 1 Sir Walter Elliott of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the barrentage. There he found occupation for an idle hour and a consolation in a distressed one. There his faculties were roused into admiration and respect by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents. There any unwelcome sensations arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century, and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which the favourite volume always opened. Elliott of Kellynch Hall Walter Elliott, born March 1, 1760. Married July 15, 1784, Elizabeth. Daughter of James Stevenson Esquire of South Park in the county of Gloucester. By which lady, who died 1800, he has issue Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785, Anne, born August 9, 1787, a stillborn son, November 5, 1789, Mary, born November 20, 1791. Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer's hands, but Sir Walter had improved it by adding for the information of himself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary's birth. Married December 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles Musgrove Esquire of Upper Cross, in the county of Somerset, and by inserting most accurately the day of the month on which he had lost his wife. Anne followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable family in the usual terms. How it had been first settled in Cheshire, how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of High Sheriff, representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of loyalty and dignity of baronet in the first year of Charles II, with all the Mary's and Elizabeth's they had married, forming altogether two handsome duo decimal pages, and concluding with the arms and motto, Principal Seat Kellynch Hall in the county of Somerset, and Sir Walter's handwriting again in this finale. Air presumptive, William Walter Elliot Esquire, great-grandson of the second Sir Walter. Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character, vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth, and at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did, nor could the valet of any new-made lord be more delighted with the place he held in society. He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy, and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion. His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment. Since to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character to anything deserved by his own. Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman, sensible and amiable, whose judgment and conduct, if they might be pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never required indulgence afterwards. She had humored or softened or concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years, and though not the very happiest being in the world herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children to attach her to life, and make it no matter of indifference to her when she was called on to quit them. Three girls, the two eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath, an awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father. She had, however, one very intimate friend, a sensible, deserving woman who had been brought by strong attachment to herself, to settle close by her in the village of Kellinge, and on her kindness and advice Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had been anxiously giving her daughters. This friend, Anne Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been anticipated on that head by their acquaintance. Thirteen years had passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they were still near-neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower, the other a widow. That Lady Russell, of steady age and character and extremely well provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably discontented when a woman does marry again than when she does not. But Sir Walter's continuing singleness requires explanation. Be it known, then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, having met with one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications, prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughter's sake. For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up anything which he had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had succeeded at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother's rights and consequence. And being very handsome and very like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had got on together most happily. His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance by becoming Mrs. Charles Musgrove. But Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister. Her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way. She was only Anne. To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued goddaughter, favorite, and friend. Lady Russell loved them all, but it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again. A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her bloom had vanished early, and as even in its height her father had found little to admire in her, so totally different were her delicate features and mild dark eyes from his own, there could be nothing in them now that she was faded and thin to excite his esteem. He had never indulged much hope. He had now none of ever reading her name in any other page of his favorite work. All equality of alliance must rest with Elizabeth, for Mary had merely connected herself with an old country family of respectability and large fortune, and had therefore given all the honor and received none. Elizabeth would, one day or other, marry suitably. It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before, and generally speaking, if there has been neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and so Walter might be excused there for him forgetting her age, or at least be deemed only half a fool for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming as ever amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else, for he could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintances were growing. Anne, Haggard, Mary, Corse, every face in the neighborhood worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow's foot about Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him. Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment. Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellyn Chaw presiding and directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have given the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years she had been doing the honors and laying down the domestic law at home, and leading the way to the Shays and Four, and walking immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms in the country. Thirteen winters revolving frost had seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighborhood afforded, and thirteen springs shown their blossoms as she travelled up to London with her father for a few weeks' annual enjoyment of the great world. She had the remembrance of all this. She had the consciousness of being nine and twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions. She was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by barrened blood within the next twelve-month or two. Then might she again take up the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth, but now she liked it not. Always to be presented with the date of her own birth and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister made the book an evil, and more than once when her father had left it open on the table near her had she closed it with averted eyes and pushed it away. She had had a disappointment moreover which that book, and especially the history of her own family, must ever present the remembrance of. The heir presumptive, the very William Walter Elliot Esquire whose rights had been so generously supported by her father, had disappointed her. She had, while a very young girl, as soon as she had known him to be in the event of her having no brother, the future barrened, meant to marry him, and her father had always meant that she should. He had not been known to them as a boy, but soon after Lady Elliot's death Sir Walter had sought the acquaintance, and though his overtures had not been met with any warmth, he had persevered in seeking it, making allowances for the modest drawing-back of youth. And in one of their spring excursions to London, when Elizabeth was in her first bloom, Mr. Elliot had been forced into the introduction. He was at that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of law, and Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable, and every plan in his favour was confirmed. He was invited to Kellynch Hall, he was talked of and expected all the rest of the year, but he never came. The following spring he was seen again in town, found equally agreeable, again encouraged, invited and expected, and again he did not come. And the next tidings were that he was married. Instead of pushing his fortune in the line marked out for the heir of the house of Elliot, he had purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of inferior birth. Sir Walter had resented it. As the head of the house, he felt that he ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man so publicly by the hand. For they must have been seen together, he observed, ones at Tattersall's, and twice in the lobby of the House of Commons. His disapprobation was expressed, but apparently very little regarded. Mr. Elliot had attempted no apology, and shown himself as unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family, as Sir Walter considered him unworthy of it. All acquaintance between them had ceased. This very awkward history of Mr. Elliot was still, after an interval of several years, felt with anger by Elizabeth, who had liked the man for himself, and still more for being her father's heir, and whose strong family pride could see only in him a proper match for Sir Walter Elliot's eldest daughter. There was not a baronet from A to Z whom her feelings could have so willingly acknowledged as an equal. Yet so miserably had he conducted himself, that though she was at this present time, the summer of 1814, wearing black ribbons for his wife, she could not admit him to be worth thinking of again. The disgrace of his first marriage might, perhaps, as there was no reason to suppose it perpetuated by offspring, have been got over, had he not done worse. But he had, as by the accustomary intervention of kind friends they had been informed, spoken most disrespectfully of them all, most slightingly and contemptuously of the very blood he belonged to, and the honours which were hereafter to be his own. This could not be pardoned. Such were Elizabeth Elliot's sentiments and sensations. Such the cares to alloy, the agitations to vary, the sameness and the elegance, the prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life. Such the feelings to give interest to a long uneventful residence in one country-circle, to fill the vacancies which there were no habits of utility abroad, no talents or accomplishments for home to occupy. But now another occupation and solicitude of mind was beginning to be added to these. Her father was growing distressed for money. She knew that when he now took up the parentage, it was to drive the heavy bills of his tradespeople and the unwelcome hints of Mr. Shepherd his agents from his thought. The Kellynch property was good, but not equal to Sir Walter's apprehension of the state required in its possessor. While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method, moderation and economy which had just kept him within his income, but with her had died all such right-mindedness, and from that period he had been constantly exceeding it. It had not been possible for him to spend less. He had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was imperiously called on to do. But blameless as he was, he was not only growing dreadfully and dead, but was hearing of it so often that it became vain to attempt concealing it longer, even partially from his daughter. He had given her some hints of it the last spring in town. He had gone so far even as to say, Can we retrench? Does it occur to you that there is any one article in which we can retrench? And Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first ardour of female alarm, set seriously to think what could be done, and had finally proposed these two branches of economy, to cut off some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room, to which expedience she afterwards added the happy thought of there taking no present down to Anne, as had been the usual yearly custom. But these measures, however good in themselves, were insufficient for the real extent of the evil, the whole of which Sir Walter found himself obliged to confess to her soon afterwards. Elizabeth had nothing to propose of deeper efficacy. She felt herself ill-used and unfortunate, as did her father, and they were neither of them able to devise any means of lessening their expenses without compromising their dignity or relinquishing their comforts in a way not to be born. There was only a small part of his estate that Sir Walter could dispose of, but had every acre been alienable it would have made no difference. He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the power, but he would never condescend to sell. No, he would never disgrace his name so far. The Kellynch estate should be transmitted whole and entire as he had received it. Their two confidential friends, Mr. Shepherd, who lived in the neighbouring market-town, and Lady Russell, were called to advise them, and both father and daughter seemed to expect that something should be struck out by one or the other to remove their embarrassments and reduce their expenditure without involving the loss of any indulgence of taste or pride. CHAPTER II Mr. Shepherd, a civil, cautious lawyer, who whatever might be his hold or his views on Sir Walter, would rather have the disagreeable prompted by anybody else, excused himself from offering the slightest hint, and only begged leave to recommend an implicit reference to the excellent judgment of Lady Russell, from whose known good sense he fully expected to have just such resolute measures advised as he meant to see finally adopted. Lady Russell was most anxiously zealous on the subject, and gave it much serious consideration. She was a woman rather of sound than of quick abilities, whose difficulties in coming to any decision in this instance were great, from the opposition of two leading principles. She was of strict integrity herself, with a delicate sense of honour. But she was as desirous of saving Sir Walter's feelings, as solicitous for the credit of the family, as aristocratic in her ideas of what was due to them as anybody of sense and honesty could well be. She was a benevolent, charitable, good woman, and capable of strong attachments, most correct in her conduct, strict in her notions of decorum, and with manners that were held a standard of good-breeding. She had a cultivated mind, and was, generally speaking, rational and consistent. But she had prejudices on the side of ancestry. She had a value for rank and consequence, which blinded her a little to the faults of those who possessed them. Herself the widow of only