Austen Said:

disappointed.

better things from their high ideas of their own situation in life,

a wish that they had more pride;

they were nothing. There was no superiority of manner, accomplishment, or understanding. Lady Dalrymple had acquired the name of "a charming woman," because she had a smile and a civil answer for everybody. Miss Carteret, with still less to say, was so plain and so awkward, that she would never have been tolerated in Camden Place but for her birth.

she had expected something better;

their being nothing in themselves,

as a family connexion, as good company, as those who would collect good company around them, they had their value.

his wishing to promote her father's getting great acquaintance was more than excusable in the view of defeating her.

It would excite no proper interest there.

was most happy to convey her as near to Mrs Smith's lodgings in Westgate Buildings, as Anne chose to be taken.

Neither the dissipations of the past -- and she had lived very much in the world -- nor the restrictions of the present, neither sickness nor sorrow seemed to have closed her heart or ruined her spirits.

She could scarcely imagine a more cheerless situation in itself than Mrs Smith's.

She had been very fond of her husband: she had buried him. She had been used to affluence: it was gone. She had no child to connect her with life and happiness again, no relations to assist in the arrangement of perplexed affairs, no health to make all the rest supportable. Her accommodations were limited to a noisy parlour, and a dark bedroom behind, with no possibility of moving from one to the other without assistance, which there was only one servant in the house to afford, and she never quitted the house but to be conveyed into the warm bath.

she had moments only of languor and depression, to hours of occupation and enjoyment. How could it be?

this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only.

A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven;

as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.

The husband had not been what he ought, and the wife had been led among that part of mankind which made her think worse of the world than she hoped it deserved.

They were only asked,

because Lady Dalrymple being kept at home by a bad cold, was glad to make use of the relationship which had been so pressed on her;

in defence of her friend's not very dissimilar claims to theirs,

left it to himself to recollect, that Mrs Smith was not the only widow in Bath between thirty and forty, with little to live on, and no surname of dignity.

She had been the only one of the set absent, for Sir Walter and Elizabeth had not only been quite at her ladyship's service themselves, but had actually been happy to be employed by her in collecting others, and had been at the trouble of inviting both Lady Russell and Mr Elliot; and Mr Elliot had made a point of leaving Colonel Wallis early, and Lady Russell had fresh arranged all her evening engagements in order to wait on her.

in having been wished for, regretted, and at the same time honoured for staying away in such a cause.

Her kind, compassionate visits to this old schoolfellow, sick and reduced, seemed to have quite delighted Mr Elliot.

her a most extraordinary young woman; in her temper, manners, mind, a model of female excellence.

She was as much convinced of his meaning to gain Anne in time as of his deserving her,

the number of weeks which would free him from all the remaining restraints of widowhood, and leave him at liberty to exert his most open powers of pleasing.

of a possible attachment on his side, of the desirableness of the alliance, supposing such attachment to be real and returned.

becoming what her mother had been; of having the precious name of "Lady Elliot" first revived in herself; of being restored to Kellynch, calling it her home again, her home for ever,

could Mr Elliot at that moment with propriety have spoken for himself!

She never could accept him.

That he was a sensible man, an agreeable man, that he talked well, professed good opinions, seemed to judge properly and as a man of principle, this was all clear enough. He certainly knew what was right, nor could she fix on any one article of moral duty evidently transgressed; but yet she would have been afraid to answer for his conduct. She distrusted the past, if not the present. The names which occasionally dropt of former associates, the allusions to former practices and pursuits, suggested suspicions not favourable of what he had been.

there had been bad habits;

Sunday travelling had been a common thing;

there had been a period of his life (and probably not a short one) when he had been, at least, careless in all serious matters; and, though he might now think very differently, who could answer for the true sentiments of a clever, cautious man, grown old enough to appreciate a fair character? How could it ever be ascertained that his mind was truly cleansed?

Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others.

she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

Mr Elliot was too generally agreeable. Various as were the tempers in her father's house, he pleased them all. He endured too well, stood too well with every body. He had spoken to her with some degree of openness of Mrs Clay; had appeared completely to see what Mrs Clay was about, and to hold her in contempt; and yet Mrs Clay found him as agreeable as any body.

a man more exactly what he ought to be than Mr Elliot;

the hope of seeing him receive the hand of her beloved Anne in Kellynch church, in the course of the following autumn.

Henrietta was at home again; and

Louisa, though considered to be recovering fast, was still in Lyme;

The Crofts must be in Bath!

Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove!

whether the Crofts travelled with four horses, and whether they were likely to be situated in such a part of Bath as it might suit Miss Elliot and himself to visit in;

Well might Charles wonder how Captain Wentworth would feel! Perhaps he had quitted the field, had given Louisa up, had ceased to love, had found he did not love her.

She could not endure the idea of treachery or levity, or anything akin to ill usage between him and his friend. She could not endure that such a friendship as theirs should be severed unfairly.

Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove! The high-spirited, joyous-talking Louisa Musgrove, and the dejected, thinking, feeling, reading, Captain Benwick, seemed each of them everything that would not suit the other. Their minds most dissimilar! Where could have been the attraction?

It had been in situation. They had been thrown together several weeks; they had been living in the same small family party: since Henrietta's coming away, they must have been depending almost entirely on each other, and Louisa, just recovering from illness, had been in an interesting state, and Captain Benwick was not inconsolable.