the picture of health, wealth, ease, and tranquillity,
was just falling into a gentle doze, while Fanny was getting
through the few difficulties of her work for her.

Edmund smiled and shook his head.

"By Jove! this won't do," cried Tom, throwing himself into
a chair with a hearty laugh. "To be sure, my dear mother,
your anxiety--I was unlucky there."

"What is the matter?" asked her ladyship, in the heavy
tone of one half-roused; "I was not asleep."

"Oh dear, no, ma'am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund,"
he continued, returning to the former subject, posture,
and voice, as soon as Lady Bertram began to nod again,
"but _this_ I _will_ maintain, that we shall be doing
no harm."

"I cannot agree with you; I am convinced that my father
would totally disapprove it."

"And I am convinced to the contrary. Nobody is fonder of
the exercise of talent in young people, or promotes it more,
than my father, and for anything of the acting, spouting,
reciting kind, I think he has always a decided taste.
I am sure he encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time
have we mourned over the dead body of Julius Caesar,
and to _be'd_ and not _to_ _be'd_, in this very room,
for his amusement? And I am sure, _my_ _name_ _was_ _Norval_,