Price plaintively;
"it would be so very shocking! If I have spoken once
to Rebecca about that carpet, I am sure I have spoke at
least a dozen times; have not I, Betsey? And it would
not be ten minutes' work."
The horror of a mind like Fanny's, as it received the
conviction of such guilt, and began to take in some part
of the misery that must ensue, can hardly be described.
At first, it was a sort of stupefaction; but every moment
was quickening her perception of the horrible evil.
She could not doubt, she dared not indulge a hope,
of the paragraph being false. Miss Crawford's letter,
which she had read so often as to make every line her own,
was in frightful conformity with it. Her eager defence
of her brother, her hope of its being _hushed_ _up_,
her evident agitation, were all of a piece with something
very bad; and if there was a woman of character in existence,
who could treat as a trifle this sin of the first magnitude,
who would try to gloss it over, and desire to have it
unpunished, she could believe Miss Crawford to be the woman!
Now she could see her own mistake as to _who_ were gone,
or _said_ to be gone.
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