"So! Rushworth and his fair bride are at
Brighton, I understand; happy man!"

"Yes, they have been there about a fortnight, Miss Price, have they not?
And Julia is with them."

"And Mr. Yates, I presume, is not far off."

"Mr. Yates! Oh! we hear nothing of Mr. Yates. I do not imagine he
figures much in the letters to Mansfield Park; do you, Miss Price? I
think my friend Julia knows better than to entertain her father with Mr.
Yates."

"Poor Rushworth and his two-and-forty speeches!" continued Crawford.
"Nobody can ever forget them. Poor fellow! I see him now--his toil and
his despair. Well, I am much mistaken if his lovely Maria will ever want
him to make two-and-forty speeches to her"; adding, with a momentary
seriousness, "She is too good for him--much too good." And then changing
his tone again to one of gentle gallantry, and addressing Fanny, he
said, "You were Mr. Rushworth's best friend. Your kindness and patience
can never be forgotten, your indefatigable patience in trying to make it
possible for him to learn his part--in trying to give him a brain
which nature had denied--to mix up an understanding for him out of the
superfluity of your own! _He_ might not have sense enough himself to
estimate your kindness, but I may venture to say that it had honour from
all the rest of the party."

Fanny coloured, and said nothing.

"It is as a dream, a pleasant dream!" he exclaimed, breaking forth
again, after a few minutes' musing. "I shall always look back on our
theatricals with exquisite pleasure. There was such an interest, such an
animation, such a spirit diffused. Everybody felt it. We were all alive.
There was employment, hope, solicitude, bustle, for every hour of
the day. Always some little objection, some little doubt, some little
anxiety to be got over. I never was happier."

With silent indignation Fanny repeated to herself, "Never
happier!--never happier than when doing what you must know was not
justifiable!--never happier than when behaving so dishonourably and
unfeelingly! Oh! what a corrupted mind!"

"We were unlucky, Miss Price," he continued, in a lower tone, to avoid
the possibility of being heard by Edmund, and not at all aware of her
feelings, "we certainly were very unlucky. Another week, only one other
week, would have been enough for us. I think if we had had the disposal
of events--if Mansfield Park had had the government of the winds
just for a week or two, about the equinox, there wou