The entrance of the Grants and Crawfords was a favourable epoch. The stiffness of the meeting soon gave way before their popular manners and more diffused intimacies: little groups were formed, and everybody grew comfortable. Fanny felt the advantage; and, drawing back from the toils of civility, would have been again most happy, could she have kept her eyes from wandering between Edmund and Mary Crawford. _She_ looked all loveliness-and what might not be the end of it? Her own musings were brought to an end on perceiving Mr. Crawford before her, and her thoughts were put into another channel by his engaging her almost instantly for the first two dances. Her happiness on this occasion was very much _ la mortal_, finely chequered. To be secure of a partner at first was a most essential good-for the moment of beginning was now growing seriously near; and she so little understood her own claims as to think that if Mr. Crawford had not asked her, she must have been the last to be sought after, and should have received a partner only through a series of inquiry, and bustle, and interference, which would have been terrible; but at the same time there was a pointedness in his manner of asking her which she did not like, and she saw his eye glancing for a moment at her necklace, with a smile-she thought there was a smile-which made her blush and feel wretched. And though there was no second glance to disturb her, though his object seemed then to be only quietly agreeable, she could not get the better of her embarrassment, heightened as it was by the idea of his perceiving it, and had no composure till he turned away to some one else. Then she could gradually rise up to the genuine satisfaction of having a partner, a voluntary partner, secured against the dancing began.

With the entrance of the Grants and Crawfords, stiffness gave way before their popular manners: everybody grew comfortable. Fanny would have been again most happy, could she have kept her eyes from wandering between Edmund and Mary Crawford. She looked all loveliness-and what might not be the end of it?
Her musings were ended on seeing Mr. Crawford before her; he engaged her for the first two dances. Her happiness on this occasion was finely chequered. To be secure of a partner at first was a most essential good-for she so little understood her own claims as to think that if Mr. Crawford had not asked her, she must have been the last to be sought after; but at the same time there was a pointedness in his manner of asking her which she did not like, and she saw his eye glancing for a moment at her necklace, with a smile which made her blush and feel wretched. Embarrassed, she had no composure till he turned away to some one else. Then she could gradually rise up to the genuine satisfaction of having a partner secured before the dancing began.
