for a very short time, had the power of creating any return. I\r
+wish--I heartily wish it had never been. But I have injured more than\r
+herself; and I have injured one, whose affection for me--(may I say\r
+it?) was scarcely less warm than hers; and whose mind--Oh! how\r
+infinitely superior!"--\r
+\r
+"Your indifference, however, towards that unfortunate girl--I must say\r
+it, unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well\r
+be--your indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her. Do\r
+not think yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of\r
+understanding on her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours.\r
+You must have known, that while you were enjoying yourself in\r
+Devonshire pursuing fresh schemes, always gay, always happy, she was\r
+reduced to the extremest indigence."\r
+\r
+"But, upon my soul, I did NOT know it," he warmly replied; "I did not\r
+recollect that I had omitted to give her my direction; and common sense\r
+might have told her how to find it out."\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?"\r
+\r
+"She taxed me with the offence at once, and my confusion may be\r
+guessed. The purity of her life, the formality of her notions, her\r
+ignorance of the world--every thing was against me. The matter itself\r
+I could not deny, and vain was every endeavour to soften it. She was\r
+previously disposed, I believe, to doubt the morality of my conduct in\r
+general, and was moreover discontented with the very little attention,\r
+the very little portion of my time that I had bestowed on her, in my\r
+present visit. In short, it ended in a total breach. By one measure I\r
+might have saved myself. In the height of her morality, good woman!\r
+she offered to forgive the past, if I would marry Eliza. That could\r
+not be--and I was formally dismissed from her favour and her house.\r
+The night following this affair--I was to go the next morning--was\r
+spent by me in deliberating on what my future conduct should be. The\r
+struggle was great--but it ended too soon. My affection for Marianne,\r
+my thorough conviction of her attachment to me--it was all insufficient\r
+to outweigh that dread of poverty, or get the better of those false\r
+ideas of the necessity of riches, which I was naturally inclined to\r
+feel, and expensive society had increased. I had reason to believe\r
+myself secure of my present wife, if I chose to address her, and I\r
+persuaded myself to think that nothing else in common prudence remained\r
+for me to do. A heavy scene however awaited me, before I could leave\r
+Devonshire;--I was engaged to dine with you on that very day; some\r
+apology was therefore necessary for my breaking this engagement. But\r
+whether I should write this apology, or deliver it in person, was a\r
+point of long debate. To see Marianne, I felt, would be dreadful, and\r
+I even doubted whether I could see her again, and keep to my\r
+resolution. In that point, however, I undervalued my own magnanimity,\r
+as the event declared; for I went, I saw her, and saw her miserable,\r
+and left her miserable--and left her hoping never to see her again."\r
+\r
+"Why did you call, Mr. Willoughby?" said Elinor, reproachfully; "a note\r
+would have answered every purpose.-- Why was it necessary to call?"\r
+\r
+"It was necessary to my own pride. I could not bear to leave the\r
+country in a manner that might lead you, or the rest of the\r
+neighbourhood, to suspect any part of what had really passed between\r
+Mrs. Smith and myself--and I resolved therefore on calling at the\r
+cottage, in my way to Honiton. The sight of your dear sister, however,\r
+was really dreadful; and, to heighten the matter, I found her alone.\r
+You were all gone I do not know where. I had left her only the evening\r
+before, so fully, so firmly resolved within my self on doing right! A\r
+few hours were to have engaged her to me for ever; and I remember how\r
+happy, how gay were my spirits, as I walked from the cottage to\r
+Allenham, satisfied with myself, delighted with every body! But in\r
+this, our last interview of friendship, I approached her with a sense\r
+of guilt that almost took from me the power of dissembling. Her\r
+sorrow, her disappointment, her deep regret, when I told her that I was\r
+obliged to leave Devonshire so immediately--I never shall forget\r
+it--united too with such reliance, such confidence in me!--Oh,\r
+God!--what a hard-hearted rascal I was!"\r
+\r
+They were both silent for a few moments. Elinor first spoke.\r
+\r
+"Did you tell her that you should soon return?"\r
+\r
+"I do not know what I told her," he replied, impatiently; "less than\r
+was due to the past, beyond a doubt, and in all likelihood much more\r
+than was justified by the future. I cannot think of it.--It won't\r
+do.--Then came your dear mother to torture me farther, with all her\r
+kindness and confidence. Thank Heaven! it DID torture me. I was\r
+miserable. Miss Dashwood, you cannot have an idea of the comfort it\r
+gives me to look back on my own misery. I owe such a grudge to myself\r
+for the stupid, rascally folly of my own heart, that all my past\r
+sufferings under it are only triumph and exultation to me now. Well, I\r
+went, left all that I loved, and went to those to whom, at best, I was\r
+only indifferent. My journey to town--travelling with my own horses,\r
+and therefore so tediously--no creature to speak to--my own reflections\r
+so cheerful--when I looked forward every thing so inviting!--when I\r
+looked back at Barton, the picture so soothing!--oh, it was a blessed\r
+journey!"\r
+\r
+He stopped.\r
+\r
+"Well, sir," said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew impatient for\r
+his departure, "and this is all?"\r
+\r
+"Ah!--no,--have you forgot what passed in town?-- That infamous\r
+letter--Did she shew it you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I saw every note that passed."\r
+\r
+"When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did, for I was in\r
+town the whole time,) what I felt is--in the common phrase, not to be\r
+expressed; in a more simple one--perhaps too simple to raise any\r
+emotion--my feelings were very, very painful.--Every line, every word\r
+was--in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here,\r
+would forbid--a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in town\r
+was--in the same language--a thunderbolt.--Thunderbolts and\r
+daggers!--what a reproof would she have given me!--her taste, her\r
+opinions--I believe they are better known to me than my own,--and I am\r
+sure they are dearer."\r
+\r
+Elinor's heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of this\r
+extraordinary conversation, was now softened again;--yet she felt it\r
+her duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last.\r
+\r
+"This is not right, Mr. Willoughby.--Remember that you are married.\r
+Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear."\r
+\r
+"Marianne's note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in\r
+former days, that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been\r
+separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of\r
+faith in the constancy of mine as ever, awakened all my remorse. I say\r
+awakened, because time and London, business and dissipation, had in\r
+some measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened\r
+villain, fancying myself indifferent to her, and chusing to fancy that\r
+she too must have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our\r
+past attachment as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my\r
+shoulders in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach,\r
+overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now and then, 'I shall be\r
+heartily glad to hear she is well married.'-- But this note made me\r
+know myself better. I felt that she was infinitely dearer to me than\r
+any other woman in the world, and that I was using her infamously. But\r
+every thing was then just settled between Miss Grey and me. To retreat\r
+was impossible. All that I had to do, was to avoid you both. I sent\r
+no answer to Marianne, intending by that to preserve myself from her\r
+farther notice; and for some time I was even determined not to call in\r
+Berkeley Street;--but at last, judging it wiser to affect the air of a\r
+cool, common acquaintance than anything else, I watched you all safely\r
+out of the house one morning, and left my name."\r
+\r
+"Watched us out of the house!"\r
+\r
+"Even so. You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you, how\r
+often I was on the point of falling in with you. I have entered many a\r
+shop to avoid your sight, as the carriage drove by. Lodging as I did\r
+in Bond Street, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a\r
+glimpse of one or other of you; and nothing but the most constant\r
+watchfulness on my side, a most invariably prevailing desire to keep\r
+out of your sight, could have separated us so long. I avoided the\r
+Middletons as much as possible, as well as everybody else who was\r
+likely to prove an acquaintance in common. Not aware of their being in\r
+town, however, I blundered on Sir John, I believe, the first day of his\r
+coming, and the day after I had called at Mrs. Jennings's. He asked me\r
+to a party, a dance at his house in the evening.--Had he NOT told me as\r
+an inducement that you and your sister were to be there, I should have\r
+felt it too certain a thing, to trust myself near him. The next\r
+morning brought another short note from Marianne--still affectionate,\r
+open, artless, confiding--everything that could make MY conduct most\r
+hateful. I could not answer it. I tried--but could not frame a\r
+sentence. But I thought of her, I believe, every moment of the day.\r
+If you CAN pity me, Miss Dashwood, pity my situation as it was THEN.\r
+With my head and heart full of your sister, I was forced to play the\r
+happy lover to another woman!--Those three or four weeks were worse\r
+than all. Well, at last, as I need not tell you, you were forced on\r
+me; and what a sweet figure I cut!--what an evening of agony it was!--\r
+Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one side, calling me Willoughby in\r
+such a tone!--Oh, God!--holding out her hand to me, asking me for an\r
+explanation, with those bewitching eyes fixed in such speaking\r
+solicitude on my face!--and Sophia, jealous as the devil on the other\r
+hand, looking all that was--Well, it does not signify; it is over\r
+now.-- Such an evening!--I ran away from you all as soon as I could;\r
+but not before I had seen Marianne's sweet face as white as\r
+death.--THAT was the last, last look I ever had of her;--the last\r
+manner in which she appeared to me. It was a horrid sight!--yet when I\r
+thought of her to-day as really dying, it was a kind of comfort to me\r
+to imagine that I knew exactly how she would appear to those, who saw\r
+her last in this world. She was before me, constantly before me, as I\r
+travelled, in the same look and hue."\r
+\r
+A short pause of mutual thoughtfulness succeeded. Willoughby first\r
+rousing himself, broke it thus:\r
+\r
+"Well, let me make haste and be gone. Your sister is certainly better,\r
+certainly out of danger?"\r
+\r
+"We are assured of it."\r
+\r
+"Your poor mother, too!--doting on Marianne."\r
+\r
+"But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you any thing to\r
+say about that?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, THAT in particular. Your sister wrote to me again, you\r
+know, the very next morning. You saw what she said. I was\r
+breakfasting at the Ellisons,--and her letter, with some others, was\r
+brought to me there from my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia's\r
+eye before it caught mine--and its size, the elegance of the paper, the\r
+hand-writing altogether, immediately gave her a suspicion. Some vague\r
+report had reached her before of my attachment to some young lady in\r
+Devonshire, and what had passed within her observation the preceding\r
+evening had marked who the young lady was, and made her more jealous\r
+than ever. Affecting that air of playfulness, therefore, which is\r
+delightful in a woman one loves, she opened the letter directly,\r
+and read its contents. She was well paid for her impudence.\r
+She read what made her wretched. Her wretchedness I could have\r
+borne, but her passion--her malice--At all events it must be appeased.\r
+And, in short--what do you think of my wife's style of\r
+letter-writing?--delicate--tender--truly feminine--was it not?"\r
+\r
+"Your wife!--The letter was in your own hand-writing."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as\r
+I was ashamed to put my name to. The original was all her own--her own\r
+happy thoughts and gentle diction. But what could I do!--we were\r
+engaged, every thing in preparation, the day almost fixed--But I am\r
+talking like a fool. Preparation!--day!--In honest words, her money\r
+was necessary to me, and in a situation like mine, any thing was to be\r
+done to prevent a rupture. And after all, what did it signify to my\r
+character in the opinion of Marianne and her friends, in what language\r
+my answer was couched?--It must have been only to one end. My business\r
+was to declare myself a scoundrel, and whether I did it with a bow or a\r
+bluster was of little importance.-- 'I am ruined for ever in their\r
+opinion--' said I to myself--'I am shut out for ever from their\r
+society, they already think me an unprincipled fellow, this letter will\r
+only make them think me a blackguard one.' Such were my reasonings, as,\r
+in a sort of desperate carelessness, I copied my wife's words, and\r
+parted with the last relics of Marianne. Her three notes--unluckily\r
+they were all in my pocketbook, or I should have denied their\r
+existence, and hoarded them for ever--I was forced to put them up, and\r
+could not even kiss them. And the lock of hair--that too I had always\r
+carried about me in the same pocket-book, which was now searched by\r
+Madam with the most ingratiating virulence,--the dear lock--all, every\r
+memento was torn from me."\r
