MISS CRAWFORD's uneasiness was much lightened by this conversation, and she walked home again in spirits which might have defied almost another week of the same small party in the same bad weather, had they been put to the proof; but as that very evening brought her brother down from London again in quite, or more than quite, his usual cheerfulness, she had nothing further to try her own. His still refusing to tell her what he had gone for, was but the promotion of gaiety; a day before it might have irritated, but now it was a pleasant joke—suspected only of concealing something planned as a pleasant surprize to herself. And the next day did bring a surprize to her. Henry had said he should just go and ask the Bertrams how they did, and be back in ten minutes—but he was gone above an hour; and when his sister, who had been waiting for him to walk with her in the garden, met him at last most impatiently in the sweep, and cried out, “My dear Henry, where can you possibly have been all this time?” he had only to say that he had been sitting with Lady Bertram and Fanny.

“Sitting with them an hour and half !” exclaimed Mary.

But this was only the beginning of her surprize.

“Yes, Mary,” said he, drawing her arm within his, and walking along the sweep as if not knowing where he was “—I could not get away sooner—Fanny looked so lovely!—I am quite determined, Mary. My mind is entirely made up.Will it astonish you? No—You must be aware that I am quite determined to marry Fanny Price.”

The surprize was now complete; for in spite of whatever his consciousness might suggest, a suspicion of his having any such views had never entered his sister's imagination; and she looked so truly the astonishment she felt, that he was obliged to repeat what he had said, and more fully and more solemnly. The conviction of his determination once admitted, it was not unwelcome. There was even pleasure with the surprize.