“Had you seen her this morning, Mary,” he continued, “attending with such ineffable sweetness and patience to all the demands of her aunt’s stupidity, her colour beautifully heightened as she leant over the work, then returning to her seat to finish a note which she was previously engaged in writing for that stupid woman’s service. And all this with such unpretending gentleness—as if it were a matter of course that she was not to have a moment at her own command—her hair arranged as neatly as always, and one little curl falling forward as she wrote, which she now and then shook back. And in the midst of all this, she was still speaking at intervals to me, or listening, and as if she liked to listen, to what I said. Had you seen her so, Mary, you would not have implied the possibility of her power over my heart ever ceasing.”

“My dearest Henry,” cried Mary, stopping short, and smiling in his face, “how glad I am to see you so much in love! It quite delights me. But what will Mrs. Rushworth and Julia say?”

“I care neither what they say nor what they feel. They will now see what sort of woman it is that can attach me, that can attach a man of sense. I wish the discovery may do them good. And they will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness. They will be angry,” he added, after a moment’s silence, and in a cooler tone; “Mrs. Rushworth will be very angry. It will be a bitter pill to her; it will have two moments’ ill flavour, and then be swallowed and forgotten. For I am not such a coxcomb as to suppose her feelings for me more lasting than other women’s. Yes, Mary, my Fanny will feel a difference indeed: a daily, hourly difference, in the behaviour of every being who approaches her. It will be the completion of my happiness to know that I am the doer of it, that I am the person to give the consequence so justly her due. Now she is dependent, helpless, friendless, neglected, forgotten.”

“Nay, Henry, not by all; not friendless or forgotten. Her cousin Edmund never forgets her.”

“Edmund! True, I believe he is, generally speaking, kind to her, and so is Sir Thomas in his way; but it is the way of a rich, superior uncle. What can Sir Thomas and Edmund together do for her happiness, comfort, honour, and dignity in the world, to what I shall do?”

Chapter XXXI

Henry Crawford was at Mansfield Park again the next morning, and at an earlier hour than common visiting warrants. The two ladies were together in the breakfast-room. Fortunately for him, Lady Bertram was on the very point of leaving, and directed a servant to “Let Sir Thomas know.”