me and that being the case you must be aware that my wish would be to remain with lady to the last and besides what i felt on her account i have really been so busy have had so much to do that i could not very conveniently have left sooner dear me what can you possibly have to do a great many things i assure you more than i can in a moment but i can tell you some i have been making a of t e catalogue of my father s books and � pictures i have been several times in the garden with trying to understand and make him understand which of elizabeth s plants are for lady i have had all my own little concerns to arrange books and music to divide and all my trunks to from not having understood in time what was intended as to the and one thing i have had to do mary of a more trying nature going to almost every house in the parish as a sort of take leave i was told that they wished it but all these things took up a great deal of time oh well and after a moment s pause but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the yesterday did you go then i have made no because i concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party oh yes i went i was very well yesterday nothing at all the matter with me till this morning it would have been strange if i had not gone i am very glad you were well enough and i hope you had b pleasant party persuasion nothing remarkable one always knows beforehand what the dinner will be and who will be there and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one s own mr and mrs took me and we were so crowded they are both so very large and take up so much room and mr always sits forward so there was i crowded into the back seat with and and i think it very likely that my illness to day may be owing to it a little farther perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on anne s side produced nearly a cure on mary s she could soon sit upright on the sofa and began to hope she might be able to leave it by dinner time forgetting to think of it she was at the other end of the room a then she ate her cold meat and then she was well enough to propose a little wall where shall we go said she when they were ready i suppose you will not like to call at the great house before they have been to see you i have not the smallest objection on that account replied anne i should never think of standing on such ceremony with people i know so well as mrs and the miss oh but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible they ought to feel what is due to you as ray sister however we may as well go and sit with them a little while and when we have got that over we can enjoy our walk anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly but she had ceased to endeavour to check it from believing that though there were on each side continual subjects of offence neither family could now do without it to the great house accordingly they went to sit the full half hour in the old fashioned square parlour with a small carpet and shining floor to which the present daughters of the house were gradually giving the proper air of confusion by a grand piano and a harp flower stands and little tables placed in every direction oh could the of the portraits against the could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue satin have seen what was going on have been conscious of such an overthrow of all order and neatness i the portraits themselves seemed to be staring in persuasion the like their houses were in a state or tion perhaps of improvement the father and mother were in the old english style and the young people in the new mr and mrs were a very good sort of people friendly and hospitable not much educated and not at all elegant their children had more modern minds and manners there was a numerous family but the only two grown up excepting charles were and young ladies of nineteen and twenty who had brought from a school at all the usual stock of accomplishments and were now like thousands of other young ladies living to be fashionable happy and merry their dress had every advantage their faces were rather pretty their spirits extremely good their manners and pleasant they were of consequence at home and abroad anne always contemplated them as some of the happiest creatures of her acquaintance but still saved as we all are by some comfortable feeling of superiority from wishing for the possibility of exchange she would not have given up her own more elegant and cultivated mind for all their and envied them nothing but that seemingly perfect good understanding and agreement together that good humoured mutual of which she had known so little herself with either of her sisters they were received with great cordiality nothing seemed amiss on the side of the great house family which was generally as anne very well knew the least to blame the half hour was away pleasantly enough and she was not at all surprised at the end of it to have their walking party joined by both the miss at mary s particular invitation chapter vi anne had not wanted this visit to to learn that a removal from one set of people to another though at 