a night, she gave the dignity of a baronet all its due. And Sir Walter, independent of his claims as an old acquaintance, an attentive neighbour, an obliging landlord, the husband of her very dear friend, the father of Anne and her sisters, was, as being Sir Walter, in her apprehension, entitled to a great deal of compassion and consideration under his present difficulties. They must retrench. That did not admit of a doubt. But she was very anxious to have it done with the least possible pain to him and Elizabeth. She drew up plans of economy, she made exact calculations, and she did what nobody else thought of doing. She consulted Anne, who never seemed considered by the others as having any interest in the question. She consulted, and in a degree was influenced by her in marking out the scheme of retrenchment, which was at last submitted to Sir Walter. Every amundation of Anne's had been on the side of honesty against importance. She wanted more vigorous measures, a more complete reformation, a quicker release from debt, a much higher tone of indifference for anything but justice and equity. If we can persuade your father to all this, said Lady Russell, looking over her paper, much may be done. If he will adopt these regulations, in seven years he will be clear, and I hope we may be able to convince him and Elizabeth that Kellynch Hall has a respectability in itself which cannot be affected by these reductions, and that the true dignity of Sir Walter Elliott will be very far from lessened in the eyes of sensible people by acting like a man of principle. What will he be doing in fact, but what very many of our first families have done, or ought to do? There will be nothing singular in his case, and it is singularity which often makes the worst part of our suffering as it always does of our conduct. I have great hope of prevailing. We must be serious and decided, for after all, the person who has contracted debts must pay them, and though a great deal is due to the feelings of the gentleman, and the head of a house, like your father, there is still more due to the character of an honest man. This was the principle on which Anne wanted her father to be proceeding, his friends to be urging him. She considered it as an act of indispensable duty to clear away the claims of creditors, with all the expedition which the most comprehensive retrenchments could secure, and saw no dignity in anything short of it. She wanted it to be prescribed and felt as a duty. She rated Lady Russell's influence highly, and as to the severe degree of self-denial which her own conscience prompted, she believed there might be little more difficulty in persuading them to a complete than to half a reformation. Her knowledge of her father and Elizabeth inclined her to think that the sacrifice of one pair of horses would be hardly less painful than of both, and so on, through the whole list of Lady Russell's two gentle reductions. How Anne's more rigid requisitions might have been taken as of little consequence. Lady Russell's had no success at all. Could not be put up with, were not to be borne. What? Every comfort of life knocked off. Journeys, London, servants, horses, table, contractions, and restrictions everywhere. To live no longer with the decencies even of a private gentleman. No. He would sooner quit killing all at once, than remaining it on such disgraceful terms. Quit Kellynch Hall. The hint was immediately taken up by Mr. Shepard, whose interest was involved in the reality of Sir Walter's retrenching, and who was perfectly persuaded that nothing would be done without a change of abode. Since the idea had been started in the very quarter which ought to dictate, he had no scruple, he said, in confessing his judgment to be entirely on that side. It had not appeared to him that Sir Walter could materially alter his style of living in a house which had such a character of hospitality and ancient dignity to support. In any other place Sir Walter might judge for himself, and would be looked up to as regulating the modes of life in whatever way he might choose to model his household. Sir Walter would quit Kellynch Hall, and after a very few days more of doubt and indecision, the great question of whether he should go was settled, and the first outline of this important change made out. There had been three alternatives—London, Bath, or another house in the country. All Anne's wishes had been for the latter. A small house in their own neighborhood where they might still have Lady Russell's society, still be near Mary, and still have the pleasure of sometimes seeing the lawns and groves of Kellynch was the object of her ambition. But the usual fate of Anne attended her, in having something very opposite from her inclination fixed on. She disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her, and Bath was to be her home. Sir Walter had at first thought more of London, but Mr. Shepard felt that he could not be trusted in London, and had been skilful enough to dissuade him from it, and make Bath preferred. It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament. He might there be important at comparatively little expense. Two material advantages of Bath over London had, of course, been given all their weight. It's more convenient distance from Kellynch, only fifty miles, and Lady Russell spending some part of every winter there, into the very great satisfaction of Lady Russell, whose first views on the projected change had been for Bath, Sir Walter and Elizabeth were induced to believe that they should lose neither consequence nor enjoyment by settling there. Lady Russell felt obliged to oppose her dear Anne's known wishes. It would be too much to expect Sir Walter to descend into a small house in his own neighborhood. Anne herself would have found the mortifications of it more than she foresaw, and to Sir Walter's feelings they must have been dreadful. And with regard to Anne's dislike of Bath, she considered it as a prejudice and mistake arising first from the circumstance of her having been three years at school there, after her mother's death, and secondly, from her happening to be not imperfectly good spirits the only winter which she had afterwards spent there with herself. Lady Russell was fond of Bath, in short, and disposed to think it must suit them all, and as to her young friend's health, bypassing all the warm months with her at Kellynch Lodge, every danger would be avoided. And it was, in fact, a change which must do both health and spirits good. Anne had been too little from home, too little seen. Her spirits were not high. A larger society would improve them. She wanted her to be more known. The undesirableness of any other house in the same neighborhood for Sir Walter was certainly much strengthened by one part and a very material part of the scheme, which had been happily engrafted on the beginning. He was not only to quit his home, but to see it in the hands of others. A trial of fortitude which stronger heads than Sir Walter's have found too much. Kellynch Hall was to be let. This, however, was a profound secret, not to be breathed beyond their own circle. Sir Walter could not have borne the degradation of being known to design letting his house. Mr. Shepherd had once mentioned the word Advertise, but never dared approach it again. Sir Walter spurred the idea of its being offered in any manner, for bad the slightest hint being dropped of his having such an intention, and it was only on the supposition of his being spontaneously solicited by some most unexceptuable applicant, on his own terms, and as a great favour, that he would let it at all. How quick come the reasons for approving what we like! Lady Russell had another excellent one at hand, for being extremely glad that Sir Walter and his family were to remove from the country. Elizabeth had been lately forming an intimacy which she wished to see interrupted. It was with the daughter of Mr. Shepherd who had returned after an unprosperous marriage to her father's house with the additional burden of two children. She was a clever young woman who understood the art of pleasing, the art of pleasing at least, at Kellynch Hall, and who made herself so acceptable to Miss Elliot as to have been already staying there more than once, in spite of all that Lady Russell, who thought it a friendship quite out of place, could hint of caution and reserve. Lady Russell, indeed, had scarcely any influence with Elizabeth, and seemed to love her rather because she would love her than because Elizabeth deserved it. She had never received from her more than outward attention, nothing beyond the observances of complacence, had never succeeded in any point which she wanted to carry against previous inclination. She had been repeatedly very earnest in trying to get Anne included in the visit to London, sensibly open to all the injustice and all the discredit of the selfish arrangements which shut her out, and on many lesser occasions had endeavoured to give Elizabeth the advantage of her own better judgment and experience, but always in vain. Elizabeth would go her own way, and never had she pursued it in more decided opposition to Lady Russell than in this selection of Mrs. Clay, turning from the society of so deserving a sister to bestow her affection and confidence on one who ought to have been nothing to her but the object of distant civility. From situation Mrs. Clay was in Lady Russell's estimate a very unequal and in her character she believed a very dangerous companion, and a removal that would leave Mrs. Clay behind and bring a choice of more suitable intimates within Miss Elliot's reach was therefore an object of first-rate importance. CHAPTER II I must take leave to observe Sir Walter, said Mr. Shepherd one morning at Kellynch Hall, as he laid down the newspaper, that the present juncture is much in our favour. This peace will be turning all our rich naval officers ashore. They will be all wanting a home. Could not be a better time, Sir Walter, for having a choice of tenants, very responsible tenants. Many a noble fortune has been made during the war. If a rich admiral were to come in our way, Sir Walter, he would be a very lucky man, Shepherd, replied Sir Walter. That's all I have to remark. A prize indeed would Kellynch Hall be to him. Rather, the greatest prize of all, let him have taken ever so many before. Hey, Shepherd! Mr. Shepherd laughed, as he knew he must at this wit, and then added, I presume to observe, Sir Walter, that in the way of business gentlemen of the navy are well to deal with. I have had a little knowledge of their methods of doing business, and I am free to confess that they have very liberal notions, and are as likely to make desirable tenants as any set of people one should meet with. Therefore, Sir Walter, what I would take leave to suggest is, that if in consequence of any room as getting abroad of your intention, which must be contemplated as a possible thing, because we know how difficult it is to keep the actions and designs of one part of the world from the notice and curiosity of the other, consequence has its tax. I, John Shepherd, might conceal any family matters that I chose, for nobody would think it worth their while to observe me. But Sir Walter Elliot has eyes upon him, which it may be very difficult to allude, and therefore, thus much I venture upon, that it will not greatly surprise me if, with all our caution, some rumour of the truth should get abroad, in the supposition of which, as I was going to observe, since applications will unquestionably follow, I should think any from our wealthy naval commanders particularly worth attending to, and beg leave to add, that two hours will bring me over at any time, to save you the trouble of replying. Sir Walter only nodded. But soon afterwards, rising and pacing the room, he observed sarcastically. There are few among the gentlemen of the navy, I imagine, who would not be surprised to find themselves in a house of this description. They would look around them, no doubt, and bless their good fortune, said Mrs. Clay, for Mrs. Clay was present. Her father had driven her over, nothing being of so much use to Mrs. Clay's health as a drive to Kellinge. But I quite agree with my father in thinking a sailor might be a very desirable tenant. I have known a good deal of the profession, and besides their liberality, they are so neat and careful in all their ways. These valuable pictures of yours, Sir Walter, if you chose to leave them, would be perfectly safe. Everything in and about the house should be taken such excellent care of. The gardens and shrubberies would be kept in almost as high order as they are now. You need not be afraid, Miss Elliot, of your own sweet flower gardens being neglected. As to all that, rejoined Sir Walter Cooley. Supposing I were induced to let my house, I have by no means made up my mind as to the privileges to be annexed to it. I am not particularly disposed to favour a tenant. The park would be open to him, of course, and few navy officers, or men of any other description, can have had such a range. But what restrictions I might impose on the use of the pleasure grounds is another thing. I am not fond of the idea of my shrubberies being always approachable, and I shall recommend Miss Elliot to be on her guard with respect to her flower garden. I am very little disposed to grant a tenant of Kellinge Hall any extraordinary favour, I assure you, be he sailor or soldier. After a short pause, Mr. Shepherd presumed to say, In all these cases there are established usages which make everything plain and easy between landlord and tenant. Your interest, Sir Walter, is in pretty safe hands. Depend upon me for taking care that no tenant has more than his just rights. I venture to hint that Sir Walter Elliot cannot be half so jealous for his own as John Shepherd will be for him. Here, Anne spoke. The navy, I think, who have done so much for us, have at least an equal claim with any other set of men, for all the comforts and all the privileges which any home can give. Sailors work hard enough for their comforts, we must all allow. Very true, very true, what Miss Anne says is very true, was Mr. Shepherd's rejoinder, and—oh, certainly—was his daughter's. But Sir Walter's remark was, soon afterwards. The profession has its utility, but I should be sorry to see any friend of mine belonging to it. Indeed, was the reply, and with a look of surprise. Yes, it is in two points offensive to me. I have two strong grounds of objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of. And secondly, as it cuts up a man's youth and vigor most horribly. A sailor grows old sooner than any other man. I have observed it all my life. A man is in greater danger in the navy of being insulted by the rise of one whose father, his father, might have disdained you to speak to, and of becoming prematurely an object of disgust himself than in any other line. One day last spring in town I was in company with two men, striking instances of what I am talking of. Lords and Ives, whose father we all know to have been a country curate, without bread to eat. I was to give place to Lords and Ives and a certain Admiral Baldwin, the most deplorable-looking person, as you can imagine. His face, the colour of mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree, all lines and wrinkles, nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at the top. In the name of heaven, who