 sample of the rest.«
    »Not, I should hope, of the proportion of virtue to vice throughout the
kingdom. We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there,
that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly
is not there, that the influence of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher
is followed and admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good
clergyman will be useful in his parish and his neighbourhood, where the parish
and neighbourhood are of a size capable of knowing his private character, and
observing his general conduct, which in London can rarely be the case. The
clergy are lost there in the crowds of their parishioners. They are known to the
largest part only as preachers. And with regard to their influencing public
manners, Miss Crawford must not misunderstand me, or suppose I mean to call them
the arbiters of good breeding, the regulators of refinement and courtesy, the
masters of the ceremonies of life. The manners I speak of, might rather be
called conduct, perhaps, the result of good principles; the effect, in short, of
those doctrines which it is their duty to teach and recommend; and it will, I
believe, be every where found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they
ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.«
    »Certainly,« said Fanny with gentle earnestness.
    »There,« cried Miss Crawford, »you have quite convinced Miss Price already.«
    »I wish I could convince Miss Crawford too.«
    »I do not think you ever will,« said she with an arch smile; »I am just as
much surprised now as I was at first that you should intend to take orders. You
really are fit for something better. Come, do change your mind. It is not too
late. Go into the law.«
    »Go into the law! with as much ease as I was told to go into this
wilderness.«
    »Now you are going to say something about law being the worst wilderness of
the two, but I forestall you; remember I have forestalled you.«
    »You need not hurry when the object is only to prevent my saying a bon-mot,
for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter of fact, plain
spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour
together without striking it out.«
    A general silence succeeded. Each was thoughtful. Fanny
