Admiral Crawford was a man of vicious conduct, who chose, instead of retaining his niece, to bring his mistress under his own roof (the mistress being a beautiful but equally vicious woman with a freezing gaze, a strange pallid manner about her coupled with a “medical” aversion to sunlight, and a peculiarly insistent ownership of a long wooden crate of her own that she ordered to be stored in the cellar). To this intolerable situation Mrs. Grant was indebted for her sister’s coming to her, for Mrs. Grant, having by this time run through the usual resources of ladies residing in the country without a family of children—having more than filled her favourite sitting-room with pretty furniture, and made a choice collection of plants, poultry, and Egyptian overflow generously brought over from the main house—was very much in want of some variety at home. The arrival, therefore, of a well-loved sister, was highly agreeable; and her chief anxiety was lest Mansfield should not satisfy the habits of a young woman who had been mostly used to London.

Miss Crawford was not entirely free from similar apprehensions, though they arose principally from doubts of her sister’s style of living and tone of society (and most recently, an excess of possible exposure to countryside sunlight). It was not till after she had tried in vain to persuade her brother to settle with her at his own country house, that she could resolve to hazard herself among her other relations. To anything like a permanence of abode, or limitation of society, Henry Crawford had, unluckily, a great dislike: he could not accommodate his sister in an article of such importance; but he kindly escorted her into Northamptonshire, and as readily engaged to fetch her away again, at half an hour’s notice, whenever she were weary of the place.

The meeting was very satisfactory on each side. Miss Crawford found a sister without preciseness or rusticity, a sister’s husband who looked the gentleman, and a house commodious and well fitted up, though, to be sure, quirky in décor. And Mrs. Grant received in those whom she hoped to love better than ever a young man and woman of very prepossessing appearance.

Mary Crawford was remarkably pretty—striking, indeed, with a rare delicacy of pale skin and deep rose lips that were near the sanguine shade of midnight. Henry, though not handsome, had air and countenance. The manners of both were lively and pleasant, and Mrs. Grant immediately gave them credit for everything else. She was delighted with each, but Mary was her dearest object. And having never been able to glory in beauty of her own, she thoroughly enjoyed the power of being proud of her sister’s.