“Yes, she laments it; yet owns it may have been best. You will see her, however, before she goes. She is very angry with you, Fanny; you must be prepared for that. She calls herself very angry, but you can imagine her anger. It is the regret and disappointment of a sister, who thinks her brother has a right to everything he may wish for. She is hurt, as you would be for William; but she loves and esteems you with all her heart.”

“I knew she would be very angry with me.”

“My dearest Fanny,” cried Edmund, pressing her arm closer to him, “do not let the idea distress you. Her heart is made for love and kindness, not for resentment. You should have seen her countenance when she said that you should be Henry’s wife. And now she speaks of you as ‘Fanny,’ in sisterly cordiality.”

“And Mrs. Grant, did she say—did she speak; was she there all the time?”

“Yes, she was agreeing exactly with her sister. Refusing such a man as Henry Crawford seems more than they can understand. You must prove yourself to be in your senses; nothing else will satisfy them. But this is teasing you. I have done. Do not turn away from me.”

“I should have thought,” said Fanny after a pause, “that every woman must accept the possibility of a man’s not being approved. Furthermore, Mr. Crawford took me wholly by surprise. I had no idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning.”

“My dear, dear Fanny, now I have the truth. I told them that you were someone over whom habit had most power and novelty least; and that the very circumstance of the novelty of Crawford’s addresses was against him. Miss Crawford made us laugh. She talked of having his addresses most kindly received by you at the end of about ten years’ happy marriage.”

Fanny could smile with difficulty. Her feelings were all in revolt. She feared she had been doing wrong: saying too much. To have Miss Crawford’s liveliness repeated to her at such a moment was a bitter aggravation.

Edmund saw weariness and distress in her face, and immediately resolved to forbear all further discussion; not even to mention the name of Crawford again. He observed—“They go on Monday. I was within a trifle of being persuaded to stay at Lessingby till that very day! What a difference it might have made! Those five or six days more at Lessingby might have been felt all my life.”

“You were near staying there?”

“Very. I was most kindly pressed, and had nearly consented. But I knew nothing that had happened here, and felt that I had been away long enough.”

“You spent your time pleasantly there?”

“Yes; that is, it was the fault of my own mind if I did not. They were all very pleasant. But I doubt their finding me so.”