Fortune favoured them all, however, in
another way, in a gentle, steady rain, just happily set in as the Admiral
returned and Anne rose to go. She was earnestly invited to stay dinner.
A note was despatched to Camden Place, and she staid--staid till ten at
night; and during that time the husband and wife, either by the wife's
contrivance, or by simply going on in their usual way, were frequently
out of the room together--gone upstairs to hear a noise, or downstairs to
settle their accounts, or upon the landing to trim the lamp. And these
precious moments were turned to so good an account that all the most
anxious feelings of the past were gone through. Before they parted at
night, Anne had the felicity of being assured that in the first place (so
far from being altered for the worse), she had gained inexpressibly in
personal loveliness; and that as to character, hers was now fixed on his
mind as _perfection_ itself, maintaining the just medium of fortitude and
gentleness--that he had never ceased to love and prefer her, though it
had been only at Uppercross that he had learnt to do her justice, and
only at Lyme that he had begun to understand his own feelings; that at
Lyme he had received lessons of more than one kind--the passing
admiration of Mr.
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