Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; all was busy without getting on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect.
Here the printer has been most ingenious. The text should, of course, be 'always busy,' as it is in the first edition and the Hampshire Edition.
7. Chapter xl: Bentley's edition, following the early editions, reads:—
'. . . for Henry is in Norfolk; business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or perhaps he only pretended the call, for the sake of being travelling at the same time that you were.'
Mr. Johnson and the Winchester Edition read 'to call.' There seems little doubt that 'the call' is the right reading.
8. Chapter xlvii: Bentley and nearly all editions read:—
Time would undoubtedly abate somewhat of his sufferings, but still it was a sort of thing which he never could get entirely the better of; and as to his ever meeting with any other woman who could—it was too impossible to be named but with indignation.
The broken sentence means 'a woman who could console him for the loss of Mary.'
Mr. Johnson's editions make nonsense of the passage by substituting a comma for the dash after 'could.'
9. Chapter xlviii: Bentley, following the early editions, reads:—