The family were not consumptive, and she was more inclined to hope than
fear for her cousin, except when she thought of Miss Crawford; but Miss
Crawford gave her the idea of being the child of good luck, and to her
selfishness and vanity it would be good luck to have Edmund the only
son.

Even in the sick chamber the fortunate Mary was not forgotten.
Edmund's letter had this postscript. "On the subject of my last, I had
actually begun a letter when called away by Tom's illness, but I have
now changed my mind, and fear to trust the influence of friends. When
Tom is better, I shall go."

Such was the state of Mansfield, and so it continued, with scarcely any
change, till Easter. A line occasionally added by Edmund to his
mother's letter was enough for Fanny's information. Tom's amendment
was alarmingly slow.

Easter came particularly late this year, as Fanny had most sorrowfully
considered, on first learning that she had no chance of leaving
Portsmouth till after it. It came, and she had yet heard nothing of
her return--nothing even of the going to London, which was to precede
her return. Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no
notice, no message from the uncle on whom all depended. She supposed
he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, a terrible delay to
her. The end of April was coming on; it would soon be almost three
months, instead of two, that she had been absent from them all, and
that her days had been passing in a state of penance, which she loved
them too well to hope they would thoroughly understand; and who could
yet say when there might be leisure to think of or fetch her?