+\r
+"You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable," said Elinor, while\r
+her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion;\r
+"you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my\r
+sister. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your\r
+wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She\r
+must be attached to you, or she would not have married you. To treat\r
+her with unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to\r
+Marianne--nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience."\r
+\r
+"Do not talk to me of my wife," said he with a heavy sigh.-- "She does\r
+not deserve your compassion.--She knew I had no regard for her when we\r
+married.--Well, married we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be\r
+happy, and afterwards returned to town to be gay.--And now do you pity\r
+me, Miss Dashwood?--or have I said all this to no purpose?-- Am I--be\r
+it only one degree--am I less guilty in your opinion than I was\r
+before?--My intentions were not always wrong. Have I explained away\r
+any part of my guilt?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, you have certainly removed something--a little.-- You have proved\r
+yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You have\r
+proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly\r
+know--the misery that you have inflicted--I hardly know what could have\r
+made it worse."\r
+\r
+"Will you repeat to your sister when she is recovered, what I have been\r
+telling you?--Let me be a little lightened too in her opinion as well\r
+as in yours. You tell me that she has forgiven me already. Let me be\r
+able to fancy that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present\r
+feelings, will draw from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more\r
+gentle, less dignified, forgiveness. Tell her of my misery and my\r
+penitence--tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her, and if\r
+you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever."\r
+\r
+"I will tell her all that is necessary to what may comparatively be\r
+called, your justification. But you have not explained to me the\r
+particular reason of your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness."\r
+\r
+"Last night, in Drury Lane lobby, I ran against Sir John Middleton, and\r
+when he saw who I was--for the first time these two months--he spoke to\r
+me.--That he had cut me ever since my marriage, I had seen without\r
+surprise or resentment. Now, however, his good-natured, honest, stupid\r
+soul, full of indignation against me, and concern for your sister,\r
+could not resist the temptation of telling me what he knew ought\r
+to--though probably he did not think it WOULD--vex me horridly. As\r
+bluntly as he could speak it, therefore, he told me that Marianne\r
+Dashwood was dying of a putrid fever at Cleveland--a letter that\r
+morning received from Mrs. Jennings declared her danger most\r
+imminent--the Palmers are all gone off in a fright, &c.--I was too much\r
+shocked to be able to pass myself off as insensible even to the\r
+undiscerning Sir John. His heart was softened in seeing mine suffer;\r
+and so much of his ill-will was done away, that when we parted, he\r
+almost shook me by the hand while he reminded me of an old promise\r
+about a pointer puppy. What I felt on hearing that your sister was\r
+dying--and dying too, believing me the greatest villain upon earth,\r
+scorning, hating me in her latest moments--for how could I tell what\r
+horrid projects might not have been imputed? ONE person I was sure\r
+would represent me as capable of any thing-- What I felt was\r
+dreadful!--My resolution was soon made, and at eight o'clock this\r
+morning I was in my carriage. Now you know all."\r
+\r
+Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the\r
+irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent\r
+habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the\r
+character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person\r
+and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a\r
+feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and\r
+vain--Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish.\r
+Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another,\r
+had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least\r
+its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty\r
+propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.\r
+The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against\r
+every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no\r
+longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the\r
+sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery,\r
+was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more\r
+incurable nature. From a reverie of this kind she was recalled at the\r
+end of some minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing himself from a reverie\r
+at least equally painful, started up in preparation for going, and\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"There is no use in staying here; I must be off."\r
+\r
+"Are you going back to town?"\r
+\r
+"No--to Combe Magna. I have business there; from thence to town in a\r
+day or two. Good bye."\r
+\r
+He held out his hand. She could not refuse to give him hers;--he\r
+pressed it with affection.\r
+\r
+"And you DO think something better of me than you did?"--said he,\r
+letting it fall, and leaning against the mantel-piece as if forgetting\r
+he was to go.\r
+\r
+Elinor assured him that she did;--that she forgave, pitied, wished him\r
+well--was even interested in his happiness--and added some gentle\r
+counsel as to the behaviour most likely to promote it. His answer was\r
+not very encouraging.\r
+\r
+"As to that," said he, "I must rub through the world as well as I can.\r
+Domestic happiness is out of the question. If, however, I am allowed\r
+to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it\r
+may be the means--it may put me on my guard--at least, it may be\r
+something to live for. Marianne to be sure is lost to me for ever.\r
+Were I even by any blessed chance at liberty again--"\r
+\r
+Elinor stopped him with a reproof.\r
+\r
+"Well,"--he replied--"once more good bye. I shall now go away and live\r
+in dread of one event."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"Your sister's marriage."\r
+\r
+"You are very wrong. She can never be more lost to you than she is\r
+now."\r
+\r
+"But she will be gained by some one else. And if that some one should\r
+be the very he whom, of all others, I could least bear--but I will not\r
+stay to rob myself of all your compassionate goodwill, by shewing that\r
+where I have most injured I can least forgive. Good bye,--God bless\r
+you!"\r
+\r
+And with these words, he almost ran out of the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 45\r
+\r
+\r
+Elinor, for some time after he left her, for some time even after the\r
+sound of his carriage had died away, remained too much oppressed by a\r
+crowd of ideas, widely differing in themselves, but of which sadness\r
+was the general result, to think even of her sister.\r
+\r
+Willoughby, he, whom only half an hour ago she had abhorred as the most\r
+worthless of men, Willoughby, in spite of all his faults, excited a\r
+degree of commiseration for the sufferings produced by them, which made\r
+her think of him as now separated for ever from her family, with a\r
+tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion, as she soon acknowledged\r
+within herself--to his wishes than to his merits. She felt that his\r
+influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not\r
+in reason to have weight; by that person of uncommon attraction, that\r
+open, affectionate, and lively manner which it was no merit to possess;\r
+and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even\r
+innocent to indulge. But she felt that it was so, long, long before\r
+she could feel his influence less.\r
+\r
+When at last she returned to the unconscious Marianne, she found her\r
+just awaking, refreshed by so long and sweet a sleep to the extent of\r
+her hopes. Elinor's heart was full. The past, the present, the\r
+future, Willoughby's visit, Marianne's safety, and her mother's\r
+expected arrival, threw her altogether into an agitation of spirits\r
+which kept off every indication of fatigue, and made her only fearful\r
+of betraying herself to her sister. Short was the time, however, in\r
+which that fear could affect her, for within half an hour after\r
+Willoughby's leaving the house, she was again called down stairs by the\r
+sound of another carriage.--Eager to save her mother from every\r
+unnecessary moment's horrible suspense, she ran immediately into the\r
+hall, and reached the outward door just in time to receive and support\r
+her as she entered it.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood, whose terror as they drew near the house had produced\r
+almost the conviction of Marianne's being no more, had no voice to\r
+inquire after her, no voice even for Elinor; but SHE, waiting neither\r
+for salutation nor inquiry, instantly gave the joyful relief;--and her\r
+mother, catching it with all her usual warmth, was in a moment as much\r
+overcome by her happiness, as she had been before by her fears. She\r
+was supported into the drawing-room between her daughter and her\r
+friend;--and there, shedding tears of joy, though still unable to\r
+speak, embraced Elinor again and again, turning from her at intervals\r
+to press Colonel Brandon's hand, with a look which spoke at once her\r
+gratitude, and her conviction of his sharing with herself in the bliss\r
+of the moment. He shared it, however, in a silence even greater than\r
+her own.\r
+\r
+As soon as Mrs. Dashwood had recovered herself, to see Marianne was her\r
+first desire; and in two minutes she was with her beloved child,\r
+rendered dearer to her than ever by absence, unhappiness, and danger.\r
+Elinor's delight, as she saw what each felt in the meeting, was only\r
+checked by an apprehension of its robbing Marianne of farther\r
+sleep;--but Mrs. Dashwood could be calm, could be even prudent, when\r
+the life of a child was at stake, and Marianne, satisfied in knowing\r
+her mother was near her, and conscious of being too weak for\r
+conversation, submitted readily to the silence and quiet prescribed by\r
+every nurse around her. Mrs. Dashwood WOULD sit up with her all night;\r
+and Elinor, in compliance with her mother's entreaty, went to bed. But\r
+the rest, which one night entirely sleepless, and many hours of the\r
+most wearing anxiety seemed to make requisite, was kept off by\r
+irritation of spirits. Willoughby, "poor Willoughby," as she now\r
+allowed herself to call him, was constantly in her thoughts; she would\r
+not but have heard his vindication for the world, and now blamed, now\r
+acquitted herself for having judged him so harshly before. But her\r
+promise of relating it to her sister was invariably painful. She\r
+dreaded the performance of it, dreaded what its effect on Marianne\r
+might be; doubted whether after such an explanation she could ever be\r
+happy with another; and for a moment wished Willoughby a widower.\r
+Then, remembering Colonel Brandon, reproved herself, felt that to HIS\r
+sufferings and his constancy far more than to his rival's, the reward\r
+of her sister was due, and wished any thing rather than Mrs.\r
+Willoughby's death.\r
+\r
+The shock of Colonel Brandon's errand at Barton had been much softened\r
+to Mrs. Dashwood by her own previous alarm; for so great was her\r
+uneasiness about Marianne, that she had already determined to set out\r
+for Cleveland on that very day, without waiting for any further\r
+intelligence, and had so far settled her journey before his arrival,\r
+that the Careys were then expected every moment to fetch Margaret away,\r
+as her mother was unwilling to take her where there might be infection.\r
+\r
+Marianne continued to mend every day, and the brilliant cheerfulness of\r
+Mrs. Dashwood's looks and spirits proved her to be, as she repeatedly\r
+declared herself, one of the happiest women in the world. Elinor could\r
+not hear the declaration, nor witness its proofs without sometimes\r
+wondering whether her mother ever recollected Edward. But Mrs.\r
+Dashwood, trusting to the temperate account of her own disappointment\r
+which Elinor had sent her, was led away by the exuberance of her joy to\r
+think only of what would increase it. Marianne was restored to her\r
+from a danger in which, as she now began to feel, her own mistaken\r
+judgment in encouraging the unfortunate attachment to Willoughby, had\r
+contributed to place her;--and in her recovery she had yet another\r
+source of joy unthought of by Elinor. It was thus imparted to her, as\r
+soon as any opportunity of private conference between them occurred.\r
+\r
+"At last we are alone. My Elinor, you do not yet know all my\r
+happiness. Colonel Brandon loves Marianne. He has told me so himself."\r
+\r
+Her daughter, feeling by turns both pleased and pained, surprised and\r
+not surprised, was all silent attention.\r
+\r
+"You are never like me, dear Elinor, or I should wonder at your\r
+composure now. Had I sat down to wish for any possible good to my\r
+family, I should have fixed on Colonel Brandon's marrying one of you as\r
+the object most desirable. And I believe Marianne will be the most\r
+happy with him of the two."\r
+\r
+Elinor was half inclined to ask her reason for thinking so, because\r
+satisfied that none founded on an impartial consideration of their age,\r
+characters, or feelings, could be given;--but her mother must always be\r
+carried away by her imagination on any interesting subject, and\r
+therefore instead of an inquiry, she passed it off with a smile.\r
+\r
+"He opened his whole heart to me yesterday as we travelled. It came\r
+out quite unawares, quite undesignedly. I, you may well believe, could\r
+talk of nothing but my child;--he could not conceal his distress; I saw\r
+that it equalled my own, and he perhaps, thinking that mere friendship,\r
