The next moment she was tapping at her husband's dressing-room door,

and as Anne followed her up stairs, she was in time for the whole

conversation, which began with Mary's saying, in a tone of great

exultation-"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 for ever 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 farther 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; and 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 been early 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.




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