ers, that he and
Henrietta should just run down for a few minutes, to see their aunt and
cousins, while the rest of the party waited for them at the top of the
hill. Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan; and, as she
went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking to Henrietta,
Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her, and saying
to Captain Wentworth--

"It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But, I assure you, I
have never been in the house above twice in my life."

She received no other answer, than an artificial, assenting smile,
followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne
perfectly knew the meaning of.

The brow of the hill, where they remained, was a cheerful spot: Louisa
returned; and Mary, finding a comfortable seat for herself on the step
of a stile, was very well satisfied so long as the others all stood
about her; but when Louisa drew Captain Wentworth away, to try for a
gleaning of nuts in an adjoining hedge-row, and they were gone by
degrees quite out of sight and sound, Mary was happy no longer; she
quarrelled with her own seat, was sure Louisa had got a much better
somewhere, and nothing could prevent her from going to look for a
better also. She turned through the same gate, but could not see them.
Anne found a nice seat for her, on a dry sunny bank, under the
hedge-row, in which she had no doubt of their still being, in some spot
or other. Mary sat down for a moment, but it would not do; she was
sure Louisa had found a better seat somewhere else, and she would go on
till she overtook her.

Anne, really tired herself, was glad to sit down; and she very soon
heard Captain Wentworth and Louisa in the hedge-row, behind her, as if
making their way back along the rough, wild sort of channel, down the
centre. They were speaking as they drew near. Louisa's voice was the
first distinguished. She seemed to be in the middle of some eager
speech. What Anne first heard was--

"And so, I made her go. I could not bear that she should be frightened
from the visit by such nonsense. What! would I be turned back from
doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right,
by the airs and interference of such a person, or of any person I may
say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have
made up my mind, I have made it; and Henrietta seemed entirely to have
made up hers to call at Winthrop to-day; and yet