of
pain, once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting
feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could
never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear. She
left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had
been.

Anne had never entered Kellynch since her quitting Lady Russell's house
in September. It had not been necessary, and the few occasions of its
being possible for her to go to the Hall she had contrived to evade and
escape from. Her first return was to resume her place in the modern
and elegant apartments of the Lodge, and to gladden the eyes of its
mistress.

There was some anxiety mixed with Lady Russell's joy in meeting her.
She knew who had been frequenting Uppercross. But happily, either Anne
was improved in plumpness and looks, or Lady Russell fancied her so;
and Anne, in receiving her compliments on the occasion, had the
amusement of connecting them with the silent admiration of her cousin,
and of hoping that she was to be blessed with a second spring of youth
and beauty.

When they came to converse, she was soon sensible of some mental
change. The subjects of which her heart had been full on leaving
Kellynch, and which she had felt slighted, and been compelled to
smother among the Musgroves, were now become but of secondary interest.
She had lately lost sight even of her father and sister and Bath.
Their concerns had been sunk under those of Uppercross; and when Lady
Russell reverted to their former hopes and fears, and spoke her
satisfaction in the house in Camden Place, which had been taken, and
her regret that Mrs Clay should still be with them, Anne would have
been ashamed to have it known how much more she was thinking of Lyme
and Louisa Musgrove, and all her acquaintance there; how much more
interesting to her was the home and the friendship of the Harvilles and
Captain Benwick, than her own father's house in Camden Place, or her
own sister's intimacy with Mrs Clay. She was actually forced to exert
herself to meet Lady Russell with anything like the appearance of equal
solicitude, on topics which had by nature the first claim on her.

There was a little awkwardness at first in their discourse on another
subject. They must speak of the accident at Lyme. Lady Russell had
not been arrived five minutes the day before, when a full account of
the whole had burst on her; but still it must be talked of, she must
m