e heard
this speech, and saw his look, and felt what his sensations must be.

"Lovers' Vows!" in a tone of the greatest amazement, was his only reply
to Mr. Rushworth, and he turned towards his brother and sisters as if
hardly doubting a contradiction.

"Yes," cried Mr. Yates. "After all our debatings and difficulties, we
find there is nothing that will suit us altogether so well, nothing so
unexceptionable, as Lovers' Vows. The wonder is that it should not have
been thought of before. My stupidity was abominable, for here we have
all the advantage of what I saw at Ecclesford; and it is so useful to
have anything of a model! We have cast almost every part."

"But what do you do for women?" said Edmund gravely, and looking at
Maria.

Maria blushed in spite of herself as she answered, "I take the part
which Lady Ravenshaw was to have done, and" (with a bolder eye) "Miss
Crawford is to be Amelia."

"I should not have thought it the sort of play to be so easily filled
up, with _us_," replied Edmund, turning away to the fire, where sat
his mother, aunt, and Fanny, and seating himself with a look of great
vexation.

Mr. Rushworth followed him to say, "I come in three times, and have
two-and-forty speeches. That's something, is not it? But I do not much
like the idea of being so fine. I shall hardly know myself in a blue
dress and a pink satin cloak."

Edmund could not answer him. In a few minutes Mr. Bertram was called
out of the room to satisfy some doubts of the carpenter; and being
accompanied by Mr. Yates, and followed soon afterwards by Mr. Rushworth,
Edmund almost immediately took the opportunity of saying, "I cannot,
before Mr. Yates, speak what I feel as to this play, without reflecting
on his friends at Ecclesford; but I must now, my dear Maria, tell _you_,
that I think it exceedingly unfit for private representation, and that I
hope you will give it up. I cannot but suppose you _will_ when you have
read it carefully over. Read only the first act aloud to either your
mother or aunt, and see how you can approve it. It will not be necessary
to send you to your _father's_ judgment, I am convinced."

"We see things very differently," cried Maria. "I am perfectly
acquainted with the play, I assure you; and with a very few omissions,
and so forth, which will be made, of course, I can see nothing
objectionable in it; and _I_ am not the _only_ young woman you find who
thinks it very fit for private representation."