Miss Bertram's attention and opinion was evidently his chief aim; and though her deportment showed rather conscious superiority than any solicitude to oblige him, the mention of Sotherton Court, and the ideas attached to it, gave her a feeling of complacency, which prevented her from being very ungracious.
"I wish you could see Compton," said he; "it is the most complete thing! I never saw a place so altered in my life.

I told Smith I did not know where I was.

The approach _now_, is one of the finest things in the country: you see the house in the most surprising manner.

I declare, when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison--quite a dismal old prison." "Oh, for shame!" cried Mrs.Norris.

"A prison indeed?
Sotherton Court is the noblest old place in the world." "It wants improvement, ma'am, beyond anything.