“Fanny,” said Lady Selina, one morning, about a week after the general arrival of the company at Grey Abbey, and when some of them had taken their departure, “I am very glad to see you have recovered your spirits: I know you have made a great effort, and I appreciate and admire it.”
“Indeed, Selina, I fear you are admiring me too soon. I own I have been amused this week past, and, to a certain degree, pleased; but I fear you’ll find I shall relapse. There’s been no radical reform; my thoughts are all in the same direction as they were.”
“But the great trial in this world is to behave well and becomingly in spite of oppressive thoughts: and it always takes a struggle to do that, and that struggle you’ve made. I hope it may lead you to feel that you may be contented and in comfort without having everything which you think necessary to your happiness. I’m sure I looked forward to this week as one of unmixed trouble and torment; but I was very wrong to do so. It has given me a great deal of unmixed satisfaction.”
“I’m very glad of that, Selina, but what was it? I’m sure it could not have come from poor Mrs Ellison, or the bishop’s wife; and you seemed to me to spend all your time in talking to them. Virtue, they say, is its own reward: I don’t know what other satisfaction you can have had from them.”
“In the first place, it has given me great pleasure to see that you were able to exert yourself in company, and that the crowd of people did not annoy you: but I have chiefly been delighted by seeing that you and Adolphus are such good friends. You must think, Fanny, that I am anxious about an only brother—especially when we have all had so much cause to be anxious about him; and don’t you think it must be a delight to me to find that he is able to take pleasure in your society? I should be doubly pleased, doubly delighted, if I could please him myself. But I have not the vivacity to amuse him.”
“What nonsense, Selina! Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true, Fanny; I have not; and Grey Abbey has become distasteful to him because we are all sedate, steady people. Perhaps some would call us dull, and heavy; and I have grieved that it should be so, though I cannot alter my nature; but you are so much the contrary—there is so much in your character like his own, before he became fond of the world, that I feel he can become attached to and fond of you; and I am delighted to see that he thinks so himself. What do you think of him, now that you have seen more of him than you ever did before?”
“Indeed,” said Fanny, “I like him very much.”
“He is very clever, isn’t he? He might have been anything if he had given himself fair play. He seems to have taken greatly to you.”
“Oh yes; we are great friends:” and then Fanny paused—“so great friends,” she continued, looking somewhat gravely in Lady Selina’s face, “that I mean to ask the greatest favour of him that I could ask of anyone: one I am sure I little dreamed I should ever ask of him.”