Austen Said:

"you will not think it a good place, for yours were always kept in the butler's room. Ay, so it always is, I believe. One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best. And so you must judge for yourself, whether it would be better for you to go about the house or not."

"We have made very few changes either,"

"Very few. We told you about the laundry-door, at Uppercross. That has been a very great improvement. The wonder was, how any family upon earth could bear with the inconvenience of its opening as it did, so long! You will tell Sir Walter what we have done, and that

Mr Shepherd thinks

Indeed, I must do ourselves the justice to say, that the few alterations we have made have been all very much for the better. My wife should have the credit of them, however. I have done very little besides sending away some of the large looking-glasses from my dressing-room, which was your father's. A very good man, and very much the gentleman I am sure: but I should think, Miss Elliot,"

"I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord! there was no getting away from one's self. So I got Sophy to lend me a hand, and we soon shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with my little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing that I never go near."

"The next time you write to your good father, Miss Elliot, pray give him my compliments and Mrs Croft's, and say that we are settled here quite to our liking, and have no fault at all to find with the place. The breakfast-room chimney smokes a little, I grant you, but it is only when the wind is due north and blows hard, which may not happen three times a winter. And take it altogether, now that we have been into most of the houses hereabouts and can judge, there is not one that we like better than this. Pray say so, with my compliments. He will be glad to hear it."

themselves to be going away for a few weeks, to visit their connexions in the north of the county, and probably might not be at home again before Lady Russell would be removing to Bath.

Everything was safe enough,

Charles and Mary had remained at Lyme much longer after Mr and Mrs Musgrove's going than

they could have been at all wanted,

'he never shot'

'been quite misunderstood,'

he wants to talk to you about them; he has found out something or other in one of them which he thinks

'Elegance, sweetness, beauty.'

was so extremely fearful of any ill consequence to her from an interview,

plan of going away for a week or ten days, till her head was stronger.

going down to Plymouth for a week, and wanted to persuade Captain Benwick to go with him;

she might see him or hear of him.

to be unworthy of the interest which he had been beginning to excite.

Uppercross was already quite alive again. Though neither Henrietta, nor Louisa, nor Charles Hayter, nor Captain Wentworth were there, the room presented as strong a contrast as could be wished to the last state she had seen it in.

nothing could be so good for her as a little quiet cheerfulness.

for who would be glad to see her when she arrived?

Mr Elliot was in Bath. He had called in Camden Place; had called a second time, a third; had been pointedly attentive. If Elizabeth and her father did not deceive themselves, had been taking much pains to seek the acquaintance, and proclaim the value of the connection, as he had formerly taken pains to shew neglect.

She had a great wish to see him. If he really sought to reconcile himself like a dutiful branch, he must be forgiven for having dismembered himself from the paternal tree.

she would rather see Mr Elliot again than not, which was more than she could say for many other persons in Bath.

she would pretend what was proper on her arrival,

her father should feel no degradation in his change, should see nothing to regret in the duties and dignity of the resident landholder, should find so much to be vain of in the littlenesses of a town;

He had never had an idea of throwing himself off; he had feared that he was thrown off, but knew not why, and delicacy had kept him silent.

He, who had ever boasted of being an Elliot, and whose feelings, as to connection, were only too strict to suit the unfeudal tone of the present day. He was astonished, indeed, but his character and general conduct must refute it. He could refer Sir Walter to all who knew him;

(and not an ill-looking man,

A very fine woman with a large fortune, in love with him!

it be a great extenuation.

Allowances, large allowances,

must be made for the ideas of those who spoke. She heard it all under embellishment. All that sounded extravagant or irrational in the progress of the reconciliation might have no origin but in the language of the relators.

there being something more than immediately appeared, in Mr Elliot's wishing, after an interval of so many years, to be well received by them.

In a worldly view, he had nothing to gain by being on terms with Sir Walter; nothing to risk by a state of variance. In all probability he was already the richer of the two, and the Kellynch estate would as surely be his hereafter as the title. A sensible man, and he had looked like a very sensible man, why should it be an object to him? She could only offer one solution; it was, perhaps, for Elizabeth's sake. There might really have been a liking formerly, though convenience and accident had drawn him a different way; and now that he could afford to please himself, he might mean to pay his addresses to her. Elizabeth was certainly very handsome, with well-bred, elegant manners, and her character might never have been penetrated by Mr Elliot, knowing her but in public, and when very young himself. How her temper and understanding might bear the investigation of his present keener time of life was another concern and rather a fearful one.

he might not be too nice, or too observant if Elizabeth were his object;

"Oh! yes, perhaps, it had been Mr Elliot. They did not know. It might be him, perhaps."

his very gentlemanlike appearance, his air of elegance and fashion, his good shaped face, his sensible eye; but, at the same time,

but Sir Walter had

"Colonel Wallis had been so impatient to be introduced to them! and Mr Elliot so anxious that he should!"

"a most charming woman, quite worthy of being known in Camden Place,"

she was said to be an excessively pretty woman, beautiful.

Colonel Wallis's companion might have as good a figure as Colonel Wallis, and certainly was not sandy-haired.

she should venture to suggest that a gown, or a cap, would not be liable to any such misuse,

"A knock at the door! and so late! It was ten o'clock. Could it be Mr Elliot? They knew he was to dine in Lansdown Crescent. It was possible that he might stop in his way home to ask them how they did. They could think of no one else.

his apologies for calling at so unusual an hour,

"he could not be so near without wishing to know that neither she nor her friend had taken cold the day before, &c. &c;"

be received as an acquaintance already.