+as the world now goes, would not justify so warm a sympathy--or rather,\r
+not thinking at all, I suppose--giving way to irresistible feelings,\r
+made me acquainted with his earnest, tender, constant, affection for\r
+Marianne. He has loved her, my Elinor, ever since the first moment of\r
+seeing her."\r
+\r
+Here, however, Elinor perceived,--not the language, not the professions\r
+of Colonel Brandon, but the natural embellishments of her mother's\r
+active fancy, which fashioned every thing delightful to her as it chose.\r
+\r
+"His regard for her, infinitely surpassing anything that Willoughby\r
+ever felt or feigned, as much more warm, as more sincere or\r
+constant--which ever we are to call it--has subsisted through all the\r
+knowledge of dear Marianne's unhappy prepossession for that worthless\r
+young man!--and without selfishness--without encouraging a hope!--could\r
+he have seen her happy with another--Such a noble mind!--such openness,\r
+such sincerity!--no one can be deceived in HIM."\r
+\r
+"Colonel Brandon's character," said Elinor, "as an excellent man, is\r
+well established."\r
+\r
+"I know it is,"--replied her mother seriously, "or after such a warning,\r
+I should be the last to encourage such affection, or even to be pleased\r
+by it. But his coming for me as he did, with such active, such ready\r
+friendship, is enough to prove him one of the worthiest of men."\r
+\r
+"His character, however," answered Elinor, "does not rest on ONE act of\r
+kindness, to which his affection for Marianne, were humanity out of the\r
+case, would have prompted him. To Mrs. Jennings, to the Middletons, he\r
+has been long and intimately known; they equally love and respect him;\r
+and even my own knowledge of him, though lately acquired, is very\r
+considerable; and so highly do I value and esteem him, that if Marianne\r
+can be happy with him, I shall be as ready as yourself to think our\r
+connection the greatest blessing to us in the world. What answer did\r
+you give him?--Did you allow him to hope?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! my love, I could not then talk of hope to him or to myself.\r
+Marianne might at that moment be dying. But he did not ask for hope or\r
+encouragement. His was an involuntary confidence, an irrepressible\r
+effusion to a soothing friend--not an application to a parent. Yet\r
+after a time I DID say, for at first I was quite overcome--that if she\r
+lived, as I trusted she might, my greatest happiness would lie in\r
+promoting their marriage; and since our arrival, since our delightful\r
+security, I have repeated it to him more fully, have given him every\r
+encouragement in my power. Time, a very little time, I tell him, will\r
+do everything;--Marianne's heart is not to be wasted for ever on such a\r
+man as Willoughby.-- His own merits must soon secure it."\r
+\r
+"To judge from the Colonel's spirits, however, you have not yet made\r
+him equally sanguine."\r
+\r
+"No.--He thinks Marianne's affection too deeply rooted for any change\r
+in it under a great length of time, and even supposing her heart again\r
+free, is too diffident of himself to believe, that with such a\r
+difference of age and disposition he could ever attach her. There,\r
+however, he is quite mistaken. His age is only so much beyond hers as\r
+to be an advantage, as to make his character and principles fixed;--and\r
+his disposition, I am well convinced, is exactly the very one to make\r
+your sister happy. And his person, his manners too, are all in his\r
+favour. My partiality does not blind me; he certainly is not so\r
+handsome as Willoughby--but at the same time, there is something much\r
+more pleasing in his countenance.-- There was always a something,--if\r
+you remember,--in Willoughby's eyes at times, which I did not like."\r
+\r
+Elinor could NOT remember it;--but her mother, without waiting for her\r
+assent, continued,\r
+\r
+"And his manners, the Colonel's manners are not only more pleasing to\r
+me than Willoughby's ever were, but they are of a kind I well know to\r
+be more solidly attaching to Marianne. Their gentleness, their genuine\r
+attention to other people, and their manly unstudied simplicity is much\r
+more accordant with her real disposition, than the liveliness--often\r
+artificial, and often ill-timed of the other. I am very sure myself,\r
+that had Willoughby turned out as really amiable, as he has proved\r
+himself the contrary, Marianne would yet never have been so happy with\r
+HIM, as she will be with Colonel Brandon."\r
+\r
+She paused.--Her daughter could not quite agree with her, but her\r
+dissent was not heard, and therefore gave no offence.\r
+\r
+"At Delaford, she will be within an easy distance of me," added Mrs.\r
+Dashwood, "even if I remain at Barton; and in all probability,--for I\r
+hear it is a large village,--indeed there certainly MUST be some small\r
+house or cottage close by, that would suit us quite as well as our\r
+present situation."\r
+\r
+Poor Elinor!--here was a new scheme for getting her to Delaford!--but\r
+her spirit was stubborn.\r
+\r
+"His fortune too!--for at my time of life you know, everybody cares\r
+about THAT;--and though I neither know nor desire to know, what it\r
+really is, I am sure it must be a good one."\r
+\r
+Here they were interrupted by the entrance of a third person, and\r
+Elinor withdrew to think it all over in private, to wish success to her\r
+friend, and yet in wishing it, to feel a pang for Willoughby.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 46\r
+\r
+\r
+Marianne's illness, though weakening in its kind, had not been long\r
+enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength, and\r
+her mother's presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to enable her\r
+to remove, within four days after the arrival of the latter, into Mrs.\r
+Palmer's dressing-room. When there, at her own particular request, for\r
+she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to him for fetching her\r
+mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her.\r
+\r
+His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and in\r
+receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was\r
+such, as, in Elinor's conjecture, must arise from something more than\r
+his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to\r
+others; and she soon discovered in his melancholy eye and varying\r
+complexion as he looked at her sister, the probable recurrence of many\r
+past scenes of misery to his mind, brought back by that resemblance\r
+between Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now strengthened\r
+by the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining weakness,\r
+and the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood, not less watchful of what passed than her daughter, but\r
+with a mind very differently influenced, and therefore watching to very\r
+different effect, saw nothing in the Colonel's behaviour but what arose\r
+from the most simple and self-evident sensations, while in the actions\r
+and words of Marianne she persuaded herself to think that something\r
+more than gratitude already dawned.\r
+\r
+At the end of another day or two, Marianne growing visibly stronger\r
+every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood, urged equally by her own and her\r
+daughter's wishes, began to talk of removing to Barton. On HER\r
+measures depended those of her two friends; Mrs. Jennings could not\r
+quit Cleveland during the Dashwoods' stay; and Colonel Brandon was soon\r
+brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there as\r
+equally determinate, if not equally indispensable. At his and Mrs.\r
+Jennings's united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to\r
+accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better\r
+accommodation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint\r
+invitation of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active good-nature\r
+made her friendly and hospitable for other people as well as herself,\r
+engaged with pleasure to redeem it by a visit at the cottage, in the\r
+course of a few weeks.\r
+\r
+The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after taking\r
+so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so earnestly\r
+grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to her own\r
+heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and bidding\r
+Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was carefully\r
+assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that she\r
+should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed,\r
+and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and\r
+feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise\r
+to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young\r
+companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his\r
+solitary way to Delaford.\r
+\r
+The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her journey\r
+on both, without essential fatigue. Every thing that the most zealous\r
+affection, the most solicitous care could do to render her comfortable,\r
+was the office of each watchful companion, and each found their reward\r
+in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits. To Elinor, the\r
+observation of the latter was particularly grateful. She, who had seen\r
+her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish of\r
+heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to\r
+conceal, now saw with a joy, which no other could equally share, an\r
+apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result as she trusted\r
+of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and\r
+cheerfulness.\r
+\r
+As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which every\r
+field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful recollection,\r
+she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her face from their\r
+notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window. But here, Elinor\r
+could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted\r
+Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an\r
+emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity,\r
+and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole of her\r
+subsequent manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to\r
+reasonable exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common\r
+sitting-room, than Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of\r
+resolute firmness, as if determined at once to accustom herself to the\r
+sight of every object with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be\r
+connected.--She said little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness,\r
+and though a sigh sometimes escaped her, it never passed away without\r
+the atonement of a smile. After dinner she would try her piano-forte.\r
+She went to it; but the music on which her eye first rested was an\r
+opera, procured for her by Willoughby, containing some of their\r
+favourite duets, and bearing on its outward leaf her own name in his\r
+hand-writing.--That would not do.--She shook her head, put the music\r
+aside, and after running over the keys for a minute, complained of\r
+feebleness in her fingers, and closed the instrument again; declaring\r
+however with firmness as she did so, that she should in future practice\r
+much.\r
+\r
+The next morning produced no abatement in these happy symptoms. On the\r
+contrary, with a mind and body alike strengthened by rest, she looked\r
+and spoke with more genuine spirit, anticipating the pleasure of\r
+Margaret's return, and talking of the dear family party which would\r
+then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the\r
+only happiness worth a wish.\r
+\r
+"When the weather is settled, and I have recovered my strength," said\r
+she, "we will take long walks together every day. We will walk to the\r
+farm at the edge of the down, and see how the children go on; we will\r
+walk to Sir John's new plantations at Barton Cross, and the Abbeyland;\r
+and we will often go to the old ruins of the Priory, and try to trace its\r
+foundations as far as we are told they once reached. I know we shall\r
+be happy. I know the summer will pass happily away. I mean never to\r
+be later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall\r
+divide every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan,\r
+and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own\r
+library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for any thing beyond\r
+mere amusement. But there are many works well worth reading at the\r
+Park; and there are others of more modern production which I know I can\r
+borrow of Colonel Brandon. By reading only six hours a-day, I shall\r
+gain in the course of a twelve-month a great deal of instruction which\r
+I now feel myself to want."\r
+\r
+Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this;\r
+though smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her\r
+to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining, now at work\r
+in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and\r
+virtuous self-control. Her smile however changed to a sigh when she\r
+remembered that promise to Willoughby was yet unfulfilled, and feared\r
+she had that to communicate which might again unsettle the mind of\r
+Marianne, and ruin at least for a time this fair prospect of busy\r
+tranquillity. Willing therefore to delay the evil hour, she resolved\r
+to wait till her sister's health were more secure, before she appointed\r
+it. But the resolution was made only to be broken.\r
+\r
+Marianne had been two or three days at home, before the weather was\r
+fine enough for an invalid like herself to venture out. But at last a\r
+soft, genial morning appeared; such as might tempt the daughter's\r
+wishes and the mother's confidence; and Marianne, leaning on Elinor's\r
+arm, was authorised to walk as long as she could without fatigue, in\r
+the lane before the house.\r
+\r
+The sisters set out at a pace, slow as the feebleness of Marianne in an\r
+exercise hitherto untried since her illness required;--and they had\r
