when they went away, and he said, `You were so altered he should not
have known you again.'"

Mary had no feelings to make her respect her sister's in a common way,
but she was perfectly unsuspicious of being inflicting any peculiar wound.

"Altered beyond his knowledge." Anne fully submitted, in silent,
deep mortification. Doubtless it was so, and she could take no revenge,
for he was not altered, or not for the worse. She had already
acknowledged it to herself, and she could not think differently,
let him think of her as he would. No: the years which had destroyed
her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly,
open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages.
She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.

"So altered that he should not have known her again!" These were words
which could not but dwell with her. Yet she soon began to rejoice
that she had heard them. They were of sobering tendency;
they allayed agitation; they composed, and consequently must
make her happier.

Frederick Wentworth had used such words, or something like them,
but without an idea that they would be carried round to her.
He had thought her wretchedly altered, and in the first moment of appeal,
had spoken as he felt. He had not forgiven Anne Elliot.
She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse,
she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided,
confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others.
It had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been
weakness and timidity.