Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/206

 Anne with eyes of glowing entreaty fixed on her, and, hastily collecting his gloves, was again out of the room, almost before Mrs. Musgrove was aware of his being in it: the work of an instant."

Anne manages to read the letter in the next five minutes, but the result is to upset her so much that the Musgroves all fancy her ill, and, instead of letting her go home quietly by herself to realise her own "overpowering happiness," as Jane Austen calls it, Charles Musgrove insists on accompanying her. Fortunately, when half way home, they encounter Captain Wentworth; and Charles, being anxious to keep an engagement elsewhere, puts Anne under his escort.

"In half a minute Charles was at the bottom of Union Street again, and the other two proceeding together; and soon words enough had passed between them to decide their direction towards the comparatively quiet and retired gravel walk, where the power of conversation would make the present hour a blessing indeed, and prepare it for all the immortality which the happiest recollections of their own future lives could bestow. There they exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so many many years of division and estrangement; and there, as they slowly paced the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around them, seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling housekeepers, flirting girls, nor nursery-maids and children, they could indulge in those retrospections and acknowledgments, and especially in those explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment, which were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest. All the little variations of the last week were gone