Then a letter which she
had been previously preparing for Fanny was finished
in a different style, in the language of real feeling
and alarm; then she wrote as she might have spoken.
"He is just come, my dear Fanny, and is taken upstairs;
and I am so shocked to see him, that I do not know
what to do. I am sure he has been very ill. Poor Tom!
I am quite grieved for him, and very much frightened,
and so is Sir Thomas; and how glad I should be if you
were here to comfort me. But Sir Thomas hopes he
will be better to-morrow, and says we must consider
his journey."
The real solicitude now awakened in the maternal bosom
was not soon over. Tom's extreme impatience to be
removed to Mansfield, and experience those comforts
of home and family which had been little thought of in
uninterrupted health, had probably induced his being
conveyed thither too early, as a return of fever came on,
and for a week he was in a more alarming state than ever.
They were all very seriously frightened. Lady Bertram
wrote her daily terrors to her niece, who might now be said
to live upon letters, and pass all her time between suffering
from that of to-day and looking forward to to-morrow's.
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