The time now approached for Lady Russell’s return: the day was even fixed; and Anne, being engaged to
join her as soon as she was resettled, was looking forward to an early removal to Kellynch, and beginning to think how
her own comfort was likely to be affected by it.

It would place her in the same village with Captain Wentworth, within half a mile of him; they would have to frequent
the same church, and there must be intercourse between the two families. This was against her; but on the other hand, he
spent so much of his time at Uppercross, that in removing thence she might be considered rather as leaving him behind,
than as going towards him; and, upon the whole, she believed she must, on this interesting question, be the gainer,
almost as certainly as in her change of domestic society, in leaving poor Mary for Lady Russell.

She wished it might be possible for her to avoid ever seeing Captain Wentworth at the Hall: those rooms had witnessed
former meetings which would be brought too painfully before her; but she was yet more anxious for the possibility of Lady
Russell and Captain Wentworth never meeting anywhere. They did not like each other, and no renewal of acquaintance now
could do any good; and were Lady Russell to see them together, she might think that he had too much self-possession, and
she too little.

These points formed her chief solicitude in anticipating her removal from Uppercross, where she felt she had been
stationed quite long enough. Her usefulness to little Charles would always give some sweetness to the memory of her two
months’ visit there, but he was gaining strength apace, and she had nothing else to stay for.

The conclusion of her visit, however, was diversified in a way which she had not at all imagined. Captain Wentworth,
after being unseen and unheard of at Uppercross for two whole days, appeared again among them to justify himself by a
relation of what had kept him away.

A letter from his friend, Captain Harville, having found him out at last, had brought intelligence of Captain
Harville’s being settled with his family at Lyme for the winter; of their being therefore, quite unknowingly, within
twenty miles of each other. Captain Harville had never been in good health since a severe wound which he received two
years before, and Captain Wentworth’s anxiety to see him had determined him to go immediately to Lyme. He had been there
for four-and-twenty hours. His acquittal was complete, his friendship warmly honoured, a lively interest excited for his
friend, and his description of the fine country about Lyme so feelingly attended to by the party, that an earnest desire
to see Lyme themselves, and a project for going thither was the consequence.

The young people were all wild to see Lyme. Captain Wentworth talked of going there again himself, it was only
seventeen miles from Uppercross; though November, the weather was by no means bad; and, in short, Louisa, who was the
most eager of the eager, having formed the resolution to go, and besides the pleasure of doing as she liked, being now
armed with the idea of merit in maintaining her own way, bore down all the wishes of her father and mother for putting it
off till summer; and to Lyme they were to go — Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta, Louisa, and Captain Wentworth.

The first heedless scheme had been to go in the morning and return at night; but to this Mr Musgrove, for the sake of
his horses, would not consent; and when it came to be rationally considered, a day in the middle of November would not
leave much time for seeing a new place, after deducting seven hours, as the nature of the country required, for going and
returning. They were, consequently, to stay the night there, and not to be expected back till the next day’s dinner. This
was felt to be a considerable amendment; and though they all met at the Great House at rather an early breakfast hour,
and set off very punctually, it was so much past noon before the two carriages, Mr Musgrove’s coach containing the four
ladies, and Charles’s curricle, in which he drove Captain Wentworth, were descending the long hill into Lyme, and
entering upon the still steeper street of the town itself, that it was very evident they would not have more than time
for looking about them, before the light and warmth of the day were gone.

After securing accommodations, and ordering a dinner at one of the inns, the next thing to be done was unquestionably
to walk directly down to the sea. They were come too late in the year for any amusement or variety which Lyme, as a
public place, might offer. The rooms were shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the residents
left; and, as there is nothing to admire in the buildings themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the principal
street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which, in the
season, is animated with bathing machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the
very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the stranger’s eye will seek; and a very
strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it
better. The scenes in its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive sweeps of country, and still
more, its sweet, retired bay, backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands, make it the happiest
spot for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of the cheerful
village of Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic rocks, where the scattered forest trees
and orchards of luxuriant growth, declare that many a generation must have passed away since the first partial falling of
the cliff prepared the ground for such a state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may more than
equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of Wight: these places must be visited, and visited again, to
make the worth of Lyme understood.

The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted and melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon
found themselves on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a first return to the sea, who ever
deserved to look on it at all, proceeded towards the Cobb, equally their object in itself and on Captain Wentworth’s
account: for in a small house, near the foot of an old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled. Captain
Wentworth turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on, and he was to join them on the Cobb.

They were by no means tired of wondering and admiring; and not even Louisa seemed to feel that they had parted with
Captain Wentworth long, when they saw him coming after them, with three companions, all well known already, by
description, to be Captain and Mrs Harville, and a Captain Benwick, who was staying with them.

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia; and the account which Captain Wentworth had
given of him, on his return from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as an excellent young man and an officer, whom he
had always valued highly, which must have stamped him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little
history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting in the eyes of all the ladies. He had been engaged
to Captain Harville’s sister, and was now mourning her loss. They had been a year or two waiting for fortune and
promotion. Fortune came, his prize-money as lieutenant being great; promotion, too, came at last; but Fanny Harville did
not live to know it. She had died the preceding summer while he was at sea. Captain Wentworth believed it impossible for
man to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the
dreadful change. He considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer heavily, uniting very strong feelings
with quiet, serious, and retiring manners, and a decided taste for reading, and sedentary pursuits. To finish the
interest of the story, the friendship between him and the Harvilles seemed, if possible, augmented by the event which
closed all their views of alliance, and Captain Benwick was now living with them entirely. Captain Harville had taken his
present house for half a year; his taste, and his health, and his fortune, all directing him to a residence inexpensive,
and by the sea; and the grandeur of the country, and the retirement of Lyme in the winter, appeared exactly adapted to
Captain Benwick’s state of mind. The sympathy and good-will excited towards Captain Benwick was very great.

