He was decidedly improved. She wished
the next day over, she wished he had come only for one day;
but it was not so very bad as she would have expected:
the pleasure of talking of Mansfield was so very great!
Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure,
and one of no trivial kind. Her father asked him to do
them the honour of taking his mutton with them, and Fanny
had time for only one thrill of horror, before he declared
himself prevented by a prior engagement. He was engaged
to dinner already both for that day and the next; he had met
with some acquaintance at the Crown who would not be denied;
he should have the honour, however, of waiting on them
again on the morrow, etc., and so they parted--Fanny in
a state of actual felicity from escaping so horrible an evil!
To have had him join their family dinner-party, and see
all their deficiencies, would have been dreadful!
Rebecca's cookery and Rebecca's waiting, and Betsey's
eating at table without restraint, and pulling everything
about as she chose, were what Fanny herself was not yet
enough inured to for her often to make a tolerable meal.
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