Page:Austen - Mansfield Park, vol. I, 1814.djvu/268

 no longer, and I think, I may say, that nothing shall ever tempt me to it again. But one good thing I have just ascertained. It is the very room for a theatre, precisely the shape and length for it, and the doors at the farther end, communicating with each other as they may be made to do in five minutes, by merely moving the book-case in my father's room, is the very thing we could have desired, if we had set down to wish for it. And my father's room will be an excellent green-room. 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. In a general light, private theatricals are open to some objections, but as we are circumstanced, I must think it would be highly