is that old fellow, said I, to a friend of mine who was standing near Sir Basil Morley? Old fellow! cried Sir Basil. It is Admiral Baldwin. What do you take his age to be? Sixty, said I, or perhaps sixty-two. Forty, replied Sir Basil. Forty and no more. Picture to yourselves, my amazement. I shall not easily forget Admiral Baldwin. I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a seafaring life can do. But to a degree I know it is the same with them all. They are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral Baldwin's age. Nays of water! cried Mrs. Clay. This is being severe indeed. Have a little mercy on the poor men. We are not all born to be handsome. The sea is no beautifier, certainly. Sailors do grow old, but times I have observed it. They soon lose the look of youth. But then, is not it the same with many other professions, perhaps most others? Soldiers in active service are not at all better off. And even in the quieter professions there is a toil and a labour of the mind, if not of the body, which seldom leaves a man's looks to the natural effect of time. The lawyer plots, quite careworn. The physician is up at all hours, and travelling in all weather. And even the clergyman—she stopped a moment to consider what might do for the clergyman. And even the clergyman, you know, is obliged to go into infected rooms, and expose his health and looks to all the injury of a poisonous atmosphere. In fact, as I have been long convinced, though every profession is necessary and honourable in its turn, it is only the lot of those who are not obliged to follow any, who can live in a regular way in the country, choosing their own hours, following their own pursuits, and living on their own property without the torment of trying for more. It is only their lot, I say, to hold the blessings of health and a good appearance to the utmost. I know no other set of men but what lose something of their personableness when they cease to be quite young. It seemed as if Mr. Shepherd, in this anxiety to bespeak Sir Walter's good will towards a naval officer as tenant, had been gifted with foresight, for the very first application for the house was from an Admiral Croft, with whom he shortly afterwards fell into company in attending the quarter-sessions at Taunton. And indeed he had received a hint of the Admiral from a London correspondent. By the report which he hastened over to Kellynch to make, Admiral Croft was a native of Summersetshire, who having acquired a very handsome fortune, was wishing to settle in his own country, and had come down to Taunton in order to look at some advertised places in that immediate neighbourhood, which, however, had not suited him. That accidentally hearing—it was just as he had foretold, Mr. Shepherd observed—Sir Walter's concerns could not be kept a secret, accidentally hearing of the possibility of Kellynch Hall being to let, and understanding his, Mr. Shepherd's, connection with the owner, he had introduced himself to him in order to make particular inquiries, and had, in the course of a pretty long conference, expressed as strong an inclination for the place as a man who knew it only by description could feel. And given Mr. Shepherd in his explicit account of himself, every proof of his being a most responsible, eligible tenant. And who is this Admiral Croft, with Sir Walter's cold, suspicious inquiry? Mr. Shepherd answered for his being of a gentleman's family, and mentioned a place. And Anne, after the little pause which followed, added, He is a rear Admiral of the White. He was in the Trafalgar action, and has been in the East Indies since. He was stationed there, I believe, several years. Then I take it for granted, observed Sir Walter, that his face is about as orange as the cuffs and capes of my livery. Mr. Shepherd hastened to assure him that Admiral Croft was a very hail, hearty, well-looking man, a little weather-beaten to be sure, but not much, and quite the gentleman in all his notions and behaviour. Not likely to make the smallest difficulty about terms, only wanted a comfortable home and to get into it as soon as possible. Knew he must pay for his convenience, knew what rent a ready furnished house of that consequence might fetch, should not have been surprised if Sir Walter had asked more. Had inquired about the manner, would be glad of the deputation, certainly, but made no great point of it. Said he sometimes took out a gun, but never killed. Quite the gentleman. Mr. Shepherd was eloquent on the subject, pointing out all the circumstances of the Admiral's family which made him particularly desirable as a tenant. He was a married man and without children, the very stake to be wished for. A house was never taken good care of, Mr. Shepherd observed, without a lady. He did not know where the furniture might not be in danger of suffering as much where there was no lady, as where there were many children. A lady without a family was the very best preserver of furniture in the world. He had seen Mrs. Croft, too. She was at taunt him with the Admiral, and had been present almost all the time they were talking the matter over. And a very well-spoken gentile, shrewd lady she seemed to be, continued he, asked more questions about the house and terms and taxes in the Admiral himself, and seemed more conversant with business. And moreover, Sir Walter, I found she was not quite unconnected in this country any more than her husband. That is to say, she is sister to a gentleman who did live amongst us once. She told me so herself. Sister to the gentleman who lived a few years back at Monkford. Bless me, what was his name? At this moment I cannot recollect his name, though I have heard it so lately. Penelope, my dear, can you help me to the name of the gentleman who lived at Monkford, Mrs. Croft's brother? But Mrs. Clay was talking so eagerly with Miss Elliot that she did not hear the appeal. I have no conception whom you can mean, Shepherd. I remember no gentleman resident at Monkford since the time of old Governor Trent. Bless me, how very odd! I shall forget my own name soon, I suppose. A name that I am so very well acquainted with. Knew the gentleman so well by sight, seen him a hundred times. Came to consult me once I remember about a trespass of one of his neighbors. Farmer's man breaking into his orchard. Walled torn down, apples stolen, caught in the fact. And afterwards, contrary to my judgment, submitted to an amicable compromise, very odd indeed. After waiting another moment. You mean Mr. Wentworth, I suppose, said Anne. Mr. Shepherd was all gratitude. Wentworth was the very name. Mr. Wentworth was the very man. He had the curacy of Monkford, you know, Sir Walter, some time back for two or three years. Came there about the year—five, I take it. You remember him, I am sure. Wentworth? Oh, I, Mr. Wentworth, the curate of Monkford. You misled me by the term gentleman. I thought you were speaking of some man of property. Mr. Wentworth was nobody, I remember. Quite unconnected. Nothing to do with the Stratford family. One wonders how the names of many of our nobility become so common. As Mr. Shepherd perceived that this connection of the Crofts did them no service with Sir Walter, he mentioned it no more, returning with all his zeal to dwell on the circumstances more indisputably in their favour, their age and number and fortune, the high idea they had formed of Kellynch Hall, and extreme solicitude for the advantage of renting it, making it appear as if they ranked nothing beyond the happiness of being the tenants of Sir Walter Elliot. An extraordinary taste, certainly, could they have been supposed in the secret of Sir Walter's estimate of the dues of a tenant. It succeeded, however, and though Sir Walter must ever look with an evil eye on any one intending to inhabit that house, and think them infinitely too well off in being permitted to rent it on the highest terms, he was talked into allowing Mr. Shepherd to proceed in the treaty, and authorizing him to wait on Admiral Croft, who still remained at Taunton, and fix a day for the house being seen. Sir Walter was not very wise, but still he had experienced enough of the world to feel that a more unobjectionable tenant in all essentials than Admiral Croft bid fair to be could hardly offer. So far went his understanding, and his vanity supplied a little additional soothing in the Admiral's situation in life which was just high enough and not too high. I have let my house to Admiral Croft would sound extremely well, very much better than to any mere mister. A mister, say perhaps some half dozen in the inclination, always needs a note of explanation. An Admiral speaks of his own consequence, and at the same time can never make a baronet look small. In all their dealings and intercourse, Sir Walter Elliott must ever have the precedence. Nothing could be done without a reference to Elizabeth, but her inclination was growing so strong for a removal that she was happy to have it fixed and expedited by a tenant at hand, and not a word to suspend decision was uttered by her. Mr. Shepherd was completely empowered to act, and no sooner had such an end been reached than Anne, who had been a most attentive listener to the whole, left the room to seek the comfort of cool air for her flushed cheeks, and as she walked along a favorite grove, said with a gentle sigh, a few months more, and he perhaps may be walking here. CHAPTER IV He was not Mr. Wentworth, the former Curate of Monkford, however suspicious appearances may be, but a certain Captain Fredwick Wentworth, his brother, who, being made commander in consequence of the action off St. Domingo, and not immediately employed, had come into Somersetshire in the summer of 1806, and having no parent living, found a home for half a year at Monkford. He was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy, and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste and feeling. Half the sum of attraction on either side might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love, but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love. It would be difficult to say which had seen the highest perfection in the other, or which had been the happiest, she in receiving his declarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted. A short period of exquisite felicity followed, and but a short one. Troubles soon arose. So Walter, on being applied to, without actually withholding his consent, or saying it should never be, gave it all the negative of great astonishment, great coldness, great silence, and a professed resolution of doing nothing for his daughter. He thought it a very degrading alliance. And Lady Russell, though with more tempered, impardonable pride, received it as a most unfortunate one. Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty and mind, to throw herself away at nineteen, involved herself at nineteen in an engagement with a young man who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connections to secure even his father's rise in the profession, would be indeed a throwing away which she grieved to think of. Anne Elliot, so young, known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune, or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence. It must not be, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations from one who had almost a mother's love and mother's rights, it would be prevented. Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession. But spending freely what had come freely had realized nothing. But he was confident that he should soon be rich, full of life and ardour he knew that he should soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that would lead to everything he wanted. He had always been lucky. He knew he should be so still. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have been enough for Anne. But Lady Russell saw it very differently. His sanguine temper and fearlessness of mind operated very differently on her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil. It only added a dangerous character to himself. He was brilliant. He was headstrong. Lady Russell had little taste for wit, and of anything approaching to imprudence or horror. She deprecated the connection in every light. Such opposition as these feelings produced was more than Anne could combat. Young and gentle as she was, it might yet have been possible to withstand her father's ill will, though unsoffered by one kind word or look on the part of her sister. But Lady Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain. She was persuaded to believe the engagement or wrong thing, indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success and not deserving it. But it was not a merely selfish caution under which she acted in putting an end to it. Had she not imagined herself consulting his good even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up. The belief of being prudent and self-denying, principally for his advantage, was her chief consolation under the misery of a parting, a final parting. And every consolation was required, for she had to encounter all the additional pain of opinions on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, and of his feeling himself ill-used by so forced a relinquishment. He had left the country in consequence. A few months had seen the beginning and the end of their acquaintance. But not with a few months ended Anne's share of suffering from it. Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect. More than seven years were gone since this little history of sorrowful interest had reached its close, and time had softened down much, perhaps nearly all of peculiar attachment to him. But she had been too dependent on time alone. No aid had been given in change of place, except in one visit to Bath soon after the rupture, or in any novelty or enlargement of society. No one had ever come within the Kellinch Circle who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth as he stood in her memory. No second attachment, the only thoroughly natural, happy and sufficient cure at her time of life, had been possible to the nice tone of her mind, the fastidiousness of her taste, in the small limits of the society around them. She had been solicited, when about two and twenty to change her name, by the young man, who not long afterwards found a more willing mind in her younger sister. And Lady Russell had lamented her refusal. For Charles Musgrove was the oldest son of a man whose landed property and general importance were second in that country only to Sir Walter's, and of good character and appearance. And however Lady Russell might have asked yet for something more, while Anne was nineteen, she would have rejoiced to see her at twenty-two so respectively removed from the partialities and injustice of her father's house, and settled so permanently near herself. But in this case Anne had left nothing for advice to do. And though Lady Russell, as satisfied as ever with her own discretion, never wished the past undone, she began now to have the anxiety which borders on hopelessness for Anne's being tempted by some man of talents and independence, to enter a state for which she held her to be peculiarly fitted by her warm affections and domestic habits. They knew not each other's opinion, either its constancy or its change, on the one leading point of Anne's conduct, for the subject was never alluded to. But Anne, at seven and twenty, thought very differently from what she had been made to think at nineteen. She did not blame Lady Russell. She did not blame herself for having been guided by her. But she felt that were any young person in similar circumstances to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good. She was persuaded that under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and every anxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays, and disappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman in maintaining the engagement than she had been in the sacrifice of it, and this, she fully believed, had the usual share, had even more than the usual share, of all such solicitudes and suspense been theirs, without reference to the actual results of their case, which, as it happened, would have bestowed earlier prosperity than could be reasonably calculated on. All his sanguine expectations, all his confidence, had been justified. His genius and ardour had seemed to foresee and to command his prosperous path. He had, very soon after their engagement ceased, got employed, and all that he had told her would follow had taken place. He had distinguished himself, and early gained the other step in rank, and must now by successive captures have made a handsome fortune. She had only navy lists and newspapers for her authority, but she could not doubt his being rich, and in favour of his constancy she had no reason to believe him married. How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been? How eloquent at least were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence and futurity against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust providence. She had been forced into prudence in her youth. She learned romance as she grew older, the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning. With all these circumstances, recollections and feelings, she could not hear that Captain Wentworth's sister was likely to live at Kellynch without a revival of former pain, and many a stroll and many a sigh were necessary to dispel the agitation of the idea. She often told herself it was folly, before she could harden her nerve sufficiently to feel the continual discussion of the Crofts and their business no evil. She was assisted, however, by that perfect indifference and apparent unconsciousness among the only three of her own friends in the secret of the past, which seemed almost to deny any recollection of it. She could do justice to the superiority of Lady Russell's motives in this over those of her father and Elizabeth. She could honour all the better feelings of her calmness, but the general air of oblivion among them was highly important from whatever it sprung, and in the event of Admiral Croft's really taking Kellynch Hall, she rejoiced anew over the conviction which had always been most grateful to her, of the past being known to those three only among her connections, by whom no syllable, she believed, would ever be whispered, and in the trust that among his, the brother only with whom he had been residing, had received any information of their short-lived engagement. That brother had been long removed from the country, and being a sensible man, and moreover a single man at the time, she had a fond dependence on no human creatures having heard of it from him. The sister, Mrs. Croft, had been out of England, accompanying her husband on a foreign station, and her own sister Mary had been at school while it all occurred, and never admitted by the pride of some and the delicacy of others, to the smallest knowledge of it afterwards. With these supports, she hoped that the acquaintance between herself and the Crofts, which, with Lady Russell still resident in Kellynch, and Mary fixed only three miles off, must be anticipated, need not involve any particular awkwardness. Recording by Karen Savage. Persuasion by Jane Austen. Chapter 5. On the morning appointed for Admiral and Mrs. Crofts seeing Kellynch whole, Anne found it most natural to take her almost daily walk to Lady Russell's, and keep out of the way till all was over, when she found it most natural to be sorry that she had missed the opportunity of seeing them. This meeting of the two parties proved highly satisfactory, and decided the whole business at once. Each lady was previously well disposed for an agreement, and saw nothing therefore but good manners in the other. And with regard to the gentleman, there was such an hearty good humour, such an open, trusting liberality on the Admiral's side, as could not but influence Sir Walter, who had besides been flattered into his very best and most polished behaviour by Mr. Shepherd's assurances of his being known by report, to the Admiral, as a model of good breeding. The house and grounds and furniture were approved, the Crofts were approved, terms, time, everything and everybody was right, and Mr. Shepherd's clerks were set to work without there having been a single preliminary difference to modify of all that this indenture show of. Sir Walter, without hesitation, declared the Admiral to be the best-looking sailor he had ever met with, and went so far as to say that if his own man might have had the arranging of his hair, he should not be ashamed of being seen with him anywhere, and the Admiral, with sympathetic cordiality, observed to his wife as they drove back through the park, I thought we should soon come to a deal, my dear, in spite of what they told us at Taunton. The baronet will never set the Thames on fire, but there seems to be no harm in him. Reciprocal comments which would have been esteemed about equal. The Crofts were to have possession at Michaelmas, and as Sir Walter proposed to remove him to Bath in the course of the preceding month, there was no time to be lost in making every dependent arrangement. Lady Russell convinced that Anne would not be allowed to be of any use or any importance in the choice of the house which they were going to secure, was very unwilling to have her hurried away so soon, and wanted to make it possible for her to stay behind till she might convey her to Marth herself after Christmas. But having engagements of her own which must take her from Kellynch for several weeks, she was unable to give the full invitation she wished, and Anne, though dreading the possible heats of September and all the white glare of Bath, and grieving to forego all the influence so sweet and so sad of the autumnal months in the country, did not think that everything considered she wished to remain. It would be most right and most wise, and therefore must involve least suffering to go with the others. Something occurred, however, to give her a different duty. Mary, often a little unwell, and always thinking a great deal of her own complaints, and always in the habit of claiming Anne when anything was the matter, was indisposed, and foreseeing that she should not have a day's health all the autumn, entreated, or rather required her, for it was hardly entreaty, to come to up-across cottage and bear her company as long as she should want her instead of going to Bath. I cannot possibly do without Anne, was Mary's reasoning, and Elizabeth's reply was, that I am sure Anne had better stay for nobody will want her in Bath. To be claimed as a good, though in an improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good at all, and Anne, glad to be thought of some use, glad to have anything marked out as a duty, and certainly not sorry to have the scene of it in the country and her own dear country, readily agreed to stay. This invitation of Mary's removed all Lady Russell's difficulties, and it was consequently soon settled that Anne should not go to Bath till Lady Russell took her, and that all the intervening time should be divided between up-across cottage and Kellynch Lodge. So far all was perfectly right, but Lady Russell was almost startled by the wrong of one part of the Kellynch Hall Plan when it burst on her, which was Mrs. Clay's being engaged to go to Bath with Sir Walter and Elizabeth as a most important and valuable assistant to the latter in all the business before her. Lady Russell was extremely sorry that such a measure should have been resorted to at all, wandered, grieved, and feared, and the affront it contained to Anne, in Mrs. Clay's being of so much use while Anne could be of none, was a very sore aggravation. Anne herself was become hardened to such affronts, but she felt the imprudence of the arrangement quite as keenly as Lady Russell. With a great deal of quiet observation and a knowledge which she often wished less of her father's character, she was sensible that results the most serious to his family from the intimacy were more than possible. She did not imagine that her father had at present any idea of the kind. Mrs. Clay had freckles and a projecting tooth and a clumsy wrist which he was continually making severe remarks upon in her absence, but she was young and certainly altogether well looking and possessed in an acute mind and assiduous pleasing manners infinitely more dangerous attractions than any merely personal might have been. Anne was so impressed by the degree of their danger that she could not excuse herself from trying to make it perceptible to her sister. She had little hope of success, but Elizabeth, who in the event of such a reverse would be so much more to be pity than herself, should never, she thought, have reason to reproach her for giving no warning. She spoke and seemed only to offend. Elizabeth could not conceive how such an absurd suspicion should occur to her, and indignantly answered for each party's perfectly knowing their situation. Mrs. Clay, she said warmly, never forgets who she is, and as I am rather better acquainted with her sentiments than you can be, I can assure you that upon the subject of marriage they are particularly nice, and that she reprobates all inequality of condition and rank more strongly than most people. And as to my father, I really should not have thought that he, who has kept himself single so long for our sakes, need be suspected now. If Mrs. Clay were a very beautiful woman, I grant you it might be wrong to have her so much with me. Not that anything in the world, I am sure, would induce my father to make a degrading match, but he might be rendered unhappy. But for Mrs. Clay, who with all her merits could never happen reckontororably pretty, I really think poor Mrs. Clay may be staying here in perfect safety. One would imagine you had never heard my father speak of her personal misfortunes, though I know you must fifty times. That tooth of hers, and those freckles. Freckles do not discuss me so very much as they do him. I have known a face not materially disfigured by a few, but he abominates them. You must have heard him, notice Mrs. Clay's freckles. There is hardly any personal defect, replied Anne, which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one too. I think very differently, answered Elizabeth shortly. An agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones. However, at any rate, I have a great deal more at stake on this point than anybody else can have. I think it is rather unnecessary and new to be advising me. Anne had done. Glad that it was over, and not absolutely hopeless of doing good. Elizabeth, though resenting the suspicion, might yet be made observant by it. The last office of the four carriage-horses was to draw Sir Walter, Miss Elliot, and Mrs. Clay to Bath. The party drove off in very good spirits. Sir Walter prepared with condescending bows for all the afflicted tenentry and cottages who might have had a hint to show themselves, and Anne walked up at the same time in a sort of desolate tranquillity to the lodge where she was to spend the first week. Her friend was not in better spirits than herself. Lady Russell felt this breakup of the family exceedingly. Their respectability was as dear to her as her own, and a daily intercourse had become precious by habit. It was painful to look upon their deserted grounds, and still worse to anticipate the new hands they were to fall into, and to escape the solitariness and the melancholy of so altered a village, and be out of the way when Admiral and Mrs. Croft first arrived, she had determined to make her own absence from home begin when she must give up Anne. Accordingly, their removal was made together, and Anne was set down at Upper Cross Cottage in the first stage of Lady Russell's journey. Upper Cross was a moderate-sized village, which a few years back had been completely in the Old English style, containing only two houses superior in appearance to those of the yeoman and labourers. The mansion of the squire with its high walls, great gates and old trees, substantial and unmodernized, and the compact, tight parsonage, enclosed in its own neat garden, with a vine and a pear tree trained around its casements. But upon the marriage of the young squire, it had received the improvement of a farmhouse elevated into a cottage for his residence, and Upper Cross Cottage, with its veranda, French windows and other prettiness, was quite as likely to catch the traveller's eye as the more consistent and considerable aspect and premises of the Great House, about a quarter of a mile further on. Here Anne had often been staying. She knew the ways of Upper Cross as well as those of Kellynch. The two families were so continually meeting, so much in the habit of running in and out of each other's house at all hours, that it was rather a surprise to her to find Mary alone. But being alone, her being unwell and out of spirits, was almost a matter of course. Though better in doubt than the elder sister, Mary had not Anne's understanding nor temper. While well and happy and properly attended to, she had great good humour and excellent spirits. But any indisposition sunk her completely. She had no resources for solitude. And inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot's self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress, that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used. In person she was inferior to both sisters, and had, even in her bloom, only reached the dignity of being a fine girl. She was now lying on the faded sofa of the pretty little drawing-room, the once elegant furniture of which had been gradually growing shabby, under the influence of four summers and two children, and on Anne's appearing greeted her with, So you are come at last. I began to think I should never see you. I am so ill I could hardly speak. I have not seen a creature the whole morning. I am sorry to find you unwell, replied Anne. You sent me such a good account of yourself on Thursday. Yes, I made the best of it, I always do. But I was very far from well at the time. And I do not think I ever was so ill in my life as I have been all this morning. Very unfit to be alone, I am sure. Suppose I were to be seized of a sudden in some dreadful way and not be able to ring the bell. So Lady Russell would not get out. I do not think she has been in this house three times this summer. Anne said what was proper and inquired after her husband. Oh, Charles is out shooting. I have not seen him since seven o'clock. He would go, though I told him how ill I was. He said he should not stay out long. But he has never come back, and now it is almost one. I assure you I have not seen a soul this whole long morning. You have had your little voice with you? Yes, as long as I could bear their noise. But they are so unmanageable that they do me more harm than good. Little Charles does not mind a word I say, and Walter is growing quite as bad. Well, you will soon be better now, replied Anne cheerfully. You know I always cure you when I come. How are your neighbours at the Great House? I can give you no account of them. I have not seen one of them to-day, except Mr. Musgrove, who just stopped and spoke through the window, but without getting off his horse. And though I told him how ill I was, not one of them had been near me. It did not happen to shoot the Miss Musgroves, I suppose, and they never put themselves out of their way. You will see them yet, perhaps before the morning is gone. It is early. I never want them, I assure you. They talk enough a great deal too much for me. Oh, Anne, I am so very unwell. It was quite unkind of you not to come on Thursday. My dear Mary, recollect what a comfortable account you sent me of yourself. You wrote in the cheerfulest manner, and said you were perfectly well and in no hurry for me, and that being the case, you must be aware that my wish would be to remain with Lady Russell to the last. And besides what I felt on her account, I have really been so busy, have had so much to do, that I could not very conveniently have left Kellynch sooner. Dear me, what can you possibly have to do? A great many things, I assure you, more than I can recollect in a moment, but I can tell you some. I have been making a duplicate of the catalogue of my father's books and pictures. I have been several times in the garden with Mackenzie, trying to understand and make him understand which of Elizabeth's plants are for Lady Russell. I have had all my own little concerns to arrange, books, music to divide, and all my trunks to repack, from not having understood in time what was intended as to the wagons. And one thing I have had to do, Mary, of a more trying nature, going to almost every house in the parish as a sort of take leave. I was told that they wished it. But all these things took up a great deal of time. Oh, well. And after a moment's pause. But you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the pools yesterday. Did you go then? I have made no inquiries because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party. Oh, yes, I went. I was very well yesterday. Nothing at all the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not gone. I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party. Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be and who will be there, and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one's own. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded. They are both so very large and take up so much room, and Mr. Musgrove always sits forward. So there I was, crowded into the back seat with Henrietta and Louisa, and I think it very likely that my illness today may be owing to it. A little further perseverance and patience and forced cheerfulness on Anne's side produced nearly a cure on Mary's. She could soon sit upright on the sofa, and began to hope she might be able to leave it by dinnertime. Then, forgetting to think of it, she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nose-gay. Then she ate her cold meat, and then she was well enough to propose a little walk. Where shall we go? she said when they were ready. I suppose you will not like to call at the great house before they have been to see you. I have not the smallest objection on that account, replied Anne. I should never think of standing on such ceremony with people I know so well as Mrs. and the Miss Musgroves. Oh, but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible. They ought to feel what is due to you as my sister. However, we may as well go and sit with them a little while, and when we have that over we can enjoy our walk. Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent, but she had ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that, though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither family could now do without it. To the great house accordingly they went, to sit the full half-hour in the old-fashioned square parlour, with a small carpet and shining floor, to which the present daughters of the house were gradually giving the proper air of confusion, by her grand piano forte and a harp, flower stands and little tables placed in every direction. Oh, could the originals of the portraits against the Wainscott, could the gentlemen in brown, velvet, and the ladies in blue satin had seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an overthrow of all order and neatness. The portraits themselves seem to be staring in astonishment. The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English style, and the young people in the new. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove were a very good sort of people, friendly and hospitable, not much educated, and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and manners. There was a numerous family, but the only two grown up accepting Charles were Henrietta and Louisa, young ladies of nineteen and twenty, who had brought from school at Exeter all the usual stock of accomplishments, and were now like thousands of other young ladies, living to be fashionable, happy, and merry. Their dress had every advantage, their faces were rather pretty, their spirits extremely good, their manner unembarrassed and pleasant, they were of consequence at home and favorites abroad. Anne always contemplated them as some of the happiest creatures of her acquaintance, but still, saved as we all are by some comfortable feeling of superiority from wishing for the possibility of exchange, she would not have given up her own more elegant and cultivated mind for all their enjoyment, and envied them nothing but that seemingly perfect good understanding and agreement together, that good-humored mutual affection of which she had known so little herself with either of her sisters. They were received with great cordiality. Nothing seemed to miss on the side of the Great House Family, which was generally, as Anne very well knew, the least to blame. The half-hour was chatted away pleasantly enough, and she was not at all surprised at the end of it to have their walking-party joined by both the Miss Musgroves at Mary's particular invitation. CHAPTER VI Anne had not wanted this visit to up across to learn that a removal from one set of people to another, though at a distance of only three miles, will often include a total change of conversation, opinion, and idea. She had never been staying there before without being struck by it, or without wishing that other elites could have her advantage in seeing how unknown or unconsidered they were the affairs which at Kellynch Hall were treated as of such general publicity and pervading interest. Yet with all this experience, she believed that she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was become necessary for her. For certainly, coming as she did with a heart full of the subject which had been completely occupying both houses in Kellynch for many weeks, she had expected rather more curiosity and sympathy than she found in the separate but very similar remark of Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove. So, Miss Anne, so Walter and your sister are gone, and what part of Bath do you think they will settle in, and this without much waiting for an answer, or in the young lady's edition of, I hope we shall be in Bath in the winter, but remember, Papa, if we do go we must be in a good situation, none of your queen squares for us, or in the anxious supplement from Mary of, upon my word I shall be pretty well off when you're all gone away to be happy at Bath. She could only resolve to avoid such self-delusion in future, and think with heightened gratitude of the extraordinary blessing of having one such truly sympathizing friend as Lady Russell. The Mr. Musgroves had their own game to guard, and to destroy, their own horses, dogs, and newspapers to engage them, and the females were fully occupied in all the other common subjects of housekeeping, neighbors, dress, dancing, and music. She acknowledged it to be very fitting, that every little social commonwealth should dictate its own matters of discourse, and hoped ere long to become a not unworthy member of the one she was now transplanted into. With the prospect of spending at least two months at Upper Cross, it was highly incumbent on her to clothe her imagination, her memory, and all her ideas in as much of Upper Cross as is possible. She had no dread of these two months. Mary was not so repulsive and unsisterly as Elizabeth, nor so inaccessible to all influence of hers. Neither was there anything among the other component parts of the cottage inimical to comfort. She was always on friendly terms with her brother-in-law, and in the children, who loved her nearly as well and respected her a great deal more than their mother, she had an object of interest, amusement, and wholesome exertion. Charles Musgrove was civil and agreeable. In sense and temper he was undoubtedly superior to his wife, but not of powers or conversation or grace to make the past as they were connected together, at all a dangerous contemplation. Though at the same time Anne could believe with Lady Russell that a more equal mate might have greatly improved him, and that a woman of real understanding might have given more consequence to his character, and more usefulness, rationality, and elegance to his habits and pursuits. As it was, he did nothing with much zeal but sport, and his time was otherwise trifled away without benefit from books or anything else. He had very good spirits, which never seemed much affected by his wife's occasional loneliness, bore with her unreasonableness sometimes to Anne's admiration, and upon the whole, though there was very often a little disagreement, in which she had sometimes more share than she wished, being appealed to by both parties, they might pass for a happy couple. They were always perfectly agreed in the want of more money, and a strong inclination for a handsome present from his father, but here, as on most topics, he had the superiority, for while Mary thought it a great shame that such a present was not made, he always contended for his father's having many other uses for his money, and a right to spend it as he liked. As to the management of their children, his theory was much better than his wife's, and his practice not so bad. I could manage them very well if it were not for Mary's interference, was what Anne often heard him say, and had a good deal of faith in, but when listening, in turn, to Mary's reproach of, Charles spoils the children so that I cannot get them into any order, she never had the smallest temptation to say, very true. One of her least agreeable circumstances of her residence there was her being treated with too much confidence by all parties, and being too much in the secret of the complaints of each house. Known to have some influence with her sister, she was continually requested, or at least receiving hints to exert it beyond what was practicable. I wish you could persuade Mary not to be always fancying herself ill, was Charles's language, and in an unhappy mood thus spoke Mary. I do believe if Charles were to see me dying he should not think there was anything the matter with me. I am sure, Anne, if you would, you might persuade him that I really am very ill, a great deal worse than I ever own. Mary's declaration was, I hate sending the children to the great house, though their grand-mama is always wanting to see them, for she humours and indulges them to such a degree, and gives them so much trash and sweet things that they are sure to come back sick and cross for the rest of the day. And Mrs. Musgrove took the first opportunity of being alone with Anne to say, oh, Miss Anne, I cannot help wishing Mrs. Charles had a little of your method with those children. They are quite different creatures with you. But to be sure in general they are so spoilt. It is a pity you cannot put your sister in the way of managing them. They are as fine, healthy children as ever were seen, poor little dears, without partiality. But Mrs. Charles knows no more how they should be treated. Bless me, how troublesome they are sometimes. I assure you, Miss Anne, it prevents my wishing to see them at our house so often as I otherwise should. I believe Mrs. Charles is not quite pleased with my not inviting them oftener, but you know it is very bad to have children with one that one is obligated to be checking every moment, don't do this and don't do that, or that one can only keep in tolerable order by more cake than is good for them. She had this communication moreover from Mary. Mrs. Musgrove thinks all her servants so steady, that it would be high treason to call it in question, but I am sure without exaggeration that her upper housemaid and laundrymaid, instead of being in their business, are gadding about the village all day long. I meet them wherever I go, and I declare I never go twice into the nursery without seeing something of them. If Jemima were not the trustiest, steadiest creature in the world, it would be enough to spoil her, for she tells me they are always tempting her to take a walk with them. And on Mrs. Musgrove's side it was. I make a rule of never interfering in any of my daughter-in-law's concerns, for I know it would not do. But I shall tell you, Miss Anne, because you may be able to set things to rights, that I have no very good opinion of Mrs. Charles's nurserymaid. I hear strange stories of her. She is always upon the gad, and from my own knowledge I can declare she is such a fine dressing lady that she is enough to ruin any servant she comes near. Mrs. Charles quite swears by her, I know, but I just give you this hint that you may be upon the watch, because if you see anything amiss, you need not be afraid of mentioning it. Again it was Mary's complaint, that Mrs. Musgrove was very apt not to give her the precedence that was her due, when they dined at the great house with other families. And she did not see any reason why she was to be considered so much at home as to lose her place. And one day when Anne was walking with only the Musgroves, one of them, after talking of rank, people of rank, and jealousy of rank, said, I have no scruple of observing to you how nonsensical some persons are about their place, because all the world knows how easy and indifferent you are about it. But I wish anybody could give Mary a hint that it would be a great deal better if she were not so very tenacious, especially if she would not be always putting herself forward to take place of Mamar. Nobody doubts her right to have precedence of Mamar, but it would be more becoming in her not to be always insisting on it. It is not that Mamar cares about it in the least in the world, but I know it is taken notice of by many persons. How was Anne to set all these matters to rights? She could do little more than listen patiently, soften every grievance, and excuse each to the other, give them all hints of the forbearance necessary between such near neighbours, and make those hints broadest which were meant for her sister's benefit. In all other respects, her visit began and proceeded very well. Her own spirits improved by change of place and subject, by being removed three miles from Kellynch. Mary's ailments lessened by having a constant