“To be sure, my dear, that is very stupid indeed, and shows a great want of genius and emulation. But, all things considered, I do not know whether it is not as well that it should be so, for, though you know (owing to me) your papa and mama are so good as to bring her up with you, it is not at all necessary that she should be as accomplished as you are;—on the contrary, it is much more desirable that there should be a difference.”

Such were the counsels by which Mrs. Norris assisted to form her nieces’ minds. It is not very surprising that, with all their promising talents and early information, they should be entirely deficient in the less common acquirements of self-knowledge, generosity and humility. In everything but disposition they were admirably taught. Sir Thomas did not know what was wanting; he was not outwardly affectionate—the reserve of his manner repressed all the flow of their spirits before him.

To the education of her daughters Lady Bertram paid not the smallest attention. She had not time for such cares. She was a woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, going through newly arrived boxes and cataloguing her new treasures, doing some long piece of needlework with Egyptian patterns and motifs, thinking more of her pug and her overflowing attic than her children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put herself to inconvenience, guided in everything important by distinguished Egyptologists, Sir Thomas, and in smaller concerns by her sister.

Had she possessed greater leisure for the service of her girls, she would still have supposed it unnecessary, for they were under the care of a governess, with proper masters, and could want nothing more. As for Fanny’s being stupid at learning, she could only say “it was very unlucky, but some people were stupid, and Fanny must take more pains: she did not know what else was to be done; and, except her being so dull, she saw no harm in the poor little thing, and always found her very handy and quick in carrying messages, and fetching whatever burial implement she required.”

Fanny, with all her faults of ignorance and timidity, was fixed at Mansfield Park, and, learning to transfer in its favour much of her attachment to her former home, grew up there not unhappily among her cousins. There was no positive ill-nature in Maria or Julia; and though Fanny was often mortified by their treatment of her, she thought too lowly of her own claims to feel injured by it.