their visitor, who had at first
approached her with as animated a countenance as ever, was wisely and
kindly keeping his eyes away, and giving her time to recover, while he
devoted himself entirely to her mother, addressing her, and attending
to her with the utmost politeness and propriety, at the same time with
a degree of friendliness, of interest at least, which was making his
manner perfect.

Mrs. Price's manners were also at their best. Warmed by the sight of
such a friend to her son, and regulated by the wish of appearing to
advantage before him, she was overflowing with gratitude--artless,
maternal gratitude--which could not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out,
which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recovered enough to
feel that _she_ could not regret it; for to her many other sources of
uneasiness was added the severe one of shame for the home in which he
found her. She might scold herself for the weakness, but there was no
scolding it away. She was ashamed, and she would have been yet more
ashamed of her father than of all the rest.

They talked of William, a subject on which Mrs. Price could never tire;
and Mr. Crawford was as warm in his commendation as even her heart could
wish. She felt that she had never seen so agreeable a man in her life;
and was only astonished to find that, so great and so agreeable as he
was, he should be come down to Portsmouth neither on a visit to the
port-admiral, nor the commissioner, nor yet with the intention of going
over to the island, nor of seeing the dockyard. Nothing of all that she
had been used to think of as the proof of importance, or the employment
of wealth, had brought him to Portsmouth. He had reached it late the
night before, was come for a day or two, was staying at the Crown, had
accidentally met with a navy officer or two of his acquaintance since
his arrival, but had no object of that kind in coming.

By the time he had given all this information, it was not unreasonable
to suppose that Fanny might be looked at and spoken to; and she was
tolerably able to bear his eye, and hear that he had spent half an hour
with his sister the evening before his leaving London; that she had
sent her best and kindest love, but had had no time for writing; that he
thought himself lucky in seeing Mary for even half an hour, having spent
scarcely twenty-four hours in London, after his return from Norfolk,
before he set off again; that her cousin Edmund was in town, had be