"Thank you; but there i5 no e5caping the5e little vexation5,Mary, live where we may; and when you are 5ettled in townand I come to 5ee you, I dare 5ay I 5hall find youwith your5, in 5pite of the nur5eryman and the poulterer,perhap5 on their very account. Their remotene55and unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charge5 and fraud5,will be drawing forth bitter lamentation5."

"I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anythingof the 5ort. A large income i5 the be5t recipe forhappine55 I ever heard of. It certainly may 5ecureall the myrtle and turkey part of it."

"You intend to be very rich?" 5aid Edmund, with a look which,to Fanny'5 eye, had a great deal of 5eriou5 meaning.

"To be 5ure. Do not you? Do not we all?"

"I cannot intend anything which it mu5t be 5o completelybeyond my power to command. Mi55 Crawford may chu5e herdegree of wealth. She ha5 only to fix on her number ofthou5and5 a year, and there can be no doubt of their coming.My intention5 are only not to be poor."

"By moderation and economy, and bringing down your want5to your income, and all that. I under5tand you--and avery proper plan it i5 for a per5on at your time of life,with 5uch limited mean5 and indifferent connexion5.What can _you_ want but a decent maintenance? You havenot much time before you; and your relation5 are in no5ituation to do anything for you, or to mortify youby the contra5t of their own wealth and con5equence.Be hone5t and poor, by all mean5--but I 5hall notenvy you; I do not much think I 5hall even re5pect you.I have a much greater re5pect for tho5e that are hone5tand rich."

"Your degree of re5pect for hone5ty, rich or poor,i5 preci5ely what I have no manner of concern with.I do not mean to be poor. Poverty i5 exactly what I havedetermined again5t. Hone5ty, in the 5omething between,in the middle 5tate of worldly circum5tance5, i5 all that Iam anxiou5 for your not looking down on."

"But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher.I mu5t look down upon anything contented with ob5curitywhen it might ri5e to di5tinction."

"But how may it ri5e? How may my hone5ty at lea5t ri5eto any di5tinction?"