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as welcome on one side as it could be expedient on the other;
for Mrs. Grant, having by this time run through the usual
resources of ladies residing in the country without a
family of children--having more than filled her favourite
sitting-room with pretty furniture, and made a choice
collection of plants and poultry--was very much in want
of some variety at home. The arrival, therefore, of a sister
whom she had always loved, and now hoped to retain with
her as long as she remained single, was highly agreeable;
and her chief anxiety was lest Mansfield should not satisfy
the habits of a young woman who had been mostly used
to London.

Miss Crawford was not entirely free from similar
apprehensions, though they arose principally from doubts
of her sister's style of living and tone of society;
and it was not till after she had tried in vain to persuade
her brother to settle with her at his own country house,
that she could resolve to hazard herself among her
other relations. To anything like a permanence of abode,
or limitation of society, Henry Crawford had, unluckily,
a great dislike: he could not accommodate his sister
in an article of such importance; but he escorted her,
with the utmost kindness, into Northamptonshire,
and as readily engaged to fetch her away again, at half
an hour's notice, whenever she were weary of the place.

The meeting was very satisfactory on each side.
Miss Crawford found a sister without preciseness
or rusticity, a sister's husband who looked the gentleman,
and a house commodious and well fitted up; and Mrs. Grant
received in those whom she hoped to love better than ever
a young man and woman of very prepossessing appearance.
Mary Crawford was remarkably pretty; Henry, though not handsome,
had air and countenance; the manners of both were lively
and pleasant, and Mrs. Grant immediately gave them credit
for everything else. She was delighted with each,
but Mary was her dearest object; and having never been
able to glory in beauty of her own, she thoroughly enjoyed
the power of being proud of her sister's. She had not waited
her arrival to look out for a suitable match for her:
she had fixed on Tom Bertram; the eldest son of a baronet
was not too good for a girl of twenty thousand pounds,
with all the elegance and accomplishments which Mrs. Grant
foresaw in her; and being a warm-hearted, unreserved woman,
Mary had not been three hours in the house before she
told her what she had planned.

Miss Crawford was glad to find a family of such consequence
so very near them, and not at all displeased either at
her sister's early care, or the choice it had fallen on.
Matrimony was her object, provided she could marry well:
and having seen Mr. Bertram in town, she knew that
objection could no more be made to his person than to
his situation in life. While she treated it as a joke,
therefore, she did not forget to think of it seriously.
The scheme was soon repeated to Henry.

"And now," added Mrs. Grant, "I have thought of something

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