They were a remarkably fine family, the sons very well-looking, the
daughters decidedly handsome, and all of them well-grown and forward of
their age, which produced as striking a difference between the cousins
in person, as education had given to their address; and no one would
have supposed the girls so nearly of an age as they really were. There
were in fact but two years between the youngest and Fanny. Julia
Bertram was only twelve, and Maria but a year older. The little
visitor meanwhile was as unhappy as possible. Afraid of everybody,
ashamed of herself, and longing for the home she had left, she knew not
how to look up, and could scarcely speak to be heard, or without
crying. Mrs. Norris had been talking to her the whole way from
Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree
of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce, and her
consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its
being a wicked thing for her not to be happy. The fatigue, too, of so
long a journey, became soon no trifling evil. In vain were the
well-meant condescensions of Sir Thomas, and all the officious
prognostications of Mrs. Norris that she would be a good girl; in vain
did Lady Bertram smile and make her sit on the sofa with herself and
pug, and vain was even the sight of a gooseberry tart towards giving
her comfort; she could scarcely swallow two mouthfuls before tears
interrupted her, and sleep seeming to be her likeliest friend, she was
taken to finish her sorrows in bed.