Chapter: The time now approached for Lady Russell's return:  the day was even
fixed; and Anne, being engaged to join her as soon as she was
resettled, was looking forward to an early removal to Kellynch, and
beginning to think how her own comfort was likely to be affected by it.

It would place her in the same village with Captain Wentworth, within
half a mile of him; they would have to frequent the same church, and
there must be intercourse between the two families.  This was against
her; but on the other hand, he spent so much of his time at Uppercross,
that in removing thence she might be considered rather as leaving him
behind, than as going towards him; and, upon the whole, she believed
she must, on this interesting question, be the gainer, almost as
certainly as in her change of domestic society, in leaving poor Mary
for Lady Russell.

She wished it might be possible for her to avoid ever seeing Captain
Wentworth at the Hall:  those rooms had witnessed former meetings which
would be brought too painfully before her; but she was yet more anxious
for the possibility of Lady Russell and Captain Wentworth never meeting
anywhere.  They did not like each other, and no renewal of acquaintance
now could do any good; and were Lady Russell to see them together, she
might think that he had too much self-possession, and she too little.

These points formed her chief solicitude in anticipating her removal
from Uppercross, where she felt she had been stationed quite long
enough.  Her usefulness to little Charles would always give some
sweetness to the memory of her two months' visit there, but he was
gaining strength apace, and she had nothing else to stay for.

The conclusion of her visit, however, was diversified in a way which
she had not at all imagined.  Captain Wentworth, after being unseen and
unheard of at Uppercross for two whole days, appeared again among them
to justify himself by a relation of what had kept him away.

A letter from his friend, Captain Harville, having found him out at
last, had brought intelligence of Captain Harville's being settled with
his family at Lyme for the winter; of their being therefore, quite
unknowingly, within twenty miles of each other.  Captain Harville had
never been in good health since a severe wound which he received two
years before, and Captain Wentworth's anxiety to see him had determined
him to go immediately to Lyme.  He had been there for four-and-twenty
hours.  His acquittal was complete, his friendship warmly honoured, a
lively interest excited for his friend, and his description of the fine
country about Lyme so feelingly attended to by the party, that an
earnest desire to see Lyme themselves, and a project for going thither
was the consequence.

The young people were all wild to see Lyme.  Captain Wentworth talked
of going there again himself, it was only seventeen miles from
Uppercross; though November, the weather was by no means bad; and, in
short, Louisa, who was the most eager of the eager, having formed the
resolution to go, and besides the pleasure of doing as she liked, being
now armed with the idea of merit in maintaining her own way, bore down
all the wishes of her father and mother for putting it off till summer;
and to Lyme they were to go--Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta, Louisa,
and Captain Wentworth.

The first heedless scheme had been to go in the morning and return at
night; but to this Mr Musgrove, for the sake of his horses, would not
consent; and when it came to be rationally considered, a day in the
middle of November would not leave much time for seeing a new place,
after deducting seven hours, as the nature of the country required, for
going and returning.  They were, consequently, to stay the night there,
and not to be expected back till the next day's dinner.  This was felt
to be a considerable amendment; and though they all met at the Great
House at rather an early breakfast hour, and set off very punctually,
it was so much past noon before the two carriages, Mr Musgrove's coach
containing the four ladies, and Charles's curricle, in which he drove
Captain Wentworth, were descending the long hill into Lyme, and
entering upon the still steeper street of the town itself, that it was
very evident they would not have more than time for looking about them,
before the light and warmth of the day were gone.

After securing accommodations, and ordering a dinner at one of the
inns, the next thing to be done was unquestionably to walk directly
down to the sea.  They were come too late in the year for any amusement
or variety which Lyme, as a public place, might offer.  The rooms were
shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the
residents left; and, as there is nothing to admire in the buildings
themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street
almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round
the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing
machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new
improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to
the east of the town, are what the stranger's eye will seek; and a very
strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate
environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better.  The scenes in
its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive
sweeps of country, and still more, its sweet, retired bay, backed by
dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands, make it the
happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in
unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of the cheerful village of
Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic
rocks, where the scattered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant
growth, declare that many a generation must have passed away since the
first partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a
state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may
more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of
Wight:  these places must be visited, and visited again, to make the
worth of Lyme understood.

