st
importance to their comfort was leaving them; and with an effort, felt
but not boasted of, he delayed for a week or two longer a journey which
he was looking forward to with the hope of its fixing his happiness for
ever.

He told Fanny of it. She knew so much already, that she must know
everything. It made the substance of one other confidential discourse
about Miss Crawford; and Fanny was the more affected from feeling it to
be the last time in which Miss Crawford's name would ever be mentioned
between them with any remains of liberty. Once afterwards she was
alluded to by him. Lady Bertram had been telling her niece in the
evening to write to her soon and often, and promising to be a good
correspondent herself; and Edmund, at a convenient moment, then added
in a whisper, "And _I_ shall write to you, Fanny, when I have anything
worth writing about, anything to say that I think you will like to hear,
and that you will not hear so soon from any other quarter." Had she
doubted his meaning while she listened, the glow in his face, when she
looked up at him, would have been decisive.

For this letter she must try to arm herself. That a letter from Edmund
should be a subject of terror! She began to feel that she had not yet
gone through all the changes of opinion and sentiment which the progress
of time and variation of circumstances occasion in this world of
changes. The vicissitudes of the human mind had not yet been exhausted
by her.

Poor Fanny! though going as she did willingly and eagerly, the last
evening at Mansfield Park must still be wretchedness. Her heart was
completely sad at parting. She had tears for every room in the house,
much more for every beloved inhabitant. She clung to her aunt, because
she would miss her; she kissed the hand of her uncle with struggling
sobs, because she had displeased him; and as for Edmund, she could
neither speak, nor look, nor think, when the last moment came with
_him_; and it was not till it was over that she knew he was giving her
the affectionate farewell of a brother.

All this passed overnight, for the journey was to begin very early in
the morning; and when the small, diminished party met at breakfast,
William and Fanny were talked of as already advanced one stage.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

The novelty of travelling, and the happiness of being with William, soon
produced their natural effect on Fanny's spirits, when Mansfield Park
was fairly left behind; and by the t