that Mrs Clay has been carefully instructed by her father to help him prepare the soil for that 'Admiral for tenant' seed?* I suspect she might have to accommodate Mr Shephard as well as Sir Walter and Elizabeth. She is mayhaps balancing a rope.

Her prolonged speech on the effects of aging does seem a bit forced
and even the clergyman -- " she stopt a moment to consider what might do for the clergyman -- "and even the clergyman, you know, is obliged to go into infected rooms, and expose his health and looks to all the injury of a poisonous atmosphere. In fact, as I have long been convinced, though every profession is necessary and honourable in its turn