A week was gone since Edmund might be supposed in town, and Fanny had heard nothing of him. There were
three different conclusions to be drawn from his silence, between which her mind was in fluctuation; each of them at
times being held the most probable. Either his going had been again delayed, or he had yet procured no opportunity of
seeing Miss Crawford alone, or he was too happy for letter-writing!

One morning, about this time, Fanny having now been nearly four weeks from Mansfield, a point which she never failed
to think over and calculate every day, as she and Susan were preparing to remove, as usual, upstairs, they were stopped
by the knock of a visitor, whom they felt they could not avoid, from Rebecca’s alertness in going to the door, a duty
which always interested her beyond any other.

It was a gentleman’s voice; it was a voice that Fanny was just turning pale about, when Mr. Crawford walked into the
room.

Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon; and she found that she had been able to name him to
her mother, and recall her remembrance of the name, as that of “William’s friend,” though she could not previously have
believed herself capable of uttering a syllable at such a moment. The consciousness of his being known there only as
William’s friend was some support. Having introduced him, however, and being all reseated, the terrors that occurred of
what this visit might lead to were overpowering, and she fancied herself on the point of fainting away.

While trying to keep herself alive, their visitor, who had at first approached her with as animated a countenance as
ever, was wisely and kindly keeping his eyes away, and giving her time to recover, while he devoted himself entirely to
her mother, addressing her, and attending to her with the utmost politeness and propriety, at the same time with a degree
of friendliness, of interest at least, which was making his manner perfect.

Mrs. Price’s manners were also at their best. Warmed by the sight of such a friend to her son, and regulated by the
wish of appearing to advantage before him, she was overflowing with gratitude — artless, maternal gratitude — which could
not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out, which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recovered enough to feel that
she could not regret it; for to her many other sources of uneasiness was added the severe one of shame for the
home in which he found her. She might scold herself for the weakness, but there was no scolding it away. She was ashamed,
and she would have been yet more ashamed of her father than of all the rest.

They talked of William, a subject on which Mrs. Price could never tire; and Mr. Crawford was as warm in his
commendation as even her heart could wish. She felt that she had never seen so agreeable a man in her life; and was only
astonished to find that, so great and so agreeable as he was, he should be come down to Portsmouth neither on a visit to
the port-admiral, nor the commissioner, nor yet with the intention of going over to the island, nor of seeing the
dockyard. Nothing of all that she had been used to think of as the proof of importance, or the employment of wealth, had
brought him to Portsmouth. He had reached it late the night before, was come for a day or two, was staying at the Crown,
had accidentally met with a navy officer or two of his acquaintance since his arrival, but had no object of that kind in
coming.

By the time he had given all this information, it was not unreasonable to suppose that Fanny might be looked at and
spoken to; and she was tolerably able to bear his eye, and hear that he had spent half an hour with his sister the
evening before his leaving London; that she had sent her best and kindest love, but had had no time for writing; that he
thought himself lucky in seeing Mary for even half an hour, having spent scarcely twenty-four hours in London, after his
return from Norfolk, before he set off again; that her cousin Edmund was in town, had been in town, he understood, a few
days; that he had not seen him himself, but that he was well, had left them all well at Mansfield, and was to dine, as
yesterday, with the Frasers.

Fanny listened collectedly, even to the last-mentioned circumstance; nay, it seemed a relief to her worn mind to be at
any certainty; and the words, “then by this time it is all settled,” passed internally, without more evidence of emotion
than a faint blush.

After talking a little more about Mansfield, a subject in which her interest was most apparent, Crawford began to hint
at the expediency of an early walk. “It was a lovely morning, and at that season of the year a fine morning so often
turned off, that it was wisest for everybody not to delay their exercise”; and such hints producing nothing, he soon
proceeded to a positive recommendation to Mrs. Price and her daughters to take their walk without loss of time. Now they
came to an understanding. Mrs. Price, it appeared, scarcely ever stirred out of doors, except of a Sunday; she owned she
could seldom, with her large family, find time for a walk. “Would she not, then, persuade her daughters to take advantage
of such weather, and allow him the pleasure of attending them?” Mrs. Price was greatly obliged and very complying. “Her
daughters were very much confined; Portsmouth was a sad place; they did not often get out; and she knew they had some
errands in the town, which they would be very glad to do.” And the consequence was, that Fanny, strange as it was —
strange, awkward, and distressing — found herself and Susan, within ten minutes, walking towards the High Street with Mr.
Crawford.

