families;
and on their all dining together at the Park soon after his going, she
retook her chosen place near the bottom of the table, fully expecting to
feel a most melancholy difference in the change of masters. It would
be a very flat business, she was sure. In comparison with his brother,
Edmund would have nothing to say. The soup would be sent round in a most
spiritless manner, wine drank without any smiles or agreeable trifling,
and the venison cut up without supplying one pleasant anecdote of any
former haunch, or a single entertaining story, about "my friend such a
one." She must try to find amusement in what was passing at the upper
end of the table, and in observing Mr. Rushworth, who was now making his
appearance at Mansfield for the first time since the Crawfords' arrival.
He had been visiting a friend in the neighbouring county, and that
friend having recently had his grounds laid out by an improver, Mr.
Rushworth was returned with his head full of the subject, and very eager
to be improving his own place in the same way; and though not saying
much to the purpose, could talk of nothing else. The subject had
been already handled in the drawing-room; it was revived in the
dining-parlour. Miss Bertram's attention and opinion was evidently his
chief aim; and though her deportment showed rather conscious superiority
than any solicitude to oblige him, the mention of Sotherton Court,
and the ideas attached to it, gave her a feeling of complacency, which
prevented her from being very ungracious.

"I wish you could see Compton," said he; "it is the most complete thing!
I never saw a place so altered in my life. I told Smith I did not know
where I was. The approach _now_, is one of the finest things in the
country: you see the house in the most surprising manner. I declare,
when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison--quite a
dismal old prison."

"Oh, for shame!" cried Mrs. Norris. "A prison indeed? Sotherton Court is
the noblest old place in the world."

"It wants improvement, ma'am, beyond anything. I never saw a place that
wanted so much improvement in my life; and it is so forlorn that I do
not know what can be done with it."

"No wonder that Mr. Rushworth should think so at present," said Mrs.
Grant to Mrs. Norris, with a smile; "but depend upon it, Sotherton will
have _every_ improvement in time which his heart can desire."

"I must try to do something with it," said Mr. Rushworth, "but