Mrs. Norris was a little confounded and as nearly being silenced as ever she had been in her life. For she was ashamed to confess having never seen any of the impropriety[16] which was so glaring to Sir Thomas. To make up for it, Mrs. Norris insinuated in her own praise her exertion and many sacrifices on behalf of the family, her many excellent economic hints to Lady Bertram and Edmund, resulting in considerable household savings, and indeed, a minor reduction of Egyptian crates in the main parlor (which of course was merely the result of mummies quitting their resting places).

But her chief strength lay in Sotherton. Her greatest glory was in having formed the connexion with the Rushworths. There she was impregnable. She took to herself all the credit of bringing Mr. Rushworth’s admiration of Maria to any effect. “If I had not been active,” said she, “and made a point of being introduced to his mother, and then prevailed on my sister to pay the first visit, I am certain, nothing would have come of it. Mr. Rushworth is the sort of amiable modest young man who needs a great deal of encouragement, and there were girls enough on the catch for him if we had been idle. But I left no stone unturned. I was ready to move heaven and earth! You know the distance to Sotherton; it was in the middle of winter—”

“I know how justly great your influence is with Lady Bertram and her children, and am the more concerned that it should not have been.”

“My dear Sir Thomas, if you had seen the state of the roads that day! I thought we should never have got through them!” And Mrs. Norris proceeded to speak at length of her brave ordeal.

“I hope we shall always think the acquaintance worth the trouble taken to establish it,” said Sir Thomas. “There is nothing very striking in Mr. Rushworth’s manners, but I was pleased last night with what appeared to be his sensible opinion on one subject: his decided preference of a quiet family party to the bustle and confusion of acting.”

“Yes, indeed, and the more you know of him the better you will like him. He is not a shining character, but he has a thousand good qualities; and is so disposed to look up to you—”

Sir Thomas gave up, obliged to admit to himself that her sentiment did sometimes overpower her judgment.

It was a busy morning with him. He had to reinstate himself in all the concerns of his Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff; to enquire about sudden rare insect infestations, and about all the new apparently useless servants with the peeling skin conditions who, in truly brutish fashion, refused to answer when hailed—why had they been taken on?