Sir Walter had taken a very good house in Camden Place, a lofty dignified situation, such as becomes a
man of consequence; and both he and Elizabeth were settled there, much to their satisfaction.

Anne entered it with a sinking heart, anticipating an imprisonment of many months, and anxiously saying to herself,
“Oh! when shall I leave you again?” A degree of unexpected cordiality, however, in the welcome she received, did her
good. Her father and sister were glad to see her, for the sake of shewing her the house and furniture, and met her with
kindness. Her making a fourth, when they sat down to dinner, was noticed as an advantage.

Mrs Clay was very pleasant, and very smiling, but her courtesies and smiles were more a matter of course. Anne had
always felt that she would pretend what was proper on her arrival, but the complaisance of the others was unlooked for.
They were evidently in excellent spirits, and she was soon to listen to the causes. They had no inclination to listen to
her. After laying out for some compliments of being deeply regretted in their old neighbourhood, which Anne could not
pay, they had only a few faint enquiries to make, before the talk must be all their own. Uppercross excited no interest,
Kellynch very little: it was all Bath.

They had the pleasure of assuring her that Bath more than answered their expectations in every respect. Their house
was undoubtedly the best in Camden Place; their drawing-rooms had many decided advantages over all the others which they
had either seen or heard of, and the superiority was not less in the style of the fitting-up, or the taste of the
furniture. Their acquaintance was exceedingly sought after. Everybody was wanting to visit them. They had drawn back from
many introductions, and still were perpetually having cards left by people of whom they knew nothing.

Here were funds of enjoyment. Could Anne wonder that her father and sister were happy? She might not wonder, but she
must sigh that her father should feel no degradation in his change, should see nothing to regret in the duties and
dignity of the resident landholder, should find so much to be vain of in the littlenesses of a town; and she must sigh,
and smile, and wonder too, as Elizabeth threw open the folding-doors and walked with exultation from one drawing-room to
the other, boasting of their space; at the possibility of that woman, who had been mistress of Kellynch Hall, finding
extent to be proud of between two walls, perhaps thirty feet asunder.

But this was not all which they had to make them happy. They had Mr Elliot too. Anne had a great deal to hear of Mr
Elliot. He was not only pardoned, they were delighted with him. He had been in Bath about a fortnight; (he had passed
through Bath in November, in his way to London, when the intelligence of Sir Walter’s being settled there had of course
reached him, though only twenty-four hours in the place, but he had not been able to avail himself of it;) but he had now
been a fortnight in Bath, and his first object on arriving, had been to leave his card in Camden Place, following it up
by such assiduous endeavours to meet, and when they did meet, by such great openness of conduct, such readiness to
apologize for the past, such solicitude to be received as a relation again, that their former good understanding was
completely re-established.

They had not a fault to find in him. He had explained away all the appearance of neglect on his own side. It had
originated in misapprehension entirely. He had never had an idea of throwing himself off; he had feared that he was
thrown off, but knew not why, and delicacy had kept him silent. Upon the hint of having spoken disrespectfully or
carelessly of the family and the family honours, he was quite indignant. He, who had ever boasted of being an Elliot, and
whose feelings, as to connection, were only too strict to suit the unfeudal tone of the present day. He was astonished,
indeed, but his character and general conduct must refute it. He could refer Sir Walter to all who knew him; and
certainly, the pains he had been taking on this, the first opportunity of reconciliation, to be restored to the footing
of a relation and heir-presumptive, was a strong proof of his opinions on the subject.

The circumstances of his marriage, too, were found to admit of much extenuation. This was an article not to be entered
on by himself; but a very intimate friend of his, a Colonel Wallis, a highly respectable man, perfectly the gentleman,
(and not an ill-looking man, Sir Walter added), who was living in very good style in Marlborough Buildings, and had, at
his own particular request, been admitted to their acquaintance through Mr Elliot, had mentioned one or two things
relative to the marriage, which made a material difference in the discredit of it.

