Mansfield Park | Page 9

William nothing."
"My uncle!" repeated Fanny, with a frightened look.
"Yes, when you have written the letter, I will take it to my father to
frank."
Fanny thought it a bold measure, but offered no further resistance; and
they went together into the breakfast-room, where Edmund prepared
her paper, and ruled her lines with all the goodwill that her brother
could himself have felt, and probably with somewhat more exactness.
He continued with her the whole time of her writing, to assist her with
his penknife or his orthography, as either were wanted; and added to
these attentions, which she felt very much, a kindness to her brother
which delighted her beyond all the rest. He wrote with his own hand his
love to his cousin William, and sent him half a guinea under the seal.
Fanny's feelings on the occasion were such as she believed herself
incapable of expressing; but her countenance and a few artless words
fully conveyed all their gratitude and delight, and her cousin began to
find her an interesting object. He talked to her more, and, from all that
she said, was convinced of her having an affectionate heart, and a
strong desire of doing right; and he could perceive her to be farther
entitled to attention by great sensibility of her situation, and great
timidity. He had never knowingly given her pain, but he now felt that
she required more positive kindness; and with that view endeavoured,
in the first place, to lessen her fears of them all, and gave her especially

a great deal of good advice as to playing with Maria and Julia, and
being as merry as possible.
From this day Fanny grew more comfortable. She felt that she had a
friend, and the kindness of her cousin Edmund gave her better spirits
with everybody else. The place became less strange, and the people less
formidable; and if there were some amongst them whom she could not
cease to fear, she began at least to know their ways, and to catch the
best manner of conforming to them. The little rusticities and
awkwardnesses which had at first made grievous inroads on the
tranquillity of all, and not least of herself, necessarily wore away, and
she was no longer materially afraid to appear before her uncle, nor did
her aunt Norris's voice make her start very much. To her cousins she
became occasionally an acceptable companion. Though unworthy, from
inferiority of age and strength, to be their constant associate, their
pleasures and schemes were sometimes of a nature to make a third very
useful, especially when that third was of an obliging, yielding temper;
and they could not but own, when their aunt inquired into her faults, or
their brother Edmund urged her claims to their kindness, that "Fanny
was good-natured enough."
Edmund was uniformly kind himself; and she had nothing worse to
endure on the part of Tom than that sort of merriment which a young
man of seventeen will always think fair with a child of ten. He was just
entering into life, full of spirits, and with all the liberal dispositions of
an eldest son, who feels born only for expense and enjoyment. His
kindness to his little cousin was consistent with his situation and rights:
he made her some very pretty presents, and laughed at her.
As her appearance and spirits improved, Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris
thought with greater satisfaction of their benevolent plan; and it was
pretty soon decided between them that, though far from clever, she
showed a tractable disposition, and seemed likely to give them little
trouble. A mean opinion of her abilities was not confined to them.
Fanny could read, work, and write, but she had been taught nothing
more; and as her cousins found her ignorant of many things with which
they had been long familiar, they thought her prodigiously stupid, and

for the first two or three weeks were continually bringing some fresh
report of it into the drawing-room. "Dear mama, only think, my cousin
cannot put the map of Europe together-- or my cousin cannot tell the
principal rivers in Russia-- or, she never heard of Asia Minor--or she
does not know the difference between water-colours and crayons!--
How strange!--Did you ever hear anything so stupid?"
"My dear," their considerate aunt would reply, "it is very bad, but you
must not expect everybody to be as forward and quick at learning as
yourself."
"But, aunt, she is really so very ignorant!--Do you know, we asked her
last night which way she would go to get to Ireland; and she said, she
should cross to the Isle of Wight. She thinks of nothing but the Isle of
Wight, and she calls it the Island, as if there were no other island in the