“Oh! dear! very true.  Only think, Miss Elliot, to my great surprise I met with Mr Elliot in Bath Street.  I was never more astonished.  He turned back and walked with me to the Pump Yard.  He had been prevented setting off for Thornberry, but I really forget by what; for I was in a hurry, and could not much attend, and I can only answer for his being determined not to be delayed in his return.  He wanted to know how early he might be admitted to-morrow.  He was full of `to-morrow,’ and it is very evident that I have been full of it too, ever since I entered the house, and learnt the extension of your plan and all that had happened, or my seeing him could never have gone so entirely out of my head.”

Chapter 23

One day only had passed since Anne’s conversation with Mrs Smith; but a keener interest had succeeded, and she was now so little touched by Mr Elliot’s conduct, except by its effects in one quarter, that it became a matter of course the next morning, still to defer her explanatory visit in Rivers Street.  She had promised to be with the Musgroves from breakfast to dinner.  Her faith was plighted, and Mr Elliot’s character, like the Sultaness Scheherazade’s head, must live another day.

She could not keep her appointment punctually, however; the weather was unfavourable, and she had grieved over the rain on her friends’ account, and felt it very much on her own, before she was able to attempt the walk.  When she reached the White Hart, and made her way to the proper apartment, she found herself neither arriving quite in time, nor the first to arrive.  The party before her were, Mrs Musgrove, talking to Mrs Croft, and Captain Harville to Captain Wentworth; and she immediately heard that Mary and Henrietta, too impatient to wait, had gone out the moment it had cleared, but would be back again soon, and that the strictest injunctions had been left with Mrs Musgrove to keep her there till they returned.  She had only to submit, sit down, be outwardly composed, and feel herself plunged at once in all the agitations which she had merely laid her account of tasting a little before the morning closed.  There was no delay, no waste of time.  She was deep in the happiness of such misery, or the misery of such happiness, instantly.  Two minutes after her entering the room, Captain Wentworth said—­

“We will write the letter we were talking of, Harville, now, if you will give me materials.”

Materials were at hand, on a separate table; he went to it, and nearly turning his back to them all, was engrossed by writing.