This was a prospect to be dwelt on with a fondness that could
be but half acknowledged.
Edmund, too--to be two months from _him_ (and perhaps
she might be allowed to make her absence three)
must do her good. At a distance, unassailed by his looks
or his kindness, and safe from the perpetual irritation
of knowing his heart, and striving to avoid his confidence,
she should be able to reason herself into a properer state;
she should be able to think of him as in London,
and arranging everything there, without wretchedness.
What might have been hard to bear at Mansfield was to become
a slight evil at Portsmouth.
The only drawback was the doubt of her aunt Bertram's being
comfortable without her. She was of use to no one else;
but _there_ she might be missed to a degree that she did
not like to think of; and that part of the arrangement
was, indeed, the hardest for Sir Thomas to accomplish,
and what only _he_ could have accomplished at all.
But he was master at Mansfield Park. When he had really
resolved on any measure, he could always carry it through;
and now by dint of long talking on the subject,
explaining and dwelling on the duty of Fanny's sometimes
seeing her family, he did induce his wife to let her go;
obtaining it rather from submission, however, than conviction,
for Lady Bertram was convinced of very little more than
that Sir Thomas thought Fanny ought to go, and therefore
that she must.
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