to live at Kellynch without a revival of former pain; and many a stroll,
and many a sigh, were necessary to dispel the agitation of the idea.
She often told herself it was folly, before she could harden her nerves
sufficiently to feel the continual discussion of the Crofts
and their business no evil. She was assisted, however, by that
perfect indifference and apparent unconsciousness, among the only three
of her own friends in the secret of the past, which seemed almost to deny
any recollection of it. She could do justice to the superiority
of Lady Russell's motives in this, over those of her father and Elizabeth;
she could honour all the better feelings of her calmness;
but the general air of oblivion among them was highly important
from whatever it sprung; and in the event of Admiral Croft's really
taking Kellynch Hall, she rejoiced anew over the conviction which
had always been most grateful to her, of the past being known to
those three only among her connexions, by whom no syllable,
she believed, would ever be whispered, and in the trust that among his,
the brother only with whom he had been residing, had received
any information of their short-lived engagement. That brother had been
long removed from the country and being a sensible man, and, moreover,
a single man at the time, she had a fond dependence on no human creature's
having heard of it from him.

The sister, Mrs Croft, had then been out of England, accompanying
her husband on a foreign station, and her own sister, Mary,
had been at school while it all occurred; and never admitted by
the pride of some, and the delicacy of others, to the smallest knowledge
of it afterwards.

With these supports, she hoped that the acquaintance between herself
and the Crofts, which, with Lady Russell, still resident in Kellynch,