ds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live
fifteen years we shall be completely taken in."

"Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that
purchase."

"Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when
there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and
healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it
comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You
are not aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the
trouble of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of
three to old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is
amazing how disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these
annuities were to be paid; and then there was the trouble of getting
it to them; and then one of them was said to have died, and afterwards
it turned out to be no such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her
income was not her own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it;
and it was the more unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money
would have been entirely at my mother's disposal, without any
restriction whatever. It has given me such an abhorrence of annuities,
that I am sure I would not pin myself down to the payment of one for
all the world."

"It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have
those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your
mother justly says, is _not_ one's own. To be tied down to the regular
payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it
takes away one's independence."

"Undoubtedly; and after all you have no thanks for it. They think
themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises
no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at
my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them any
thing yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a
hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses."

"I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should
be no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will
be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they
would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger
income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the
year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty
pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever be