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Chapter 1: What is the purpose of the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast?
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And as always, if you're enjoying the pod, please spread the word. Sharing with friends and family really does help. Thank you for joining us this evening. Now it's time to relax. Let your body fall into a comfortable position in your bed and drift gently into a state of total relaxation with tonight's story. Sense and Sensibility Chapter 36
Within a few days after this meeting, the newspapers announced to the world that the Lady of Thomas Palmer Esquire was safely delivered of a son and heir, a very interesting and satisfactory paragraph, at least to all those intimate connections who knew it before. This event...
highly important to Mrs. Jennings' happiness, produced a temporary alteration in the disposal of her time, and influenced, in a like degree, the engagements of her young friends. For as she wished to be as much as possible with Charlotte, she went thither every morning as soon as she was dressed, and did not return till late in the evening."
and the Miss Dashwoods, at the particular request of the Middletons, spent the whole of every day in Conduit Street. For their own comfort they would much rather have remained, at least all the morning, in Mrs Jennings's house, but it was not a thing to be urged against the wishes of everybody.
Their hours were therefore made over to Lady Middleton and the two Miss Steeles, by whom their company in fact was as little valued as it was professedly sought. They had too much sense to be desirable companions to the former. and by the latter they were considered with a jealous eye as intruding on their ground and sharing the kindness which they wanted to monopolize.
Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behavior to Eleanor and Marianne, she did not really like them at all. Because they neither flattered herself nor her children, she could not believe them good-natured and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical, perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical, but that did not signify.
It was censure in common use, and easily given. Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy, It checked the idleness of one and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would despise her for offering.
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Chapter 2: How does Elinor feel about meeting Robert Ferrars?
There is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build to build a cottage.
My friend Lord Cortland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice, and laid before me three different plans of Bonomese. I was to decide on the best of them. My dear Cortland, said I, immediately throwing them all into the fire, do not adopt either of them but by all means build a cottage, and that I fancy will be the end of it.
Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a cottage. But this is all a mistake. I was last month at my friend Elliot's near Dartford. Lady Elliot wished to give a dance. But how can it be done, said she. My dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is to be managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten couple, and where can the supper be?
I immediately saw that there could be no difficulty in it. So I said, my dear Lady Elliot, do not be uneasy. The dining parlor will admit 18 couple with ease. Card tables may be placed in the drawing room. The library may be open for tea and other refreshments and let the supper be set out in the saloon. Lady Elliot was delighted with the thought.
We measured the dining room and found it would hold exactly 18 couple, and the affair was arranged precisely after my plan. So that, in fact, you see, if people do but know how to set about it, every comfort may be as well enjoyed in a cottage as in the most spacious dwellings. Eleanor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.
As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister, his mind was equally at liberty to fix on anything else. And a thought struck him during the evening, which he communicated to his wife for her approbation when they got home.
The consideration of Mrs. Denison's mistake in supposing his sisters their guests had suggested the propriety of their being really invited to become such, while Mrs. Jennings's engagements kept her from home.
The expense would be nothing, the inconvenience not more, and it was altogether an attention which the delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be requisite to its complete enfranchisement from his promise to his father. Fanny was startled at the proposal. I do not see how it can be done, said she, without affronting Lady Middleton, for they spend every day with her.
Otherwise I should be exceedingly glad to do it. You know I am always ready to pay them any attention in my power as my taking them out this evening shows. But they are Lady Middleton's visitors. How can I ask them away from her? Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her objection.
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Chapter 3: What influence does Mrs. Jennings have on the Dashwood sisters?
They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the same number of days to such near relations. Fanny paused a moment and then with fresh vigour said, My love, I would ask them with all my heart if it was in my power, but I had just settled within myself to ask the Miss Steeles to spend a few days with us.
They are very well behaved, good kind of girls, and I think the attention is due to them, as their uncle did so very well by Edward. We can ask your sisters some other year, you know, but the Miss Steeles may not be in town anymore. I am sure you will like them. Indeed, you do like them, you know, very much already, and so does my mother, and they are such favourites with Harry.'
Mr Dashwood was convinced. He saw the necessity of inviting the Miss Steeles immediately, and his conscience was pacified by the resolution of inviting his sisters another year. At the same time, however, slyly suspecting that another year would make the invitation needless by bringing Eleanor to town as Colonel Brandon's wife and Marianne as their visitor.
Fanny, rejoicing in her escape and proud of the ready wit that had procured it, wrote the next morning to Lucy to request her company and her sisters for some days in Harley Street, as soon as Lady Middleton could spare them. This was enough to make Lucy really and reasonably happy. Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for her, herself, cherishing all her hopes and promoting all her views.
Such an opportunity of being with Edward and his family was, above all things, the most material to her interest and such an invitation, the most gratifying to her feelings.
It was an advantage that could not be too gratefully acknowledged, nor too speedily made use of, and the visit to Lady Middleton, which had not before had any precise limits, was instantly discovered to have been always meant to end in two days' time.
When the note was shown to Eleanor, as it was within ten minutes after its arrival, it gave her for the first time some share in the expectations of Lucy. For such a mark of uncommon kindness, vouchsafed on so short an acquaintance, seemed to declare that the goodwill towards her arose from something more than merely malice against herself.
and might be brought, by time and address, to do everything that Lucy wished. Her flattery had already subdued the pride of Lady Middleton and made an entry into the close heart of Mrs. John Dashwood, and these were effects that laid open the probability of greater.
The missed deals removed to Harley Street, and all that reached Eleanor of their influence there, strengthened her expectation of the event. Sir John, who called on them more than once, brought home such accounts of the favour they were in as must be universally striking.
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