 half of his meaning, and encouraged him to say something more of his sister
and Edmund. It was a subject which she must learn to speak of, and the weakness
that shrunk from it would soon be quite unpardonable.
    When Mr. Price and his friend had seen all that they wished, or had time
for, the others were ready to return; and in the course of their walk back, Mr.
Crawford contrived a minute's privacy for telling Fanny that his only business
in Portsmouth was to see her, that he was come down for a couple of days on her
account and hers only, and because he could not endure a longer total
separation. She was sorry, really sorry; and yet, in spite of this and the two
or three other things which she wished he had not said, she thought him
altogether improved since she had seen him; he was much more gentle, obliging,
and attentive to other people's feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield; she
had never seen him so agreeable - so near being agreeable; his behaviour to her
father could not offend, and there was something particularly kind and proper in
the notice he took of Susan. He was decidedly improved. She wished the next day
over, she wished he had come only for one day - but it was not so very bad as
she would have expected; the pleasure of talking of Mansfield was so very great!
    Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure, and one of no
trivial kind. Her father asked him to do them the honour of taking his mutton
with them, and Fanny had time for only one thrill of horror, before he declared
himself prevented by a prior engagement. He was engaged to dinner already both
for that day and the next; he had met with some acquaintance at the Crown who
would not be denied; he should have the honour, however, of waiting on them
again on the morrow, etc. and so they parted - Fanny in a state of actual
felicity from escaping so horrible an evil!
    To have had him join their family dinner-party and see all their
deficiencies would have been dreadful! Rebecca's cookery and Rebecca's waiting,
and Betsey's eating at table without restraint, and pulling every thing about as
she chose, were what Fanny herself was not yet enough inured to, for her often
to make a tolerable meal. She was nice only from natural delicacy, but he had
been brought up in a school of luxury and epicurism.
 

                                   Chapter XI

The Prices were just setting off
