"Aye, do, Frank.-Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know a properer person for shewing us how to do away difficulties.
Fetch Miss Bates. We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be happy. But fetch them both.
Invite them both."
"Both sir! Can the old lady?"…
"The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece."
"Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect.
Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both."
And away he ran.
Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, brisk-moving aunt, and her elegant niece,-Mrs. Weston, like a sweet-tempered woman and a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it much less than she had supposed before-indeed very trifling; and here ended the difficulties of decision.
All the rest, in speculation at least, was perfectly smooth.