I was to decide on the best of them. ‘My dear Courtland,’
said I, immediately throwing them all into the fire, ‘do not adopt either of them, but by all means build a cottage.’
And that I fancy, will be the end of it.
“Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a cottage; but this is all a mistake.
I was last month at my friend Elliott’s, near Dartford.
Lady Elliott wished to give a dance. ‘But how can it be done?’ said she; ‘my dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is to be managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten couple, and where can the supper be?’
I immediately saw that there could be no difficulty in it, so I said, ‘My dear Lady Elliott, do not be uneasy.
The dining parlour will admit eighteen couple with ease; card-tables may be placed in the drawing-room; the library may be open for tea and other refreshments; and let the
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supper be set out in the saloon.’ Lady Elliott was delighted with the thought. We measured the dining-room, and found it would hold exactly eighteen couple, and the affair was arranged precisely after my plan. So that, in fact, you see, if people do but know how to set about it, every comfort may be as well enjoyed in a cottage as in the most spacious dwelling.”
Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think
he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.
As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister, his mind was equally at liberty to fix on any thing else; and a thought struck him during the evening, which he communicated to his wife, for her approbation, when they got home. The consideration of Mrs. Dennison’s mistake, in supposing his sisters their guests, had suggested the propriety of their being really invited to become such, while Mrs. Jenning’s engagements kept her from home.
The expense would be nothing, the inconvenience not more; and it was altogether an attention which the delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be requisite to its complete enfranchisement from his promise to his father.
Fanny was startled at the proposal.
“I do not see how it can be done,” said she,
“without affronting Lady Middleton, for they spend every day with her; otherwise I should be exceedingly glad to do it.
You know I am always ready to pay them any attention in my power, as my taking them out this evening shews.
But they are Lady Middleton’s visitors. How can I ask them away from her?”
Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her objection. “They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the same number of days to such near relations.”
Fanny paused a moment, and then, with fresh vigor, said,
“My love I would ask them with all my heart, if it was in my power. But I had just settled within myself to ask the Miss Steeles to spend a few days with us.
They are very well behaved, good kind of girls; and I think the attention is due to them, as their uncle did so very well by Edward. We can ask your sisters some other year, you know; but the Miss Steeles may not be in town any more.
I am sure you will like them; indeed, you DO like them, you know, very much already, and so does my mother; and they are such favourites with Harry!”
Mr. Dashwood was convinced. He saw the necessity of inviting the Miss Steeles immediately, and his conscience was pacified by the resolution of inviting his sisters another year; at the same time, however, slyly suspecting that another year would make the invitation needless,
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by bringing Elinor to town as Colonel Brandon’s wife, and Marianne as THEIR visitor.
Fanny, rejoicing in her escape, and proud of the ready wit that had procured it, wrote the next morning to Lucy, to request her company and her sister’s, for some days, in Harley Street, as soon as Lady Middleton could spare them.