As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make amends for deficiencies at home, there were none within the circle of her father’s and mother’s acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction. Fanny saw nobody in whose favour she could wish to overcome her own shyness and reserve. The men appeared to her all coarse (and some indeed has terrifying skin, though, not to the degree of mummification, merely nautical and windblown), the women all pert, everybody underbred (and some appearing rather inbred); and she gave as little contentment as she received from introductions either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies who approached her at first with some respect, in consideration of her coming from a baronet’s family, were soon offended by what they termed “airs.” Since she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore fine pelisses, they could hand her no right of superiority.

The first solid consolation which Fanny received, was in a better acquaintance with Susan. Susan had always behaved pleasantly to herself, but the determined character of her general manners had astonished and alarmed Fanny. It was at least a fortnight before she began to understand a disposition so totally different from her own.

Susan saw that much was wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. That a girl of fourteen, acting only on her own unassisted reason, should err in the method of reform, was not surprising. Fanny soon became more disposed to admire the natural inclination, than to censure the faults of conduct to which it led. Susan was only acting on the same truths that her own judgment acknowledged. Susan tried to be useful, where Fanny might only have gone away and cried. Indeed, things at home would have been worse but for such interposition. Both her mother and Betsey needed to be restrained from offensive indulgence and vulgarity.

In every argument with her mother, Susan had the advantage of reason, and never was there any maternal tenderness to buy her off. She had never known the blind fondness which was for ever producing household evil.

All this became gradually evident, and placed Susan before her sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect. Her manner was wrong, her measures often ill-chosen and ill-timed, her looks and language often indefensible. Yet Fanny felt they might be rectified. Susan looked up to her and wished for her good opinion. And while an office of authority was new to Fanny—new to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one—she resolved to give occasional hints to Susan, and share some of her own more favoured education.