“And yet,” said Anne to herself, as they now moved forward to meet the party, “he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing
heart than I have. I cannot believe his prospects so blighted for ever. He is younger than I am; younger in feeling, if
not in fact; younger as a man. He will rally again, and be happy with another.”

They all met, and were introduced. Captain Harville was a tall, dark man, with a sensible, benevolent countenance; a
little lame; and from strong features and want of health, looking much older than Captain Wentworth. Captain Benwick
looked, and was, the youngest of the three, and, compared with either of them, a little man. He had a pleasing face and a
melancholy air, just as he ought to have, and drew back from conversation.

Captain Harville, though not equalling Captain Wentworth in manners, was a perfect gentleman, unaffected, warm, and
obliging. Mrs Harville, a degree less polished than her husband, seemed, however, to have the same good feelings; and
nothing could be more pleasant than their desire of considering the whole party as friends of their own, because the
friends of Captain Wentworth, or more kindly hospitable than their entreaties for their all promising to dine with them.
The dinner, already ordered at the inn, was at last, though unwillingly, accepted as a excuse; but they seemed almost
hurt that Captain Wentworth should have brought any such party to Lyme, without considering it as a thing of course that
they should dine with them.

There was so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this, and such a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality
so uncommon, so unlike the usual style of give-and-take invitations, and dinners of formality and display, that Anne felt
her spirits not likely to be benefited by an increasing acquaintance among his brother-officers. “These would have been
all my friends,” was her thought; and she had to struggle against a great tendency to lowness.

On quitting the Cobb, they all went in-doors with their new friends, and found rooms so small as none but those who
invite from the heart could think capable of accommodating so many. Anne had a moment’s astonishment on the subject
herself; but it was soon lost in the pleasanter feelings which sprang from the sight of all the ingenious contrivances
and nice arrangements of Captain Harville, to turn the actual space to the best account, to supply the deficiencies of
lodging-house furniture, and defend the windows and doors against the winter storms to be expected. The varieties in the
fitting-up of the rooms, where the common necessaries provided by the owner, in the common indifferent plight, were
contrasted with some few articles of a rare species of wood, excellently worked up, and with something curious and
valuable from all the distant countries Captain Harville had visited, were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all
was with his profession, the fruit of its labours, the effect of its influence on his habits, the picture of repose and
domestic happiness it presented, made it to her a something more, or less, than gratification.

Captain Harville was no reader; but he had contrived excellent accommodations, and fashioned very pretty shelves, for
a tolerable collection of well-bound volumes, the property of Captain Benwick. His lameness prevented him from taking
much exercise; but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment within. He drew, he
varnished, he carpentered, he glued; he made toys for the children; he fashioned new netting-needles and pins with
improvements; and if everything else was done, sat down to his large fishing-net at one corner of the room.

Anne thought she left great happiness behind her when they quitted the house; and Louisa, by whom she found herself
walking, burst forth into raptures of admiration and delight on the character of the navy; their friendliness, their
brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness; protesting that she was convinced of sailors having more worth and
warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to live, and they only deserved to be respected and
loved.

They went back to dress and dine; and so well had the scheme answered already, that nothing was found amiss; though
its being “so entirely out of season,” and the “no thoroughfare of Lyme,” and the “no expectation of company,” had
brought many apologies from the heads of the inn.

Anne found herself by this time growing so much more hardened to being in Captain Wentworth’s company than she had at
first imagined could ever be, that the sitting down to the same table with him now, and the interchange of the common
civilities attending on it (they never got beyond), was become a mere nothing.

The nights were too dark for the ladies to meet again till the morrow, but Captain Harville had promised them a visit
in the evening; and he came, bringing his friend also, which was more than had been expected, it having been agreed that
Captain Benwick had all the appearance of being oppressed by the presence of so many strangers. He ventured among them
again, however, though his spirits certainly did not seem fit for the mirth of the party in general.

While Captains Wentworth and Harville led the talk on one side of the room, and by recurring to former days, supplied
anecdotes in abundance to occupy and entertain the others, it fell to Anne’s lot to be placed rather apart with Captain
Benwick; and a very good impulse of her nature obliged her to begin an acquaintance with him. He was shy, and disposed to
abstraction; but the engaging mildness of her countenance, and gentleness of her manners, soon had their effect; and Anne
was well repaid the first trouble of exertion. He was evidently a young man of considerable taste in reading, though
principally in poetry; and besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening’s indulgence in the discussion
of subjects, which his usual companions had probably no concern in, she had the hope of being of real use to him in some
suggestions as to the duty and benefit of struggling against affliction, which had naturally grown out of their
conversation. For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather the appearance of feelings glad to burst their
usual restraints; and having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone through a brief comparison of
opinion as to the first-rate poets, trying to ascertain whether Marmion or The Lady of the Lake were to be preferred, and
how ranked the Giaour and The Bride of Abydos; and moreover, how the Giaour was to be pronounced, he showed himself so
intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless
agony of the other; he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind
destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not
always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by
those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings
which ought to taste it but sparingly.

His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and
feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily
study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the
finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to
rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.

Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for the interest implied; and though with a shake of the
head, and sighs which declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like his, noted down the names of
those she recommended, and promised to procure and read them.

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme to preach patience and
resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that,
like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear
examination.