+advanced only so far beyond the house as to admit a full view of the\r
+hill, the important hill behind, when pausing with her eyes turned\r
+towards it, Marianne calmly said,\r
+\r
+"There, exactly there,"--pointing with one hand, "on that projecting\r
+mound,--there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby."\r
+\r
+Her voice sunk with the word, but presently reviving she added,\r
+\r
+"I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the\r
+spot!--shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor?"--hesitatingly it\r
+was said.--"Or will it be wrong?--I can talk of it now, I hope, as I\r
+ought to do."--\r
+\r
+Elinor tenderly invited her to be open.\r
+\r
+"As for regret," said Marianne, "I have done with that, as far as HE is\r
+concerned. I do not mean to talk to you of what my feelings have been\r
+for him, but what they are NOW.--At present, if I could be satisfied on\r
+one point, if I could be allowed to think that he was not ALWAYS acting\r
+a part, not ALWAYS deceiving me;--but above all, if I could be assured\r
+that he never was so VERY wicked as my fears have sometimes fancied\r
+him, since the story of that unfortunate girl"--\r
+\r
+She stopt. Elinor joyfully treasured her words as she answered,\r
+\r
+"If you could be assured of that, you think you should be easy."\r
+\r
+"Yes. My peace of mind is doubly involved in it;--for not only is it\r
+horrible to suspect a person, who has been what HE has been to ME, of\r
+such designs,--but what must it make me appear to myself?--What in a\r
+situation like mine, but a most shamefully unguarded affection could\r
+expose me to"--\r
+\r
+"How then," asked her sister, "would you account for his behaviour?"\r
+\r
+"I would suppose him,--Oh, how gladly would I suppose him, only fickle,\r
+very, very fickle."\r
+\r
+Elinor said no more. She was debating within herself on the\r
+eligibility of beginning her story directly, or postponing it till\r
+Marianne were in stronger health;--and they crept on for a few minutes\r
+in silence.\r
+\r
+"I am not wishing him too much good," said Marianne at last with a\r
+sigh, "when I wish his secret reflections may be no more unpleasant\r
+than my own. He will suffer enough in them."\r
+\r
+"Do you compare your conduct with his?"\r
+\r
+"No. I compare it with what it ought to have been; I compare it with\r
+yours."\r
+\r
+"Our situations have borne little resemblance."\r
+\r
+"They have borne more than our conduct.--Do not, my dearest Elinor, let\r
+your kindness defend what I know your judgment must censure. My\r
+illness has made me think-- It has given me leisure and calmness for\r
+serious recollection. Long before I was enough recovered to talk, I\r
+was perfectly able to reflect. I considered the past: I saw in my own\r
+behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last\r
+autumn, nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of\r
+kindness to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my\r
+sufferings, and that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me\r
+to the grave. My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by\r
+myself by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the\r
+time to be wrong. Had I died,--it would have been self-destruction. I\r
+did not know my danger till the danger was removed; but with such\r
+feelings as these reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery,--wonder\r
+that the very eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for\r
+atonement to my God, and to you all, did not kill me at once. Had I\r
+died,--in what peculiar misery should I have left you, my nurse, my\r
+friend, my sister!--You, who had seen all the fretful selfishness of my\r
+latter days; who had known all the murmurings of my heart!--How should\r
+I have lived in YOUR remembrance!--My mother too! How could you have\r
+consoled her!--I cannot express my own abhorrence of myself. Whenever\r
+I looked towards the past, I saw some duty neglected, or some failing\r
+indulged. Every body seemed injured by me. The kindness, the\r
+unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful\r
+contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the Steeles, to every\r
+common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and unjust; with a heart\r
+hardened against their merits, and a temper irritated by their very\r
+attention.--To John, to Fanny,--yes, even to them, little as they\r
+deserve, I had given less than their due. But you,--you above all,\r
+above my mother, had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew your\r
+heart and its sorrows; yet to what did it influence me?--not to any\r
+compassion that could benefit you or myself.--Your example was before\r
+me; but to what avail?--Was I more considerate of you and your comfort?\r
+Did I imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by taking\r
+any part in those offices of general complaisance or particular\r
+gratitude which you had hitherto been left to discharge\r
+alone?--No;--not less when I knew you to be unhappy, than when I had\r
+believed you at ease, did I turn away from every exertion of duty or\r
+friendship; scarcely allowing sorrow to exist but with me, regretting\r
+only THAT heart which had deserted and wronged me, and leaving you, for\r
+whom I professed an unbounded affection, to be miserable for my sake."\r
+\r
+Here ceased the rapid flow of her self-reproving spirit; and Elinor,\r
+impatient to soothe, though too honest to flatter, gave her instantly\r
+that praise and support which her frankness and her contrition so well\r
+deserved. Marianne pressed her hand and replied,\r
+\r
+"You are very good.--The future must be my proof. I have laid down my\r
+plan, and if I am capable of adhering to it--my feelings shall be\r
+governed and my temper improved. They shall no longer worry others,\r
+nor torture myself. I shall now live solely for my family. You, my\r
+mother, and Margaret, must henceforth be all the world to me; you will\r
+share my affections entirely between you. From you, from my home, I\r
+shall never again have the smallest incitement to move; and if I do mix\r
+in other society, it will be only to shew that my spirit is humbled, my\r
+heart amended, and that I can practise the civilities, the lesser\r
+duties of life, with gentleness and forbearance. As for Willoughby--to\r
+say that I shall soon or that I shall ever forget him, would be idle.\r
+His remembrance can be overcome by no change of circumstances or\r
+opinions. But it shall be regulated, it shall be checked by religion,\r
+by reason, by constant employment."\r
+\r
+She paused--and added in a low voice, "If I could but know HIS heart,\r
+everything would become easy."\r
+\r
+Elinor, who had now been for some time reflecting on the propriety or\r
+impropriety of speedily hazarding her narration, without feeling at all\r
+nearer decision than at first, heard this; and perceiving that as\r
+reflection did nothing, resolution must do all, soon found herself\r
+leading to the fact.\r
+\r
+She managed the recital, as she hoped, with address; prepared her\r
+anxious listener with caution; related simply and honestly the chief\r
+points on which Willoughby grounded his apology; did justice to his\r
+repentance, and softened only his protestations of present regard.\r
+Marianne said not a word.--She trembled, her eyes were fixed on the\r
+ground, and her lips became whiter than even sickness had left them. A\r
+thousand inquiries sprung up from her heart, but she dared not urge\r
+one. She caught every syllable with panting eagerness; her hand,\r
+unknowingly to herself, closely pressed her sister's, and tears covered\r
+her cheeks.\r
+\r
+Elinor, dreading her being tired, led her towards home; and till they\r
+reached the door of the cottage, easily conjecturing what her curiosity\r
+must be though no question was suffered to speak it, talked of nothing\r
+but Willoughby, and their conversation together; and was carefully\r
+minute in every particular of speech and look, where minuteness could\r
+be safely indulged. As soon as they entered the house, Marianne with a\r
+kiss of gratitude and these two words just articulate through her\r
+tears, "Tell mama," withdrew from her sister and walked slowly up\r
+stairs. Elinor would not attempt to disturb a solitude so reasonable\r
+as what she now sought; and with a mind anxiously pre-arranging its\r
+result, and a resolution of reviving the subject again, should Marianne\r
+fail to do it, she turned into the parlour to fulfill her parting\r
+injunction.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 47\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood did not hear unmoved the vindication of her former\r
+favourite. She rejoiced in his being cleared from some part of his\r
+imputed guilt;--she was sorry for him;--she wished him happy. But the\r
+feelings of the past could not be recalled.--Nothing could restore him\r
+with a faith unbroken--a character unblemished, to Marianne. Nothing\r
+could do away the knowledge of what the latter had suffered through his\r
+means, nor remove the guilt of his conduct towards Eliza. Nothing\r
+could replace him, therefore, in her former esteem, nor injure the\r
+interests of Colonel Brandon.\r
+\r
+Had Mrs. Dashwood, like her daughter, heard Willoughby's story from\r
+himself--had she witnessed his distress, and been under the influence\r
+of his countenance and his manner, it is probable that her compassion\r
+would have been greater. But it was neither in Elinor's power, nor in\r
+her wish, to rouse such feelings in another, by her retailed\r
+explanation, as had at first been called forth in herself. Reflection\r
+had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of\r
+Willoughby's deserts;--she wished, therefore, to declare only the\r
+simple truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his\r
+character, without any embellishment of tenderness to lead the fancy\r
+astray.\r
+\r
+In the evening, when they were all three together, Marianne began\r
+voluntarily to speak of him again;--but that it was not without an\r
+effort, the restless, unquiet thoughtfulness in which she had been for\r
+some time previously sitting--her rising colour, as she spoke,--and her\r
+unsteady voice, plainly shewed.\r
+\r
+"I wish to assure you both," said she, "that I see every thing--as you\r
+can desire me to do."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood would have interrupted her instantly with soothing\r
+tenderness, had not Elinor, who really wished to hear her sister's\r
+unbiased opinion, by an eager sign, engaged her silence. Marianne\r
+slowly continued--\r
+\r
+"It is a great relief to me--what Elinor told me this morning--I have\r
+now heard exactly what I wished to hear."--For some moments her voice\r
+was lost; but recovering herself, she added, and with greater calmness\r
+than before--"I am now perfectly satisfied, I wish for no change. I\r
+never could have been happy with him, after knowing, as sooner or later\r
+I must have known, all this.--I should have had no confidence, no\r
+esteem. Nothing could have done it away to my feelings."\r
+\r
+"I know it--I know it," cried her mother. "Happy with a man of\r
+libertine practices!--With one who so injured the peace of the dearest\r
+of our friends, and the best of men!--No--my Marianne has not a heart\r
+to be made happy with such a man!--Her conscience, her sensitive\r
+conscience, would have felt all that the conscience of her husband\r
+ought to have felt."\r
+\r
+Marianne sighed, and repeated, "I wish for no change."\r
+\r
+"You consider the matter," said Elinor, "exactly as a good mind and a\r
+sound understanding must consider it; and I dare say you perceive, as\r
+well as myself, not only in this, but in many other circumstances,\r
+reason enough to be convinced that your marriage must have involved you\r
+in many certain troubles and disappointments, in which you would have\r
+been poorly supported by an affection, on his side, much less certain.\r
+Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness is\r
+acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that\r
+self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands and your\r
+inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought\r
+on distresses which would not be the LESS grievous to you, from having\r
+been entirely unknown and unthought of before. YOUR sense of honour\r
+and honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation,\r
+to attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible: and,\r
+perhaps, as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort,\r
+you might have been suffered to practice it, but beyond that--and how\r
+little could the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin\r
+which had begun before your marriage?-- Beyond THAT, had you\r
+endeavoured, however reasonably, to abridge HIS enjoyments, is it not\r
+to be feared, that instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to\r
+consent to it, you would have lessened your own influence on his heart,\r
+and made him regret the connection which had involved him in such\r
+difficulties?"\r
+\r
+Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word "Selfish?" in a\r
+tone that implied--"do you really think him selfish?"\r
+\r
+"The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor, "from the beginning to\r
+the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was\r
+selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which\r
+afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of\r
+it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or\r
+his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle."\r
+\r
+"It is very true. MY happiness never was his object."\r
+\r
+"At present," continued Elinor, "he regrets what he has done. And why\r
+does he regret it?--Because he finds it has not answered towards\r
+himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now\r
+unembarrassed--he suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only\r
+that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself.\r
+But does it follow that had he married you, he would have been\r
