The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted and

melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon found themselves

on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a

first return to the sea, who ever deserved to look on it at all,

proceeded towards the Cobb, equally their object in itself and on

Captain Wentworth's account: for in a small house, near the foot of an

old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled. Captain

Wentworth turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on, and he

was to join them on the Cobb.

They were by no means tired of wondering and admiring; and not even

Louisa seemed to feel that they had parted with Captain Wentworth long,

when they saw him coming after them, with three companions, all well

known already, by description, to be Captain and Mrs Harville, and a

Captain Benwick, who was staying with them.

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia;

and the account which Captain Wentworth had given of him, on his return

from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as an excellent young man and

an officer, whom he had always valued highly, which must have stamped

him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little

history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting

in the eyes of all the ladies. He had been engaged to Captain

Harville's sister, and was now mourning her loss. They had been a year

or two waiting for fortune and promotion. Fortune came, his

prize-money as lieutenant being great; promotion, too, came at last;

but Fanny Harville did not live to know it. She had died the preceding

summer while he was at sea. Captain Wentworth believed it impossible

for man to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to

Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the dreadful

change. He considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer

heavily, uniting very strong feelings with quiet, serious, and retiring

manners, and a decided taste for reading, and sedentary pursuits. To

finish the interest of the story, the friendship between him and the

Harvilles seemed, if possible, augmented by the event which closed all

their views of alliance, and Captain Benwick was now living with them

entirely. Captain Harville had taken his present house for half a

year; his taste, and his health, and his fortune, all directing him to

a residence inexpensive, and by the sea; and the grandeur of the

country, and the retirement of Lyme in the winter, appeared exactly

adapted to Captain Benwick's state of mind. The sympathy and good-will

excited towards Captain Benwick was very great.




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