Where she could be placed became a subject of most
melancholy and momentous consultation. Mrs. Norris,
whose attachment seemed to augment with the demerits
of her niece, would have had her received at home and
countenanced by them all. Sir Thomas would not hear of it;
and Mrs. Norris's anger against Fanny was so much the greater,
from considering _her_ residence there as the motive.
She persisted in placing his scruples to _her_ account,
though Sir Thomas very solemnly assured her that,
had there been no young woman in question, had there
been no young person of either sex belonging to him,
to be endangered by the society or hurt by the character
of Mrs. Rushworth, he would never have offered so great an
insult to the neighbourhood as to expect it to notice her.
As a daughter, he hoped a penitent one, she should be
protected by him, and secured in every comfort, and supported
by every encouragement to do right, which their relative
situations admitted; but farther than _that_ he could not go.
Maria had destroyed her own character, and he would not,
by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored,
by affording his sanction to vice, or in seeking to lessen
its disgrace, be anywise accessory to introducing such
misery in another man's family as he had known himself.
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