 her manners; and it was so little,
so very very little, (every chance, every possibility of it, resting upon her
embarrassment only, if there was not hope in her confusion, there was hope in
nothing else) that he was almost ready to wonder at his friend's perseverance. -
Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, every
exertion of mind - but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any
woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage than his eyes could
discern in hers. He was very willing to hope that Crawford saw clearer; and this
was the most comfortable conclusion for his friend that he could come to from
all that he observed to pass before, and at, and after dinner.
    In the evening a few circumstances occurred which he thought more promising.
When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his mother and Fanny were
sitting as intently and silently at work as if there were nothing else to care
for. Edmund could not help noticing their apparently deep tranquillity.
    »We have not been so silent all the time,« replied his mother. »Fanny has
been reading to me, and only put the book down upon hearing you coming.« - And
sure enough there was a book on the table which had the air of being very
recently closed, a volume of Shakespeare. - »She often reads to me out of those
books; and she was in the middle of a very fine speech of that man's - What's
his name, Fanny? - when we heard your footsteps.«
    Crawford took the volume. »Let me have the pleasure of finishing that speech
to your ladyship,« said he. »I shall find it immediately.« And by carefully
giving way to the inclination of the leaves, he did find it, or within a page or
two, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram, who assured him, as soon as he
mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey, that he had got the very speech. - Not a
look, or an offer of help had Fanny given; not a syllable for or against. All
her attention was for her work. She seemed determined to be interested by
nothing else. But taste was too strong in her. She could not abstract her mind
five minutes; she was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her
pleasure in good reading extreme. To good reading, however, she had been long
used; her uncle read well - her cousins all -
