d grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness of her
enjoyment.

The evening came, the drawing-rooms were lighted up, the company
assembled. It was but a card party, it was but a mixture of those who
had never met before, and those who met too often; a commonplace
business, too numerous for intimacy, too small for variety; but Anne
had never found an evening shorter. Glowing and lovely in sensibility
and happiness, and more generally admired than she thought about or
cared for, she had cheerful or forbearing feelings for every creature
around her. Mr Elliot was there; she avoided, but she could pity him.
The Wallises, she had amusement in understanding them. Lady Dalrymple
and Miss Carteret--they would soon be innoxious cousins to her. She
cared not for Mrs Clay, and had nothing to blush for in the public
manners of her father and sister. With the Musgroves, there was the
happy chat of perfect ease; with Captain Harville, the kind-hearted
intercourse of brother and sister; with Lady Russell, attempts at
conversation, which a delicious consciousness cut short; with Admiral
and Mrs Croft, everything of peculiar cordiality and fervent interest,
which the same consciousness sought to conceal; and with Captain
Wentworth, some moments of communications continually occurring, and
always the hope of more, and always the knowledge of his being there.

It was in one of these short meetings, each apparently occupied in
admiring a fine display of greenhouse plants, that she said--

"I have been thinking over the past, and trying impartially to judge of
the right and wrong, I mean with regard to myself; and I must believe
that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly
right in being guided by the friend whom you will love better than you
do now. To me, she was in the place of a parent. Do not mistake me,
however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was,
perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the
event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any
circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice. But I mean,
that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done
otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement
than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my
conscience. I have now, as far as such a sentiment is allowable in
human nature, nothing to reproach myself with; and if I mistake