looked with an expression which had something more than penetration in
it--something softer. Her countenance did not discourage. It was a
silent but a very powerful dialogue; on his supplication, on hers
acceptance. Still a little nearer, and a hand taken and pressed; and
'Anne, my own dear Anne!' bursting forth in all the fulness of exquisite
feeling,--and all suspense and indecision were over. They were
re-united. They were restored to all that had been lost. They were
carried back to the past with only an increase of attachment and
confidence, and only such a flutter of present delight as made them
little fit for the interruption of Mrs. Croft when she joined them not
long afterwards. _She_, probably, in the observations of the next ten
minutes saw something to suspect; and though it was hardly possible for a
woman of her description to wish the mantua-maker had imprisoned her
longer, she might be very likely wishing for some excuse to run about the
house, some storm to break the windows above, or a summons to the
Admiral's shoemaker below. Fortune favoured them all, however, in
another way, in a gentle, steady rain, just happily set in as the Admiral
returned and Anne rose to go. She was earnestly invited to stay dinner.
A note was despatched to Camden Place, and she staid--staid till ten at
night; and during that time the husband and wife, either by the wife's
contrivance, or by simply going on in their usual way, were frequently
out of the room together--gone upstairs to hear a noise, or downstairs to
settle their accounts, or upon the landing to trim the lamp. And these
precious moments were turned to so good an account that all the most
anxious feelings of the past were gone through. Before they parted at
night, Anne had the felicity of being assured that in the first place (so
far from being altered for the worse), she had gained inexpressibly in
personal loveliness; and that as to character, hers was now fixed on his
mind as _perfection_ itself, maintaining the just medium of fortitude and
gentleness--that he had never ceased to love and prefer her, though it