essential than mind. I regard Louisa Musgrove
as a very amiable, sweet-tempered girl, and not deficient in
understanding, but Benwick is something more. He is a clever man, a
reading man; and I confess, that I do consider his attaching himself to
her with some surprise. Had it been the effect of gratitude, had he
learnt to love her, because he believed her to be preferring him, it
would have been another thing. But I have no reason to suppose it so.
It seems, on the contrary, to have been a perfectly spontaneous,
untaught feeling on his side, and this surprises me. A man like him,
in his situation! with a heart pierced, wounded, almost broken! Fanny
Harville was a very superior creature, and his attachment to her was
indeed attachment. A man does not recover from such a devotion of the
heart to such a woman. He ought not; he does not."

Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered,
or from other consciousness, he went no farther; and Anne who, in spite
of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in
spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam
of the door, and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had
distinguished every word, was struck, gratified, confused, and
beginning to breathe very quick, and feel an hundred things in a
moment. It was impossible for her to enter on such a subject; and yet,
after a pause, feeling the necessity of speaking, and having not the
smallest wish for a total change, she only deviated so far as to say--

"You were a good while at Lyme, I think?"

"About a fortnight. I could not leave it till Louisa's doing well was
quite ascertained. I had been too deeply concerned in the mischief to
be soon at peace. It had been my doing, solely mine. She would not
have been obstinate if I had not been weak. The country round Lyme is
very fine. I walked and rode a great deal; and the more I saw, the
more I found to admire."

"I should very much like to see Lyme again," said Anne.

"Indeed! I should not have supposed that you could have found anything
in Lyme to inspire such a feeling. The horror and distress you were
involved in, the stretch of mind, the wear of spirits! I should have
thought your last impressions of Lyme must have been strong disgust."

"The last hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne; "but when
pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does
not love