ry
little hope of _him_ from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my sister, my
own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little."

"Do not flatter yourself, my dearest Mary. You have not the smallest
chance of moving me. I have my alarms, but they are quite in a different
quarter; and if I could have altered the weather, you would have had a
good sharp east wind blowing on you the whole time--for here are some of
my plants which Robert _will_ leave out because the nights are so mild,
and I know the end of it will be, that we shall have a sudden change of
weather, a hard frost setting in all at once, taking everybody (at least
Robert) by surprise, and I shall lose every one; and what is worse, cook
has just been telling me that the turkey, which I particularly wished
not to be dressed till Sunday, because I know how much more Dr. Grant
would enjoy it on Sunday after the fatigues of the day, will not keep
beyond to-morrow. These are something like grievances, and make me think
the weather most unseasonably close."

"The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!" said Miss Crawford
archly. "Commend me to the nurseryman and the poulterer."

"My dear child, commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St.
Paul's, and I should be as glad of your nurseryman and poulterer as you
could be. But we have no such people in Mansfield. What would you have
me do?"

"Oh! you can do nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often,
and never lose your temper."

"Thank you; but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, live
where we may; and when you are settled in town and I come to see you, I
dare say I shall find you with yours, in spite of the nurseryman and
the poulterer, perhaps on their very account. Their remoteness and
unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charges and frauds, will be drawing
forth bitter lamentations."

"I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anything of the sort.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It
certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it."

"You intend to be very rich?" said Edmund, with a look which, to Fanny's
eye, had a great deal of serious meaning.

"To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?"

"I cannot intend anything which it must be so completely beyond my power
to command. Miss Crawford may chuse her degree of wealth. She has only
to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no doubt of
their coming. My i