Colonel Wallis had known Mr Elliot long, had been well acquainted also with his wife, had perfectly understood the
whole story. She was certainly not a woman of family, but well educated, accomplished, rich, and excessively in love with
his friend. There had been the charm. She had sought him. Without that attraction, not all her money would have tempted
Elliot, and Sir Walter was, moreover, assured of her having been a very fine woman. Here was a great deal to soften the
business. A very fine woman with a large fortune, in love with him! Sir Walter seemed to admit it as complete apology;
and though Elizabeth could not see the circumstance in quite so favourable a light, she allowed it be a great
extenuation.

Mr Elliot had called repeatedly, had dined with them once, evidently delighted by the distinction of being asked, for
they gave no dinners in general; delighted, in short, by every proof of cousinly notice, and placing his whole happiness
in being on intimate terms in Camden Place.

Anne listened, but without quite understanding it. Allowances, large allowances, she knew, must be made for the ideas
of those who spoke. She heard it all under embellishment. All that sounded extravagant or irrational in the progress of
the reconciliation might have no origin but in the language of the relators. Still, however, she had the sensation of
there being something more than immediately appeared, in Mr Elliot’s wishing, after an interval of so many years, to be
well received by them. In a worldly view, he had nothing to gain by being on terms with Sir Walter; nothing to risk by a
state of variance. In all probability he was already the richer of the two, and the Kellynch estate would as surely be
his hereafter as the title. A sensible man, and he had looked like a very sensible man, why should it be an object to
him? She could only offer one solution; it was, perhaps, for Elizabeth’s sake. There might really have been a liking
formerly, though convenience and accident had drawn him a different way; and now that he could afford to please himself,
he might mean to pay his addresses to her. Elizabeth was certainly very handsome, with well-bred, elegant manners, and
her character might never have been penetrated by Mr Elliot, knowing her but in public, and when very young himself. How
her temper and understanding might bear the investigation of his present keener time of life was another concern and
rather a fearful one. Most earnestly did she wish that he might not be too nice, or too observant if Elizabeth were his
object; and that Elizabeth was disposed to believe herself so, and that her friend Mrs Clay was encouraging the idea,
seemed apparent by a glance or two between them, while Mr Elliot’s frequent visits were talked of.

Anne mentioned the glimpses she had had of him at Lyme, but without being much attended to. “Oh! yes, perhaps, it had
been Mr Elliot. They did not know. It might be him, perhaps.” They could not listen to her description of him. They were
describing him themselves; Sir Walter especially. He did justice to his very gentlemanlike appearance, his air of
elegance and fashion, his good shaped face, his sensible eye; but, at the same time, “must lament his being very much
under-hung, a defect which time seemed to have increased; nor could he pretend to say that ten years had not altered
almost every feature for the worse. Mr Elliot appeared to think that he (Sir Walter) was looking exactly as he had done
when they last parted;” but Sir Walter had “not been able to return the compliment entirely, which had embarrassed him.
He did not mean to complain, however. Mr Elliot was better to look at than most men, and he had no objection to being
seen with him anywhere.”

Mr Elliot, and his friends in Marlborough Buildings, were talked of the whole evening. “Colonel Wallis had been so
impatient to be introduced to them! and Mr Elliot so anxious that he should!” and there was a Mrs Wallis, at present
known only to them by description, as she was in daily expectation of her confinement; but Mr Elliot spoke of her as “a
most charming woman, quite worthy of being known in Camden Place,” and as soon as she recovered they were to be
acquainted. Sir Walter thought much of Mrs Wallis; she was said to be an excessively pretty woman, beautiful. “He longed
to see her. He hoped she might make some amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the streets.
The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women. He did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the
number of the plain was out of all proportion. He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be
followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted
eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. It had been a frosty
morning, to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a thousand could stand the test of. But still, there
certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they were infinitely worse. Such
scarecrows as the streets were full of! It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything tolerable,
by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced. He had never walked anywhere arm-in-arm with Colonel Wallis (who
was a fine military figure, though sandy-haired) without observing that every woman’s eye was upon him; every woman’s eye
was sure to be upon Colonel Wallis.” Modest Sir Walter! He was not allowed to escape, however. His daughter and Mrs Clay
united in hinting that Colonel Wallis’s companion might have as good a figure as Colonel Wallis, and certainly was not
sandy-haired.

