artments which their own
sense of superiority could demand, were entirely approving it; and Mrs.
Norris, having stipulated for there never being a fire in it on Fanny's
account, was tolerably resigned to her having the use of what nobody
else wanted, though the terms in which she sometimes spoke of the
indulgence seemed to imply that it was the best room in the house.

The aspect was so favourable that even without a fire it was habitable
in many an early spring and late autumn morning to such a willing mind
as Fanny's; and while there was a gleam of sunshine she hoped not to be
driven from it entirely, even when winter came. The comfort of it in
her hours of leisure was extreme. She could go there after anything
unpleasant below, and find immediate consolation in some pursuit, or
some train of thought at hand. Her plants, her books--of which she had
been a collector from the first hour of her commanding a shilling--her
writing-desk, and her works of charity and ingenuity, were all within
her reach; or if indisposed for employment, if nothing but musing would
do, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an
interesting remembrance connected with it. Everything was a friend, or
bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much
of suffering to her; though her motives had often been misunderstood,
her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she
had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost
every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory: her aunt
Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or, what
was yet more frequent or more dear, Edmund had been her champion and her
friend: he had supported her cause or explained her meaning, he had told
her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made
her tears delightful; and the whole was now so blended together, so
harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm. The
room was most dear to her, and she would not have changed its furniture
for the handsomest in the house, though what had been originally plain
had suffered all the ill-usage of children; and its greatest elegancies
and ornaments were a faded footstool of Julia's work, too ill done
for the drawing-room, three transparencies, made in a rage for
transparencies, for the three lower panes of one window, where Tintern
Abbey held its station between a cave in Italy and a moo