Grant, having by this time run through the usual
resources of ladies residing in the country without a
family of children--having more than filled her favourite
sitting-room with pretty furniture, and made a choice
collection of plants and poultry--was very much in want
of some variety at home. The arrival, therefore, of a sister
whom she had always loved, and now hoped to retain with
her as long as she remained single, was highly agreeable;
and her chief anxiety was lest Mansfield should not satisfy
the habits of a young woman who had been mostly used
to London.
Miss Crawford was not entirely free from similar
apprehensions, though they arose principally from doubts
of her sister's style of living and tone of society;
and it was not till after she had tried in vain to persuade
her brother to settle with her at his own country house,
that she could resolve to hazard herself among her
other relations. To anything like a permanence of abode,
or limitation of society, Henry Crawford had, unluckily,
a great dislike: he could not accommodate his sister
in an article of such importance; but he escorted her,
with the utmost kindness, into Northamptonshire,
and as readily engaged to fetch her away again, at half
an hour's notice, whenever she were weary of the place.
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