Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them.