said nothing. After a moment’s thought, Miss Crawford calmly replied, “As far as I am concerned, I can have no objection to anything that you all think eligible. Have I ever seen either of the gentlemen? Yes, Mr. Charles Maddox dined at my sister’s one day, did not he, Henry? A quiet-looking young man. I remember him. Let him be applied to, if you please, for it will be less unpleasant to me than to have a perfect stranger.”

Charles Maddox was to be the man. Tom repeated his resolution of going to him early on the morrow; and though Julia, who had scarcely opened her lips before, observed, in a sarcastic manner, and with a glance first at Maria and then at Edmund, that “the Mansfield theatricals would enliven the whole neighbourhood exceedingly,” Edmund still held his peace, and showed his feelings only by a determined gravity.

“I am not very sanguine as to our play,” said Miss Crawford, in an under voice to Fanny, after some consideration; “and I can tell Mr. Maddox that I shall shorten some of his speeches, and a great many of my own, before we rehearse together. It will be very disagreeable, and by no means what I expected.”

Uploaded July 11, 1994 Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane Austen