It was sad to Fanny to lose all the pleasures of spring. She had not known before what pleasures she had to lose in passing March and April in a town. What animation, both of body and mind, she had derived from watching the advance of that season which cannot be unlovely, and seeing its increasing beauties from the earliest flowers in the warmest divisions of her aunt’s garden, to the opening of leaves of her uncle’s plantations, and the glory of his woods.

To be losing such pleasures because she was in the midst of closeness, noise, confinement, bad air, bad smells, substituted for liberty, freshness, fragrance, and verdure, was infinitely worse. But even this regret was feeble, compared with being missed by her best friends, and the longing to be useful to those who actually wanted her!

Could she have been at Mansfield, she might have been of service to every creature in the house. Were it only in supporting the spirits of her aunt Bertram, keeping her from the evil of solitude, or the still greater evil of a restless, officious lupine companion, too apt to be heightening danger in order to enhance her own importance—Fanny’s being there would have been a general good. She loved to fancy how she could read to her aunt, talk to her. She imagined the many walks up and down stairs she might have saved her, and how many messages she might have carried. Even the old familiar, oddly dear clutter of Egyptian artifacts—much reduced since Sir Thomas’s Grand Purge after that ball, but still present in some cases, in a cat-headed gold figurine here, a crocodile-headed knick-knack there. . . .

Fanny made herself stop that particular course of thought, for that way lay folly and the remembrance of a certain intense pair of familiar eyes—

It astonished her that Tom’s sisters could be satisfied with remaining in London at such a time, through an illness which had, under different degrees of danger, lasted several weeks. They could have returned to Mansfield whenever they chose! Travelling could be no difficulty to them!

She could not comprehend how both could still keep away. If Mrs. Rushworth could imagine any interfering obligations, Julia was certainly able to quit London whenever she chose. It appeared from one of her aunt’s letters that Julia had offered to return if wanted, but this was all. It was evident that she would rather remain where she was.

Fanny was disposed to think the influence of London very much at war with all respectable attachments. She saw the proof of it in Miss Crawford, as well as in her cousins. Her attachment to Edmund had been the most respectable part of her character; her friendship for Fanny had been blameless. Where was either sentiment now?