Sir Walter would quit Kellynch Hall; and after a very few days more of doubt and indecision, the great question of whither he should go was settled, and the first outline of this important change made out.

There had been three alternatives, London, Bath, or another house in the country.  All Anne’s wishes had been for the latter.  A small house in their own neighbourhood, where they might still have Lady Russell’s society, still be near Mary, and still have the pleasure of sometimes seeing the lawns and groves of Kellynch, was the object of her ambition.  But the usual fate of Anne attended her, in having something very opposite from her inclination fixed on.  She disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her; and Bath was to be her home.

Sir Walter had at first thought more of London; but Mr Shepherd felt that he could not be trusted in London, and had been skilful enough to dissuade him from it, and make Bath preferred.  It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament:  he might there be important at comparatively little expense.  Two material advantages of Bath over London had of course been given all their weight:  its more convenient distance from Kellynch, only fifty miles, and Lady Russell’s spending some part of every winter there; and to the very great satisfaction of Lady Russell, whose first views on the projected change had been for Bath, Sir Walter and Elizabeth were induced to believe that they should lose neither consequence nor enjoyment by settling there.

Lady Russell felt obliged to oppose her dear Anne’s known wishes.  It would be too much to expect Sir Walter to descend into a small house in his own neighbourhood.  Anne herself would have found the mortifications of it more than she foresaw, and to Sir Walter’s feelings they must have been dreadful.  And with regard to Anne’s dislike of Bath, she considered it as a prejudice and mistake arising, first, from the circumstance of her having been three years at school there, after her mother’s death; and secondly, from her happening to be not in perfectly good spirits the only winter which she had afterwards spent there with herself.

Lady Russell was fond of Bath, in short, and disposed to think it must suit them all; and as to her young friend’s health, by passing all the warm months with her at Kellynch Lodge, every danger would be avoided; and it was in fact, a change which must do both health and spirits good.  Anne had been too little from home, too little seen.  Her spirits were not high.  A larger society would improve them.  She wanted her to be more known.

The undesirableness of any other house in the same neighbourhood for Sir Walter was certainly much strengthened by one part, and a very material part of the scheme, which had been happily engrafted on the beginning.  He was not only to quit his home, but to see it in the hands of others; a trial of fortitude, which stronger heads than Sir Walter’s have found too much.  Kellynch Hall was to be let.  This, however, was a profound secret, not to be breathed beyond their own circle.