illity, to the Lodge, where she was to spend the first week.

Her friend was not in better spirits than herself. Lady Russell felt
this break-up of the family exceedingly. Their respectability was as
dear to her as her own, and a daily intercourse had become precious by
habit. It was painful to look upon their deserted grounds, and still
worse to anticipate the new hands they were to fall into; and to escape
the solitariness and the melancholy of so altered a village, and be out
of the way when Admiral and Mrs Croft first arrived, she had determined
to make her own absence from home begin when she must give up Anne.
Accordingly their removal was made together, and Anne was set down at
Uppercross Cottage, in the first stage of Lady Russell's journey.

Uppercross was a moderate-sized village, which a few years back had
been completely in the old English style, containing only two houses
superior in appearance to those of the yeomen and labourers; the
mansion of the squire, with its high walls, great gates, and old trees,
substantial and unmodernized, and the compact, tight parsonage,
enclosed in its own neat garden, with a vine and a pear-tree trained
round its casements; but upon the marriage of the young 'squire, it had
received the improvement of a farm-house elevated into a cottage, for
his residence, and Uppercross Cottage, with its veranda, French
windows, and other prettiness, was quite as likely to catch the
traveller's eye as the more consistent and considerable aspect and
premises of the Great House, about a quarter of a mile farther on.

Here Anne had often been staying. She knew the ways of Uppercross as
well as those of Kellynch. The two families were so continually
meeting, so much in the habit of running in and out of each other's
house at all hours, that it was rather a surprise to her to find Mary
alone; but being alone, her being unwell and out of spirits was almost
a matter of course. Though better endowed than the elder sister, Mary
had not Anne's understanding nor temper. While well, and happy, and
properly attended to, she had great good humour and excellent spirits;
but any indisposition sunk her completely. She had no resources for
solitude; and inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot
self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of
fancying herself neglected and ill-used. In person, she was inferior to
both sisters, and had, even in her bloom, only reached the dignit