Even without a fire it was habitable on early spring and late autumn mornings to such a willing soul as Fanny. While there was a gleam of sunshine she hoped not to be driven from it entirely, even when winter came. The comfort of it in her hours of leisure was extreme. She could go there after anything unpleasant below, and find immediate consolation. Her plants, her books—of which she had been a collector from the first hour of her commanding a shilling—her writing-desk, and her works of charity and ingenuity, were all within reach.

As for musing, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an interesting remembrance connected with it. Everything was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend. And though there had been sometimes much suffering; though her motives had often been misunderstood, her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she had known tyranny, ridicule, and neglect—yet almost every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory. Her aunt Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or (what was yet more frequent or more dear), Edmund had been her champion and her friend. He had supported her, told her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made her tears delightful. The whole was now so blended together, so gentled by time, that every former affliction had its charm.

The room was most dear to her. She would not have changed its furniture for the handsomest in the house, though the original plain furnishings had suffered the ill-usage of children. Its greatest elegancies and ornaments were blessedly not Egyptian—a faded footstool of Julia’s work, too ill done for the drawing-room, three transparencies for the three lower panes of one window, a collection of family profiles, thought unworthy of being anywhere else. Over the mantelpiece, a tiny golden figurine of the Goddess Bast as an afterthought from Lady Bertram, and pinned against the wall, a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters as tall as the mainmast.

To this nest of comforts Fanny now walked—to see if by looking at Edmund’s profile she could catch any of his counsel, or by giving air to her geraniums she might inhale a breeze of mental strength herself. But she had more than fears of her own perseverance to remove: she had begun to feel undecided as to what she ought to do. And as she walked round the room her doubts were increasing.

Was she right in refusing what was so strongly wished for? Was it not ill-nature, selfishness, and a fear of exposing herself? And would Edmund’s judgment be enough to justify her denial? Acting seemed so horrible to her that she was inclined to suspect the truth and purity of her own scruples.