to feel herself mistress of the
rules of the game in three minutes, he had yet to inspirit her play,
sharpen her avarice, and harden her heart, which, especially in any
competition with William, was a work of some difficulty; and as for Lady
Bertram, he must continue in charge of all her fame and fortune through
the whole evening; and if quick enough to keep her from looking at her
cards when the deal began, must direct her in whatever was to be done
with them to the end of it.

He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease, and preeminent
in all the lively turns, quick resources, and playful impudence that
could do honour to the game; and the round table was altogether a very
comfortable contrast to the steady sobriety and orderly silence of the
other.

Twice had Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment and success of his
lady, but in vain; no pause was long enough for the time his measured
manner needed; and very little of her state could be known till Mrs.
Grant was able, at the end of the first rubber, to go to her and pay her
compliments.

"I hope your ladyship is pleased with the game."

"Oh dear, yes! very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know
what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does
all the rest."

"Bertram," said Crawford, some time afterwards, taking the opportunity
of a little languor in the game, "I have never told you what happened to
me yesterday in my ride home." They had been hunting together, and were
in the midst of a good run, and at some distance from Mansfield, when
his horse being found to have flung a shoe, Henry Crawford had been
obliged to give up, and make the best of his way back. "I told you I
lost my way after passing that old farmhouse with the yew-trees, because
I can never bear to ask; but I have not told you that, with my usual
luck--for I never do wrong without gaining by it--I found myself in due
time in the very place which I had a curiosity to see. I was suddenly,
upon turning the corner of a steepish downy field, in the midst of
a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream
before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to my
right--which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, and
not a gentleman or half a gentleman's house to be seen excepting one--to
be presumed the Parsonage--within a stone's throw of the said knoll and
church. I found myself, in short, in Thornton La