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