Will it not be honourably conveyed?"
Edmund spoke of the harp as his favourite instrument,
and hoped to be soon allowed to hear her. Fanny had never
heard the harp at all, and wished for it very much.
"I shall be most happy to play to you both," said Miss
Crawford; "at least as long as you can like to listen:
probably much longer, for I dearly love music myself,
and where the natural taste is equal the player must
always be best off, for she is gratified in more ways
than one. Now, Mr. Bertram, if you write to your brother,
I entreat you to tell him that my harp is come:
he heard so much of my misery about it. And you may say,
if you please, that I shall prepare my most plaintive
airs against his return, in compassion to his feelings,
as I know his horse will lose."
"If I write, I will say whatever you wish me; but I do not,
at present, foresee any occasion for writing."
"No, I dare say, nor if he were to be gone a twelvemonth,
would you ever write to him, nor he to you, if it could
be helped. The occasion would never be foreseen.
What strange creatures brothers are! You would not write
to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world;
and when obliged to take up the pen to say that such a horse
is ill, or such a relation dead, it is done in the fewest
possible words.
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