He could not have chosen better;
that was a topic to bring back her attention and her looks
almost instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hear
or to speak of Mansfield. Now so long divided from
everybody who knew the place, she felt it quite the voice
of a friend when he mentioned it, and led the way to her
fond exclamations in praise of its beauties and comforts,
and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowed
her to gratify her own heart in the warmest eulogium,
in speaking of her uncle as all that was clever and good,
and her aunt as having the sweetest of all sweet tempers.
He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself; he said so;
he looked forward with the hope of spending much, very much,
of his time there; always there, or in the neighbourhood.
He particularly built upon a very happy summer and
autumn there this year; he felt that it would be so:
he depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superior
to the last. As animated, as diversified, as social,
but with circumstances of superiority undescribable.
"Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey," he continued;
"what a society will be comprised in those houses!
And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth may be added:
some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everything so dear;
for as to any partnership in Thornton Lacey, as Edmund
Bertram once good-humouredly proposed, I hope I foresee
two objections: two fair, excellent, irresistible objections
to that plan.
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