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

curtsey passed; 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 shewed 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

sportsmen: 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 try 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.




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