could not seriously expect such a thing. Sir Thomas is too much my friend. Nobody that wishes me well, I am sure, would propose it. How came Sir Thomas to speak to you about it? '
"'Indeed, I do not know, I suppose he thought it best.'
"'But what did he say? He could not say he wished me to take Fanny. I am sure in his heart he could not wish me to do it.'
"'No; he only said he thought it very likely; and I thought so too. We both thought it would be a comfort to you. But if you do not like it, there is no more to be said. She is no incumbrance here.'
"'Dear sister, if you consider my unhappy state, how can she be any comfort to me? Here am I, a poor desolate widow, deprived of the best of husbands, my health gone in attending and nursing him, my spirits still worse, all my peace in this world destroyed, with barely enough to support me in the rank of a gentlewoman, and enable me to live so as not to disgrace the memory of the dear departed; what possible comfort could I have in taking such a charge upon me as Fanny? . . .'
"'Then you will not mind living by yourself quite alone?'
"'Dear Lady Bertram, what am I fit for but solitude? Now and then I shall hope to have a friend in my little cottage (I shall always have a bed for a friend), but the most part of my future days will be spent in utter seclusion. If I can but make both ends meet, that 's all I ask for.'
"'I hope, sister, things are not so very bad with you neither, considering Sir Thomas says you will have six hundred a year.'
