The ball was over, and the breakfast was soon over too; the last kiss
was given, and William was gone. Mr. Crawford had, as he foretold,
been very punctual, and short and pleasant had been the meal.

After seeing William to the last moment, Fanny walked back to the
breakfast-room with a very saddened heart to grieve over the melancholy
change; and there her uncle kindly left her to cry in peace,
conceiving, perhaps, that the deserted chair of each young man might
exercise her tender enthusiasm, and that the remaining cold pork bones
and mustard in William's plate might but divide her feelings with the
broken egg-shells in Mr. Crawford's. She sat and cried con amore
as her uncle intended, but it was con amore fraternal and no other.
William was gone, and she now felt as if she had wasted half his visit
in idle cares and selfish solicitudes unconnected with him.

Fanny's disposition was such that she could never even think of her
aunt Norris in the meagreness and cheerlessness of her own small house,
without reproaching herself for some little want of attention to her
when they had been last together; much less could her feelings acquit
her of having done and said and thought everything by William that was
due to him for a whole fortnight.

It was a heavy, melancholy day. Soon after the second breakfast,
Edmund bade them good-bye for a week, and mounted his horse for
Peterborough, and then all were gone. Nothing remained of last night
but remembrances, which she had nobody to share in. She talked to her
aunt Bertram--she must talk to somebody of the ball; but her aunt had
seen so little of what had passed, and had so little curiosity, that it
was heavy work. Lady Bertram was not certain of anybody's dress or
anybody's place at supper but her own. "She could not recollect what
it was that she had heard about one of the Miss Maddoxes, or what it
was that Lady Prescott had noticed in Fanny: she was not sure whether
Colonel Harrison had been talking of Mr. Crawford or of William when he
said he was the finest young man in the room--somebody had whispered
something to her; she had forgot to ask Sir Thomas what it could be."
And these were her longest speeches and clearest communications: the
rest was only a languid "Yes, yes; very well; did you? did he? I did
not see that; I should not know one from the other." This was very
bad. It was only better than Mrs. Norris's sharp answers would have
been; but she being gone home with all the supernumerary jellies to
nurse a sick maid, there was peace and good-humour in their little
party, though it could not boast much beside.