“If Edmund were but in orders!” cried Julia, and running to where he stood with Miss Crawford and Fanny: “My dear Edmund, if you were but in orders now, you might perform the ceremony directly. How unlucky that you are not ordained; Mr. Rushworth and Maria are quite ready.”

Miss Crawford’s countenance, as Julia spoke, might have amused a disinterested observer. No vicious flying demon fowl-spawn from hell could ever do the damage that a single spoken line of information could accomplish. Miss Crawford looked almost aghast under the new idea she was receiving. Fanny pitied her. “How distressed she will be at what she said just now,” passed across her mind.

“Ordained!” said Miss Crawford; “what, are you to be a clergyman?”

“Yes; I shall take orders soon after my father’s return—probably at Christmas.”

Miss Crawford rallied her spirits, and recovered her complexion—yet for the second time in one half hour. “If I had known this before, I would have spoken of the cloth with more respect,” she said, and changed the subject.

The chapel was soon afterwards left to the silence and stillness which reigned in it. Miss Bertram, displeased with her sister, led the way, and all seemed to feel that they had been there long enough.

The lower part of the house was now entirely shewn. Mrs. Rushworth, never weary in the cause, would have proceeded towards the principal staircase, and taken them through all the rooms above, if her son had not interposed with a doubt of there being time enough. “For if,” said he, “we are too long going over the house, we shall not have time for what is to be done out of doors. It is past two, and we are to dine at five. Grrooooowwwrrrgh! Ahem.”

Mrs. Rushworth submitted. The question of surveying the grounds, with the who and the how, was likely to be more fully agitated, and Mrs. Norris was beginning to arrange by what junction of carriages and horses most could be done, when the young people, meeting with an outward door—temptingly open on a flight of steps which led immediately to turf and shrubs, and all the sweets of pleasure-grounds—as by one impulse, one wish for air and liberty, all walked out.

“Suppose we turn down here for the present,” said Mrs. Rushworth, civilly taking the hint and following them. “Here are the greatest number of our plants, and the curious pheasants.”

“Query,” said Mr. Crawford, looking round him, “whether we may not find something to employ us here before we go farther? I see walls of great promise. Mr. Rushworth, shall we summon a council on this lawn?”

“James,” said Mrs. Rushworth to her son, “I believe the wilderness will be new to all the party. The Miss Bertrams have never seen the wilderness yet. I trust you to—ahem—handle yourself. And if you run into the horrid duck creature that attacked Miss Crawford, pray, handle it.”