One day only had passed since Anne's conversation with Mrs Smith; but a

keener interest had succeeded, and she was now so little touched by Mr

Elliot's conduct, except by its effects in one quarter, that it became

a matter of course the next morning, still to defer her explanatory

visit in Rivers Street. She had promised to be with the Musgroves from

breakfast to dinner. Her faith was plighted, and Mr Elliot's

character, like the Sultaness Scheherazade's head, must live another

day.

She could not keep her appointment punctually, however; the weather was

unfavourable, and she had grieved over the rain on her friends'

account, and felt it very much on her own, before she was able to

attempt the walk. When she reached the White Hart, and made her way to

the proper apartment, she found herself neither arriving quite in time,

nor the first to arrive. The party before her were, Mrs Musgrove,

talking to Mrs Croft, and Captain Harville to Captain Wentworth; and

she immediately heard that Mary and Henrietta, too impatient to wait,

had gone out the moment it had cleared, but would be back again soon,

and that the strictest injunctions had been left with Mrs Musgrove to

keep her there till they returned. She had only to submit, sit down,

be outwardly composed, and feel herself plunged at once in all the

agitations which she had merely laid her account of tasting a little

before the morning closed. There was no delay, no waste of time. She

was deep in the happiness of such misery, or the misery of such

happiness, instantly. Two minutes after her entering the room, Captain

Wentworth said-"We will write the letter we were talking of, Harville, now, if you

will give me materials."

Materials were at hand, on a separate table; he went to it, and nearly

turning his back to them all, was engrossed by writing.

Mrs Musgrove was giving Mrs Croft the history of her eldest daughter's

engagement, and just in that inconvenient tone of voice which was

perfectly audible while it pretended to be a whisper. Anne felt that

she did not belong to the conversation, and yet, as Captain Harville

seemed thoughtful and not disposed to talk, she could not avoid hearing

many undesirable particulars; such as, "how Mr Musgrove and my brother

Hayter had met again and again to talk it over; what my brother Hayter

had said one day, and what Mr Musgrove had proposed the next, and what

had occurred to my sister Hayter, and what the young people had wished,

and what I said at first I never could consent to, but was afterwards

persuaded to think might do very well," and a great deal in the same

style of open-hearted communication: minutiae which, even with every

advantage of taste and delicacy, which good Mrs Musgrove could not

give, could be properly interesting only to the principals. Mrs Croft

was attending with great good-humour, and whenever she spoke at all, it

was very sensibly. Anne hoped the gentlemen might each be too much

self-occupied to hear.




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