Mansfield news should fall to my pen instead of hers. — Yours ever, my dearest Fanny.”

“I never will, no, I certainly never will wish for a letter again,” was Fanny's secret declaration as she finished this. “What do they bring but disappointment and sorrow? Not till after Easter! How shall I bear it? And my poor aunt talking of me every hour!”

Fanny checked the tendency of these thoughts as well as she could, but she was within half a minute of starting the idea that Sir Thomas was quite unkind, both to her aunt and to herself. As for the main subject of the letter, there was nothing in that to soothe irritation.

She was almost vexed into displeasure and anger against Edmund. “There is no good in this delay,” said she.