Edmund had greatly the advantage of her in this respect.
He had not to wait and wish with vacant affections for an
object worthy to succeed her in them. Scarcely had he
done regretting Mary Crawford, and observing to Fanny
how impossible it was that he should ever meet with such
another woman, before it began to strike him whether
a very different kind of woman might not do just as well,
or a great deal better: whether Fanny herself were not
growing as dear, as important to him in all her smiles
and all her ways, as Mary Crawford had ever been;
and whether it might not be a possible, an hopeful
undertaking to persuade her that her warm and sisterly
regard for him would be foundation enough for wedded love.
I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion,
that every one may be at liberty to fix their own,
aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the
transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as
to time in different people. I only entreat everybody
to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite
natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier,
Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became
as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.
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