f Edmund were but in orders!" cried Julia, and running to where he
stood with Miss Crawford and Fanny: "My dear Edmund, if you were but in
orders now, you might perform the ceremony directly. How unlucky that
you are not ordained; Mr. Rushworth and Maria are quite ready."

Miss Crawford's countenance, as Julia spoke, might have amused a
disinterested observer. She looked almost aghast under the new idea she
was receiving. Fanny pitied her. "How distressed she will be at what she
said just now," passed across her mind.

"Ordained!" said Miss Crawford; "what, are you to be a clergyman?"

"Yes; I shall take orders soon after my father's return--probably at
Christmas."

Miss Crawford, rallying her spirits, and recovering her complexion,
replied only, "If I had known this before, I would have spoken of the
cloth with more respect," and turned the subject.

The chapel was soon afterwards left to the silence and stillness
which reigned in it, with few interruptions, throughout the year. Miss
Bertram, displeased with her sister, led the way, and all seemed to feel
that they had been there long enough.

The lower part of the house had been now entirely shewn, and Mrs.
Rushworth, never weary in the cause, would have proceeded towards the
principal staircase, and taken them through all the rooms above, if her
son had not interposed with a doubt of there being time enough. "For
if," said he, with the sort of self-evident proposition which many a
clearer head does not always avoid, "we are _too_ long going over the
house, we shall not have time for what is to be done out of doors. It is
past two, and we are to dine at five."

Mrs. Rushworth submitted; and the question of surveying the grounds,
with the who and the how, was likely to be more fully agitated, and Mrs.
Norris was beginning to arrange by what junction of carriages and horses
most could be done, when the young people, meeting with an outward door,
temptingly open on a flight of steps which led immediately to turf and
shrubs, and all the sweets of pleasure-grounds, as by one impulse, one
wish for air and liberty, all walked out.

"Suppose we turn down here for the present," said Mrs. Rushworth,
civilly taking the hint and following them. "Here are the greatest
number of our plants, and here are the curious pheasants."

"Query," said Mr. Crawford, looking round him, "whether we may not find
something to employ us here before we go farther? I see walls of great
pro