The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted and
melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon found themselves
on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a
first return to the sea, who ever deserved to look on it at all,
proceeded towards the Cobb, equally their object in itself and on
Captain Wentworth's account:  for in a small house, near the foot of an
old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled.  Captain
Wentworth turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on, and he
was to join them on the Cobb.

They were by no means tired of wondering and admiring; and not even
Louisa seemed to feel that they had parted with Captain Wentworth long,
when they saw him coming after them, with three companions, all well
known already, by description, to be Captain and Mrs Harville, and a
Captain Benwick, who was staying with them.

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia;
and the account which Captain Wentworth had given of him, on his return
from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as an excellent young man and
an officer, whom he had always valued highly, which must have stamped
him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little
history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting
in the eyes of all the ladies.  He had been engaged to Captain
Harville's sister, and was now mourning her loss.  They had been a year
or two waiting for fortune and promotion.  Fortune came, his
prize-money as lieutenant being great; promotion, too, came at last;
but Fanny Harville did not live to know it.  She had died the preceding
summer while he was at sea.  Captain Wentworth believed it impossible
for man to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to
Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the dreadful
change.  He considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer
heavily, uniting very strong feelings with quiet, serious, and retiring
manners, and a decided taste for reading, and sedentary pursuits.  To
finish the interest of the story, the friendship between him and the
Harvilles seemed, if possible, augmented by the event which closed all
their views of alliance, and Captain Benwick was now living with them
entirely.  Captain Harville had taken his present house for half a
year; his taste, and his health, and his fortune, all directing him to
a residence inexpensive, and by the sea; and the grandeur of the
country, and the retirement of Lyme in the winter, appeared exactly
adapted to Captain Benwick's state of mind.  The sympathy and good-will
excited towards Captain Benwick was very great.

"And yet," said Anne to herself, as they now moved forward to meet the
party, "he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing heart than I have.  I
cannot believe his prospects so blighted for ever.  He is younger than
I am; younger in feeling, if not in fact; younger as a man.  He will
rally again, and be happy with another."

They all met, and were introduced.  Captain Harville was a tall, dark
man, with a sensible, benevolent countenance; a little lame; and from
strong features and want of health, looking much older than Captain
Wentworth.  Captain Benwick looked, and was, the youngest of the three,
and, compared with either of them, a little man.  He had a pleasing
face and a melancholy air, just as he ought to have, and drew back from
conversation.

Captain Harville, though not equalling Captain Wentworth in manners,
was a perfect gentleman, unaffected, warm, and obliging.  Mrs Harville,
a degree less polished than her husband, seemed, however, to have the
same good feelings; and nothing could be more pleasant than their
desire of considering the whole party as friends of their own, because
the friends of Captain Wentworth, or more kindly hospitable than their
entreaties for their all promising to dine with them.  The dinner,
already ordered at the inn, was at last, though unwillingly, accepted
as a excuse; but they seemed almost hurt that Captain Wentworth should
have brought any such party to Lyme, without considering it as a thing
of course that they should dine with them.

There was so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this, and such
a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon, so unlike
the usual style of give-and-take invitations, and dinners of formality
and display, that Anne felt her spirits not likely to be benefited by
an increasing acquaintance among his brother-officers.  "These would
have been all my friends," was her thought; and she had to struggle
against a great tendency to lowness.

On quitting the Cobb, they all went in-doors with their new friends,
and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart
could think capable of accommodating so many.  Anne had a moment's
astonishment on the subject herself; but it was soon lost in the
pleasanter feelings which sprang from the sight of all the ingenious
contrivances and nice arrangements of Captain Harville, to turn the
actual space to the best account, to supply the deficiencies of
lodging-house furniture, and defend the windows and doors against the
winter storms to be expected.  The varieties in the fitting-up of the
rooms, where the common necessaries provided by the owner, in the
common indifferent plight, were contrasted with some few articles of a
rare species of wood, excellently worked up, and with something curious
and valuable from all the distant countries Captain Harville had
visited, were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all was with
his profession, the fruit of its labours, the effect of its influence
on his habits, the picture of repose and domestic happiness it
presented, made it to her a something more, or less, than gratification.

