The tie between Crabbe and Miss Elmy was further strengthened by a dangerous fever from which Crabbe suffered in 1778-79, while Miss Elmy was a guest under his parents' roof.

This was succeeded by an illness of Miss Elmy, when Crabbe was in constant attendance at Parham Hall.

His intimacy with the Tovells was moreover to be strengthened by a sad event in that family, the death of their only child, an engaging girl of fourteen.

The social position of the Tovells, and in greater degree their fortune, was superior to that of the Crabbes, and the engagement of their niece to one whose prospects were so little brilliant had never been quite to their taste.

But henceforth this feeling was to disappear.