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 would not go. Maria had
destroyed her own character, and he would not by a vain attempt to restore what
never could be restored, be affording his sanction to vice, or in seeking to
lessen its disgrace, be anywise accessary to introducing such misery in another
man's family, as he had known himself.
    It ended in Mrs. Norris's resolving to quit Mansfield, and devote herself to
her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them in another
country - remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on
one side no affection, on the other, no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed
that their tempers became their mutual punishment.
    Mrs. Norris's removal from Mansfield was the great supplementary comfort of
Sir Thomas's life. His opinion of her had been sinking from the day of his
return from Antigua; in every transaction together from that period, in their
daily intercourse, in business, or in chat, she had been regularly losing ground
in his esteem, and convincing him that either time had done her much disservice,
or that he had considerably over-rated her sense, and wonderfully borne with her
manners before. He had felt her as an hourly evil, which was so much the worse,
as there seemed no chance of its ceasing but with life; she seemed a part of
himself, that must be borne for ever. To be relieved from her, therefore, was so
great a felicity, that had she not left bitter remembrances behind her, there
might have been danger of his learning almost to approve the evil which produced
such a good.
    She was regretted by no one at Mansfield. She had never been able to attach
even those she loved best, and since Mrs. Rushworth's elopement, her temper had
been in a state of such irritation, as to make her every where tormenting. Not
even Fanny had tears for aunt Norris - not even when she was gone for ever.
    That Julia escaped better than Maria was owing, in some measure, to a
favourable difference of disposition and circumstance, but in a greater to her
having been less the darling of that very