 she goes. She is very angry with you, Fanny; you must be
prepared for that. She calls herself very angry, but you can imagine her anger.
It is the regret and disappointment of a sister, who thinks her brother has a
right to every thing he may wish for, at the first moment. She is hurt, as you
would be for William; but she loves and esteems you with all her heart.«
    »I knew she would be very angry with me.«
    »My dearest Fanny,« cried Edmund, pressing her arm closer to him, »do not
let the idea of her anger distress you. It is anger to be talked of, rather than
felt. Her heart is made for love and kindness, not for resentment. I wish you
could have overheard her tribute of praise; I wish you could have seen her
countenance, when she said that you should be Henry's wife. And I observed, that
she always spoke of you as Fanny, which she was never used to do; and it had a
sound of most sisterly cordiality.«
    »And Mrs. Grant, did she say - did she speak - was she there all the time?«
    »Yes, she was agreeing exactly with her sister. The surprise of your
refusal, Fanny, seems to have been unbounded. That you could refuse such a man
as Henry Crawford, seems more than they can understand. I said what I could for
you; but in good truth, as they stated the case - you must prove yourself to be
in your senses as soon as you can, by a different conduct; nothing else will
satisfy them. But this is teazing you. I have done. Do not turn away from me.«
    »I should have thought,« said Fanny, after a pause of recollection and
exertion, »that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man's not being
approved, not being loved by some one of her sex, at least, let him be ever so
generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it
ought not to be set down as certain, that a man must be acceptable to every
woman he may happen to like himself. But even supposing it is so, allowing Mr.
Crawford to have all the claims which his sisters think he has, how was I to be
prepared to meet him with any feeling answerable to his own? He took me wholly
by surprise. I had not an idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning;
and
