He seemed to feel exactly as one could wish."
"Yes, indeed, and the more you know of him the better
you will like him. He is not a shining character,
but he has a thousand good qualities; and is so disposed
to look up to you, that I am quite laughed at about it,
for everybody considers it as my doing. 'Upon my word,
Mrs. Norris,' said Mrs. Grant the other day, 'if Mr. Rushworth
were a son of your own, he could not hold Sir Thomas
in greater respect.'"
Sir Thomas gave up the point, foiled by her evasions,
disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to rest
satisfied with the conviction that where the present
pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness
did sometimes overpower her judgment.
It was a busy morning with him. Conversation with any
of them occupied but a small part of it. He had to
reinstate himself in all the wonted concerns of his
Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff;
to examine and compute, and, in the intervals
of business, to walk into his stables and his gardens,
and nearest plantations; but active and methodical,
he had not only done all this before he resumed his seat
as master of the house at dinner, he had also set the
carpenter to work in pulling down what had been so lately
put up in the billiard-room, and given the scene-painter
his dismissal long enough to justify the pleasing belief
of his being then at least as far off as Northampton.
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