Mansfield Park | Page 4

supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends she had so
carelessly sacrificed; and she addressed Lady Bertram in a letter which
spoke so much contrition and despondence, such a superfluity of
children, and such a want of almost everything else, as could not but
dispose them all to a reconciliation. She was preparing for her ninth
lying-in; and after bewailing the circumstance, and imploring their
countenance as sponsors to the expected child, she could not conceal
how important she felt they might be to the future maintenance of the
eight already in being. Her eldest was a boy of ten years old, a fine
spirited fellow, who longed to be out in the world; but what could she
do? Was there any chance of his being hereafter useful to Sir Thomas
in the concerns of his West Indian property? No situation would be
beneath him; or what did Sir Thomas think of Woolwich? or how could
a boy be sent out to the East?
The letter was not unproductive. It re-established peace and kindness.
Sir Thomas sent friendly advice and professions, Lady Bertram
dispatched money and baby-linen, and Mrs. Norris wrote the letters.
Such were its immediate effects, and within a twelvemonth a more

important advantage to Mrs. Price resulted from it. Mrs. Norris was
often observing to the others that she could not get her poor sister and
her family out of her head, and that, much as they had all done for her,
she seemed to be wanting to do more; and at length she could not but
own it to be her wish that poor Mrs. Price should be relieved from the
charge and expense of one child entirely out of her great number.
"What if they were among them to undertake the care of her eldest
daughter, a girl now nine years old, of an age to require more attention
than her poor mother could possibly give? The trouble and expense of
it to them would be nothing, compared with the benevolence of the
action." Lady Bertram agreed with her instantly. "I think we cannot do
better," said she; "let us send for the child."
Sir Thomas could not give so instantaneous and unqualified a consent.
He debated and hesitated;--it was a serious charge;-- a girl so brought
up must be adequately provided for, or there would be cruelty instead
of kindness in taking her from her family. He thought of his own four
children, of his two sons, of cousins in love, etc.;--but no sooner had he
deliberately begun to state his objections, than Mrs. Norris interrupted
him with a reply to them all, whether stated or not.
"My dear Sir Thomas, I perfectly comprehend you, and do justice to the
generosity and delicacy of your notions, which indeed are quite of a
piece with your general conduct; and I entirely agree with you in the
main as to the propriety of doing everything one could by way of
providing for a child one had in a manner taken into one's own hands;
and I am sure I should be the last person in the world to withhold my
mite upon such an occasion. Having no children of my own, who
should I look to in any little matter I may ever have to bestow, but the
children of my sisters?-- and I am sure Mr. Norris is too just--but you
know I am a woman of few words and professions. Do not let us be
frightened from a good deed by a trifle. Give a girl an education, and
introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the
means of settling well, without farther expense to anybody. A niece of
ours, Sir Thomas, I may say, or at least of yours, would not grow up in
this neighbourhood without many advantages. I don't say she would be
so handsome as her cousins. I dare say she would not; but she would be

introduced into the society of this country under such very favourable
circumstances as, in all human probability, would get her a creditable
establishment. You are thinking of your sons-- but do not you know
that, of all things upon earth, that is the least likely to happen, brought
up as they would be, always together like brothers and sisters? It is
morally impossible. I never knew an instance of it. It is, in fact, the
only sure way of providing against the connexion. Suppose her a pretty
girl, and seen by Tom or Edmund for the first time seven years hence,
and I dare say there would be mischief. The very idea of her having
been suffered to grow up at a distance from us all in poverty and
neglect, would be enough to make either