The Crawfords, without wanting to be cured, into ham or otherwise, or even mummified, were very willing to stay. Lady Bertram indeed seemed to have taken a grand liking to them both, particularly Henry. Mary was satisfied with the Parsonage as a present home, and Henry equally ready to lengthen his visit. He had come, intending to spend only a few days with them; but Mansfield promised well, and there was nothing to call him elsewhere. It delighted Mrs. Grant to keep them both with her, and Dr. Grant was exceedingly well contented to have it so: a talking pretty young woman like Miss Crawford is always pleasant society to an indolent, stay-at-home man; and Mr. Crawford’s being his guest was an excuse for drinking claret every day.

The Miss Bertrams’ admiration of Mr. Crawford was more rapturous than anything which Miss Crawford’s habits made her likely to feel. She acknowledged, however, that the Mr. Bertrams were very fine young men—that two such young men were not often seen together even in London—and that their manners, particularly those of the eldest, were very good. He had been much in London, and had more liveliness and gallantry than Edmund, and must, therefore, be preferred; and, indeed, his being the eldest was another strong claim. She had felt an early presentiment that she should like the eldest best. She knew it was her way.

Tom Bertram must have been thought pleasant, indeed, at any rate. He was the sort of young man to be generally liked—once his tendency to be duped by utter nonsense was reconciled with. His agreeableness was of the kind to be oftener found agreeable than some endowments of a higher stamp (such as a full measure of wit), for he had easy manners, excellent spirits, a large acquaintance, and a great deal to say. And the reversion of Mansfield Park, and a baronetcy, did no harm to all this.

Miss Crawford soon felt that he and his situation might do. She looked about her with due consideration, and found almost everything in his favour: a park, a real park, five miles round, a spacious modern-built house, so well placed and well screened as to deserve to be in any collection of engravings of gentlemen’s seats in the kingdom—and wanting only to be completely new-furnished and purged of the ancient fruits of the Nile—pleasant sisters, a quiet though obviously strange mother, a metaphysically fascinating situation, and an agreeable man himself—with the advantage of being tied up from much gaming and idiot schemes at present by a promise to his father, and of being Sir Thomas hereafter. It might do very well; she believed she should accept him. And she began accordingly to interest herself a little about the black and white striped “horse” from the African Continent which he was readying to run at the B—— races.