Edmund Bertram's Diary by Amanda Grange Page A

tomorrow.
    Saturday 16 July
    The weather being fine we walked out this morning and the subject of making a party to attend the races was again raised, but the difficulties of finding enough carriages and arranging accommodation made it clear that the matter would only do to be talked of, for realizing it was beyond our reach.
    Fanny was soon tired and I offered her my arm, but Crawford was too quick for me, saying that he would escort her back to the house. Maria and Julia went with them, though I believe Julia would have stayed if Maria had not made a very pointed remark about needing her, leaving Tom, Miss Crawford and me to continue our walk.
    ‘I begin now to understand you al , except Miss Price,’ said Miss Crawford to me, as we wandered through the shrubbery. ‘Pray, is she out, or is she not? I am puzzled. She dined at the Parsonage, with the rest of you, which seemed like being out; and yet she says so little, that I can hardly suppose she is.’
    ‘I believe I know what you mean, but I wil not undertake to answer the question. My cousin is grown-up. She has the age and sense of a woman, but the outs and not outs are beyond me,’ I replied.
    ‘And yet, in general, nothing can be more easily ascertained. The distinction is so broad. Manners as wel as appearance are, general y speaking, so total y dif erent. Til now, I could not have supposed it possible to be mistaken as to a girl’s being out or not. A girl not out has always the same sort of dress: a close bonnet, for instance; looks very demure, and never says a word. You may smile, but it is so, I assure you; and except that it is sometimes carried a little too far, it is al very proper. Girls should be quiet and modest. The most objectionable part is, that the alteration of manners on being introduced into company is frequently too sudden. They sometimes pass in such very little time from reserve to quite the opposite — to confidence! That is the faulty part of the present system. One does not like to see a girl of eighteen or nineteen so immediately up to everything — and perhaps when one has seen her hardly able to speak the year before. Mr. Bertram, I dare say you have sometimes met with such changes.’
    ‘I believe I have, but this is hardly fair; I see what you are at. You are quizzing me about Miss Anderson,’ said Tom.
    ‘No, indeed. Miss Anderson! I do not know who or what you mean. I am quite in the dark. But I wil quiz you with a great deal of pleasure, if you wil tel me what about.’
    ‘Ah! you carry it off very wel , but I cannot be quite so far imposed on. You must have had Miss Anderson in your eye, in describing an altered young lady. You paint too accurately for mistake. It was exactly so. The Andersons of Baker Street. We were speaking of them the other day, you know. Edmund, you have heard me mention Charles Anderson. The circumstance was precisely as this lady has represented it. When Anderson first introduced me to his family, about two years ago, his sister was not out, and I could not get her to speak to me. I sat there an hour one morning waiting for Anderson, with only her and a little girl or two in the room, the governess being sick or run away, and the mother in and out every moment with letters of business, and I could hardly get a word or a look from the young lady — nothing like a civil answer — she screwed up her mouth, and turned from me with such an air! I did not see her again for a twelvemonth. She was then out. I met her at Mrs. Holford’s, and did not recol ect her. She came up to me, claimed me as an acquaintance, stared me out of countenance; and talked and laughed til I did not know which way to look. I felt that I must be the jest of the room at the time, and Miss Crawford, it is plain, has heard the story.’
    ‘And a very pretty story it is, and with more truth in it, I dare say, than does credit to Miss Anderson. It is too common a fault. Mothers certainly have not yet got quite the right way of