It was soon pain upon pain, confusion upon confusion; for they were hardly in the High Street before they met her
father, whose appearance was not the better from its being Saturday. He stopt; and, ungentlemanlike as he looked, Fanny
was obliged to introduce him to Mr. Crawford. She could not have a doubt of the manner in which Mr. Crawford must be
struck. He must be ashamed and disgusted altogether. He must soon give her up, and cease to have the smallest inclination
for the match; and yet, though she had been so much wanting his affection to be cured, this was a sort of cure that would
be almost as bad as the complaint; and I believe there is scarcely a young lady in the United Kingdoms who would not
rather put up with the misfortune of being sought by a clever, agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarity
of her nearest relations.

Mr. Crawford probably could not regard his future father-in-law with any idea of taking him for a model in dress; but
(as Fanny instantly, and to her great relief, discerned) her father was a very different man, a very different Mr. Price
in his behaviour to this most highly respected stranger, from what he was in his own family at home. His manners now,
though not polished, were more than passable: they were grateful, animated, manly; his expressions were those of an
attached father, and a sensible man; his loud tones did very well in the open air, and there was not a single oath to be
heard. Such was his instinctive compliment to the good manners of Mr. Crawford; and, be the consequence what it might,
Fanny’s immediate feelings were infinitely soothed.

The conclusion of the two gentlemen’s civilities was an offer of Mr. Price’s to take Mr. Crawford into the dockyard,
which Mr. Crawford, desirous of accepting as a favour what was intended as such, though he had seen the dockyard again
and again, and hoping to be so much the longer with Fanny, was very gratefully disposed to avail himself of, if the Miss
Prices were not afraid of the fatigue; and as it was somehow or other ascertained, or inferred, or at least acted upon,
that they were not at all afraid, to the dockyard they were all to go; and but for Mr. Crawford, Mr. Price would have
turned thither directly, without the smallest consideration for his daughters’ errands in the High Street. He took care,
however, that they should be allowed to go to the shops they came out expressly to visit; and it did not delay them long,
for Fanny could so little bear to excite impatience, or be waited for, that before the gentlemen, as they stood at the
door, could do more than begin upon the last naval regulations, or settle the number of three-deckers now in commission,
their companions were ready to proceed.

They were then to set forward for the dockyard at once, and the walk would have been conducted — according to Mr.
Crawford’s opinion — in a singular manner, had Mr. Price been allowed the entire regulation of it, as the two girls, he
found, would have been left to follow, and keep up with them or not, as they could, while they walked on together at
their own hasty pace. He was able to introduce some improvement occasionally, though by no means to the extent he wished;
he absolutely would not walk away from them; and at any crossing or any crowd, when Mr. Price was only calling out,
“Come, girls; come, Fan; come, Sue, take care of yourselves; keep a sharp lookout!” he would give them his particular
attendance.

Once fairly in the dockyard, he began to reckon upon some happy intercourse with Fanny, as they were very soon joined
by a brother lounger of Mr. Price’s, who was come to take his daily survey of how things went on, and who must prove a
far more worthy companion than himself; and after a time the two officers seemed very well satisfied going about
together, and discussing matters of equal and never-failing interest, while the young people sat down upon some timbers
in the yard, or found a seat on board a vessel in the stocks which they all went to look at. Fanny was most conveniently
in want of rest. Crawford could not have wished her more fatigued or more ready to sit down; but he could have wished her
sister away. A quick-looking girl of Susan’s age was the very worst third in the world: totally different from Lady
Bertram, all eyes and ears; and there was no introducing the main point before her. He must content himself with being
only generally agreeable, and letting Susan have her share of entertainment, with the indulgence, now and then, of a look
or hint for the better-informed and conscious Fanny. Norfolk was what he had mostly to talk of: there he had been some
time, and everything there was rising in importance from his present schemes. Such a man could come from no place, no
society, without importing something to amuse; his journeys and his acquaintance were all of use, and Susan was
entertained in a way quite new to her. For Fanny, somewhat more was related than the accidental agreeableness of the
parties he had been in. For her approbation, the particular reason of his going into Norfolk at all, at this unusual time
of year, was given. It had been real business, relative to the renewal of a lease in which the welfare of a large and —
he believed — industrious family was at stake. He had suspected his agent of some underhand dealing; of meaning to bias
him against the deserving; and he had determined to go himself, and thoroughly investigate the merits of the case. He had
gone, had done even more good than he had foreseen, had been useful to more than his first plan had comprehended, and was
now able to congratulate himself upon it, and to feel that in performing a duty, he had secured agreeable recollections
for his own mind. He had introduced himself to some tenants whom he had never seen before; he had begun making
acquaintance with cottages whose very existence, though on his own estate, had been hitherto unknown to him. This was
aimed, and well aimed, at Fanny. It was pleasing to hear him speak so properly; here he had been acting as he ought to
do. To be the friend of the poor and the oppressed! Nothing could be more grateful to her; and she was on the point of
giving him an approving look, when it was all frightened off by his adding a something too pointed of his hoping soon to
have an assistant, a friend, a guide in every plan of utility or charity for Everingham: a somebody that would make
Everingham and all about it a dearer object than it had ever been yet.

