[Mansfield Park by Jane Austen]@TWC D-Link book
Mansfield Park

CHAPTER XXV
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But it will not.
He knows that human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can convey; and that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove himself, by constant attention, their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own." Mr.Crawford bowed his acquiescence.
"I repeat again," added Sir Thomas, "that Thornton Lacey is the only house in the neighbourhood in which I should _not_ be happy to wait on Mr.Crawford as occupier." Mr.Crawford bowed his thanks.
"Sir Thomas," said Edmund, "undoubtedly understands the duty of a parish priest.

We must hope his son may prove that _he_ knows it too." Whatever effect Sir Thomas's little harangue might really produce on Mr.
Crawford, it raised some awkward sensations in two of the others, two of his most attentive listeners--Miss Crawford and Fanny.

One of whom, having never before understood that Thornton was so soon and so completely to be his home, was pondering with downcast eyes on what it would be _not_ to see Edmund every day; and the other, startled from the agreeable fancies she had been previously indulging on the strength of her brother's description, no longer able, in the picture she had been forming of a future Thornton, to shut out the church, sink the clergyman, and see only the respectable, elegant, modernised, and occasional residence of a man of independent fortune, was considering Sir Thomas, with decided ill-will, as the destroyer of all this, and suffering the more from that involuntary forbearance which his character and manner commanded, and from not daring to relieve herself by a single attempt at throwing ridicule on his cause.
All the agreeable of _her_ speculation was over for that hour.

It was time to have done with cards, if sermons prevailed; and she was glad to find it necessary to come to a conclusion, and be able to refresh her spirits by a change of place and neighbour.
The chief of the party were now collected irregularly round the fire, and waiting the final break-up.

William and Fanny were the most detached.


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