“How is Mary looking?” said Sir Walter, in the height of his good humour. “The last time I saw her she had a red nose,
but I hope that may not happen every day.”

“Oh! no, that must have been quite accidental. In general she has been in very good health and very good looks since
Michaelmas.”

“If I thought it would not tempt her to go out in sharp winds, and grow coarse, I would send her a new hat and
pelisse.”

Anne was considering whether she should venture to suggest that a gown, or a cap, would not be liable to any such
misuse, when a knock at the door suspended everything. “A knock at the door! and so late! It was ten o’clock. Could it be
Mr Elliot? They knew he was to dine in Lansdown Crescent. It was possible that he might stop in his way home to ask them
how they did. They could think of no one else. Mrs Clay decidedly thought it Mr Elliot’s knock.” Mrs Clay was right. With
all the state which a butler and foot-boy could give, Mr Elliot was ushered into the room.

It was the same, the very same man, with no difference but of dress. Anne drew a little back, while the others
received his compliments, and her sister his apologies for calling at so unusual an hour, but “he could not be so near
without wishing to know that neither she nor her friend had taken cold the day before,” &c. &c; which was all as
politely done, and as politely taken, as possible, but her part must follow then. Sir Walter talked of his youngest
daughter; “Mr Elliot must give him leave to present him to his youngest daughter” (there was no occasion for remembering
Mary); and Anne, smiling and blushing, very becomingly shewed to Mr Elliot the pretty features which he had by no means
forgotten, and instantly saw, with amusement at his little start of surprise, that he had not been at all aware of who
she was. He looked completely astonished, but not more astonished than pleased; his eyes brightened! and with the most
perfect alacrity he welcomed the relationship, alluded to the past, and entreated to be received as an acquaintance
already. He was quite as good-looking as he had appeared at Lyme, his countenance improved by speaking, and his manners
were so exactly what they ought to be, so polished, so easy, so particularly agreeable, that she could compare them in
excellence to only one person’s manners. They were not the same, but they were, perhaps, equally good.

He sat down with them, and improved their conversation very much. There could be no doubt of his being a sensible man.
Ten minutes were enough to certify that. His tone, his expressions, his choice of subject, his knowing where to stop; it
was all the operation of a sensible, discerning mind. As soon as he could, he began to talk to her of Lyme, wanting to
compare opinions respecting the place, but especially wanting to speak of the circumstance of their happening to be
guests in the same inn at the same time; to give his own route, understand something of hers, and regret that he should
have lost such an opportunity of paying his respects to her. She gave him a short account of her party and business at
Lyme. His regret increased as he listened. He had spent his whole solitary evening in the room adjoining theirs; had
heard voices, mirth continually; thought they must be a most delightful set of people, longed to be with them, but
certainly without the smallest suspicion of his possessing the shadow of a right to introduce himself. If he had but
asked who the party were! The name of Musgrove would have told him enough. “Well, it would serve to cure him of an absurd
practice of never asking a question at an inn, which he had adopted, when quite a young man, on the principal of its
being very ungenteel to be curious.

“The notions of a young man of one or two and twenty,” said he, “as to what is necessary in manners to make him quite
the thing, are more absurd, I believe, than those of any other set of beings in the world. The folly of the means they
often employ is only to be equalled by the folly of what they have in view.”

But he must not be addressing his reflections to Anne alone: he knew it; he was soon diffused again among the others,
and it was only at intervals that he could return to Lyme.

His enquiries, however, produced at length an account of the scene she had been engaged in there, soon after his
leaving the place. Having alluded to “an accident,” he must hear the whole. When he questioned, Sir Walter and Elizabeth
began to question also, but the difference in their manner of doing it could not be unfelt. She could only compare Mr
Elliot to Lady Russell, in the wish of really comprehending what had passed, and in the degree of concern for what she
must have suffered in witnessing it.

He staid an hour with them. The elegant little clock on the mantel- piece had struck “eleven with its silver sounds,”
and the watchman was beginning to be heard at a distance telling the same tale, before Mr Elliot or any of them seemed to
feel that he had been there long.

Anne could not have supposed it possible that her first evening in Camden Place could have passed so well!