Sense and Sensibility | Page 6

half so
much for his sisters, even if REALLY his sisters! And as it is--only half
blood!--But you have such a generous spirit!"
"I would not wish to do any thing mean," he replied. "One had rather,
on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least, can
think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can
hardly expect more."

"There is no knowing what THEY may expect," said the lady, "but we
are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can
afford to do."
"Certainly--and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds
a-piece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have
about three thousand pounds on their mother's death--a very
comfortable fortune for any young woman."
"To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no
addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst
them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do not,
they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten
thousand pounds."
"That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the
whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother
while she lives, rather than for them--something of the annuity kind I
mean.--My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A
hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable."
His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan.
"To be sure," said she, "it is better than parting with fifteen hundred
pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years
we shall be completely taken in."
"Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that
purchase."
"Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when
there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy,
and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over
and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware
of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of
annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old
superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how
disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these annuities were to be

paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then one
of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be no
such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her
own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more
unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been
entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever. It
has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would
not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world."
"It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have
those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your
mother justly says, is NOT one's own. To be tied down to the regular
payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it
takes away one's independence."
"Undoubtedly; and after all you have no thanks for it. They think
themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises
no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my
own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them any
thing yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a
hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses."
"I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should by
no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will be
of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would
only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income, and
would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the year. It will
certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds, now and
then, will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I
think, be amply discharging my promise to my father."
"To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within
myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at
all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be
reasonably expected of