They met with the utmost friendliness.  There could be no doubt of his great pleasure in seeing her.  But she had an almost instant doubt of his caring for her as he had done, of his feeling the same tenderness in the same degree.  She watched him well.  It was a clear thing he was less in love than he had been.  Absence, with the conviction probably of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable effect.

He was in high spirits; as ready to talk and laugh as ever, and seemed delighted to speak of his former visit, and recur to old stories:  and he was not without agitation.  It was not in his calmness that she read his comparative difference.  He was not calm; his spirits were evidently fluttered; there was restlessness about him.  Lively as he was, it seemed a liveliness that did not satisfy himself; but what decided her belief on the subject, was his staying only a quarter of an hour, and hurrying away to make other calls in Highbury.  “He had seen a group of old acquaintance in the street as he passed—­ he had not stopped, he would not stop for more than a word—­but he had the vanity to think they would be disappointed if he did not call, and much as he wished to stay longer at Hartfield, he must hurry off.”  She had no doubt as to his being less in love—­but neither his agitated spirits, nor his hurrying away, seemed like a perfect cure; and she was rather inclined to think it implied a dread of her returning power, and a discreet resolution of not trusting himself with her long.

This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days.  He was often hoping, intending to come—­but was always prevented.  His aunt could not bear to have him leave her.  Such was his own account at Randall’s.  If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill’s removal to London had been of no service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder.  That she was really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at Randalls.  Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a year ago.  He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all his father’s doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary, or that she was as strong as ever.

It soon appeared that London was not the place for her.  She could not endure its noise.  Her nerves were under continual irritation and suffering; and by the ten days’ end, her nephew’s letter to Randalls communicated a change of plan.  They were going to remove immediately to Richmond.  Mrs. Churchill had been recommended to the medical skill of an eminent person there, and had otherwise a fancy for the place.  A ready-furnished house in a favourite spot was engaged, and much benefit expected from the change.