+happy?--The inconveniences would have been different. He would then\r
+have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are\r
+removed, he now reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of whose\r
+temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always\r
+necessitous--always poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank\r
+the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far\r
+more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a\r
+wife."\r
+\r
+"I have not a doubt of it," said Marianne; "and I have nothing to\r
+regret--nothing but my own folly."\r
+\r
+"Rather say your mother's imprudence, my child," said Mrs. Dashwood;\r
+"SHE must be answerable."\r
+\r
+Marianne would not let her proceed;--and Elinor, satisfied that each\r
+felt their own error, wished to avoid any survey of the past that might\r
+weaken her sister's spirits; she, therefore, pursuing the first\r
+subject, immediately continued,\r
+\r
+"One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the\r
+story--that all Willoughby's difficulties have arisen from the first\r
+offence against virtue, in his behaviour to Eliza Williams. That crime\r
+has been the origin of every lesser one, and of all his present\r
+discontents."\r
+\r
+Marianne assented most feelingly to the remark; and her mother was led\r
+by it to an enumeration of Colonel Brandon's injuries and merits, warm\r
+as friendship and design could unitedly dictate. Her daughter did not\r
+look, however, as if much of it were heard by her.\r
+\r
+Elinor, according to her expectation, saw on the two or three following\r
+days, that Marianne did not continue to gain strength as she had done;\r
+but while her resolution was unsubdued, and she still tried to appear\r
+cheerful and easy, her sister could safely trust to the effect of time\r
+upon her health.\r
+\r
+Margaret returned, and the family were again all restored to each\r
+other, again quietly settled at the cottage; and if not pursuing their\r
+usual studies with quite so much vigour as when they first came to\r
+Barton, at least planning a vigorous prosecution of them in future.\r
+\r
+Elinor grew impatient for some tidings of Edward. She had heard\r
+nothing of him since her leaving London, nothing new of his plans,\r
+nothing certain even of his present abode. Some letters had passed\r
+between her and her brother, in consequence of Marianne's illness; and\r
+in the first of John's, there had been this sentence:-- "We know\r
+nothing of our unfortunate Edward, and can make no enquiries on so\r
+prohibited a subject, but conclude him to be still at Oxford;" which\r
+was all the intelligence of Edward afforded her by the correspondence,\r
+for his name was not even mentioned in any of the succeeding letters.\r
+She was not doomed, however, to be long in ignorance of his measures.\r
+\r
+Their man-servant had been sent one morning to Exeter on business; and\r
+when, as he waited at table, he had satisfied the inquiries of his\r
+mistress as to the event of his errand, this was his voluntary\r
+communication--\r
+\r
+"I suppose you know, ma'am, that Mr. Ferrars is married."\r
+\r
+Marianne gave a violent start, fixed her eyes upon Elinor, saw her\r
+turning pale, and fell back in her chair in hysterics. Mrs. Dashwood,\r
+whose eyes, as she answered the servant's inquiry, had intuitively\r
+taken the same direction, was shocked to perceive by Elinor's\r
+countenance how much she really suffered, and a moment afterwards,\r
+alike distressed by Marianne's situation, knew not on which child to\r
+bestow her principal attention.\r
+\r
+The servant, who saw only that Miss Marianne was taken ill, had sense\r
+enough to call one of the maids, who, with Mrs. Dashwood's assistance,\r
+supported her into the other room. By that time, Marianne was rather\r
+better, and her mother leaving her to the care of Margaret and the\r
+maid, returned to Elinor, who, though still much disordered, had so far\r
+recovered the use of her reason and voice as to be just beginning an\r
+inquiry of Thomas, as to the source of his intelligence. Mrs. Dashwood\r
+immediately took all that trouble on herself; and Elinor had the\r
+benefit of the information without the exertion of seeking it.\r
+\r
+"Who told you that Mr. Ferrars was married, Thomas?"\r
+\r
+"I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma'am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady\r
+too, Miss Steele as was. They was stopping in a chaise at the door of\r
+the New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the\r
+Park to her brother, who is one of the post-boys. I happened to look up\r
+as I went by the chaise, and so I see directly it was the youngest Miss\r
+Steele; so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and\r
+inquired after you, ma'am, and the young ladies, especially Miss\r
+Marianne, and bid me I should give her compliments and Mr. Ferrars's,\r
+their best compliments and service, and how sorry they was they had not\r
+time to come on and see you, but they was in a great hurry to go\r
+forwards, for they was going further down for a little while, but\r
+howsever, when they come back, they'd make sure to come and see you."\r
+\r
+"But did she tell you she was married, Thomas?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am. She smiled, and said how she had changed her name since\r
+she was in these parts. She was always a very affable and free-spoken\r
+young lady, and very civil behaved. So, I made free to wish her joy."\r
+\r
+"Was Mr. Ferrars in the carriage with her?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, I just see him leaning back in it, but he did not look\r
+up;--he never was a gentleman much for talking."\r
+\r
+Elinor's heart could easily account for his not putting himself\r
+forward; and Mrs. Dashwood probably found the same explanation.\r
+\r
+"Was there no one else in the carriage?"\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am, only they two."\r
+\r
+"Do you know where they came from?"\r
+\r
+"They come straight from town, as Miss Lucy--Mrs. Ferrars told me."\r
+\r
+"And are they going farther westward?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am--but not to bide long. They will soon be back again, and\r
+then they'd be sure and call here."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood now looked at her daughter; but Elinor knew better than\r
+to expect them. She recognised the whole of Lucy in the message, and\r
+was very confident that Edward would never come near them. She\r
+observed in a low voice, to her mother, that they were probably going\r
+down to Mr. Pratt's, near Plymouth.\r
+\r
+Thomas's intelligence seemed over. Elinor looked as if she wished to\r
+hear more.\r
+\r
+"Did you see them off, before you came away?"\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am--the horses were just coming out, but I could not bide any\r
+longer; I was afraid of being late."\r
+\r
+"Did Mrs. Ferrars look well?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, she said how she was very well; and to my mind she was\r
+always a very handsome young lady--and she seemed vastly contented."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other question, and Thomas and the\r
+tablecloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed.\r
+Marianne had already sent to say, that she should eat nothing more.\r
+Mrs. Dashwood's and Elinor's appetites were equally lost, and Margaret\r
+might think herself very well off, that with so much uneasiness as both\r
+her sisters had lately experienced, so much reason as they had often\r
+had to be careless of their meals, she had never been obliged to go\r
+without her dinner before.\r
+\r
+When the dessert and the wine were arranged, and Mrs. Dashwood and\r
+Elinor were left by themselves, they remained long together in a\r
+similarity of thoughtfulness and silence. Mrs. Dashwood feared to\r
+hazard any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation. She now\r
+found that she had erred in relying on Elinor's representation of\r
+herself; and justly concluded that every thing had been expressly\r
+softened at the time, to spare her from an increase of unhappiness,\r
+suffering as she then had suffered for Marianne. She found that she\r
+had been misled by the careful, the considerate attention of her\r
+daughter, to think the attachment, which once she had so well\r
+understood, much slighter in reality, than she had been wont to\r
+believe, or than it was now proved to be. She feared that under this\r
+persuasion she had been unjust, inattentive, nay, almost unkind, to her\r
+Elinor;--that Marianne's affliction, because more acknowledged, more\r
+immediately before her, had too much engrossed her tenderness, and led\r
+her away to forget that in Elinor she might have a daughter suffering\r
+almost as much, certainly with less self-provocation, and greater\r
+fortitude.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 48\r
+\r
+\r
+Elinor now found the difference between the expectation of an\r
+unpleasant event, however certain the mind may be told to consider it,\r
+and certainty itself. She now found, that in spite of herself, she had\r
+always admitted a hope, while Edward remained single, that something\r
+would occur to prevent his marrying Lucy; that some resolution of his\r
+own, some mediation of friends, or some more eligible opportunity of\r
+establishment for the lady, would arise to assist the happiness of all.\r
+But he was now married; and she condemned her heart for the lurking\r
+flattery, which so much heightened the pain of the intelligence.\r
+\r
+That he should be married soon, before (as she imagined) he could be in\r
+orders, and consequently before he could be in possession of the\r
+living, surprised her a little at first. But she soon saw how likely\r
+it was that Lucy, in her self-provident care, in her haste to secure\r
+him, should overlook every thing but the risk of delay. They were\r
+married, married in town, and now hastening down to her uncle's. What\r
+had Edward felt on being within four miles from Barton, on seeing her\r
+mother's servant, on hearing Lucy's message!\r
+\r
+They would soon, she supposed, be settled at Delaford.--Delaford,--that\r
+place in which so much conspired to give her an interest; which she\r
+wished to be acquainted with, and yet desired to avoid. She saw them\r
+in an instant in their parsonage-house; saw in Lucy, the active,\r
+contriving manager, uniting at once a desire of smart appearance with\r
+the utmost frugality, and ashamed to be suspected of half her\r
+economical practices;--pursuing her own interest in every thought,\r
+courting the favour of Colonel Brandon, of Mrs. Jennings, and of every\r
+wealthy friend. In Edward--she knew not what she saw, nor what she\r
+wished to see;--happy or unhappy,--nothing pleased her; she turned away\r
+her head from every sketch of him.\r
+\r
+Elinor flattered herself that some one of their connections in London\r
+would write to them to announce the event, and give farther\r
+particulars,--but day after day passed off, and brought no letter, no\r
+tidings. Though uncertain that any one were to blame, she found fault\r
+with every absent friend. They were all thoughtless or indolent.\r
+\r
+"When do you write to Colonel Brandon, ma'am?" was an inquiry which\r
+sprung from the impatience of her mind to have something going on.\r
+\r
+"I wrote to him, my love, last week, and rather expect to see, than to\r
+hear from him again. I earnestly pressed his coming to us, and should\r
+not be surprised to see him walk in today or tomorrow, or any day."\r
+\r
+This was gaining something, something to look forward to. Colonel\r
+Brandon must have some information to give.\r
+\r
+Scarcely had she so determined it, when the figure of a man on\r
+horseback drew her eyes to the window. He stopt at their gate. It was\r
+a gentleman, it was Colonel Brandon himself. Now she could hear more;\r
+and she trembled in expectation of it. But--it was NOT Colonel\r
+Brandon--neither his air--nor his height. Were it possible, she must\r
+say it must be Edward. She looked again. He had just dismounted;--she\r
+could not be mistaken,--it WAS Edward. She moved away and sat down.\r
+"He comes from Mr. Pratt's purposely to see us. I WILL be calm; I WILL\r
+be mistress of myself."\r
+\r
+In a moment she perceived that the others were likewise aware of the\r
+mistake. She saw her mother and Marianne change colour; saw them look\r
+at herself, and whisper a few sentences to each other. She would have\r
+given the world to be able to speak--and to make them understand that\r
+she hoped no coolness, no slight, would appear in their behaviour to\r
+him;--but she had no utterance, and was obliged to leave all to their\r
+own discretion.\r
+\r
+Not a syllable passed aloud. They all waited in silence for the\r
+appearance of their visitor. His footsteps were heard along the gravel\r
+path; in a moment he was in the passage, and in another he was before\r
+them.\r
+\r
+His countenance, as he entered the room, was not too happy, even for\r
+Elinor. His complexion was white with agitation, and he looked as if\r
+fearful of his reception, and conscious that he merited no kind one.\r
+Mrs. Dashwood, however, conforming, as she trusted, to the wishes of\r
+that daughter, by whom she then meant in the warmth of her heart to be\r
+guided in every thing, met with a look of forced complacency, gave him\r
+her hand, and wished him joy.\r
+\r
+He coloured, and stammered out an unintelligible reply. Elinor's lips\r
+had moved with her mother's, and, when the moment of action was over,\r
+she wished that she had shaken hands with him too. But it was then too\r
+late, and with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again and\r
+talked of the weather.\r
+\r
+Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight, to conceal her\r
+distress; and Margaret, understanding some part, but not the whole of\r
+the case, thought it incumbent on her to be dignified, and therefore\r
+took a seat as far from him as she could, and maintained a strict\r
+silence.\r
+\r
+When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very\r
+awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who\r
+felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a\r
+hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative.\r
+\r
+Another pause.\r
+\r
+Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own\r
+voice, now said,\r
+\r
+"Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?"\r
+\r
+"At Longstaple!" he replied, with an air of surprise.-- "No, my mother\r
+is in town."\r
+\r
+"I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "to inquire\r
+for Mrs. EDWARD Ferrars."\r
+\r
+She dared not look up;--but her mother and Marianne both turned their\r
+eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and,\r
+after some hesitation, said,--\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you mean--my brother--you mean Mrs.--Mrs. ROBERT Ferrars."\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Robert Ferrars!"--was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an\r
+accent of the utmost amazement;--and though Elinor could not speak,\r
+even HER eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He\r
+rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not\r
+knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and\r
+while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to\r
+pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice,\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you do not know--you may not have heard that my brother is\r
+lately married to--to the youngest--to Miss Lucy Steele."\r
+\r
+His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor,\r
+who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such\r
+agitation as made her hardly know where she was.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said he, "they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish."\r
+\r
+Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as\r
+soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first\r
+she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any\r
+where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw--or even\r
+heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie,\r
+which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs.\r
+Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted\r
+the room, and walked out towards the village--leaving the others in the\r
+greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so\r
+wonderful and so sudden;--a perplexity which they had no means of\r
+lessening but by their own conjectures.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 49\r
+\r
+\r
+Unaccountable, however, as the circumstances of his release might\r
+appear to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to\r
+what purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined\r
+by all;--for after experiencing the blessings of ONE imprudent\r
+engagement, contracted without his mother's consent, as he had already\r
+done for more than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in\r
+the failure of THAT, than the immediate contraction of another.\r
+\r
+His errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one. It was only to ask\r
+Elinor to marry him;--and considering that he was not altogether\r
+inexperienced in such a question, it might be strange that he should\r
+feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did, so much in\r
+need of encouragement and fresh air.\r
+\r
+How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however, how\r
+soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he\r
+expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly\r
+told. This only need be said;--that when they all sat down to table at\r
+four o'clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his\r
+lady, engaged her mother's consent, and was not only in the rapturous\r
+profession of the lover, but, in the reality of reason and truth, one\r
+of the happiest of men. His situation indeed was more than commonly\r
+joyful. He had more than the ordinary triumph of accepted love to\r
+swell his heart, and raise his spirits. He was released without any\r
+reproach to himself, from an entanglement which had long formed his\r
+misery, from a woman whom he had long ceased to love;--and elevated at\r
+once to that security with another, which he must have thought of\r
+almost with despair, as soon as he had learnt to consider it with\r
+desire. He was brought, not from doubt or suspense, but from misery to\r
+happiness;--and the change was openly spoken in such a genuine,\r
+flowing, grateful cheerfulness, as his friends had never witnessed in\r
+him before.\r
+\r
+His heart was now open to Elinor, all its weaknesses, all its errors\r
+confessed, and his first boyish attachment to Lucy treated with all the\r
+philosophic dignity of twenty-four.\r
+\r
+"It was a foolish, idle inclination on my side," said he, "the\r
+consequence of ignorance of the world--and want of employment. Had my\r
+mother given me some active profession when I was removed at eighteen\r
+from the care of Mr. Pratt, I think--nay, I am sure, it would never\r
+have happened; for though I left Longstaple with what I thought, at the\r
+time, a most unconquerable preference for his niece, yet had I then had\r
+any pursuit, any object to engage my time and keep me at a distance\r
+from her for a few months, I should very soon have outgrown the fancied\r
+attachment, especially by mixing more with the world, as in such case I\r
+must have done. But instead of having any thing to do, instead of\r
+having any profession chosen for me, or being allowed to chuse any\r
+myself, I returned home to be completely idle; and for the first\r
+twelvemonth afterwards I had not even the nominal employment, which\r
+belonging to the university would have given me; for I was not entered\r
+at Oxford till I was nineteen. I had therefore nothing in the world to\r
+do, but to fancy myself in love; and as my mother did not make my home\r
+in every respect comfortable, as I had no friend, no companion in my\r
+brother, and disliked new acquaintance, it was not unnatural for me to\r
+be very often at Longstaple, where I always felt myself at home, and\r
+was always sure of a welcome; and accordingly I spent the greatest part\r
+of my time there from eighteen to nineteen: Lucy appeared everything\r
+that was amiable and obliging. She was pretty too--at least I thought\r
+so THEN; and I had seen so little of other women, that I could make no\r
+comparisons, and see no defects. Considering everything, therefore, I\r
+hope, foolish as our engagement was, foolish as it has since in every\r
+way been proved, it was not at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable\r
+piece of folly."\r
+\r
+The change which a few hours had wrought in the minds and the happiness\r
+of the Dashwoods, was such--so great--as promised them all, the\r
+satisfaction of a sleepless night. Mrs. Dashwood, too happy to be\r
+comfortable, knew not how to love Edward, nor praise Elinor enough, how\r
+to be enough thankful for his release without wounding his delicacy,\r
+nor how at once to give them leisure for unrestrained conversation\r
+together, and yet enjoy, as she wished, the sight and society of both.\r
+\r
+Marianne could speak HER happiness only by tears. Comparisons would\r
+occur--regrets would arise;--and her joy, though sincere as her love\r
+for her sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language.\r
+\r
+But Elinor--how are HER feelings to be described?--From the moment of\r
+learning that Lucy was married to another, that Edward was free, to the\r
+moment of his justifying the hopes which had so instantly followed, she\r
+was every thing by turns but tranquil. But when the second moment had\r
+passed, when she found every doubt, every solicitude removed, compared\r
+her situation with what so lately it had been,--saw him honourably\r
+released from his former engagement, saw him instantly profiting by the\r
+release, to address herself and declare an affection as tender, as\r
+constant as she had ever supposed it to be,--she was oppressed, she was\r
+overcome by her own felicity;--and happily disposed as is the human\r
+mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it\r
+required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree\r
+of tranquillity to her heart.\r
+\r
+Edward was now fixed at the cottage at least for a week;--for whatever\r
+other claims might be made on him, it was impossible that less than a\r
+week should be given up to the enjoyment of Elinor's company, or\r
+suffice to say half that was to be said of the past, the present, and\r
+the future;--for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of\r
+incessant talking will despatch more subjects than can really be in\r
+common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is\r
+different. Between THEM no subject is finished, no communication is\r
+even made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.\r
+\r
+Lucy's marriage, the unceasing and reasonable wonder among them all,\r
+formed of course one of the earliest discussions of the lovers;--and\r
+Elinor's particular knowledge of each party made it appear to her in\r
+every view, as one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable\r
+circumstances she had ever heard. How they could be thrown together,\r
+and by what attraction Robert could be drawn on to marry a girl, of\r
+whose beauty she had herself heard him speak without any admiration,--a\r
+girl too already engaged to his brother, and on whose account that\r
+brother had been thrown off by his family--it was beyond her\r
+comprehension to make out. To her own heart it was a delightful\r
+affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her\r
+reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.\r
+\r
+Edward could only attempt an explanation by supposing, that, perhaps,\r
+at first accidentally meeting, the vanity of the one had been so worked\r
+on by the flattery of the other, as to lead by degrees to all the rest.\r
+Elinor remembered what Robert had told her in Harley Street, of his\r
+opinion of what his own mediation in his brother's affairs might have\r
+done, if applied to in time. She repeated it to Edward.\r
+\r
+"THAT was exactly like Robert,"--was his immediate observation.--"And\r
+THAT," he presently added, "might perhaps be in HIS head when the\r
+acquaintance between them first began. And Lucy perhaps at first might\r
+think only of procuring his good offices in my favour. Other designs\r
+might afterward arise."\r
+\r
+How long it had been carrying on between them, however, he was equally\r
+at a loss with herself to make out; for at Oxford, where he had\r
+remained for choice ever since his quitting London, he had had no means\r
+of hearing of her but from herself, and her letters to the very last\r
+were neither less frequent, nor less affectionate than usual. Not the\r
+smallest suspicion, therefore, had ever occurred to prepare him for\r
+what followed;--and when at last it burst on him in a letter from Lucy\r
+herself, he had been for some time, he believed, half stupified between\r
+the wonder, the horror, and the joy of such a deliverance. He put the\r
+letter into Elinor's hands.\r
+\r
+ "DEAR SIR,\r
+\r
+ "Being very sure I have long lost your affections,\r
+ I have thought myself at liberty to bestow my own\r
+ on another, and have no doubt of being as happy with\r
+ him as I once used to think I might be with you;\r
+ but I scorn to accept a hand while the heart was\r
+ another's. Sincerely wish you happy in your choice,\r
+ and it shall not be my fault if we are not always\r
+ good friends, as our near relationship now makes\r
+ proper. I can safely say I owe you no ill-will,\r
+ and am sure you will be too generous to do us any\r
+ ill offices. Your brother has gained my affections\r
+ entirely, and as we could not live without one\r
+ another, we are just returned from the altar, and\r
+ are now on our way to Dawlish for a few weeks, which\r
+ place your dear brother has great curiosity to see,\r
+ but thought I would first trouble you with these\r
+ few lines, and shall always remain,\r
+\r
+ "Your sincere well-wisher, friend, and sister,\r
+ "LUCY FERRARS.\r
+\r
+ "I have burnt all your letters, and will return\r
+ your picture the first opportunity. Please to destroy\r
+ my scrawls--but the ring with my hair you are very\r
+ welcome to keep."\r
+\r
+Elinor read and returned it without any comment.\r
+\r
+"I will not ask your opinion of it as a composition," said\r
+Edward.--"For worlds would not I have had a letter of hers seen by YOU\r
+in former days.--In a sister it is bad enough, but in a wife!--how I\r
+have blushed over the pages of her writing!--and I believe I may say\r
+that since the first half year of our foolish--business--this is the\r
+only letter I ever received from her, of which the substance made me\r
+any amends for the defect of the style."\r
+\r
+"However it may have come about," said Elinor, after a pause,--"they\r
+are certainly married. And your mother has brought on herself a most\r
+appropriate punishment. The independence she settled on Robert,\r
+through resentment against you, has put it in his power to make his own\r
+choice; and she has actually been bribing one son with a thousand\r
+a-year, to do the very deed which she disinherited the other for\r
+intending to do. She will hardly be less hurt, I suppose, by Robert's\r
+marrying Lucy, than she would have been by your marrying her."\r
+\r
+"She will be more hurt by it, for Robert always was her favourite.--She\r
+will be more hurt by it, and on the same principle will forgive him\r
+much sooner."\r
+\r
+In what state the affair stood at present between them, Edward knew\r
+not, for no communication with any of his family had yet been attempted\r
+by him. He had quitted Oxford within four and twenty hours after\r
+Lucy's letter arrived, and with only one object before him, the nearest\r
+road to Barton, had had no leisure to form any scheme of conduct, with\r
+which that road did not hold the most intimate connection. He could do\r
+nothing till he were assured of his fate with Miss Dashwood; and by his\r
