to finish the basket after supper you are very good i hope it won t hurt your eyes � will you ring the bell for some working candles my poor girl would be sadly disappointed i know if the basket was not finished to morrow for though i told her it certainly would not i am sure she depends upon having it done drew her work table near her and herself with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste no greater delight than in making a basket for a spoilt child lady proposed a rubber of to the others no one made any objection but who with her usual to the forms of general civility exclaimed your will have the goodness to excuse me � you know i cards i shall go to the i have not touched it since it was and without ceremony she turned away and walked to the instrument lady looked as if she thanked heaven that she had never made so rude a speech can never keep long from that instrument you know ma am said endeavouring to smooth away the offence and i do not much wonder at it for it is the very best toned i ever heard the remaining five were now to draw their cards perhaps continued if i should happen sense and sensibility to cut out i may be of some use to miss in rolling her papers for her and is so much still to be done to the basket that it must be impossible i thinks for her labour singly to finish it this i should like the work exceedingly if she would a share in it indeed i shall be very much obliged to you for your help cried for i find there is more to be done to it than i thought there was and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear after all oh that would be terrible indeed said miss dear little soul how i do we her you are very kind said lady to and as you really like the work perhaps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till another of will you take your chance now joyfully by the first of these proposals and thus by a little of that address which could never condescend to practise gained her own end and pleased lady at the same time made room for her with ready attention and the two fair rivals were thus seated side by side at the same table and with the utmost harmony engaged in die same work the at which up in ho own music and her own thoughts had � by this time forgotten that anybody was in the room besides herself was luckily so near them that miss dash wood now judged she might safely under the shelter of its noise introduce the interesting subject without any risk of being heard at the card table � i sense and i n a firm though thus began i be of the you have honoured me with if i felt no desire for its continuance or no farther curiosity on its subjects i will not therefore for bringing it forward again thank you cried warmly for breaking the ice you have set my heart at ease by it for i waa somehow or other afraid i had you by what l you that monday offended me how could you suppose so believe me and spoke it with the truest sincerity nothing could be farther from my intention than to give you such an idea could you have a for uie trust that was not honourable and flattering to me and yet i do assure you replied her little eyes full of meaning there seemed to me to be a coldness and displeasure in your manner that made me quite uncomfortable i felt sure that you was angry with me and have been quarrelling with myself ever since for having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my af but i am very glad to find it was only own fancy and that you do not really blame me if you knew what a it was to me to relieve my heart by speaking to you of what i am always think ing of every moment of my life your compassion would make you overlook everything else i am sure indeed i can easily believe that it was a very great relief to you to acknowledge your situation to me and be assured that you shall never have reason to repent it your case is a very unfortunate one you seem to me to be surrounded with difficulties and you will have sense and sensibility need of all your mutual affection to support you under them mr i believe is entirely dependent on his mother he has only two thousand pounds of his own it would be madness to marry upon that though for my own part i could give up every prospect of more without a sigh i have been always used to a very small income and could struggle with any poverty for him but i love him too well to be the means of him perhaps of all that his mother might give him if he married to please her we must wait it may be for many years with almost every other man in the world it would be an alarming prospect but edward s affection and constancy nothing can deprive me of i know that conviction must be to you and he is undoubtedly supported by the same trust in yours if the strength of your attachment had failed as between many people and under many circumstances it naturally would during a four years engagement your would have been pitiable indeed here looked up but was careful in guarding her from every expression that could give her words a suspicious tendency edward 