At first, it was a sort of stupefaction; but every moment was quickening her perception of the horrible evil.

She could not doubt, she dared not indulge a hope, of the paragraph being false.

Miss Crawford's letter, which she had read so often as to make every line her own, was in frightful conformity with it.

Her eager defence of her brother, her hope of its being _hushed_ _up_, her evident agitation, were all of a piece with something very bad; and if there was a woman of character in existence, who could treat as a trifle this sin of the first magnitude, who would try to gloss it over, and desire to have it unpunished, she could believe Miss Crawford to be the woman! Now she could see her own mistake as to _who_ were gone, or _said_ to be gone.

It was not Mr.and Mrs.Rushworth; it was Mrs.Rushworth and Mr.
Crawford.
Fanny seemed to herself never to have been shocked before.