The family were now seen to advantage. Nature had given them no inconsiderable share of beauty, and every Sunday dressed them in their cleanest skins and best attire. Sunday always brought this comfort to Fanny, and on this Sunday she felt it more than ever.

Her poor mother now did not look so very unworthy of being Lady Bertram’s sister as she was but too apt to look. It often grieved Fanny to think of the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little difference, circumstances should have made so much. That her mother—as handsome as Lady Bertram, and some years her junior—should have an appearance so much more worn and faded, so slatternly, so shabby! But Sunday made her a very creditable and tolerably cheerful-looking Mrs. Price, coming abroad with a fine family of children, feeling a little respite of her weekly cares, and only discomposed if she saw her boys run into danger, or Rebecca pass by with a flower in her hat, followed closely by an odd lumbering fellow.

In chapel they were obliged to divide, but Mr. Crawford took care not to be divided from the female branch. After chapel he still continued with them, and made one in the family party on the ramparts.

Mrs. Price took her weekly walk on the ramparts every fine Sunday throughout the year, always going directly after morning service and staying till dinner-time. It was her public place: there she met her acquaintance, heard a little news, talked over the badness of the Portsmouth servants, the rabble with foul skin conditions, and wound up her spirits for the six days ensuing.

Thither they now went, Mr. Crawford most happy to consider the Miss Prices as his peculiar charge. And before they had been there long, somehow or other, Fanny could not have believed it, but he was walking between them with an arm of each under his—with no impending danger of mummies present—and she did not know how to prevent or put an end to it. It made her uncomfortable for a time, but yet there were enjoyments in the day and in the view which would be felt.

The day was uncommonly lovely. It was really March; but it was April in its mild air, brisk soft wind, and bright sun, occasionally clouded for a minute. Everything looked so beautiful under the influence of such a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each other on the ships at Spithead and the island beyond, with the ever-varying hues of the sea, now at high water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the ramparts with so fine a sound.