Page:Austen - Mansfield Park, vol. III, 1814.djvu/323

 dearest Fanny, I am giving you I hope more pleasure than pain by this retrospect of what might have been—but what never can be now. You do not wish me to be silent?—if you do, give me but a look, a word, and I have done."

No look or word was given.

"Thank God!" said he. We were all disposed to wonder—but it seems to have been the merciful appointment of Providence that the heart which knew no guile, should not suffer. She spoke of you with high praise and warm affection; yet, even here there was alloy, a dash of evil—for in the midst of it she could exclaim 'Why would not she have him? It is all her fault. Simple girl!—I shall never forgive her. Had she accepted him as she ought, they might now have been on the point of marriage, and Henry would have been too happy and too busy to want any other object. He would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs. Rushworth again. It would have all ended in a Rh