She turned away, and wished he would not say such things. She was willing to allow he might have more good qualities
than she had been wont to suppose. She began to feel the possibility of his turning out well at last; but he was and must
ever be completely unsuited to her, and ought not to think of her.

He perceived that enough had been said of Everingham, and that it would be as well to talk of something else, and
turned to Mansfield. He could not have chosen better; that was a topic to bring back her attention and her looks almost
instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hear or to speak of Mansfield. Now so long divided from everybody who knew
the place, she felt it quite the voice of a friend when he mentioned it, and led the way to her fond exclamations in
praise of its beauties and comforts, and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowed her to gratify her own
heart in the warmest eulogium, in speaking of her uncle as all that was clever and good, and her aunt as having the
sweetest of all sweet tempers.

He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself; he said so; he looked forward with the hope of spending much, very
much, of his time there; always there, or in the neighbourhood. He particularly built upon a very happy summer and autumn
there this year; he felt that it would be so: he depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superior to the last.
As animated, as diversified, as social, but with circumstances of superiority undescribable.

“Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey,” he continued; “what a society will be comprised in those houses! And at
Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth may be added: some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everything so dear; for as to any
partnership in Thornton Lacey, as Edmund Bertram once good-humouredly proposed, I hope I foresee two objections: two
fair, excellent, irresistible objections to that plan.”

Fanny was doubly silenced here; though when the moment was passed, could regret that she had not forced herself into
the acknowledged comprehension of one half of his meaning, and encouraged him to say something more of his sister and
Edmund. It was a subject which she must learn to speak of, and the weakness that shrunk from it would soon be quite
unpardonable.

When Mr. Price and his friend had seen all that they wished, or had time for, the others were ready to return; and in
the course of their walk back, Mr. Crawford contrived a minute’s privacy for telling Fanny that his only business in
Portsmouth was to see her; that he was come down for a couple of days on her account, and hers only, and because he could
not endure a longer total separation. She was sorry, really sorry; and yet in spite of this and the two or three other
things which she wished he had not said, she thought him altogether improved since she had seen him; he was much more
gentle, obliging, and attentive to other people’s feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield; she had never seen him so
agreeable — so near being agreeable; his behaviour to her father could not offend, and there was something
particularly kind and proper in the notice he took of Susan. He was decidedly improved. She wished the next day over, she
wished he had come only for one day; but it was not so very bad as she would have expected: the pleasure of talking of
Mansfield was so very great!

Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure, and one of no trivial kind. Her father asked him to do
them the honour of taking his mutton with them, and Fanny had time for only one thrill of horror, before he declared
himself prevented by a prior engagement. He was engaged to dinner already both for that day and the next; he had met with
some acquaintance at the Crown who would not be denied; he should have the honour, however, of waiting on them again on
the morrow, etc., and so they parted — Fanny in a state of actual felicity from escaping so horrible an evil!

To have had him join their family dinner-party, and see all their deficiencies, would have been dreadful! Rebecca’s
cookery and Rebecca’s waiting, and Betsey’s eating at table without restraint, and pulling everything about as she chose,
were what Fanny herself was not yet enough inured to for her often to make a tolerable meal. She was nice only
from natural delicacy, but he had been brought up in a school of luxury and epicurism.