st in her affections;
and from that day she grew more comfortable.

_II.--Cupid at Mansfield Park_

The first event of any importance in the family's affairs was the death
of Mr. Norris, which happened when Fanny was about fifteen, and
necessarily introduced alterations and novelties. Mrs. Norris, on
quitting the parsonage, removed first to the Park, and then arranged to
take a small dwelling in the village belonging to Sir Thomas and called
the White House. The living had been destined for Edmund, and in
ordinary circumstances would have been duly given to some friend to hold
till he were old enough to take orders. But Tom's extravagances had been
so great as to render a different disposal of the next presentation
necessary, and so the reversion was sold to a Dr. Grant, a hearty man of
forty-five, fond of good eating, married to a wife about fifteen years
his junior, and unprovided with children.

The Grants had scarcely been settled in Mansfield a year, when, for the
better settlement of his property in the West Indies, Sir Thomas had
found it expedient to go to Antigua, and he took his elder son with him,
in the hope of detaching him from some bad connections at home. Neither
person was missed.

Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she
was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety or solicitude for his
comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous
or difficult or fatiguing to anybody but themselves. Before very long
she found that Edmund could quite sufficiently supply his father's
place. On this occasion the Miss Bertrams, who were now fully
established among the belles of the neighbourhood, were much to be
pitied, not for their sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was
no object of love to them; he had never seemed the friend of their
pleasures, and his absence was unhappily most welcome.

Fanny's relief, and her consciousness of it, were quite equal to her
cousins'; but a more tender nature suggested that her feelings were
ungrateful, and she really grieved because she could not grieve.

Meantime, taking advantage of her sister's indolence, Mrs. Norris acted
as chaperon to Maria and Julia in their public engagements, and very
thoroughly relished the means this afforded her of mixing in society
without having horses to hire.

Fanny had no share in the festivities of the season; but she enjoyed
being avowedly useful as her aunt's companion,