Page:Austen - Mansfield Park, vol. III, 1814.djvu/137

 hard to bear at Mansfield, was to become a slight evil at Portsmouth.

The only drawback was the doubt of her Aunt Bertram's being comfortable without her. She was of use to no one else; but there she might be missed to a degree that she did not like to think of; and that part of the arrangement was, indeed, the hardest for Sir Thomas to accomplish, and what only he could have accomplished at all.

But he was master at Mansfield Park. When he had really resolved on any measure, he could always carry it through; and now by dint of long talking on the subject, explaining and dwelling on the duty of Fanny's sometimes seeing her family, he did induce his wife to let her go; obtaining tit [sic] rather from submission, however, than conviction, for Lady Bertram was convinced of very little more than, that Sir Thomas thought Fanny ought to go, and therefore that she must. In the calmness of her own dressing room, in Rh