CHAPTER X
A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, passed away,
and Fanny was still thinking of Edmund, Miss Crawford,
and herself, without interruption from any one. She began
to be surprised at being left so long, and to listen
with an anxious desire of hearing their steps and their
voices again. She listened, and at length she heard;
she heard voices and feet approaching; but she had just
satisfied herself that it was not those she wanted,
when Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth, and Mr. Crawford issued
from the same path which she had trod herself, and were
before her.
"Miss Price all alone" and "My dear Fanny, how comes this?"
were the first salutations. She told her story.
"Poor dear Fanny," cried her cousin, "how ill you have been
used by them! You had better have staid with us."
Then seating herself with a gentleman on each side,
she resumed the conversation which had engaged them before,
and discussed the possibility of improvements with
much animation. Nothing was fixed on; but Henry Crawford
was full of ideas and projects, and, generally speaking,
whatever he proposed was immediately approved, first by her,
and then by Mr.
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