nine out of a hundred would do the same. Of
course, he cannot be aware of the importance to me. Well, my dear Miss
Elliot, I hope and trust you will be very happy. Mr Elliot has sense
to understand the value of such a woman. Your peace will not be
shipwrecked as mine has been. You are safe in all worldly matters, and
safe in his character. He will not be led astray; he will not be
misled by others to his ruin."

"No," said Anne, "I can readily believe all that of my cousin. He
seems to have a calm decided temper, not at all open to dangerous
impressions. I consider him with great respect. I have no reason,
from any thing that has fallen within my observation, to do otherwise.
But I have not known him long; and he is not a man, I think, to be
known intimately soon. Will not this manner of speaking of him, Mrs
Smith, convince you that he is nothing to me? Surely this must be calm
enough. And, upon my word, he is nothing to me. Should he ever
propose to me (which I have very little reason to imagine he has any
thought of doing), I shall not accept him. I assure you I shall not.
I assure you, Mr Elliot had not the share which you have been
supposing, in whatever pleasure the concert of last night might afford:
not Mr Elliot; it is not Mr Elliot that--"

She stopped, regretting with a deep blush that she had implied so much;
but less would hardly have been sufficient. Mrs Smith would hardly
have believed so soon in Mr Elliot's failure, but from the perception
of there being a somebody else. As it was, she instantly submitted,
and with all the semblance of seeing nothing beyond; and Anne, eager to
escape farther notice, was impatient to know why Mrs Smith should have
fancied she was to marry Mr Elliot; where she could have received the
idea, or from whom she could have heard it.

"Do tell me how it first came into your head."

"It first came into my head," replied Mrs Smith, "upon finding how much
you were together, and feeling it to be the most probable thing in the
world to be wished for by everybody belonging to either of you; and you
may depend upon it that all your acquaintance have disposed of you in
the same way. But I never heard it spoken of till two days ago."

"And has it indeed been spoken of?"

"Did you observe the woman who opened the door to you when you called
yesterday?"

"No. Was not it Mrs Speed, as usual, or the maid? I observed no one
in particular."

"It was my friend Mrs Roo