. He had introduced himself to some
tenants whom he had never seen before; he had begun making acquaintance
with cottages whose very existence, though on his own estate, had been
hitherto unknown to him. This was aimed, and well aimed, at Fanny. It
was pleasing to hear him speak so properly; here he had been acting as
he ought to do. To be the friend of the poor and the oppressed! Nothing
could be more grateful to her; and she was on the point of giving him an
approving look, when it was all frightened off by his adding a something
too pointed of his hoping soon to have an assistant, a friend, a guide
in every plan of utility or charity for Everingham: a somebody that
would make Everingham and all about it a dearer object than it had ever
been yet.

She turned away, and wished he would not say such things. She was
willing to allow he might have more good qualities than she had been
wont to suppose. She began to feel the possibility of his turning out
well at last; but he was and must ever be completely unsuited to her,
and ought not to think of her.

He perceived that enough had been said of Everingham, and that it would
be as well to talk of something else, and turned to Mansfield. He could
not have chosen better; that was a topic to bring back her attention and
her looks almost instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hear or
to speak of Mansfield. Now so long divided from everybody who knew the
place, she felt it quite the voice of a friend when he mentioned it,
and led the way to her fond exclamations in praise of its beauties and
comforts, and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowed her
to gratify her own heart in the warmest eulogium, in speaking of her
uncle as all that was clever and good, and her aunt as having the
sweetest of all sweet tempers.

He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself; he said so; he looked
forward with the hope of spending much, very much, of his time there;
always there, or in the neighbourhood. He particularly built upon a very
happy summer and autumn there this year; he felt that it would be so: he
depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superior to the last.
As animated, as diversified, as social, but with circumstances of
superiority undescribable.

"Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey," he continued; "what a society
will be comprised in those houses! And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth
may be added: some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everyt