The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state
of alteration, perhaps of improvement. The father
and mother were in the old English style, and the
young people in the new. Mr and Mrs Musgrove
were a very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable,
not much educated, and not at all elegant. Their
children had more modern minds and manners.
There was a numerous family; but the only two grown
up, excepting Charles, were Henrietta and Louisa,
young ladies of nineteen and twenty, who had brought
from school at Exeter all the usual stock of accomplishments,
and were now like thousands of other young ladies,
living to be fashionable, happy, and merry. Their
dress had every advantage, their faces were rather
pretty, their spirits extremely good, their manner
unembarrassed and pleasant; they were of consequence
at home, and favourites abroad. Anne always contemplated
them as some of the happiest creatures of her acquaintance;
but still, saved as we all are, by some comfortable
feeling of superiority from wishing for the possibility
of exchange, she would not have given up her own more
elegant and cultivated mind for all their enjoyments;
and envied them nothing but that seemingly perfect
good understanding and agreement together, that good-humoured
mutual affection, of which she had known so little
herself with either of her sisters.
They were received with great cordiality. Nothing
seemed amiss on the side of the Great House family,
which was generally, as Anne very well knew, the least
to blame. The half hour was chatted away pleasantly
enough; and she was not at all surprised at the end
of it, to have their walking party joined by both
the Miss Musgroves, at Mary’s particular invitation.
Chapter 6
Anne had not wanted this visit to Uppercross, to learn
that a removal from one set of people to another,
though at a distance of only three miles, will often
include a total change of conversation, opinion, and
idea. She had never been staying there before,
without being struck by it, or without wishing that
other Elliots could have her advantage in seeing how
unknown, or unconsidered there, were the affairs which
at Kellynch Hall were treated as of such general publicity
and pervading interest; yet, with all this experience,
she believed she must now submit to feel that another
lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness
beyond our own circle, was become necessary for her;
for certainly, coming as she did, with a heart full
of the subject which had been completely occupying
both houses in Kellynch for many weeks, she had expected
rather more curiosity and sympathy than she found
in the separate but very similar remark of Mr and Mrs
Musgrove: “So, Miss Anne, Sir Walter and
your sister are gone; and what part of Bath do you
think they will settle in?” and this, without
much waiting for an answer; or in the young ladies’
addition of, “I hope we shall be in Bath in
the winter; but remember, papa, if we do go, we must
be in a good situation: none of your Queen Squares
for us!” or in the anxious supplement from Mary,
of— “Upon my word, I shall be pretty
well off, when you are all gone away to be happy at
Bath!”
