ree naval officers and a comparatively
little man, had a pleasing face and a melancholic air, just as he ought
to have. 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; and the
friendship between him and the Harvilles having been augmented by the
event which closed all their views of alliance, he was now living with
them entirely. A man of retiring manners and of sedentary pursuits, with
a decided taste for reading, he was drawn a good deal to Anne Elliot
during this excursion, and talked to her of poetry, of Scott and Byron,
of "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake," of "The Giaour" and "The Bride
of Abydos." He repeated with such feeling the various lines of Byron
which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and
looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that Anne ventured
to recommend to him a larger allowance of prose in his daily study.

Another interesting person whom the Uppercross party met at Lyme was Mr.
Elliot. He did not recognise Anne and her friends, or did they till he
had left the town find out who he was; but he was obviously struck with
Anne, and gazed at her with a degree of earnest admiration which she
could not be insensible of. She was looking remarkably well, her very
regular, very pretty features having the bloom and freshness of youth
restored by the fine wind which had been blowing on her complexion, and
by the animation of eye which it had also produced.

It was evident that the gentleman admired her exceedingly. Captain
Wentworth looked round at her, in a way which showed his noticing of it.
He gave her a momentary glance, a glance of brightness, which seemed to
say: "That man is struck with you; and even I, at this moment, see
something like Anne Elliot again."

But the folly of Louisa Musgrove, and the consequences that attended it,
soon obliterated from Anne's memory all such recollections as these.
Louisa, who was walking with Captain Wentworth, persuaded him to jump
her down the steps on the Lower Cob. Contrary to his advice, she ran up
the steps to be jumped down again; and, being too precipitate by a
second, fell on the pavement and was taken up senseless. Fortunately, no
bones we