+rapidity in seeking THAT fate, it is to be supposed, in spite of the\r
+jealousy with which he had once thought of Colonel Brandon, in spite of\r
+the modesty with which he rated his own deserts, and the politeness\r
+with which he talked of his doubts, he did not, upon the whole, expect\r
+a very cruel reception. It was his business, however, to say that he\r
+DID, and he said it very prettily. What he might say on the subject a\r
+twelvemonth after, must be referred to the imagination of husbands and\r
+wives.\r
+\r
+That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of\r
+malice against him in her message by Thomas, was perfectly clear to\r
+Elinor; and Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her\r
+character, had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost\r
+meanness of wanton ill-nature. Though his eyes had been long opened,\r
+even before his acquaintance with Elinor began, to her ignorance and a\r
+want of liberality in some of her opinions--they had been equally\r
+imputed, by him, to her want of education; and till her last letter\r
+reached him, he had always believed her to be a well-disposed,\r
+good-hearted girl, and thoroughly attached to himself. Nothing but\r
+such a persuasion could have prevented his putting an end to an\r
+engagement, which, long before the discovery of it laid him open to his\r
+mother's anger, had been a continual source of disquiet and regret to\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"I thought it my duty," said he, "independent of my feelings, to give\r
+her the option of continuing the engagement or not, when I was\r
+renounced by my mother, and stood to all appearance without a friend in\r
+the world to assist me. In such a situation as that, where there\r
+seemed nothing to tempt the avarice or the vanity of any living\r
+creature, how could I suppose, when she so earnestly, so warmly\r
+insisted on sharing my fate, whatever it might be, that any thing but\r
+the most disinterested affection was her inducement? And even now, I\r
+cannot comprehend on what motive she acted, or what fancied advantage\r
+it could be to her, to be fettered to a man for whom she had not the\r
+smallest regard, and who had only two thousand pounds in the world.\r
+She could not foresee that Colonel Brandon would give me a living."\r
+\r
+"No; but she might suppose that something would occur in your favour;\r
+that your own family might in time relent. And at any rate, she lost\r
+nothing by continuing the engagement, for she has proved that it\r
+fettered neither her inclination nor her actions. The connection was\r
+certainly a respectable one, and probably gained her consideration\r
+among her friends; and, if nothing more advantageous occurred, it would\r
+be better for her to marry YOU than be single."\r
+\r
+Edward was, of course, immediately convinced that nothing could have\r
+been more natural than Lucy's conduct, nor more self-evident than the\r
+motive of it.\r
+\r
+Elinor scolded him, harshly as ladies always scold the imprudence which\r
+compliments themselves, for having spent so much time with them at\r
+Norland, when he must have felt his own inconstancy.\r
+\r
+"Your behaviour was certainly very wrong," said she; "because--to say\r
+nothing of my own conviction, our relations were all led away by it to\r
+fancy and expect WHAT, as you were THEN situated, could never be."\r
+\r
+He could only plead an ignorance of his own heart, and a mistaken\r
+confidence in the force of his engagement.\r
+\r
+"I was simple enough to think, that because my FAITH was plighted to\r
+another, there could be no danger in my being with you; and that the\r
+consciousness of my engagement was to keep my heart as safe and sacred\r
+as my honour. I felt that I admired you, but I told myself it was only\r
+friendship; and till I began to make comparisons between yourself and\r
+Lucy, I did not know how far I was got. After that, I suppose, I WAS\r
+wrong in remaining so much in Sussex, and the arguments with which I\r
+reconciled myself to the expediency of it, were no better than\r
+these:--The danger is my own; I am doing no injury to anybody but\r
+myself."\r
+\r
+Elinor smiled, and shook her head.\r
+\r
+Edward heard with pleasure of Colonel Brandon's being expected at the\r
+Cottage, as he really wished not only to be better acquainted with him,\r
+but to have an opportunity of convincing him that he no longer resented\r
+his giving him the living of Delaford--"Which, at present," said he,\r
+"after thanks so ungraciously delivered as mine were on the occasion,\r
+he must think I have never forgiven him for offering."\r
+\r
+NOW he felt astonished himself that he had never yet been to the place.\r
+But so little interest had he taken in the matter, that he owed all his\r
+knowledge of the house, garden, and glebe, extent of the parish,\r
+condition of the land, and rate of the tithes, to Elinor herself, who\r
+had heard so much of it from Colonel Brandon, and heard it with so much\r
+attention, as to be entirely mistress of the subject.\r
+\r
+One question after this only remained undecided, between them, one\r
+difficulty only was to be overcome. They were brought together by\r
+mutual affection, with the warmest approbation of their real friends;\r
+their intimate knowledge of each other seemed to make their happiness\r
+certain--and they only wanted something to live upon. Edward had two\r
+thousand pounds, and Elinor one, which, with Delaford living, was all\r
+that they could call their own; for it was impossible that Mrs.\r
+Dashwood should advance anything; and they were neither of them quite\r
+enough in love to think that three hundred and fifty pounds a-year\r
+would supply them with the comforts of life.\r
+\r
+Edward was not entirely without hopes of some favourable change in his\r
+mother towards him; and on THAT he rested for the residue of their\r
+income. But Elinor had no such dependence; for since Edward would\r
+still be unable to marry Miss Morton, and his chusing herself had been\r
+spoken of in Mrs. Ferrars's flattering language as only a lesser evil\r
+than his chusing Lucy Steele, she feared that Robert's offence would\r
+serve no other purpose than to enrich Fanny.\r
+\r
+About four days after Edward's arrival Colonel Brandon appeared, to\r
+complete Mrs. Dashwood's satisfaction, and to give her the dignity of\r
+having, for the first time since her living at Barton, more company\r
+with her than her house would hold. Edward was allowed to retain the\r
+privilege of first comer, and Colonel Brandon therefore walked every\r
+night to his old quarters at the Park; from whence he usually returned\r
+in the morning, early enough to interrupt the lovers' first tete-a-tete\r
+before breakfast.\r
+\r
+A three weeks' residence at Delaford, where, in his evening hours at\r
+least, he had little to do but to calculate the disproportion between\r
+thirty-six and seventeen, brought him to Barton in a temper of mind\r
+which needed all the improvement in Marianne's looks, all the kindness\r
+of her welcome, and all the encouragement of her mother's language, to\r
+make it cheerful. Among such friends, however, and such flattery, he\r
+did revive. No rumour of Lucy's marriage had yet reached him:--he knew\r
+nothing of what had passed; and the first hours of his visit were\r
+consequently spent in hearing and in wondering. Every thing was\r
+explained to him by Mrs. Dashwood, and he found fresh reason to rejoice\r
+in what he had done for Mr. Ferrars, since eventually it promoted the\r
+interest of Elinor.\r
+\r
+It would be needless to say, that the gentlemen advanced in the good\r
+opinion of each other, as they advanced in each other's acquaintance,\r
+for it could not be otherwise. Their resemblance in good principles\r
+and good sense, in disposition and manner of thinking, would probably\r
+have been sufficient to unite them in friendship, without any other\r
+attraction; but their being in love with two sisters, and two sisters\r
+fond of each other, made that mutual regard inevitable and immediate,\r
+which might otherwise have waited the effect of time and judgment.\r
+\r
+The letters from town, which a few days before would have made every\r
+nerve in Elinor's body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read\r
+with less emotion than mirth. Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the\r
+wonderful tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting\r
+girl, and pour forth her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she\r
+was sure, had quite doted upon the worthless hussy, and was now, by all\r
+accounts, almost broken-hearted, at Oxford.-- "I do think," she\r
+continued, "nothing was ever carried on so sly; for it was but two days\r
+before Lucy called and sat a couple of hours with me. Not a soul\r
+suspected anything of the matter, not even Nancy, who, poor soul! came\r
+crying to me the day after, in a great fright for fear of Mrs. Ferrars,\r
+as well as not knowing how to get to Plymouth; for Lucy it seems\r
+borrowed all her money before she went off to be married, on purpose we\r
+suppose to make a show with, and poor Nancy had not seven shillings in\r
+the world;--so I was very glad to give her five guineas to take her\r
+down to Exeter, where she thinks of staying three or four weeks with\r
+Mrs. Burgess, in hopes, as I tell her, to fall in with the Doctor\r
+again. And I must say that Lucy's crossness not to take them along\r
+with them in the chaise is worse than all. Poor Mr. Edward! I cannot\r
+get him out of my head, but you must send for him to Barton, and Miss\r
+Marianne must try to comfort him."\r
+\r
+Mr. Dashwood's strains were more solemn. Mrs. Ferrars was the most\r
+unfortunate of women--poor Fanny had suffered agonies of\r
+sensibility--and he considered the existence of each, under such a\r
+blow, with grateful wonder. Robert's offence was unpardonable, but\r
+Lucy's was infinitely worse. Neither of them were ever again to be\r
+mentioned to Mrs. Ferrars; and even, if she might hereafter be induced\r
+to forgive her son, his wife should never be acknowledged as her\r
+daughter, nor be permitted to appear in her presence. The secrecy with\r
+which everything had been carried on between them, was rationally\r
+treated as enormously heightening the crime, because, had any suspicion\r
+of it occurred to the others, proper measures would have been taken to\r
+prevent the marriage; and he called on Elinor to join with him in\r
+regretting that Lucy's engagement with Edward had not rather been\r
+fulfilled, than that she should thus be the means of spreading misery\r
+farther in the family.-- He thus continued:\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Ferrars has never yet mentioned Edward's name, which does not\r
+surprise us; but, to our great astonishment, not a line has been\r
+received from him on the occasion. Perhaps, however, he is kept silent\r
+by his fear of offending, and I shall, therefore, give him a hint, by a\r
+line to Oxford, that his sister and I both think a letter of proper\r
+submission from him, addressed perhaps to Fanny, and by her shewn to\r
+her mother, might not be taken amiss; for we all know the tenderness of\r
+Mrs. Ferrars's heart, and that she wishes for nothing so much as to be\r
+on good terms with her children."\r
+\r
+This paragraph was of some importance to the prospects and conduct of\r
+Edward. It determined him to attempt a reconciliation, though not\r
+exactly in the manner pointed out by their brother and sister.\r
+\r
+"A letter of proper submission!" repeated he; "would they have me beg\r
+my mother's pardon for Robert's ingratitude to HER, and breach of\r
+honour to ME?--I can make no submission--I am grown neither humble nor\r
+penitent by what has passed.--I am grown very happy; but that would not\r
+interest.--I know of no submission that IS proper for me to make."\r
+\r
+"You may certainly ask to be forgiven," said Elinor, "because you have\r
+offended;--and I should think you might NOW venture so far as to\r
+profess some concern for having ever formed the engagement which drew\r
+on you your mother's anger."\r
+\r
+He agreed that he might.\r
+\r
+"And when she has forgiven you, perhaps a little humility may be\r
+convenient while acknowledging a second engagement, almost as imprudent\r
+in HER eyes as the first."\r
+\r
+He had nothing to urge against it, but still resisted the idea of a\r
+letter of proper submission; and therefore, to make it easier to him,\r
+as he declared a much greater willingness to make mean concessions by\r
+word of mouth than on paper, it was resolved that, instead of writing\r
+to Fanny, he should go to London, and personally intreat her good\r
+offices in his favour.-- "And if they really DO interest themselves,"\r
+said Marianne, in her new character of candour, "in bringing about a\r
+reconciliation, I shall think that even John and Fanny are not entirely\r
+without merit."\r
+\r
+After a visit on Colonel Brandon's side of only three or four days, the\r
+two gentlemen quitted Barton together.-- They were to go immediately to\r
+Delaford, that Edward might have some personal knowledge of his future\r
+home, and assist his patron and friend in deciding on what improvements\r
+were needed to it; and from thence, after staying there a couple of\r
+nights, he was to proceed on his journey to town.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER 50\r
+\r
+\r
+After a proper resistance on the part of Mrs. Ferrars, just so violent\r
+and so steady as to preserve her from that reproach which she always\r
+seemed fearful of incurring, the reproach of being too amiable, Edward\r
+was admitted to her presence, and pronounced to be again her son.\r
+\r
+Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of\r
+her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward\r
+a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of\r
+Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the\r
+resuscitation of Edward, she had one again.\r
+\r
+In spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, he did not\r
+feel the continuance of his existence secure, till he had revealed his\r
