Page:Austen - Mansfield Park, vol. III, 1814.djvu/293

 confusion of guilt, too gross a complication of evil, for human nature, not in a state of utter barbarism, to be capable of!—yet, her judgment told her it was so. His unsettled affections, wavering with his vanity, Maria's decided attachment—and no sufficient principle on either side, gave it possibility—Miss Crawford's letter stampt it a fact.

What would be the consequence? Whom would it not injure? Whose views might it not effect? Whose peace would it not cut up for ever? Miss Crawford herself—Edmund; but it was dangerous, perhaps, to tread such ground. She confined herself, or tried to confine herself to the simple, indubitable family-misery which must envelope all, if it were indeed a matter of certified guilt and public exposure. The mother's sufferings, the father's—there, she paused. Julia's, Tom's, Edmund's—there, a yet longer pause. They were the two on whom it would fall most horribly. Sir Thomas's parental solicitude, and high sense