“The right of a lively mind, Fanny, seizing whatever may contribute to its own amusement or that of others; perfectly allowable, when untinctured by ill-humour or roughness. There is not a shadow of either in Miss Crawford: nothing sharp, or loud, or coarse. She is perfectly feminine, except in the instances we have been speaking of. There she cannot be justified. I am glad you saw it all as I did.”

“She is indeed perfectly lovely,” said Fanny quietly. “Though I cannot help but wonder why in some moments she appears so cold and pale and, frankly, Cursed somehow, in some secret manner of her own. Cursed, maybe, with a void in the spot where there ought to be her heart.”

But Edmund did not hear.

Having formed her mind and gained Fanny’s affections, there was a good chance of her thinking like him. But on this subject, there began now to be some danger of dissimilarity. For he was in a line of admiration of Miss Crawford, which might lead him where Fanny could not follow.

Miss Crawford’s attractions did not lessen. The harp arrived, minus any crocodile embellishments, and rather added to her beauty, wit, and good-humour; for she played with the greatest obligingness, with an expression and taste which were peculiarly becoming, and there was something clever to be said at the close of every air. Edmund was at the Parsonage every day, to be indulged with his favourite instrument. One morning secured an invitation for the next.

A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as elegant as herself, and both placed near a window, cut down to the ground, and opening on a little lawn, surrounded by shrubs in the rich foliage of summer—it was enough to catch any man’s heart. The season, the scene, the air, were all favourable to tenderness and sentiment. Mrs. Grant and her tambour frame were not without their use: it was all in harmony. And as everything will turn to account when love is once set going, even the sandwich tray, and Dr. Grant doing the honours of it, were worth looking at.