“You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.  Perry was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the sea-bathing places.  A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air.  And by what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from the sea—­a quarter of a mile off—­very comfortable.  You should have consulted Perry.”

“But my dear sir, the difference of the journey:  only consider how great it would have been.  A hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty.”

“Ah, my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to choose between forty miles and a hundred.  Better not move at all, better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into a worse air.  This is just what Perry said.  It seemed to him a very ill-judged measure.”

Emma’s attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her brother-in-law’s breaking out.

“Mr. Perry,” said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, “would do as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for.  Why does he make it any business of his to wonder at what I do at my taking my family to one part of the coast or another?  I may be allowed, I hope, the use of my judgment as well as Mr. Perry.  I want his directions no more than his drugs.”  He paused, and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only sarcastic dryness, “If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a distance of a hundred and thirty miles with no greater expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself.”

“True, true,” cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition, “very true.  That’s a consideration, indeed.  But, John, as to what I was telling you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive any difficulty.  I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly the present light of the path—­The only way of proving it, however, will be to turn to our maps.  I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow morning, I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me your opinion.”

Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his friend Perry, to whom he had in fact, though unconsciously, been attributing many of his own feelings and expressions; but the soothing attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the other, prevented any renewal of it.

FAMILY TRAINING

From ‘Mansfield Park’