r less ornament and beauty. I
think the house and premises may be made comfortable, and given the air
of a gentleman's residence, without any very heavy expense, and that
must suffice me; and, I hope, may suffice all who care about me."

Miss Crawford, a little suspicious and resentful of a certain tone of
voice, and a certain half-look attending the last expression of his
hope, made a hasty finish of her dealings with William Price; and
securing his knave at an exorbitant rate, exclaimed, "There, I will
stake my last like a woman of spirit. No cold prudence for me. I am not
born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be
from not striving for it."

The game was hers, and only did not pay her for what she had given
to secure it. Another deal proceeded, and Crawford began again about
Thornton Lacey.

"My plan may not be the best possible: I had not many minutes to form
it in; but you must do a good deal. The place deserves it, and you
will find yourself not satisfied with much less than it is capable of.
(Excuse me, your ladyship must not see your cards. There, let them lie
just before you.) The place deserves it, Bertram. You talk of giving it
the air of a gentleman's residence. _That_ will be done by the removal
of the farmyard; for, independent of that terrible nuisance, I never saw
a house of the kind which had in itself so much the air of a
gentleman's residence, so much the look of a something above a mere
parsonage-house--above the expenditure of a few hundreds a year. It is
not a scrambling collection of low single rooms, with as many roofs
as windows; it is not cramped into the vulgar compactness of a square
farmhouse: it is a solid, roomy, mansion-like looking house, such as
one might suppose a respectable old country family had lived in from
generation to generation, through two centuries at least, and were now
spending from two to three thousand a year in." Miss Crawford listened,
and Edmund agreed to this. "The air of a gentleman's residence,
therefore, you cannot but give it, if you do anything. But it is capable
of much more. (Let me see, Mary; Lady Bertram bids a dozen for that
queen; no, no, a dozen is more than it is worth. Lady Bertram does not
bid a dozen. She will have nothing to say to it. Go on, go on.) By some
such improvements as I have suggested (I do not really require you to
proceed upon my plan, though, by the bye, I doubt anybody's striking out
a better) you may give