Austen Said:

"One thing more. Excuse the liberty; but take care how you talk to me. Do not tell me anything now, which hereafter you may be sorry for. The time may come—

The ball, too such an evening of pleasure before her!

those dearest tokens

Miss Crawford had a claim; and when it was no longer to encroach on, to interfere with the stronger claims, the truer kindness of another, she could do her justice even with pleasure to herself.

The necklace really looked very well;

Fanny, preparing for a ball, might be glad of better help than the upper housemaid's,

"Yes,"

"she looks very well. I sent Chapman to her."

"Look well! Oh, yes!"

"she has good reason to look well with all her advantages: brought up in this family as she has been, with all the benefit of her cousins' manners before her. Only think, my dear Sir Thomas, what extraordinary advantages you and I have been the means of giving her. The very gown you have been taking notice of is your own generous present to her when dear Mrs. Rushworth married. What would she have been if we had not taken her by the hand?"

very charming,

She looked all loveliness—and what might not be the end of it?

if Mr. Crawford had not asked her, she must have been the last to be sought after, and should have received a partner only through a series of inquiry, and bustle, and interference, which would have been terrible;

having a partner, a voluntary partner, secured against the dancing began.

"Yes, sir; to Mr. Crawford,"

she was to lead the way and open the ball;

that she hoped it might be settled otherwise;

To be placed above so many elegant young women! The distinction was too great. It was treating her like her cousins!

they were not at home to take their own place in the room, and have their share of a pleasure which would have been so very delightful to them.

So often as she had heard them wish for a ball at home as the greatest of all felicities! And to have them away when it was given—and for her to be opening the ball— and with Mr. Crawford too!

they would not envy her that distinction now

to what they had all been to each other when once dancing in that house before,

"Yes, she does look very well,"

"Chapman helped her to dress. I sent Chapman to her."

Perhaps you can tell me why my brother goes to town to-morrow? He says he has business there, but will not tell me what. The first time he ever denied me his confidence! But this is what we all come to. All are supplanted sooner or later. Now, I must apply to you for information. Pray, what is Henry going for?"

"Well, then,"

"I must suppose it to be purely for the pleasure of conveying your brother, and of talking of you by the way."

much rather not have been asked by him again so very soon,

she had not been obliged to suspect that his previous inquiries of Mrs. Norris, about the supper hour, were all for the sake of securing her at that part of the evening.

But it was not to be avoided: he made her feel that she was the object of all; though she could not say that it was unpleasantly done, that there was indelicacy or ostentation in his manner; and sometimes, when he talked of William, he was really not unagreeable, and shewed even a warmth of heart which did him credit.

It was barbarous to be happy when Edmund was suffering.

"Oh! William."

"Oh! yes, sir,"

"I must get up and breakfast with him. It will be the last time, you know; the last morning."

"I shall have only a desolate house to hurry from. Your brother will find my ideas of time and his own very different to-morrow."

a ball was indeed delightful.

as if she had wasted half his visit in idle cares and selfish solicitudes unconnected with him.

"She could not recollect what it was that she had heard about one of the Miss Maddoxes, or what it was that Lady Prescott had noticed in Fanny: she was not sure whether Colonel Harrison had been talking of Mr. Crawford or of William when he said he was the finest young man in the room— somebody had whispered something to her; she had forgot to ask Sir Thomas what it could be."

"Yes, yes; very well; did you? did he? I did not see that; I should not know one from the other."

"I cannot think what is the matter with me,"

"I feel quite stupid. It must be sitting up so late last night. Fanny, you must do something to keep me awake. I cannot work. Fetch the cards; I feel so very stupid."

"And that makes thirty-one; four in hand and eight in crib. You are to deal, ma'am; shall I deal for you?"

the difference which twenty-four hours had made in that room, and all that part of the house. Last night it had been hope and smiles, bustle and motion, noise and brilliancy, in the drawing-room, and out of the drawing-room, and everywhere. Now it was languor, and all but solitude.

They were indeed a smaller party than she had ever known there for a whole day together, and he was gone on whom the comfort and cheerfulness of every family meeting and every meal chiefly depended. But this must be learned to be endured. He would soon be always gone; and she was thankful that she could now sit in the same room with her uncle, hear his voice, receive his questions, and even answer them, without such wretched feelings as she had formerly known.

"Yes,"

"but I wish he was not going away. They are all going away, I think. I wish they would stay at home."

"Yes";

"Sir Thomas, I have been thinking— and I am very glad we took Fanny as we did, for now the others are away we feel the good of it."

"Yes,"

"and it is a comfort to think that we shall always have her."