Austen Said:

"You have, undoubtedly; and there are situations in which very high spirits would denote insensibility. Your prospects, however, are too fair to justify want of spirits. You have a very smiling scene before you."

"And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited."

"Or if we are, Miss Price will be so good as to tell him that he will find us near that knoll: the grove of oak on the knoll."

"I do not believe I shall go any farther,"

"I see nothing of them. By the time I get to the knoll they may be gone somewhere else. I have had walking enough."

"I think they might as well have staid for me,"

"I should not have had to follow her if she had staid."

"Pray, Miss Price, are you such a great admirer of this Mr. Crawford as some people are? For my part, I can see nothing in him."

"Handsome! Nobody can call such an undersized man handsome. He is not five foot nine. I should not wonder if he is not more than five foot eight. I think he is an ill-looking fellow. In my opinion, these Crawfords are no addition at all. We did very well without them."

"If I had made any difficulty about fetching the key, there might have been some excuse, but I went the very moment she said she wanted it."

"wished he had had the key about him at the time."

Well,"

"if you really think I had better go: it would be foolish to bring the key for nothing."

Edmund had wished for her very much,

he should certainly have come back for her, had she not been tired already;

"I hope I am not to lose my companion, unless she is afraid of the evening air in so exposed a seat."

"It will, indeed, after such an absence; an absence not only long, but including so many dangers."

"Yes."

"There is no sacrifice in the case,"

"it is entirely her own doing."

"My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria's marrying."

"Thank you for your good word, Fanny, but it is more than I would affirm myself. On the contrary, the knowing that there was such a provision for me probably did bias me. Nor can I think it wrong that it should. There was no natural disinclination to be overcome, and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in life. I was in safe hands. I hope I should not have been influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father was too conscientious to have allowed it. I have no doubt that I was biased, but I think it was blamelessly."

"But the motives of a man who takes orders with the certainty of preferment may be fairly suspected, you think?"

"To be justified in your eyes, he must do it in the most complete uncertainty of any provision."

"Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living nor without? No; for you certainly would not know what to say. But I must beg some advantage to the clergyman from your own argument. As he cannot be influenced by those feelings which you rank highly as temptation and reward to the soldier and sailor in their choice of a profession, as heroism, and noise, and fashion, are all against him, he ought to be less liable to the suspicion of wanting sincerity or good intentions in the choice of his."

"There are such clergymen, no doubt, but I think they are not so common as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general character. I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively. You are speaking what you have been told at your uncle's table."

"Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, or (smiling) of something else. Your uncle, and his brother admirals, perhaps knew little of clergymen beyond the chaplains whom, good or bad, they were always wishing away."

"I do not wonder at your disapprobation, upon my word. It is a great defect of temper, made worse by a very faulty habit of self-indulgence; and to see your sister suffering from it must be exceedingly painful to such feelings as yours. Fanny, it goes against us. We cannot attempt to defend Dr. Grant."

"I think the man who could often quarrel with Fanny,"

"must be beyond the reach of any sermons."

"There goes good-humour, I am sure,"

"There goes a temper which would never give pain! How well she walks! and how readily she falls in with the inclination of others! joining them the moment she is asked. What a pity,"

"that she should have been in such hands!"

"I like to hear your enthusiasm, Fanny. It is a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal."

"I had a very apt scholar. There's Arcturus looking very bright."

"We must go out on the lawn for that. Should you be afraid?"

"Yes; I do not know how it has happened."

"We will stay till this is finished, Fanny,"

"It is to his credit,"

"and I dare say it gives his sister pleasure. She does not like his unsettled habits."

"Yes, his manners to women are such as must please. Mrs. Grant, I believe, suspects him of a preference for Julia; I have never seen much symptom of it, but I wish it may be so. He has no faults but what a serious attachment would remove."

"Which is, perhaps, more in favour of his liking Julia best, than you, Fanny, may be aware; for I believe it often happens that a man, before he has quite made up his own mind, will distinguish the sister or intimate friend of the woman he is really thinking of more than the woman herself. Crawford has too much sense to stay here if he found himself in any danger from Maria; and I am not at all afraid for her, after such a proof as she has given that her feelings are not strong."

"If you want to dance, Fanny, I will stand up with you."

"I am glad of it,"

"for I am tired to death. I only wonder how the good people can keep it up so long. They had need be all in love, to find any amusement in such folly; and so they are, I fancy. If you look at them you may see they are so many couple of lovers— all but Yates and Mrs. Grant —and, between ourselves, she, poor woman, must want a lover as much as any one of them. A desperate dull life hers must be with the doctor,"

"A strange business this in America, Dr. Grant! What is your opinion? I always come to you to know what I am to think of public matters."

"I should be most happy,"

"it would give me the greatest pleasure; but that I am this moment going to dance."

"do not be dawdling any longer, or the dance will be over."

"A pretty modest request upon my word,"