icularly as he spoke. But Miss
Bertram thought it most becoming to reply--

"The avenue! Oh! I do not recollect it. I really know very little of
Sotherton."

Fanny, who was sitting on the other side of Edmund, exactly opposite
Miss Crawford, and who had been attentively listening, now looked at
him, and said in a low voice--

"Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does it not make you think of Cowper?
'Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.'"

He smiled as he answered, "I am afraid the avenue stands a bad chance,
Fanny."

"I should like to see Sotherton before it is cut down, to see the place
as it is now, in its old state; but I do not suppose I shall."

"Have you never been there? No, you never can; and, unluckily, it is out
of distance for a ride. I wish we could contrive it."

"Oh! it does not signify. Whenever I do see it, you will tell me how it
has been altered."

"I collect," said Miss Crawford, "that Sotherton is an old place, and a
place of some grandeur. In any particular style of building?"

"The house was built in Elizabeth's time, and is a large, regular, brick
building; heavy, but respectable looking, and has many good rooms. It
is ill placed. It stands in one of the lowest spots of the park; in that
respect, unfavourable for improvement. But the woods are fine, and
there is a stream, which, I dare say, might be made a good deal of. Mr.
Rushworth is quite right, I think, in meaning to give it a modern dress,
and I have no doubt that it will be all done extremely well."

Miss Crawford listened with submission, and said to herself, "He is a
well-bred man; he makes the best of it."

"I do not wish to influence Mr. Rushworth," he continued; "but, had I
a place to new fashion, I should not put myself into the hands of an
improver. I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own
choice, and acquired progressively. I would rather abide by my own
blunders than by his."

"_You_ would know what you were about, of course; but that would not
suit _me_. I have no eye or ingenuity for such matters, but as they are
before me; and had I a place of my own in the country, I should be most
thankful to any Mr. Repton who would undertake it, and give me as much
beauty as he could for my money; and I should never look at it till it
was complete."

"It would be delightful to _me_ to see the progress of it all," said
Fanny.

"Ay, you have been brought up to it. It was no part of my edu