Mrs. Norris, however, had gone home and taken down two
old prayer-books of her husband with that idea; but,
upon examination, the ardour of generosity went off.
One was found to have too small a print for a child's eyes,
and the other to be too cumbersome for her to carry about.
Fanny, fatigued and fatigued again, was thankful to accept
the first invitation of going to bed; and before Betsey
had finished her cry at being allowed to sit up only one
hour extraordinary in honour of sister, she was off,
leaving all below in confusion and noise again; the boys
begging for toasted cheese, her father calling out for his
rum and water, and Rebecca never where she ought to be.
There was nothing to raise her spirits in the confined
and scantily furnished chamber that she was to share
with Susan. The smallness of the rooms above and below,
indeed, and the narrowness of the passage and staircase,
struck her beyond her imagination. She soon learned to think
with respect of her own little attic at Mansfield Park,
in _that_ house reckoned too small for anybody's comfort.
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