Such was the state of Mansfield, and so it continued, with scarcely any change, till Easter. A line occasionally added by Edmund to his mother’s letter was enough for Fanny’s information. Tom’s amendment was alarmingly slow. Edmund had used up many basins of holy water, had gone slightly hoarse from reciting ritual prayers, and all in all, the evil was taking some time to remove itself—though he had all hopes of succeeding at last, and Tom had quit all talk of horseracing wagers and for once did not seem to be swayed by the offer to purchase a “double-headed lamb” that Baddeley was made to tell him about as a kind of test of his faculties.

Easter came particularly late this year, as Fanny sorrowfully considered, on first learning that she had no chance of leaving Portsmouth till after it.

It came, and she had yet heard nothing of her return—nothing even of the going to London, which was to precede her return. Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no notice, no message from the uncle on whom all depended.

She supposed he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, terrible delay to her. At the end of April it would be almost three months, instead of two, that she had been away. Her days were passing in a state of penance which they would never understand. And who could yet say when there might be leisure to think of or fetch her?

When she had been coming to Portsmouth, she had loved to call it her home, had been fond of saying that she was going home; the word had been very dear to her. And so it still was, but it must be applied to Mansfield. That was now the home.

Portsmouth was Portsmouth; Mansfield was home. They had been long so arranged in her secret meditations, and nothing was more consolatory to her than to find her aunt using the same language: “I much regret your being from home at this distressing time, so very trying to my spirits. I trust and hope, and sincerely wish you may never be absent from home so long again,” were most delightful sentences to her.

Still, however, it was her private regale. Delicacy to her parents made her careful not to betray such a preference of her uncle’s house. It was always: “When I go back into Northamptonshire,” or: “When I return to Mansfield—”

But at last the longing grew stronger and overthrew caution. Fanny found herself talking of what she should do when she went home before she was aware. She reproached herself, coloured, and looked fearfully towards her father and mother. She need not have been uneasy. There was no sign of displeasure, or even of hearing her. They were perfectly free from any jealousy of Mansfield. She was as welcome to wish herself there as to be there.