She took the letters as he gave them.

The first was from the Admiral to inform his nephew, in a few words, of his having succeeded in the object he had undertaken, the promotion of young Price, and enclosing two more, one from the Secretary of the First Lord to a friend, whom the Admiral had set to work in the business, the other from that friend to himself, by which it appeared that his lordship had the very great happiness of attending to the recommendation of Sir Charles; that Sir Charles was much delighted in having such an opportunity of proving his regard for Admiral Crawford, and that the circumstance of Mr.William Price's commission as Second Lieutenant of H.M.Sloop Thrush being made out was spreading general joy through a wide circle of great people.
While her hand was trembling under these letters, her eye running from one to the other, and her heart swelling with emotion, Crawford thus continued, with unfeigned eagerness, to express his interest in the event-- "I will not talk of my own happiness," said he, "great as it is, for I think only of yours.

Compared with you, who has a right to be happy?
I have almost grudged myself my own prior knowledge of what you ought to have known before all the world.

I have not lost a moment, however.
The post was late this morning, but there has not been since a moment's delay.

How impatient, how anxious, how wild I have been on the subject, I will not attempt to describe; how severely mortified, how cruelly disappointed, in not having it finished while I was in London! I was kept there from day to day in the hope of it, for nothing less dear to me than such an object would have detained me half the time from Mansfield.