nd gentle persuasions; and she found that the best of the three younger
ones was gone in him: Tom and Charles being at least as many years as
they were his juniors distant from that age of feeling and reason, which
might suggest the expediency of making friends, and of endeavouring to
be less disagreeable. Their sister soon despaired of making the smallest
impression on _them_; they were quite untameable by any means of address
which she had spirits or time to attempt. Every afternoon brought a
return of their riotous games all over the house; and she very early
learned to sigh at the approach of Saturday's constant half-holiday.

Betsey, too, a spoiled child, trained up to think the alphabet her
greatest enemy, left to be with the servants at her pleasure, and
then encouraged to report any evil of them, she was almost as ready to
despair of being able to love or assist; and of Susan's temper she
had many doubts. Her continual disagreements with her mother, her rash
squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulance with Betsey, were at least
so distressing to Fanny that, though admitting they were by no means
without provocation, she feared the disposition that could push them to
such length must be far from amiable, and from affording any repose to
herself.

Such was the home which was to put Mansfield out of her head, and
teach her to think of her cousin Edmund with moderated feelings. On the
contrary, she could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates,
its happy ways. Everything where she now was in full contrast to it. The
elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps, above all, the
peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance
every hour of the day, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them
_here_.

The living in incessant noise was, to a frame and temper delicate and
nervous like Fanny's, an evil which no superadded elegance or harmony
could have entirely atoned for. It was the greatest misery of all. At
Mansfield, no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts,
no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course
of cheerful orderliness; everybody had their due importance; everybody's
feelings were consulted. If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting,
good sense and good breeding supplied its place; and as to the little
irritations sometimes introduced by aunt Norris, they were short, they
were trifling, they were as a drop of water