There was but one of his children who was not at this time
a source of misery to him. Tom's complaints had been
greatly heightened by the shock of his sister's conduct,
and his recovery so much thrown back by it, that even
Lady Bertram had been struck by the difference, and all
her alarms were regularly sent off to her husband;
and Julia's elopement, the additional blow which had met
him on his arrival in London, though its force had been
deadened at the moment, must, she knew, be sorely felt.
She saw that it was. His letters expressed how much he
deplored it. Under any circumstances it would have been
an unwelcome alliance; but to have it so clandestinely
formed, and such a period chosen for its completion,
placed Julia's feelings in a most unfavourable light,
and severely aggravated the folly of her choice.
He called it a bad thing, done in the worst manner,
and at the worst time; and though Julia was yet as more
pardonable than Maria as folly than vice, he could not
but regard the step she had taken as opening the worst
probabilities of a conclusion hereafter like her sister's.
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