tion, no walk on the ramparts, no visit to the dockyard, no
acquaintance with the Thrush, nothing of all that they had planned and
depended on. Everything in that quarter failed her, except William's
affection. His last thought on leaving home was for her. He stepped back
again to the door to say, "Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender,
and not used to rough it like the rest of us. I charge you, take care of
Fanny."

William was gone: and the home he had left her in was, Fanny could not
conceal it from herself, in almost every respect the very reverse of
what she could have wished. It was the abode of noise, disorder, and
impropriety. Nobody was in their right place, nothing was done as it
ought to be. She could not respect her parents as she had hoped. On her
father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but he was more negligent
of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser, than
she had been prepared for. He did not want abilities but he had no
curiosity, and no information beyond his profession; he read only
the newspaper and the navy-list; he talked only of the dockyard, the
harbour, Spithead, and the Motherbank; he swore and he drank, he was
dirty and gross. She had never been able to recall anything approaching
to tenderness in his former treatment of herself. There had remained
only a general impression of roughness and loudness; and now he scarcely
ever noticed her, but to make her the object of a coarse joke.

Her disappointment in her mother was greater: _there_ she had hoped
much, and found almost nothing. Every flattering scheme of being of
consequence to her soon fell to the ground. Mrs. Price was not unkind;
but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming
more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from
her than on the first day of her arrival. The instinct of nature was
soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price's attachment had no other source. Her
heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor
affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her.
She was fond of her sons, especially of William, but Betsey was the
first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most
injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling;
and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her
maternal solicitude, alternately her worries and her comforts. These
shared her heart: her