Norris should ever have it
in her power to tell them, as she now and then did,
in an angry voice, that Fanny had got another child.
By the end of eleven years, however, Mrs. Price could no
longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose one
connexion that might possibly assist her. A large and still
increasing family, an husband disabled for active service,
but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a
very small income to supply their wants, made her eager
to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed;
and she addressed Lady Bertram in a letter which spoke
so much contrition and despondence, such a superfluity
of children, and such a want of almost everything else,
as could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation.
She was preparing for her ninth lying-in; and after
bewailing the circumstance, and imploring their countenance
as sponsors to the expected child, she could not conceal
how important she felt they might be to the future
maintenance of the eight already in being. Her eldest
was a boy of ten years old, a fine spirited fellow,
who longed to be out in the world; but what could she do?
Was there any chance of his being hereafter useful to Sir
Thomas in the concerns of his West Indian property?
No situation would be beneath him; or what did Sir Thomas
think of Woolwich? or how could a boy be sent out to
the East?
The letter was not unproductive.
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