more than most men."



Chapter 8


From this time Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly
in the same circle. They were soon dining in company together
at Mr Musgrove's, for the little boy's state could no longer
supply his aunt with a pretence for absenting herself; and this was
but the beginning of other dinings and other meetings.

Whether former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the proof;
former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of each;
they could not but be reverted to; the year of their engagement
could not but be named by him, in the little narratives or descriptions
which conversation called forth. His profession qualified him,
his disposition lead him, to talk; and "That was in the year six;"
"That happened before I went to sea in the year six," occurred
in the course of the first evening they spent together:
and though his voice did not falter, and though she had no reason
to suppose his eye wandering towards her while he spoke,
Anne felt the utter impossibility, from her knowledge of his mind,
that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself.
There must be the same immediate association of thought,
though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain.

They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what
the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other!