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often tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. ‘My dear Madam,’ I always say to her, ‘you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt’s, all this would have been prevented.’ This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error.”
Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because whatever might be her general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not think of Edward’s abode in Mr. Pratt’s family, with any satisfaction.