Captain Harville was no reader; but he had contrived excellent
accommodations, and fashioned very pretty shelves, for a tolerable
collection of well-bound volumes, the property of Captain Benwick.  His
lameness prevented him from taking much exercise; but a mind of
usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment
within.  He drew, he varnished, he carpentered, he glued; he made toys
for the children; he fashioned new netting-needles and pins with
improvements; and if everything else was done, sat down to his large
fishing-net at one corner of the room.

Anne thought she left great happiness behind her when they quitted the
house; and Louisa, by whom she found herself walking, burst forth into
raptures of admiration and delight on the character of the navy; their
friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness;
protesting that she was convinced of sailors having more worth and
warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to
live, and they only deserved to be respected and loved.

They went back to dress and dine; and so well had the scheme answered
already, that nothing was found amiss; though its being "so entirely
out of season," and the "no thoroughfare of Lyme," and the "no
expectation of company," had brought many apologies from the heads of
the inn.

Anne found herself by this time growing so much more hardened to being
in Captain Wentworth's company than she had at first imagined could
ever be, that the sitting down to the same table with him now, and the
interchange of the common civilities attending on it (they never got
beyond), was become a mere nothing.

The nights were too dark for the ladies to meet again till the morrow,
but Captain Harville had promised them a visit in the evening; and he
came, bringing his friend also, which was more than had been expected,
it having been agreed that Captain Benwick had all the appearance of
being oppressed by the presence of so many strangers.  He ventured
among them again, however, though his spirits certainly did not seem
fit for the mirth of the party in general.

While Captains Wentworth and Harville led the talk on one side of the
room, and by recurring to former days, supplied anecdotes in abundance
to occupy and entertain the others, it fell to Anne's lot to be placed
rather apart with Captain Benwick; and a very good impulse of her
nature obliged her to begin an acquaintance with him.  He was shy, and
disposed to abstraction; but the engaging mildness of her countenance,
and gentleness of her manners, soon had their effect; and Anne was well
repaid the first trouble of exertion.  He was evidently a young man of
considerable taste in reading, though principally in poetry; and
besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening's
indulgence in the discussion of subjects, which his usual companions
had probably no concern in, she had the hope of being of real use to
him in some suggestions as to the duty and benefit of struggling
against affliction, which had naturally grown out of their
conversation.  For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather
the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and
having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone
through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first-rate poets,
trying to ascertain whether Marmion or The Lady of the Lake were to be
preferred, and how ranked the Giaour and The Bride of Abydos; and
moreover, how the Giaour was to be pronounced, he showed himself so
intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and
all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he
repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a
broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so
entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he
did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was
the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who
enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could
estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but
sparingly.

His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his
situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the
right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger
allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to
particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such
collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth
and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse
and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest
examples of moral and religious endurances.

Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for the
interest implied; and though with a shake of the head, and sighs which
declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like
his, noted down the names of those she recommended, and promised to
procure and read them.

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of
her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man
whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more
serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and
preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct
would ill bear examination.

 Anne plans to leave her sister Mary at Uppercross and go stay with Lady Russell for a while. She reasons this move may put her more in contact with Captain Wentworth, because Lady Russell's house is decidedly closer to Kellynch. Captain Wentworth returns to visit Uppercross after not being seen for two days. He had gone to visit his friends, Captain and Mrs. Harville, in Lyme. He tells the Musgroves about Lyme, and they are all eager to see it. It is decided that Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta, Louisa, and Captain Wentworth will form a party to go visit Lyme. The following day, they arrive at Lyme, a seaside town, and are delighted by it. Three new characters are introduced. Captain and Mrs. Harville are friends of Wentworth from the Navy who have a house in Lyme, and Captain Benwick is staying with them. The Harvilles are extremely hospitable people with excellent manners. Though they have very small quarters, they have developed great contrivances to make the best use of their space and Anne considers it a very happy home. Captain Benwick was known as "an excellent young man and an officer" but he has fallen into a deep depression since the death of his fiancee, Fanny Harville, Captain Harville's sister. Benwick has turned to poetry as solace for his sadness. On one of their visits with the Harvilles, it falls to Anne to make conversation with Captain Benwick. Although he is initially shy, Benwick opens up to Anne and begins discussing poetry passionately. Anne recommends that he include more prose in his daily reading. He takes her suggestion warmly, and Anne feels that she has done a good thing by patiently helping a grieving man to open up once more

