It cannot be doubted that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were shocked and

mortified by the loss of their companion, and the discovery of their

deception in her. They had their great cousins, to be sure, to resort

to for comfort; but they must long feel that to flatter and follow

others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of

half enjoyment.

Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell's meaning to

love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the

happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of

having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value.

There she felt her own inferiority very keenly. The disproportion in

their fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment's regret; but

to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of

respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the

worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and

sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be

sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity. She had

but two friends in the world to add to his list, Lady Russell and Mrs

Smith. To those, however, he was very well disposed to attach himself.

Lady Russell, in spite of all her former transgressions, he could now

value from his heart. While he was not obliged to say that he believed

her to have been right in originally dividing them, he was ready to say

almost everything else in her favour, and as for Mrs Smith, she had

claims of various kinds to recommend her quickly and permanently.

Her recent good offices by Anne had been enough in themselves, and

their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her

two. She was their earliest visitor in their settled life; and Captain

Wentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband's

property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and

seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the

activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully

requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render,

to his wife.

Mrs Smith's enjoyments were not spoiled by this improvement of income,

with some improvement of health, and the acquisition of such friends to

be often with, for her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not fail

her; and while these prime supplies of good remained, she might have

bid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly prosperity. She

might have been absolutely rich and perfectly healthy, and yet be

happy. Her spring of felicity was in the glow of her spirits, as her

friend Anne's was in the warmth of her heart. Anne was tenderness

itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth's

affection. His profession was all that could ever make her friends

wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim

her sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor's wife, but she must pay

the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if

possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its

national importance.



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