blame to herself and was most tender of throwing any on her husband but anne could collect that their income had never been equal to their style of living and that from the first there had been a great deal of general and joint extravagance from his wife s account of him she could discern mr smith to have been a man of warm feelings easy temper careless habits and not strong understanding much more amiable than his friend and very unlike him led by him and probably despised by him mr raised by his marriage to great and disposed to every gratification of pleasure and vanity which could be commanded without himself for with all his self indulgence he had become a prudent man and beginning to be rich just as his friend ought to have found himself to be poor seemed to have had no concern at all for that friend s probable but on the contrary had been and encouraging expenses which end only in ruin and the accordingly had been ruined the husband had died just in time to be spared the full knowledge of it they had previously known enough to try the friendship of their friends and to ua prove tiiat mr s had better not be tried but it � � not till death tiiat the wretched state of his im fully known with a confidence in mr s regard mat to his feelings than hb judgment mr appointed him the of his will but mr not act and the difficulties and which had heaped on her in addition to the tf her situation had been such as could not be related wi anguish of spirit or listened to without indignation anne was shown some letters of his on the occasion answers to urgent from mrs smith which breathed the same stem resolution of not engaging in a trouble and under a cold the same to any of the evils it might bring on her it was a dreadful picture of ingratitude and and anne felt at some moments that no open crime could have been worse she had a great d o listen to all the particulars of past sad scenes all tiie of distress which in former conversations had bees merely hinted at were dwelt on now with a natural indulgence anne could perfectly comprehend the exquisite relief and was only the more inclined to wonder at the composure of her friend s usual state of mind there was one circumstance in the history of her of particular irritation she had good reason to believe tiiat some property of her husband in the west indies which had been for many years under a sort of for the payment of its own might be by proper measures and this property though not large would be enough to make her comparatively rich but was nobody to stir in it mr would do nothing and she could do nothing herself equally from exertion by her state of bodily weakness and from others by her want of money she had no natural to assist her even with their counsel and she could not afford persuasion to purchase the of the law this was a cruel of actually means it was on this point that she had hoped to engage anne good offices with mr she had previously in the of their marriage been very apprehensive of losing her by it but on being assured that he could have made no attempt of that nature since he did not even know her to be in bath it immediately occurred that something might be done in her favour by the influence of the woman he loved she had been hastily preparing to interest anne as far as the due to mr s character would allow when anne s of the supposed engagement changed the face of and while it took from her the hope of succeeding in the object of her first anxiety left her at least the comfort of telling the whole story her own way after listening to this full description of mr anne could not but express some surprise at mrs smith s having spoken of him so in the beginning of their conversation she had seemed to recommend and praise him my dear was mrs smith s reply there was nothing else to be done i considered your marrying him as certain though he might not yet have made the o� per and i could no more speak the truth of him than if he had been your husband my heart for you as i talked of happiness and yet he is sensible he is agreeable and with such a woman as you it was not absolutely hopeless he was very unkind to his first wife they were wretched together but she was too ignorant and giddy and he had never loved her i was to hope that you must fare better anne could just acknowledge within herself such a possibility of having been induced to marry him as made her shudder at the idea of the misery which must have followed it was just possible that she might have been persuaded by lady i and under such a supposition which would have been most miserable when time had disclosed all too late persuasion it was desirable that lady should be no longer deceived and one of the concluding arrangements of this important conference which carried them through the greater part of the morning was that anne had full liberty to communicate to her mend everything relative to mis smith in which his conduct was involved � i chapter xxii anne went home to think over all that she had heard in one point her feelings were relieved by this knowledge of mr there was no longer anything of tenderness due to him he stood as opposed to captain in all his own unwelcome and the evil of his attentions last night the 