“Such a horribly vile billiard-table as ours is not to be met with. I can stand it no longer, and nothing shall ever tempt me to use it again. I say, let us pack it up and send it to Egypt! Give them something of ours for a change! Instead, this room can be adapted into a theatre, precisely the shape and length for it; with doors at the farther end. By merely moving the bookcase in my father’s room, it will be an excellent greenroom. It seems to join the billiard-room on purpose.”

“You are not serious, Tom, in meaning to act?” said Edmund, in a low voice, as his brother approached the fire.

“Not serious! never more so, I assure you. What is there to surprise you in it?”

“I think it would be very wrong[11]. In a general light, private theatricals are open to some objections, but as we are circumstanced, I must think it would be highly injudicious. It would shew great want of feeling on my father’s account, absent as he is, and it would be imprudent with regard to Maria, whose situation is a very delicate one.”

“You take up a thing so seriously! as if we were going to act three times a week and invite all the country. But no, we mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, no audience, no publicity. And as to my father’s being absent, the expectation of his return must be a very anxious period to my mother. We can be her means of amusement, keeping up her spirits for the next few weeks. Our mother suffers so!”

As he said this, each looked towards their mother. Lady Bertram, sunk back in one corner of the sofa, the picture of health, wealth, ease, and tranquility, was just falling into a gentle doze over a pile of rolled up papyrus, while Fanny was getting through the few difficulties of her work for her—all the while observed subtly by Lord Eastwind.

Edmund smiled and shook his head.

“By Jove! this won’t do,” cried Tom, throwing himself into a chair with a hearty laugh. “To be sure, my dear mother, your anxiety—I was unlucky there.”

“What is the matter?” asked her ladyship, in the heavy tone of one half-roused; “I was not asleep, merely discussing with the Pharaoh matters of grave import to his esteemed plans for achieving the Divine Living Eternity.”

“Oh dear, no, ma’am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund,” he continued, returning to the former subject, posture, and voice, as soon as Lady Bertram began to nod again, “but this I will maintain, that we shall be doing no harm.”

“I cannot agree with you; I am convinced that my father would totally disapprove it.”