palace, though the king may appear best in the back
ground, and as I have no desire to tease her, I shall never force your name upon
her again. She will grow sober by degrees. - From all that I hear and guess,
Baron Wildenhaim's attentions to Julia continue, but I do not know that he has
any serious encouragement. She ought to do better. A poor honourable is no
catch, and I cannot imagine any liking in the case, for, take away his rants,
and the poor Baron has nothing. What a difference a vowel makes! - if his rents
were but equal to his rants! - Your cousin Edmund moves slowly; detained,
perchance, by parish duties. There may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be
converted. I am unwilling to fancy myself neglected for a young one. Adieu, my
dear sweet Fanny, this is a long letter from - London; write me a pretty one in
reply to gladden Henry's eyes, when he comes back - and send me an account of
all the dashing young captains whom you disdain for his sake.«
    There was great food for meditation in this letter, and chiefly for
unpleasant meditation; and yet, with all the uneasiness it supplied, it
connected her with the absent, it told her of people and things about whom she
had never felt so much curiosity as now, and she would have been glad to have
been sure of such a letter every week. Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram
was her only concern of higher interest.
    As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make amends for
deficiencies at home, there were none within the circle of her father's and
mother's acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction; she saw nobody in
whose favour she could wish to overcome her own shyness and reserve. The men
appeared to her all coarse, the women all pert, every body under-bred; and she
gave as little contentment as she received from introductions either to old or
new acquaintance. The young ladies who approached her at first with some respect
in consideration of her coming from a Baronet's family, were soon offended by
what they termed airs - for as she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore
fine pelisses, they could, on farther observation, admit no right of
superiority.
    The first solid consolation which Fanny received for the evils of home, the
first which her judgment could entirely approve, and which gave any promise of
durability, was in a better knowledge of Susan, and a hope of being of service