Austen Said:

it agreed with her;

to oppose her dear Anne's known wishes. It would be too much to expect Sir Walter to descend into a small house in his own neighbourhood. Anne herself would have found the mortifications of it more than she foresaw, and to Sir Walter's feelings they must have been dreadful. And with regard to Anne's dislike of Bath,

it as a prejudice and mistake arising, first, from the circumstance of her having been three years at school there, after her mother's death; and secondly, from her happening to be not in perfectly good spirits the only winter which she had afterwards spent there with herself.

as to her young friend's health, by passing all the warm months with her at Kellynch Lodge, every danger would be avoided; and it was in fact, a change which must do both health and spirits good. Anne had been too little from home, too little seen. Her spirits were not high. A larger society would improve them. She wanted her to be more known.

a friendship quite out of place,

turning from the society of so deserving a sister, to bestow her affection and confidence on one who ought to have been nothing to her but the object of distant civility.

From situation, Mrs Clay was,

a very unequal, and in her character

a very dangerous companion; and a removal that would leave Mrs Clay behind, and bring a choice of more suitable intimates within Miss Elliot's reach, was therefore an object of first-rate importance.

as a most unfortunate one.

Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty, and mind, to throw herself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen in an engagement with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions to secure even his farther rise in the profession, would be, indeed, a throwing away, which she grieved to think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence! It must not be, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations from one who had almost a mother's love, and mother's rights, it would be prevented.

the engagement a wrong thing: indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it.

to see her at twenty-two so respectably removed from the partialities and injustice of her father's house, and settled so permanently near herself.

She did not blame Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her;

were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good.

under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and every anxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays, and disappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman in maintaining the engagement, than she had been in the sacrifice of it;

this,

had the usual share, had even more than the usual share of all such solicitudes and suspense been theirs,

it was folly,

of the past being known to those three only among her connexions, by whom no syllable,

would ever be whispered, and in the trust that among his, the brother only with whom he had been residing, had received any information of their short-lived engagement.

she hoped that the acquaintance between herself and the Crofts,

need not involve any particular awkwardness.

to be sorry that she had missed the opportunity of seeing them.

Anne would not be allowed to be of any use, or any importance, in the choice of the house which they were going to secure,

everything considered, she wished to remain.

It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering to go with the others.

as a most important and valuable assistant to the latter in all the business before her.

such a measure should have been resorted to at all,

and the affront it contained to Anne, in Mrs Clay's being of so much use, while Anne could be of none,

results the most serious to his family from the intimacy were more than possible.

her father had at present an idea of the kind. Mrs Clay had freckles, and a projecting tooth, and a clumsy wrist, which he was continually making severe remarks upon, in her absence; but she was young, and certainly altogether well-looking, and possessed, in an acute mind and assiduous pleasing manners, infinitely more dangerous attractions than any merely personal might have been.

but Elizabeth, who in the event of such a reverse would be so much more to be pitied than herself, should never,

have reason to reproach her for giving no warning.

how such an absurd suspicion should occur to her,

this break-up of the family exceedingly. Their respectability was as dear to her as her own, and a daily intercourse had become precious by habit. It was painful to look upon their deserted grounds, and still worse to anticipate the new hands they were to fall into; and to escape the solitariness and the melancholy of so altered a village, and be out of the way when Admiral and Mrs Croft first arrived,

make her own absence from home begin when she must give up Anne.

though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither family could now do without it.

other Elliots could have her advantage in seeing how unknown, or unconsidered there, were the affairs which at Kellynch Hall were treated as of such general publicity and pervading interest;

she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was become necessary for her;

to avoid such self-delusion in future,

of the extraordinary blessing of having one such truly sympathising friend as Lady Russell.

it to be very fitting, that every little social commonwealth should dictate its own matters of discourse;

ere long, to become a not unworthy member of the one she was now transplanted into.

no dread of these two months. Mary was not so repulsive and unsisterly as Elizabeth, nor so inaccessible to all influence of hers; neither was there anything among the other component parts of the cottage inimical to comfort. She was always on friendly terms with her brother-in-law; and in the children, who loved her nearly as well, and respected her a great deal more than their mother,

interest, amusement, and wholesome exertion.

a more equal match might have greatly improved him;

a woman of real understanding might have given more consequence to his character, and more usefulness, rationality, and elegance to his habits and pursuits.

As it was, he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without benefit from books or anything else. He had very good spirits, which never seemed much affected by his wife's occasional lowness, bore with her unreasonableness sometimes to Anne's admiration, and upon the whole, though there was very often a little disagreement (in which she had sometimes more share than she wished, being appealed to by both parties), they might pass for a happy couple. They were always perfectly agreed in the want of more money, and a strong inclination for a handsome present from his father; but here, as on most topics, he had the superiority, for while Mary thought

he always contended