ee;
Mrs. Charles Musgrove could not bear to be left behind in any excursion
which her husband was taking; Henrietta, who had arrived at an
understanding with Mr. Charles Hayter, had come to buy wedding clothes
for herself and Louisa; and Captain Harville had come on business. It
was on a visit to the Musgroves, who were stopping at the White Hart
Hotel, that Anne had a momentous conversation with the last-named
person. The captain had been reverting to the topic of his friend
Benwick's engagement, and Anne had been saying that women did not forget
as readily as men.

"No, no," said Harville, "it is not man's nature to forget. I will not
allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant and to
forget those they do love or have loved. I believe the reverse. I
believe in a true analogy between our bodily frames and our mental; and
that as our bodily frames are stronger than yours, so are our feelings."

"Your feelings may be the stronger," replied Anne, "but the same spirit
of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the more tender.
Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly
explains my view of the nature of their attachment."

Captain Wentworth, who was sitting down at a writing-table in another
part of the room, engaged in correspondence, seemed very much interested
in this conversation; and a few minutes later he placed before Anne,
with eyes of glowing entreaty, a letter addressed to "Miss A. E."

"I offer myself to you again," he wrote, "with a heart even more your
own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not
say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier
death; I have loved none but you."

To such a declaration there could be but one answer; and soon Frederick
Wentworth and Anne Elliot were exchanging again those feelings and those
promises which once before had seemed to secure everything, but which
had been followed by so many years of division and estrangement.

This time there was no opposition to the engagement. Captain Wentworth's
wealth, personal appearance, and well-sounding name enabled Sir Walter
to prepare his pen, with a very good grace, for the insertion of the
marriage in the volume of honour.

As for Mr. Elliot, the news of his cousin Anne's engagement burst on him
with unexpected suddenness. He soon quitted Bath; and on Mrs. Clay's
leaving it shortly afterwards and being next heard of as establi