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to call them the arbiters of good-breeding, the regulators
of refinement and courtesy, the masters of the ceremonies
of life. The _manners_ I speak of might rather be
called _conduct_, perhaps, the result of good principles;
the effect, in short, of those doctrines which it
is their duty to teach and recommend; and it will,
I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are,
or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of
the nation."

"Certainly," said Fanny, with gentle earnestness.

"There," cried Miss Crawford, "you have quite convinced
Miss Price already."

"I wish I could convince Miss Crawford too."

"I do not think you ever will," said she, with an arch smile;
"I am just as much surprised now as I was at first
that you should intend to take orders. You really are
fit for something better. Come, do change your mind.
It is not too late. Go into the law."

"Go into the law! With as much ease as I was told to go
into this wilderness."

"Now you are going to say something about law being
the worst wilderness of the two, but I forestall you;
remember, I have forestalled you."

"You need not hurry when the object is only to prevent
my saying a _bon_ _mot_, for there is not the least wit in
my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being,
and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half
an hour together without striking it out."

A general silence succeeded. Each was thoughtful.
Fanny made the first interruption by saying, "I wonder
that I should be tired with only walking in this sweet wood;
but the next time we come to a seat, if it is not disagreeable
to you, I should be glad to sit down for a little while."

"My dear Fanny," cried Edmund, immediately drawing her arm
within his, "how thoughtless I have been! I hope you
are not very tired. Perhaps," turning to Miss Crawford,
"my other companion may do me the honour of taking an arm."

"Thank you, but I am not at all tired." She took it,
however, as she spoke, and the gratification of having
her do so, of feeling such a connexion for the first time,
made him a little forgetful of Fanny. "You scarcely
touch me," said he. "You do not make me of any use.
What a difference in the weight of a woman's arm from
that of a man! At Oxford I have been a good deal used
to have a man lean on me for the length of a street,
and you are only a fly in the comparison."

"I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at;
for we must have walked at least a mile in this wood.
Do not you think we have?"

"Not half a mile," was his sturdy answer; for he was not yet
so much in love as to measure distance, or reckon time,
with feminine lawlessness.

"Oh! you do not consider how much we have wound about.
We have taken such a very serpentine course, and the wood
itself must be half a mile long in a straight line,
for we have never seen the end of it yet since we left
the first great path."

"But if you remember, before we left that first great path,
we saw directly to the end of it.

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