_ do not subscribe to it. I am sure
Miss Bertram is very much attached to Mr. Rushworth. I could see it in
her eyes, when he was mentioned. I think too well of Miss Bertram to
suppose she would ever give her hand without her heart."

"Mary, how shall we manage him?"

"We must leave him to himself, I believe. Talking does no good. He will
be taken in at last."

"But I would not have him _taken_ _in_; I would not have him duped; I
would have it all fair and honourable."

"Oh dear! let him stand his chance and be taken in. It will do just as
well. Everybody is taken in at some period or other."

"Not always in marriage, dear Mary."

"In marriage especially. With all due respect to such of the present
company as chance to be married, my dear Mrs. Grant, there is not one in
a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry. Look where
I will, I see that it _is_ so; and I feel that it _must_ be so, when I
consider that it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect
most from others, and are least honest themselves."

"Ah! You have been in a bad school for matrimony, in Hill Street."

"My poor aunt had certainly little cause to love the state; but,
however, speaking from my own observation, it is a manoeuvring business.
I know so many who have married in the full expectation and confidence
of some one particular advantage in the connexion, or accomplishment, or
good quality in the person, who have found themselves entirely deceived,
and been obliged to put up with exactly the reverse. What is this but a
take in?"

"My dear child, there must be a little imagination here. I beg your
pardon, but I cannot quite believe you. Depend upon it, you see but
half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will
be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to
expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human
nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make
a second better: we find comfort somewhere--and those evil-minded
observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in
and deceived than the parties themselves."

"Well done, sister! I honour your _esprit_ _du_ _corps_. When I am a
wife, I mean to be just as staunch myself; and I wish my friends in
general would be so too. It would save me many a heartache."

"You are as bad as your brother, Mary; but we will cure you both.
Mansfield shall cure you both, and with