Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/120

 though I could never feel for this little girl the hundredth part of the regard I bear your own dear children, nor consider her, in any respect, so much my own, I should hate myself if I were capable of neglecting her. Is not she a sister's child? and could I bear to see her want while I had a bit of bread to give her? My dear Sir Thomas, with all my faults I have a warm heart; and, poor as I am, would rather deny myself the necessaries of life than do an ungenerous thing. So, if you are not against it, I will write to my poor sister to-morrow, and make the proposal; and, as soon as matters are settled, I will engage to get the child to Mansfield; you shall have no trouble about it. My own trouble, you know, I never regard.

It is easy to guess after this what Mrs. Norris's share of the undertaking will amount to; but Sir Thomas has not yet learnt to see through his sister-in-law, and the arrangement is carried out as she has planned it, and in the full belief that she will take her fair share in it.

"When the subject was brought forward again, her views were more fully explained, and, in reply to Lady Bertram's calm inquiry of, 'Where shall the child come to first, sister; to you or to us?' Sir Thomas heard with some surprise that it would be totally out of Mrs. Norris's power to take any share in the personal charge of her. He had been considering her as a particularly welcome addition at the Parsonage, as a desirable companion to an aunt who had no children of her own; but he found himself wholly mistaken. Mrs. Norris was sorry to say that the little girl's staying with them, at least as things then were, was out of the question. Poor Mr. Norris's indifferent state of health made it an impossibility: he