| You may smile, but it is so, I
assure you; and except that it is sometimes carried a little too far, it
is all very properGirls should be quiet and modestThe most objectionable
part is, that the alteration of manners on being introduced
into company is frequently too suddenThey sometimes pass
in such very little time from reserve to quite the opposite?to confidence!
That is the faulty part of the present systemOne does not
like to see a girl of eighteen or nineteen so immediately up to every
thing?and perhaps when one has seen her hardly able to speak the
year beforeBertram, I dare say you have sometimes met with
such changes
?I believe I have, but this is hardly fair; I see what you are atYou
are quizzing me and Miss Anderson
43
Jane Austen
?No, indeedMiss Anderson! I do not know who or what you
meanI am quite in the darkBut I will quiz you with a great deal of
pleasure, if you will chanel flap bag in canvas tell me what about
?Ah! you carry it off very well, but I cannot be quite so far imposed
onYou must have had Miss Anderson in your eye, in describing
an altered young ladyYou paint too accurately for mistakeThe Andersons of Baker StreetWe were speaking
of them the other day, you knowEdmund, you have heard me
mention Charles AndersonThe circumstance was precisely as this
lady has represented itWhen Anderson first introduced me to his
family, about two years ago, his sister was not out, and I could not
get her to speak to meI sat there an hour one morning waiting for
Anderson, with only her and a little girl or two in the room, the
governess being sick or run away, and the mother in and out every
moment with letters of business, and I could hardly get a word or a
look from the young lady?nothing like a civil answer?she screwed
up her mouth, and turned from me with such an air! I did not chanel j12 watches see
her again for a twelvemonth
Holford?s, and did not recollect herShe came up to me, claimed
me as an acquaintance, stared me out of countenance; and talked
and laughed till I did not know which way to lookI felt that I must
be the jest of the room at the time, and Miss Crawford, it is plain,
has heard the story
?And a very pretty story it is, and with more truth in it, I dare say,
than does credit to Miss AndersonIt is too common a faultMothers
certainly have not yet got quite the right way of managing their
daughtersI do not know where the error liesI do not pretend to
set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong
?Those who are showing the world what female manners should
be,? said MrBertram gallantly, ?are doing a great deal to set them
right
?The error is plain enough,? said the less courteous Edmund;
?such girls are ill brought upThey are given wrong notions from
the rolex wrist watches beginningThey are always acting upon motives of vanity, and
there is no more real modesty in their behaviour before they appear
in public than afterwards
?I do not know,? replied Miss Crawford hesitatingly?Yes, I can44
Mansfield Park
not agree with you thereIt is certainly the modestest part of the
businessIt is much worse to have girls not out give themselves the
same airs and take the same liberties as if they were, which I have
seen doneThat is worse than anything?quite disgusting!?
?Yes, that is very inconvenient indeed,? said Mr?It leads
one astray; one does not know what to doThe close bonnet and
demure air you describe so well (and nothing was ever juster), tell
one what is expected; but I got into a dreadful scrape last year from
the want of themI went down to Ramsgate for a week with a friend
last September, just after my return from the West IndiesMy friend
Sneyd?you have heard me tiffany |