he quantity of butter and eggs that were regularly consumed
in the house. "Nobody loved plenty and hospitality more than herself;
nobody more hated pitiful doings; the Parsonage, she believed, had never
been wanting in comforts of any sort, had never borne a bad character
in _her_ _time_, but this was a way of going on that she could not
understand. A fine lady in a country parsonage was quite out of place.
_Her_ store-room, she thought, might have been good enough for Mrs.
Grant to go into. Inquire where she would, she could not find out that
Mrs. Grant had ever had more than five thousand pounds."

Lady Bertram listened without much interest to this sort of invective.
She could not enter into the wrongs of an economist, but she felt all
the injuries of beauty in Mrs. Grant's being so well settled in life
without being handsome, and expressed her astonishment on that point
almost as often, though not so diffusely, as Mrs. Norris discussed the
other.

These opinions had been hardly canvassed a year before another event
arose of such importance in the family, as might fairly claim some place
in the thoughts and conversation of the ladies. Sir Thomas found it
expedient to go to Antigua himself, for the better arrangement of his
affairs, and he took his eldest son with him, in the hope of detaching
him from some bad connexions at home. They left England with the
probability of being nearly a twelvemonth absent.

The necessity of the measure in a pecuniary light, and the hope of its
utility to his son, reconciled Sir Thomas to the effort of quitting the
rest of his family, and of leaving his daughters to the direction of
others at their present most interesting time of life. He could not
think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather,
to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris's watchful
attention, and in Edmund's judgment, he had sufficient confidence to
make him go without fears for their conduct.

Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she
was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety, or solicitude for his
comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous,
or difficult, or fatiguing to anybody but themselves.

The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion: not for their
sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was no object of love to
them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence