I found that I had been asking the most unreasonable, most impossible
thing in the world; had offended all the farmers, all the labourers,
all the hay in the parish! As for Dr. Grant's bailiff, I believe I had
better keep out of _his_ way; and my brother-in-law himself, who is all
kindness in general, looked rather black upon me when he found what I
had been at."

"You could not be expected to have thought on the subject before; but
when you _do_ think of it, you must see the importance of getting in
the grass. The hire of a cart at any time might not be so easy as you
suppose: our farmers are not in the habit of letting them out; but, in
harvest, it must be quite out of their power to spare a horse."

"I shall understand all your ways in time; but, coming down with the
true London maxim, that everything is to be got with money, I was a
little embarrassed at first by the sturdy independence of your country
customs. However, I am to have my harp fetched to-morrow. Henry, who is
good-nature itself, has offered to fetch it in his barouche. Will it not
be honourably conveyed?"

Edmund spoke of the harp as his favourite instrument, and hoped to be
soon allowed to hear her. Fanny had never heard the harp at all, and
wished for it very much.

"I shall be most happy to play to you both," said Miss Crawford; "at
least as long as you can like to listen: probably much longer, for
I dearly love music myself, and where the natural taste is equal the
player must always be best off, for she is gratified in more ways than
one. Now, Mr. Bertram, if you write to your brother, I entreat you to
tell him that my harp is come: he heard so much of my misery about it.
And you may say, if you please, that I shall prepare my most plaintive
airs against his return, in compassion to his feelings, as I know his
horse will lose."

"If I write, I will say whatever you wish me; but I do not, at present,
foresee any occasion for writing."

"No, I dare say, nor if he were to be gone a twelvemonth, would you ever
write to him, nor he to you, if it could be helped. The occasion would
never be foreseen. What strange creatures brothers are! You would not
write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world; and
when obliged to take up the pen to say that such a horse is ill, or such
a relation dead, it is done in the fewest possible words. You have but
one style among you. I know it perfectly. Henry, who is in every other
respect exac