re of your great book. I
admire your little establishment exceedingly; and as soon as I am
gone, you will empty your head of all this nonsense of acting, and sit
comfortably down to your table. But do not stay here to be cold."

He went; but there was no reading, no China, no composure for Fanny. He
had told her the most extraordinary, the most inconceivable, the most
unwelcome news; and she could think of nothing else. To be acting! After
all his objections--objections so just and so public! After all that she
had heard him say, and seen him look, and known him to be feeling. Could
it be possible? Edmund so inconsistent! Was he not deceiving himself?
Was he not wrong? Alas! it was all Miss Crawford's doing. She had seen
her influence in every speech, and was miserable. The doubts and alarms
as to her own conduct, which had previously distressed her, and
which had all slept while she listened to him, were become of little
consequence now. This deeper anxiety swallowed them up. Things should
take their course; she cared not how it ended. Her cousins might attack,
but could hardly tease her. She was beyond their reach; and if at last
obliged to yield--no matter--it was all misery now.

CHAPTER XVII

It was, indeed, a triumphant day to Mr. Bertram and Maria. Such a
victory over Edmund's discretion had been beyond their hopes, and was
most delightful. There was no longer anything to disturb them in their
darling project, and they congratulated each other in private on the
jealous weakness to which they attributed the change, with all the glee
of feelings gratified in every way. Edmund might still look grave, and
say he did not like the scheme in general, and must disapprove the play
in particular; their point was gained: he was to act, and he was driven
to it by the force of selfish inclinations only. Edmund had descended
from that moral elevation which he had maintained before, and they were
both as much the better as the happier for the descent.

They behaved very well, however, to _him_ on the occasion, betraying no
exultation beyond the lines about the corners of the mouth, and seemed
to think it as great an escape to be quit of the intrusion of Charles
Maddox, as if they had been forced into admitting him against their
inclination. "To have it quite in their own family circle was what
they had particularly wished. A stranger among them would have been the
destruction of all their comfort"; and when Edmund, pursu