Persuasion | Page 4

and on her
kindness and advice, Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help and
maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had been
anxiously giving her daughters.
This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been
anticipated on that head by their acquaintance. Thirteen years had
passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they were still near
neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower, the other
a widow.
That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely well
provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no
apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably
discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not;
but Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation. Be it
known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with one or
two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications), prided
himself on remaining single for his dear daughters' sake. For one
daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing, which he

had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had succeeded, at
sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother's rights and consequence;
and being very handsome, and very like himself, her influence had
always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His
two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a
little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove; but
Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which
must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was
nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her
convenience was always to give way-- she was only Anne.
To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued
god-daughter, favourite, and friend. Lady Russell loved them all; but it
was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.
A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her
bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had
found little to admire in her, (so totally different were her delicate
features and mild dark eyes from his own), there could be nothing in
them, now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem. He had
never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name
in any other page of his favourite work. All equality of alliance must
rest with Elizabeth, for Mary had merely connected herself with an old
country family of respectability and large fortune, and had therefore
given all the honour and received none: Elizabeth would, one day or
other, marry suitably.
It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than
she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been
neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any
charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome Miss
Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter might
be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least, be deemed only
half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming as ever,
amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else; for he could
plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance were
growing. Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the neighbourhood

worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow's foot about Lady Russell's
temples had long been a distress to him.
Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment.
Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and
directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have
given the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years
had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at
home, and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking
immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and
dining-rooms in the country. Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had seen
her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood afforded,
and thirteen springs shewn their blossoms, as she travelled up to
London with her father, for a few weeks' annual enjoyment of the great
world. She had the remembrance of all this, she had the consciousness
of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some
apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome
as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would
have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood
within the next twelvemonth or two. Then might she again take up the
book of books with as