With an idea to be of service and comfort his cousin Edmund accepts a mission from Sir Thomas to ‘try what his influence might do for his friend [Henry]’ (35) with Fanny. Although he told Fanny she was right to refuse Henry he claimed the proposal ‘most advantageous and desirable, if you could return his affection’ (35). Fanny does confide in Edmund and spills all but one secret she denied Sir Thomas. Fanny says they are too unlike and different ‘in all our inclinations and ways’ (35) and believed they could never be happy together. She further explains her unconquerable passion against Henry by outing his attentions to her cousins once again:

After leaving him to his happier thoughts for some minutes, Fanny, feeling it due to herself, returned to Mr. Crawford, and said, “It is not merely in temper that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself; though, in that respect, I think the difference between us too great, infinitely too great: his spirits often oppress me; but there is something in him which I object to still more. I must say, cousin, that I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared to me, so very improperly and unfeelingly—I may speak of it now because it is all over—so improperly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care how he exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which—in short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which will never be got over.” (35)

Fanny also comments on Henry’s attentions to Julia before the play and that she is “persuaded that he does not think, as he ought, on serious subjects” but Edmund rationalizes away each of her claims for dislike. Edmund also suggests to Fanny that Henry will make her happy but she will “make him everything” (35). It is a charge she rejects and I think she was right. Why should Fanny accept a man that needs to be improved so much? Fanny was also distressed to learn Mary had made a joke of her scruples:

Miss Crawford made us laugh by her plans of encouragement for her brother. She meant to urge him to persevere in the hope of being loved in time, and of having his addresses most kindly received at the end of about ten years’ happy marriage.”

Fanny could with difficulty give the smile that was here asked for. Her feelings were all in revolt. She feared she had been doing wrong: saying too much, overacting the caution which she had been fancying necessary; in guarding against one evil, laying herself open to another; and to have Miss Crawford’s liveliness repeated to her at such a moment, and on such a subject, was a bitter aggravation. (35)