companion, and their daily intercourse with the other family, since there was neither superior affection, confidence, nor employment in the cottage to be interrupted by it, was rather an advantage. It was certainly carried nearly as far as possible, for they met every morning, and hardly ever spent an evening asunder. But she believed they should not have done so well without the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove's respectable forms in the usual places, or without the talking, laughing, and singing of their daughters. She played a great deal better than either of the Miss Musgrove's, but having no voice, no knowledge of the harp, and no fond parents to sit by and fancy themselves delighted, her performance was little thought of, only out of civility, or to refresh the others as she was well aware. She knew that when she played she was giving pleasure only to herself, but this was no new sensation. Accepting one short period in her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the loss of her dear mother, known the happiness of being listened to, or encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste. In music she had always been used to feel alone in the world, and Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove's fond partiality for their own daughter's performance, and total indifference to any other person's, gave her much more pleasure for their sakes than mortification for her own. The party at the Great House was sometimes increased by other company. The neighborhood was not large, but the Musgrove's were visited by everybody, and had more dinner parties and more callers, more visitors by invitation and by chance than any other family. They were more completely popular. The girls were wild for dancing, and the evenings ended occasionally in an unpremeditated little ball. There was a family of cousins within a walk of uppercross, in less affluent circumstances, who depended on the Musgroves for all their pleasures. They would come at any time and help play at anything or dance anywhere, and Anne, very much preferring the office of musician to a more active post, played country dances to them by the hour together, a kindness which always recommended her musical powers to the notice of Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove more than anything else, and often drew this compliment, Well done, Miss Anne, very well done indeed! Lord bless me, how those little fingers of yours fly about! So passed the first three weeks. Michael Miss came, and now Anne's heart must be in Kellynch again. A beloved home made over to others. All the precious rooms and furniture, groves and prospects, beginning to own other eyes and other limbs. She could not think of much else on the twenty-ninth of September, and she had this sympathetic touch in the evening from Mary, who on having occasion to note down the day of the month exclaimed, Dear me, is not this the day the Crofts were to come to Kellynch? I am glad I did not think of it before. How low it makes me. The Crofts took possession with true naval alertness, and were to be visited. Mary deplored the necessity for herself. Nobody knew how much she should suffer. She should put it off as long as she could, but was not easy until she had talked Charles into driving her over on an early day, and was in a very animated, comfortable state of imaginary agitation when she came back. Anne had very sincerely rejoiced in there being no means of her going. She wished, however, to see the Crofts, and was glad to be within when the visit was returned. There came. The master of the house was not at home, but the two sisters were together, and as a chance that Mrs. Croft fell to the share of Anne, while the admiral sat by Mary, and made himself very agreeable by his good-humoured notice of her little boys, she was well able to watch for a likeness, and if it failed her in the features, to catch it in the voice, or in the turn of sentiment and expression. Mrs. Croft, though neither tall nor fat, had a squareness, uprightness, and vigor of form which gave importance to her person. She had bright, dark eyes, good teeth, and altogether an agreeable face, though her reddened and weather-beaten complexion, the consequence of her having been almost as much at sea as our husband, made her seem to have lived some years longer in the world than her real eight and thirty. Her manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do, without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good-humour. Anne gave her credit indeed for feelings of great consideration towards herself in all that related to Kellynch, and it pleased her, especially as she had satisfied herself in the very first half minute, in the instant even of introduction, that there was not the smallest symptom of any knowledge or suspicion on Mrs. Croft's side to give a bias of any sort. She was quite easy on that head, and consequently full of strength and courage, till for a moment electrified by Mrs. Croft suddenly saying, It was you and not your sister, I find, that my brother had the pleasure of being acquainted with when he was in this country. Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing, but the age of emotion she certainly had not. Perhaps you may not have heard that he is married, added Mrs. Croft. She could now answer as she ought, and was happy to feel, when Mrs. Croft's next words explained it to be Mr. Wentworth of whom she spoke, that she had said nothing which might not do for either brother. She immediately felt how reasonable it was that Mrs. Croft should be thinking and speaking of Edward, and not of Frederick, and with shame at her own forgetfulness, applied herself to the knowledge of their former neighbour's present state with proper interest. The rest was all tranquillity, till, just as they were moving, she heard the admiral say to Mary, We are expecting a brother of Mrs. Croft's here soon. I dare say you know him by name. He was cut short by the eager attacks of the little boys clinging to him like an old friend, and declaring he should not go, and being too much engrossed by proposals of carrying them away in his coat pockets, etc., to have another moment for finishing or recollecting what he had begun, Anne was left to persuade herself, as well as she could, that the same brother must still be in question. She could not, however, reach such a degree of certainty as not to be anxious to hear whether anything had been said on the subject at the other house, where the Croft said previously been calling. The folks of the great house were to spend the evening of this day at the cottage, and at being now too late in the year for such visits to be made on foot, the coach was beginning to be listened for when the youngest Miss Musgrove walked in. That she was coming to apologize and that they should have to spend the evening by themselves was the first black idea, and Mary was quite ready to be affronted when Louisa made all right by saying that she only came on foot to leave more room for the harp, which was bringing in the carriage. And I will tell you our reason, she added, and all about it. I am come on to give you notice that papa and mama are out of spirits this evening, especially mama. She is thinking so much of Paul Richard, and we agreed it would be best to have the harp, for it seems to amuse her more than the piano forte. I will tell you why she is out of spirits. When the Crofts called this morning, they called here afterwards, did not they? They happened to say that her brother, Captain Wentworth, is just returned to England, or paid off or something, and is coming to see them almost directly. And most unluckily it came into mama's head when they were gone, that Wentworth, or something very like it, was the name of Paul Richard's captain at one time. I do not know when or where, but a great while before he died, poor fellow. And upon looking over his letters and things, she found it was so, and is perfectly sure that this must be the very man, and her head is quite full of it, and of Paul Richard. So we must be as merry as we can that she may not be dwelling upon such gloomy things. The real circumstances of this pathetic piece of family history were that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome hopeless son, and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his 20th year, that he had been sent to sea because he was stupid and unmanageable on shore, that he had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved, seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted when the intelligence of his death abroad had worked its way to up across two years before. He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him by calling him Paul Richard, been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead. He had been several years at sea, and had, in the course of those removals, to which all midshipmen are liable, and especially such midshipmen as every captain wishes to get rid of, been six months on board Captain Frederick Wentworth's Frigate, the Laconia, and from the Laconia he had, under the influence of his captain, written the only two letters which his father and mother had ever received from him during the whole of his absence, that is to say, the only two disinterested letters, all the rest had been mere applications for money. In each letter he had spoken well of his captain, but yet so little worthy in the habit of attending to such matters, so unobservant and incurious worthy as to the names of men or ships, that it had made scarcely any impression at the time, and that Mrs. Musgrove should have been suddenly struck this very day with a recollection of the name of Wentworth, as connected with her son, seemed one of those extraordinary bursts of mind which do sometimes occur. She had gone to her letters, and found it all as she supposed, and the re-perusal of these letters, after so long an interval, her poor son gone for ever, and all the strength of his faults forgotten, had affected her spirits exceedingly, and thrown her into greater grief for him than she had known on first hearing of his death. Mr. Musgrove was, in a lesser degree, affected likewise, and when they reached the cottage they were evidently in want first of being listened to anew on this subject, and afterwards of all the relief which cheerful companions could give them. To hear them talking so much of Captain Wentworth, repeating his name so often, puzzling over past years, and at last ascertaining that it might—that it probably would—turn out to be the very same Captain Wentworth whom they recollected meeting once or twice after their coming back from Clifton, a very fine young man, but they could not say whether it was seven or eight years ago, was a new sort of trial to Anne's nerves. She found, however, that it was one to which she must anew herself, since he actually was expected in the country, she must teach herself to be insensible on such points. And not only did it appear that he was expected, and speedily, but the Musgroves, in their warm gratitude for the kindness he had shown poor Dick, and the very high respect for his character, stamped as it was by poor Dick's having been six months under his care, and mentioning him in strong, though not perfectly well-spelt praise, as a fine dashing fellow, only too particular about the schoolmaster, were bent on introducing themselves, and seeking his acquaintance as soon as they could hear of his arrival. The resolution of doing so helped to form the comfort of their evening. CHAPTER VII A very few days more, and Captain Wendworth was known to be at Kellinch, and Mr. Musgrove had called on him and come back warm in his praise, and he was engaged with the Crofts to dine it up across by the end of another week. It had been a great disappointment to Mr. Musgrove to find that no earlier day could be fixed, so impatient was he to show his gratitude by seeing Captain Wendworth under his own roof, and welcoming him to all that was strongest and best in his cellars. But a week must pass, only a week in Anne's reckoning, and then, she's opposed, they must meet, and soon she began to wish that she could feel secure even for a week. Captain Wendworth made a very early return to Mr. Musgrove's civility, and she was all but calling there in the same half hour. She and Mary were actually setting forward for the great house where, as she afterwards learned, they must inevitably have found him, when they were stopped by the oldest boys being at that moment brought home in consequence of a bad fall. The tired situation put the visit entirely aside, but she could not hear of her escape with indifference, even in the midst of the serious anxiety which they afterwards felt on his account. His collarbone was found to be dislocated, and such injury received in the back has roused the most alarming ideas. It was an afternoon of distress, and Anne had everything to do at once, the apothecary descent for the father to have pursued and informed, the mother to support and keep from hysterics, the servants to control, the youngest child to banish, and the poor suffering one to attend and soothe. Besides sending, as soon as she recollected it, proper notice to the other house, which brought her an accession rather of frightened inquiring companions than of very useful assistants. Her brother's return was the first comfort. He could take best care of his wife, and the second blessing was the arrival of the apothecary. Till he came and had examined the child, their apprehensions were the worst for being vague. They suspected great injury, but knew not where. But now the collarbone was soon replaced, and though Mr. Robinson felt and felt and rubbed and looked grave and spoke low words to both the father and the aunt, still they were all to hope the best, and be able to part and eat their dinner and tolerable ease of mind. And then it was, just before they parted, that the two young aunts were able so far to digress from their nephew's state, as to give the information of Captain Wentworth's visit, staying five minutes behind their father and mother, to endeavour to express how perfectly delighted they were with him, how much hansomer, how infinitely more agreeable they thought him than any individual among their male acquaintance, who had been at all a favourite before. How glad they had been to hear Papa invite him to stay dinner, how sorry when he said it was quite out of his power, and how glad again when he had promised in reply to Papa and Mama's father pressing invitations to come and dine with them on the morrow, actually on the morrow, and he had promised it in so pleasant a manner as if he felt all the motive of their attention just as he ought. And in short he had looked and said everything with such exquisite grace, that they could assure them all their heads were both turned by him, and off they ran, quite as full of glee as of love, and apparently more full of Captain Wentworth than of little Charles. The same story and the same raptors were repeated when the two girls came with their father through the gloom of the evening to make inquiries, and Mr. Musgrove, no longer under the first uneasiness about his heir, could add his confirmation in praise, and hope there would now be no occasion for putting Captain Wentworth off, and only be sorry to think that the cottage party, probably, would not like to leave the little boy to give him the meeting. Oh, no! after leaving the little boy, both father and mother were in much too strong and recent alarm to bear the thought, and Anne, in the joy of the escape, could not help adding her warm protestations to theirs. Charles Musgrove indeed afterward showed more of inclination. The child was going on so well, and he wished so much to be introduced to Captain Wentworth that perhaps he might join them in the evening. He would not dine from home, but he might walk in for half an hour. But in this he was eagerly opposed by his wife with, oh, no indeed, Charles! I cannot bear to have you go away. Only think if anything should happen! The child had a good night, and was going on well the next day. It must be a work of time to ascertain that no injury had been done to the spine, but Mr. Robinson found nothing to increase alarm, and Charles Musgrove began consequently to feel no necessity for longer confinement. The child was to be kept in bed and amused as quietly as possible. But what was there for a father to do? This was quite a female case, and it would be highly absurd in him who could be of no use at home to shut himself up. His father very much wished him to meet Captain Wentworth, and there being no sufficient reason against it he ought to go, and it ended in his making a bold public declaration when he came in from shooting of his meaning to dress directly and dine at the other house. Nothing can be going on better than the child, said he, so I told my father just now that I would come, and he thought me quite right. Your sister being with you, my love, I have no scruple at all. You would not like to leave him yourself, but you can see I can be of no use, and will send for me if anything is the matter. Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain. Mary knew from Charles's manner of speaking that he was quite determined on going, and that it would be of no use to tease him. She said nothing, therefore, till he was out of the room. But as soon as there was only Anne to hear, so you and I are to be left to shift by ourselves with this poor sick child, and not a creature coming near us all evening. I knew how it would be. This is always my luck. If there is anything disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it, and Charles is as bad as any of them. Very unfeeling. I must say it is very unfeeling of him to be running away from his poor little boy. Talks of his being going on so well. How does he know that he is going on well, or that there may not be a sudden change half an hour hence? I did not think Charles would have been so unfeeling. So here he is to go away and enjoy himself, and because I am the poor mother, I am not allowed to disturb, and yet I am sure I am more unfit than anybody else to be about the child. My being the mother is a very reason why my feeling should not be tried. I am not at all equal to it. You saw how hysterical I was yesterday. But that was only the effect of the suddenness of your alarm, of the shock. You will not be hysterical again. I dare say we shall have nothing to distress us. I perfectly understand Mr. Robinson's directions and have no fears. And indeed, Mary, I cannot wonder at your husband. Nursing does not belong to a man. It is not his province. A sick child is always the mother's property. Her own feelings generally make it so. I hope I am as fond of my child as any mother. But I do not know that I am of any more use in the sick room than Charles, for I cannot be always scolding and teasing the poor child when it is ill, and you saw this morning that if I told him to keep quiet he was sure to begin kicking about. I have not nerves for the sort of thing. But could you be comfortable yourself to be spending the whole evening away from the poor boy? Yes. You see his papa can, and why should not I? Jemime is so careful, and she could send us word every hour how he was. I really think Charles might as well have told his father we would all come. I am not more alarmed about little Charles now than he is. I was dreadfully alarmed yesterday, but the case is very different today. Well, if you do not think it too late to give notice for yourself, suppose you were to go as well as your husband. Leave little Charles to my care. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove cannot think it wrong while I remain with him. Are you serious? cried Mary, her eyes brightening. Dear me, that's a very good thought. Very good indeed. To be sure I may just as well go as not, for I am of no use at home, am I? And it only harasses me. You, who have not a mother's feelings, are a great deal the properest person. You can make little Charles do anything. He always minds you at a word. It will be a great deal better than leaving him only with Jemima. Oh, I shall certainly go. I am sure I ought, if I can, quite as much as Charles, for they want me excessively to be acquainted with Captain Wentworth, and I know you do not mind being left alone. An excellent thought of yours indeed, Anne. I will go and tell Charles and get ready directly. You can send for us, you know, at a moment's notice, if anything is the matter. But I dare say there will be nothing to alarm you. I should not go, you may be sure, if I did not feel quite at ease about my dear child. The next moment she was tapping at our husband's dressing-room door, and as Anne followed her upstairs, she was in time for the whole conversation which began with Mary saying in a tone of great exaltation, I mean to go with you, Charles, for I am of no more use at home than you are. If I were to shut myself up forever with the child, I should not be able to persuade him to do anything he did not like. Anne will stay. Anne undertakes to stay at home and take care of him. It is Anne's own proposal. And so I shall go with you, which will be a great deal better, for I have not dined at the other house since Tuesday. This is very kind of Anne, was her husband's answer, and I should be very glad to have you go, but it seems rather hard that she should be left at home by herself to nurse our sick child. Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction was at least very agreeable, he had no further scruples as to her being left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her to let him come and fetch her, but she was quite unpersuadable. Anne, this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem. As for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the child, and what was it to her if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself agreeable to others. She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting, perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He must be either indifferent or unwilling. Had he wished ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time. He would have done what she could not but believe that in his place she should have done long ago, when events had early been giving him the independence which alone had been wanting. Her brother and sister came back delighted with their new acquaintance and their visit in general. There had been music, singing, talking, laughing, all that was most agreeable, charming manners in Captain Wentworth, no shyness or reserve. They seemed all to know each other perfectly, and he was coming the very next morning to shoot with Charles. He was to come to breakfast, but not at the cottage, though that had been proposed at first. But then he had been pressed to come to the Great House instead, and he seemed afraid of being in Mrs. Charles Musgrove's way on account of the child, and therefore somehow, they hardly knew how it ended in Charles's being to meet him to breakfast at his father's. Anne understood it. He wished to avoid seeing her. He had inquired after her she found, slightly, as might suit a former slight acquaintance, seeming to acknowledge such as she had acknowledged, actuated perhaps, by the same view of escaping introduction when they were to meet. The morning hours of the cottage were always later than those of the other house, and on the morrow the difference was so great that Mary and Anne were not more than beginning breakfast when Charles came in to say that they were just setting off, that he was come for his dogs, that his sisters were following with Captain Wentworth, his sisters meaning to visit Mary and the child, and Captain Wentworth proposing also to wait on her for a few minutes, if not inconvenient. And though Charles had answered for the child's being in no such state as could make it inconvenient, Captain Wentworth would not be satisfied without his running on to give notice. Mary, very much gratified by this attention, was delighted to receive him, while a thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was the most consoling, that it would soon be over. And it was soon over. In two minutes after Charles's preparation the others appeared. They were in the drawing-room. Her eye half met Captain Wentworth's, a bow, a curtsy past. She heard his voice, he talked to Mary, said all that was right, said something to the Miss Musgroves, enough to mark an easy footing. The room seemed full, full of persons and voices, but a few minutes ended it. Charles showed himself at the window, all was ready. Their visitor had bowed and was gone. The Miss Musgroves were gone too, suddenly resolving to walk to the end of the village with the sportsman. The room was cleared, and Anne might finish her breakfast as she could. It is over. It is over. She repeated to herself again and again, in nervous gratitude. The worst is over. Mary talked, but she could not attend. She had seen him. They had met. They had been once more in the same room. Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and tried to be feeling less. Eight years, almost eight years, had passed, since all had been given up. How absurd to be resuming the agitation which such an interval had banished into distance and indistinctness. What might not eight years do? Events of every description, changes, alienations, removals—all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion of the past, how natural, how certain, too. It included nearly a third part of her own life. Alas, with all her reasoning, she found that to retentive feelings, eight years may be a little more than nothing. Now how were his sentiments to be read? Was this like wishing to avoid her? And the next moment she was hating herself for the folly which asked the question. On one other question which perhaps her utmost wisdom might not have prevented, she was soon spared all suspense. For after the Miss Musgroves had returned and finished their visit at the cottage, she had this spontaneous information from Mary. Captain Wentworth is not very gallant by you, Anne, though he was so attentive to me. Henrietta asked him what he thought of you when they went away, and he said you were so altered he should not have known you again. Mary had no feelings to make her respect her sisters in a common way, but she was perfectly unsuspicious of being inflicting any peculiar wound. Altered beyond his knowledge, Anne fully submitted in silent, deep mortification. Doubtless it was so, and she could take no revenge for he was not altered, or not for the worse. She had already acknowledged it to herself, and she could not think differently, let him think of her as he would. No. The years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth. So altered that he should not have known her again. These were words which could not but dwell with her. Yet she soon began to rejoice that she had heard them. They were of sobering tendency, they are laid agitation, they composed, and consequently must make her happier. Frederick Wentworth had used such words or something like them, but without an idea that they would be carried round to her. He had thought her wretchedly altered, and in the first moment of appeal had spoken as he felt. He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill, deserted, and disappointed him, and worse, she had shown a feebleness of character in doing so which his own decided, confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others. It had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been weakness and timidity. He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a woman since whom he thought her equal. But except from some natural sensation of curiosity he had no desire of meeting her again. Her power with him was gone forever. It was now his object to marry. He was rich, and, being turned on shore, fully intended to settle as soon as he could be properly tempted, actually looking round, ready to fall in love with all the speed which a clear head and a quick taste could allow. He had a heart for either of the Ms. Musgroves, if they could catch it, a heart in short for any pleasing young woman who came in his way, accepting Anne Elliot. This was his only secret exception when he said to his sister, in answer to her suppositions, Yes, here I am, Sophia, quite ready to make a foolish match. Anybody between fifteen and thirty may have before asking. A little beauty and a few smiles and a few compliments to the navy, and I am a lost man. Should not this be enough for a sailor who has had no society among women to make him nice? He said it, she knew, to be contradicted. His bright, proud eye spoke the conviction that he was nice, and Anne Elliot was not out of his thoughts when he more seriously described the woman he should wish to meet with. A strong mind with sweetness of manner made the first and the last of the description. That is the woman I want, said he. Something a little inferior I shall, of course, put up with, but it must not be much. If I am a fool I shall be a fool indeed, for I have thought on the subject more than most men. CHAPTER VIII From this time Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly in the same circle. They were soon dining in company together at Mr. Musgrove's, for the little boy's state could no longer supply his aunt with a pretense for absenting herself. And this was but the beginning of other dinings and other meetings. Where the former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the proof. Former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of each. They could not but be reverted to. The year of their engagement could not but be named by him in the little narratives or descriptions which conversation called forth. His profession qualified him, his disposition led him to talk. And that was in the year six. That happened before I went to see in the year six, occurred in the course of the first evening they spent together. And though his voice did not falter, and though she had no reason to suppose his eye wandering towards her while he spoke, Anne felt the utter impossibility from her knowledge of his mind that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself. There must be the same immediate association of thought, though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain. They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other, now nothing. There had been a time when of all the large party now filling the drawing-room at Upper Cross they would have found it most difficult to cease to speak to one another. With the exception perhaps of Admiral and Mrs. Croft who seemed particularly attached and happy, Anne could allow no other exceptions even among the married couples. There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feeling so in