nny everything you could wish."

Sir Thomas saw all the impropriety of such a scheme among such a party,
and at such a time, as strongly as his son had ever supposed he must; he
felt it too much, indeed, for many words; and having shaken hands with
Edmund, meant to try to lose the disagreeable impression, and forget how
much he had been forgotten himself as soon as he could, after the house
had been cleared of every object enforcing the remembrance, and restored
to its proper state. He did not enter into any remonstrance with his
other children: he was more willing to believe they felt their error
than to run the risk of investigation. The reproof of an immediate
conclusion of everything, the sweep of every preparation, would be
sufficient.

There was one person, however, in the house, whom he could not leave
to learn his sentiments merely through his conduct. He could not help
giving Mrs. Norris a hint of his having hoped that her advice might
have been interposed to prevent what her judgment must certainly have
disapproved. The young people had been very inconsiderate in forming the
plan; they ought to have been capable of a better decision themselves;
but they were young; and, excepting Edmund, he believed, of unsteady
characters; and with greater surprise, therefore, he must regard her
acquiescence in their wrong measures, her countenance of their unsafe
amusements, than that such measures and such amusements should have
been suggested. Mrs. Norris was a little confounded and as nearly
being silenced as ever she had been in her life; for she was ashamed to
confess having never seen any of the impropriety which was so glaring
to Sir Thomas, and would not have admitted that her influence was
insufficient--that she might have talked in vain. Her only resource was
to get out of the subject as fast as possible, and turn the current
of Sir Thomas's ideas into a happier channel. She had a great deal to
insinuate in her own praise as to _general_ attention to the interest
and comfort of his family, much exertion and many sacrifices to glance
at in the form of hurried walks and sudden removals from her own
fireside, and many excellent hints of distrust and economy to Lady
Bertram and Edmund to detail, whereby a most considerable saving had
always arisen, and more than one bad servant been detected. But her
chief strength lay in Sotherton. Her greatest support and glory was
in having formed the connexion with the Rushworths.