the foot of an
old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled. Captain
Wentworth turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on, and he
was to join them on the Cobb.

They were by no means tired of wondering and admiring; and not even
Louisa seemed to feel that they had parted with Captain Wentworth long,
when they saw him coming after them, with three companions, all well
known already, by description, to be Captain and Mrs Harville, and a
Captain Benwick, who was staying with them.

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia;
and the account which Captain Wentworth had given of him, on his return
from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as an excellent young man and
an officer, whom he had always valued highly, which must have stamped
him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little
history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting
in the eyes of all the ladies. He had been engaged to Captain
Harville's sister, and was now mourning her loss. They had been a year
or two waiting for fortune and promotion. Fortune came, his
prize-money as lieutenant being great; promotion, too, came at last;
but Fanny Harville did not live to know it. She had died the preceding
summer while he was at sea. Captain Wentworth believed it impossible
for man to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to
Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the dreadful
change. He considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer
heavily, uniting very strong feelings with quiet, serious, and retiring
manners, and a decided taste for reading, and sedentary pursuits. To
finish the interest of the story, the friendship between him and the
Harvilles seemed, if possible, augmented by the event which closed all
their views of alliance, and Captain Benwick was now living with them
entirely. Captain Harville had taken his present house for half a
year; his taste, and his health, and his fortune, all directing him to
a residence inexpensive, and by the sea; and the grandeur of the
country, and the retirement of Lyme in the winter, appeared exactly
adapted to Captain Benwick's state of mind. The sympathy and good-will
excited towards Captain Benwick was very great.

"And yet," said Anne to herself, as they now moved forward to meet the
party, "he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing heart than I have. I
cannot believe his prospects so bl