In every argument with her mother, Susan had in point
of reason the advantage, and never was there any maternal
tenderness to buy her off. The blind fondness which was
for ever producing evil around her she had never known.
There was no gratitude for affection past or present
to make her better bear with its excesses to the others.
All this became gradually evident, and gradually placed
Susan before her sister as an object of mingled compassion
and respect. That her manner was wrong, however, at times
very wrong, her measures often ill-chosen and ill-timed,
and her looks and language very often indefensible,
Fanny could not cease to feel; but she began to hope they
might be rectified. Susan, she found, looked up to her
and wished for her good opinion; and new as anything like an
office of authority was to Fanny, new as it was to imagine
herself capable of guiding or informing any one, she did
resolve to give occasional hints to Susan, and endeavour
to exercise for her advantage the juster notions of what was
due to everybody, and what would be wisest for herself,
which her own more favoured education had fixed in her.
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