+present engagement; for the publication of that circumstance, he\r
+feared, might give a sudden turn to his constitution, and carry him off\r
+as rapidly as before. With apprehensive caution therefore it was\r
+revealed, and he was listened to with unexpected calmness. Mrs.\r
+Ferrars at first reasonably endeavoured to dissuade him from marrying\r
+Miss Dashwood, by every argument in her power;--told him, that in Miss\r
+Morton he would have a woman of higher rank and larger fortune;--and\r
+enforced the assertion, by observing that Miss Morton was the daughter\r
+of a nobleman with thirty thousand pounds, while Miss Dashwood was only\r
+the daughter of a private gentleman with no more than THREE; but when\r
+she found that, though perfectly admitting the truth of her\r
+representation, he was by no means inclined to be guided by it, she\r
+judged it wisest, from the experience of the past, to submit--and\r
+therefore, after such an ungracious delay as she owed to her own\r
+dignity, and as served to prevent every suspicion of good-will, she\r
+issued her decree of consent to the marriage of Edward and Elinor.\r
+\r
+What she would engage to do towards augmenting their income was next to\r
+be considered; and here it plainly appeared, that though Edward was now\r
+her only son, he was by no means her eldest; for while Robert was\r
+inevitably endowed with a thousand pounds a-year, not the smallest\r
+objection was made against Edward's taking orders for the sake of two\r
+hundred and fifty at the utmost; nor was anything promised either for\r
+the present or in future, beyond the ten thousand pounds, which had\r
+been given with Fanny.\r
+\r
+It was as much, however, as was desired, and more than was expected, by\r
+Edward and Elinor; and Mrs. Ferrars herself, by her shuffling excuses,\r
+seemed the only person surprised at her not giving more.\r
+\r
+With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them,\r
+they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the\r
+living, but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with\r
+an eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making\r
+considerable improvements; and after waiting some time for their\r
+completion, after experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments\r
+and delays from the unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen, Elinor,\r
+as usual, broke through the first positive resolution of not marrying\r
+till every thing was ready, and the ceremony took place in Barton\r
+church early in the autumn.\r
+\r
+The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the\r
+Mansion-house; from whence they could superintend the progress of the\r
+Parsonage, and direct every thing as they liked on the spot;--could\r
+chuse papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep. Mrs. Jennings's\r
+prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for\r
+she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by\r
+Michaelmas, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really\r
+believed, one of the happiest couples in the world. They had in fact\r
+nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne,\r
+and rather better pasturage for their cows.\r
+\r
+They were visited on their first settling by almost all their relations\r
+and friends. Mrs. Ferrars came to inspect the happiness which she was\r
+almost ashamed of having authorised; and even the Dashwoods were at the\r
+expense of a journey from Sussex to do them honour.\r
+\r
+"I will not say that I am disappointed, my dear sister," said John, as\r
+they were walking together one morning before the gates of Delaford\r
+House, "THAT would be saying too much, for certainly you have been one\r
+of the most fortunate young women in the world, as it is. But, I\r
+confess, it would give me great pleasure to call Colonel Brandon\r
+brother. His property here, his place, his house, every thing is in\r
+such respectable and excellent condition!--and his woods!--I have not\r
+seen such timber any where in Dorsetshire, as there is now standing in\r
+Delaford Hanger!--And though, perhaps, Marianne may not seem exactly\r
+the person to attract him--yet I think it would altogether be advisable\r
+for you to have them now frequently staying with you, for as Colonel\r
+Brandon seems a great deal at home, nobody can tell what may\r
+happen--for, when people are much thrown together, and see little of\r
+anybody else--and it will always be in your power to set her off to\r
+advantage, and so forth;--in short, you may as well give her a\r
+chance--You understand me."--\r
+\r
+But though Mrs. Ferrars DID come to see them, and always treated them\r
+with the make-believe of decent affection, they were never insulted by\r
+her real favour and preference. THAT was due to the folly of Robert,\r
+and the cunning of his wife; and it was earned by them before many\r
+months had passed away. The selfish sagacity of the latter, which had\r
+at first drawn Robert into the scrape, was the principal instrument of\r
+his deliverance from it; for her respectful humility, assiduous\r
+attentions, and endless flatteries, as soon as the smallest opening was\r
+given for their exercise, reconciled Mrs. Ferrars to his choice, and\r
+re-established him completely in her favour.\r
+\r
+The whole of Lucy's behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which\r
+crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance\r
+of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however\r
+its progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every\r
+advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and\r
+conscience. When Robert first sought her acquaintance, and privately\r
+visited her in Bartlett's Buildings, it was only with the view imputed\r
+to him by his brother. He merely meant to persuade her to give up the\r
+engagement; and as there could be nothing to overcome but the affection\r
+of both, he naturally expected that one or two interviews would settle\r
+the matter. In that point, however, and that only, he erred;--for\r
+though Lucy soon gave him hopes that his eloquence would convince her\r
+in TIME, another visit, another conversation, was always wanted to\r
+produce this conviction. Some doubts always lingered in her mind when\r
+they parted, which could only be removed by another half hour's\r
+discourse with himself. His attendance was by this means secured, and\r
+the rest followed in course. Instead of talking of Edward, they came\r
+gradually to talk only of Robert,--a subject on which he had always\r
+more to say than on any other, and in which she soon betrayed an\r
+interest even equal to his own; and in short, it became speedily\r
+evident to both, that he had entirely supplanted his brother. He was\r
+proud of his conquest, proud of tricking Edward, and very proud of\r
+marrying privately without his mother's consent. What immediately\r
+followed is known. They passed some months in great happiness at\r
+Dawlish; for she had many relations and old acquaintances to cut--and\r
+he drew several plans for magnificent cottages;--and from thence\r
+returning to town, procured the forgiveness of Mrs. Ferrars, by the\r
+simple expedient of asking it, which, at Lucy's instigation, was\r
+adopted. The forgiveness, at first, indeed, as was reasonable,\r
+comprehended only Robert; and Lucy, who had owed his mother no duty and\r
+therefore could have transgressed none, still remained some weeks\r
+longer unpardoned. But perseverance in humility of conduct and\r
+messages, in self-condemnation for Robert's offence, and gratitude for\r
+the unkindness she was treated with, procured her in time the haughty\r
+notice which overcame her by its graciousness, and led soon afterwards,\r
+by rapid degrees, to the highest state of affection and influence.\r
+Lucy became as necessary to Mrs. Ferrars, as either Robert or Fanny;\r
+and while Edward was never cordially forgiven for having once intended\r
+to marry her, and Elinor, though superior to her in fortune and birth,\r
+was spoken of as an intruder, SHE was in every thing considered, and\r
+always openly acknowledged, to be a favourite child. They settled in\r
+town, received very liberal assistance from Mrs. Ferrars, were on the\r
+best terms imaginable with the Dashwoods; and setting aside the\r
+jealousies and ill-will continually subsisting between Fanny and Lucy,\r
+in which their husbands of course took a part, as well as the frequent\r
+domestic disagreements between Robert and Lucy themselves, nothing\r
+could exceed the harmony in which they all lived together.\r
+\r
+What Edward had done to forfeit the right of eldest son, might have\r
+puzzled many people to find out; and what Robert had done to succeed to\r
+it, might have puzzled them still more. It was an arrangement,\r
+however, justified in its effects, if not in its cause; for nothing\r
+ever appeared in Robert's style of living or of talking to give a\r
+suspicion of his regretting the extent of his income, as either leaving\r
+his brother too little, or bringing himself too much;--and if Edward\r
+might be judged from the ready discharge of his duties in every\r
+particular, from an increasing attachment to his wife and his home, and\r
+from the regular cheerfulness of his spirits, he might be supposed no\r
+less contented with his lot, no less free from every wish of an\r
+exchange.\r
+\r
+Elinor's marriage divided her as little from her family as could well\r
+be contrived, without rendering the cottage at Barton entirely useless,\r
+for her mother and sisters spent much more than half their time with\r
+her. Mrs. Dashwood was acting on motives of policy as well as pleasure\r
+in the frequency of her visits at Delaford; for her wish of bringing\r
+Marianne and Colonel Brandon together was hardly less earnest, though\r
+rather more liberal than what John had expressed. It was now her\r
+darling object. Precious as was the company of her daughter to her,\r
+she desired nothing so much as to give up its constant enjoyment to her\r
+valued friend; and to see Marianne settled at the mansion-house was\r
+equally the wish of Edward and Elinor. They each felt his sorrows, and\r
+their own obligations, and Marianne, by general consent, was to be the\r
+reward of all.\r
+\r
+With such a confederacy against her--with a knowledge so intimate of\r
+his goodness--with a conviction of his fond attachment to herself,\r
+which at last, though long after it was observable to everybody\r
+else--burst on her--what could she do?\r
+\r
+Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to\r
+discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her\r
+conduct, her most favourite maxims. She was born to overcome an\r
+affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment\r
+superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give\r
+her hand to another!--and THAT other, a man who had suffered no less\r
+than herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years\r
+before, she had considered too old to be married,--and who still sought\r
+the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!\r
+\r
+But so it was. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible\r
+passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting,--instead\r
+of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only\r
+pleasures in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and\r
+sober judgment she had determined on,--she found herself at nineteen,\r
+submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new\r
+home, a wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village.\r
+\r
+Colonel Brandon was now as happy, as all those who best loved him,\r
+believed he deserved to be;--in Marianne he was consoled for every past\r
+affliction;--her regard and her society restored his mind to animation,\r
+and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own\r
+happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of\r
+each observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her\r
+whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had\r
+once been to Willoughby.\r
+\r
+Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his\r
+punishment was soon afterwards complete in the voluntary forgiveness of\r
+Mrs. Smith, who, by stating his marriage with a woman of character, as\r
+the source of her clemency, gave him reason for believing that had he\r
+behaved with honour towards Marianne, he might at once have been happy\r
+and rich. That his repentance of misconduct, which thus brought its\r
+own punishment, was sincere, need not be doubted;--nor that he long\r
+thought of Colonel Brandon with envy, and of Marianne with regret. But\r
+that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or\r
+contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must\r
+not be depended on--for he did neither. He lived to exert, and\r
+frequently to enjoy himself. His wife was not always out of humour,\r
+nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs,\r
+and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of\r
+domestic felicity.\r
+\r
+For Marianne, however--in spite of his incivility in surviving her\r
+loss--he always retained that decided regard which interested him in\r
+every thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of\r
+perfection in woman;--and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him\r
+in after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dashwood was prudent enough to remain at the cottage, without\r
+attempting a removal to Delaford; and fortunately for Sir John and Mrs.\r
+Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an\r
+age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being\r
+supposed to have a lover.\r
+\r
+Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication\r
+which strong family affection would naturally dictate;--and among the\r
+merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked\r
+as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost\r
+within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement\r
+between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+THE END\r
+\r
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