"If that be all your difficulty, I will furnish you
with paper and every other material, and you may write
your letter whenever you choose. Would it make you
happy to write to William?"

"Yes, very."

"Then let it be done now. Come with me into the
breakfast-room, we shall find everything there,
and be sure of having the room to ourselves."

"But, cousin, will it go to the post?"

"Yes, depend upon me it shall: it shall go with the
other letters; and, as your uncle will frank it,
it will cost William nothing."

"My uncle!" repeated Fanny, with a frightened look.

"Yes, when you have written the letter, I will take it
to my father to frank."

Fanny thought it a bold measure, but offered no further
resistance; and they went together into the breakfast-room,
where Edmund prepared her paper, and ruled her lines
with all the goodwill that her brother could himself
have felt, and probably with somewhat more exactness.
He continued with her the whole time of her writing,
to assist her with his penknife or his orthography,