unison, no countenance is so beloved. Now they were estrangers, nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement. When he talked, she heard the same voice and discerned the same mind. There was a very general ignorance of all naval matters throughout the party, and he was very much questioned, and especially by the two Miss Musgroves, who seemed hardly to have any eyes but for him, as to the manner of living on board, daily regulations, food, hours, et cetera, and their surprise at his accounts, at learning the degree of accommodation and arrangement which was practicable, drew from him some pleasant ridicule which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been ignorant, and she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be living on board without anything to eat, or any cooked or dresser if there were, or any servant to wait, or any knife and fork to use. From thus listening and thinking she was roused by a whisper of Mrs. Musgroves, who, overcome by fond regrets, could not help saying, ah, Miss Anne, if it had pleased heaven to spare my poor son, I dare say he would have been just such another by this time. Anne suppressed a smile and listened kindly, while Mrs. Musgrove relieved her heart a little more, and for a few minutes, therefore, could not keep pace with the conversation of the others. When she could let her attention take its natural course again, she found the Miss Musgroves just fetching the navy list, their own navy list, the first that had ever been at Upper Cross, and sitting down together to pour over it, with the professed view of finding out the ships that Captain Wentworth had commanded. Your first was the ASP, I remember, we will look for the ASP. You will not find her there, quite worn out and broken up. I was the last man who commanded her, hardly fit for service then, reported fit for home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off to the West Indies. The girls looked all amazement. The Admiralty, he continued, entertained themselves now and them with sending a few hundred men to sea in a ship not fit to be employed. But they have a great many to provide for, and among the thousands that may just as well go to the bottom as not, it is impossible for them to distinguish the very set who may be least missed. Foo! Foo! cried the Admiral. What stuff these young fellows talk! Never was a better sloop than the ASP in her day. For an old built sloop you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her. He knows there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon, and with no more interest in his. I felt my luck, Admiral, I assure you, replied Captain Wentworth seriously. I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire. It was a great object with me at that time to be at sea. A very great object. I wanted to be doing something. To be sure you did. What should a young fellow like you do ashore for half a year together? If a man had not a wife, he soon wants to be afloat again. But Captain Wentworth, cried Louisa, how vexed you must have been when you came to the ASP, to see what an old thing they had given you? I knew pretty well what she was before that day, said he smiling. I had no more discoveries to make than you would have us to the fashion and strength of any old police, which you had seen lent about among half your acquaintance ever since you could remember, and which at last, on some very wet days, lent to yourself. Ah, she was a dear old ASP to me. She did all that I wanted. I knew she would. I knew that we should either go to the bottom together, or that she would be the making of me, and I never had two days of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her. And after taking private tears enough to be very entertaining, I had the good luck in my passage home the next autumn to fall in with the very French frigate I wanted. I brought her into Plymouth, and hear another instance of luck. We had not been six hours in the sound when a gale came on which lasted four days and nights, and which would have done for poor old ASP in half the time, our touch with the great nation not having much improved our condition. Four and twenty hours later I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers, and being lost in only a sloop nobody would have thought about me. Anne's shudderings were to herself alone, but the Miss Musgroves could be as open as they were sincere in their exclamations of pity and horror. And so then I suppose, said Mrs. Musgrove in a low voice as if thinking aloud, so then he went away to the Laconia, and there he met with our poor boy. Charles, my dear, beckoning him to her, do ask Captain Wentworth where it was he first met your poor brother. I always forgot. It was at Gibraltar, mother, I know. Dick had been left ill at Gibraltar with a recommendation from his former Captain to Captain Wentworth. Oh, but Charles, tell Captain Wentworth he need not be afraid of mentioning poor Dick before me, for it would be rather a pleasure to hear him talked of by such a good friend. Charles being somewhat more mindful of the probabilities of the case, only nodded in reply and walked away. The girls were now hunting for the Laconia, and Captain Wentworth could not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume into his own hands to save them the trouble, and once more read aloud the little statement of her name and rate and present non-commissioned class, observing over it that she too had been one of the best friends man ever had. Oh, those were pleasant days when I had the Laconia. How fast I made money in her. A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise together off the western islands. Poor Harville, sister. You know how much you wanted money. Worse than myself. He had a wife. Excellent fellow. I shall never forget his happiness. He felt it all so much for her sake. I wish for him again the next summer when I had still the same luck in the Mediterranean. And I am sure, sir, said Mrs. Musgrove, it was a lucky day for us when you were put Captain into that ship. We shall never forget what you did. Her feelings made her speak low, and Captain Wentworth, hearing only in part, and probably not having digged Musgrove at all near his thoughts, looked rather in suspense, and as if waiting for more. My brother, whispered one of the girls, Mamae's thinking of poor Richard. Poor dear fellow, continued Mrs. Musgrove. He was grown so steady and such an excellent correspondent while he was under your care. It would have been a happy thing if he had never left you. I assure you, Captain Wentworth, we are very sorry he ever left you. There was a momentary expression in Captain Wentworth's face at this speech, a certain glance of his bright eye and curl of his handsome mouth, which convinced Anne that instead of sharing Mrs. Musgrove's kind wishes as to her son, he had probably been at some pains to get rid of him, but it was too transient an indulgence of self-amusement to be detected by any who understood him less than herself. In another moment he was perfectly collected and serious, and almost instantly afterwards coming up to the sofa on which she and Mrs. Musgrove were sitting, took a place by the latter, and entered into conversation with her in a low voice about her son, doing it with so much sympathy and natural grace as showed the kindest consideration for all that was real and unobserved in a parent's feelings. They were actually on the same sofa, for Mrs. Musgrove had most readily made room for him. They were divided only by Mrs. Musgrove. It was no insignificant barrier indeed. Mrs. Musgrove was of a comfortable substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature to express good cheer and good humor than tenderness and sentiment. And while her agitations of Anne's slender form and pensive face may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large, fat sighings over the destiny of a son whom alive nobody had cared for. Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large, bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions which reason will patronize in vain, which taste cannot tolerate, which ridicule will seize. The admiral, after taking two or three refreshing turns about the room with his hands behind him, being called to order by his wife, now came up to Captain Wentworth, and without any observation of what he might be interrupting, thinking only of his own thoughts, began with, if he had been a week later at Lisbon last spring, Frederick, you would have been asked to give a passage to Lady Mary Grierson and her daughters, should I? I am glad I was not a week later then. The admiral abused him for his want of gallantry. He defended himself, though, professing that he would never willingly admit any lady's on-bordership of his, accepting for a ball or a visit which a few hours might comprehend. But if I know myself, said he, this is from no want of gallantry towards him. It is rather from feeling how impossible it is, with all one's efforts and all one's sacrifices, to make the accommodations on-board such as women ought to have. There can be no want of gallantry admiral in rating the claims of women to every personal comfort high, and this is what I do. I hate to hear of women on-board, or to see them on-board, and no ship under my command shall ever convey a family of ladies anywhere if I can help it. This brought his sister upon him. Oh, Frederick! But I cannot believe it of you. All idle refinement. Women may be as comfortable on-board as in the best house in England. I believe I have lived as much on-board as most women, and I know nothing superior to the accommodations of a man-a-war. I declare I have not a comforter and indulgence about me even at Kellent Hall, with a kind bow to add, beyond what I always had in most of the ships I have lived in, and they have been five or together. Nothing to the purpose, replied her brother, you were living with your husband, and you were the only woman on-board. But you yourself brought Mrs. Harville, her sister, her cousin, and three children round from Portsmouth to Plymouth. Where was this super fine extraordinary sort of gallantry of yours then? All merged in my friendship, Sophia. I would assist any brother-office's wife that I could, and I would bring anything of Harville's from the end of the world if he wanted it. But do not imagine that I did not feel it an evil in itself. Depend upon it, they were all perfectly comfortable. I might not like them the better for that, perhaps. Such a number of women and children have no right to be comfortable on-board. My dear Frederick, you are talking quite idly. Pray what would become of us poor sailor's wives, who often want to be conveyed to one port or another, after our husbands, if everybody had your feelings. My feelings, you see, did not prevent my taking Mrs. Harville and all her family to Plymouth. But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days. Ah, my dear, said the Admiral, when he had got a wife, he will sing a different tune. When he is married, if we have the good luck to live to another war, we shall see him do as you and I and a great many others have done. We shall have him very thankful to any body that will bring him his wife. Aye, that we shall. Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth, when once married people begin to attack me with, oh, you will think very differently when you are married, I can only say, no, I shall not, and they say again, yes, you will, and there is an end of it. He got up and moved away. What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am, said Mrs. Musgrove to Mrs. Croft. Pretty well, ma'am, in the fifteen years of my marriage, though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have been once to the East Indies and back again and only once, besides being in different places about home, Cork and Lisbon and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Straits, and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies. Mrs. Musgrove had not a word to say in dissent. She could not accuse herself of ever having called them anything in the whole course of her life. And I do assure you, ma'am, pursued Mrs. Croft, that nothing can exceed the accommodations of a man of war. I speak, you know, of the higher rates. When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more confined, though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy on one of them, and I can safely say that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared. Thank God I have always been blessed with excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little disordered always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but never knew what sickness was afterwards. The only time I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at deal, when the Admiral, Captain Croft then, was in the North Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next. But as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience. I, to be sure, yes indeed, oh yes, I am quite of your opinion, Mrs. Croft, was Mrs. Musgrove's hearty answer. There is nothing so bad as a separation. I am quite of your opinion. I know what it is, for Mr. Musgrove always attends the Assises, and I am so glad when they are over, and he is safe back again. The evening ended with dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered her services as usual, and though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad to be employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved. It was a merry, joyous party, and no one seemed in higher spirits than Captain Wentworth. She felt that he had everything to elevate him, which general attention and deference, and especially the attention of all the young women could do. The Miss Haters, the females of the family of cousins already mentioned, were apparently admitted to the honour of being in love with him, and as for Henry Edger and Louisa, they both seemed so entirely occupied by him, that nothing but the continued appearance of the most perfect good will between themselves could have made it credible that they were not decided rivals. If he were a little spoiled by such universal, such eager admiration, who could wonder? These were some of the thoughts which occupied Anne, while her fingers were mechanically at work, proceeding for half an hour together equally without error and without consciousness. Once she felt that he was looking at herself, observing her altered features, perhaps, trying to trace in them the ruins of the face which had once charmed him. And once she knew that he must have spoken of her. She was hardly aware of it till she heard the answer. But then she was sure of his having asked his partner whether Miss Elliott never danced. The answer was, oh no, never! She has quite given up dancing. She had rather plain. She is never tired of playing. Once, too, he spoke to her. She had left the instrument on the dancing being over, and he had sat down to try to make out an air which he wished to give the Miss Musgrove's an idea of. Unintentionally, she returned to that part of the room. He saw her, and instantly rising said with studied politeness, I beg your pardon, madam, this is your seat. And though she immediately drew back with the decided negative, he was not to be induced to sit down again. Anne did not wish for more of such looks and speeches. His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything.