puntermendel555

@@@@@ She was deep in other musingThe remembrance of her first evening in that room, of her father and his newspaper, came across herNo candle was now wantedThe sun was yet an hour and half above the horizonShe felt that she had, indeed, been three months there; and the sun?s rays falling strongly into the parlour, instead of cheering, made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town and in the countryHere, its 385 Jane Austen power was only a glare: a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring forward stains and dirt that might otherwise have sleptThere was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a townShe sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the walls, marked by her father?s head, to the table cut and notched by her brothers, where stood the tea-board never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca?s hands had first produced itHer father read his newspaper, and her mother lamented over the ragged carpet as usual, while the tea was in preparation, and wished Rebecca would mend it; and Fanny was first roused by his calling out to her, after humphing and considering over a particular paragraph: ?What?s the name of your great cousins in town, Fan?? A moment?s recollection enabled her to say, ?Rushworth, sir ?And don?t they live in Wimpole Street?? ?Yes, sir ?Then, there?s the devil to pay among them, that?s all! There? (holding out the paper to her); ?much good may such fine relations do youI don?t know what Sir Thomas may think of such matters; he may be too much of the courtier and fine gentleman to like his daughter the lessBut, by G?! if she belonged to me, I?d give her the rope?s end as long as I could stand over herA little flogging for man and woman too would be the best way of preventing such things Fanny read to herself that ?it was with infinite concern the newspaper had to announce to the world a matrimonial fracas in the family of Mrof Wimpole Street; the beautiful Mrs whose name had not long been enrolled in the lists of Hymen, and who had promised to become so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world, having quitted her husband?s roof in company with the well-known and captivating Mr the intimate friend and associate of Mr and it was not known even to the editor of the newspaper whither they were gone ?It is a mistake, sir,? said Fanny instantly; ?it must be a mistake, it cannot be true; it must mean some other people 386 Mansfield Park She spoke from the instinctive wish of delaying shame; she spoke with a resolution which sprung from despair, for she spoke what she did not, could not believe herselfIt had been the shock of conviction as she readThe truth rushed on her; and how she could have spoken at all, how she could even have breathed, was afterwards matter of wonder to herselfPrice cared too little about the report to make her much answer ?It might be all a lie,? he acknowledged; ?but so many fine ladies were going to the devil nowadays that way, that there was no answering for anybod