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to lift her eyes to his face, she saw that he was grown thinner and had the burnt, fagged, worn look of
fatigue and a hot climate, every tender feeling was increased, and she was miserable in considering how
much unsuspected vexation was probably ready to burst on him.
Sir Thomas was indeed the life of the party, who at his suggestion now seated themselves round the fire.
He had the best right to be the talker; and the delight of his sensations in being again in his own house, in
the center of his family, after such a separation, made him communicative and chatty in a very unusual
degree; and he was ready to give every information as to his voyage, and answer every question of his
two sons almost before it was put. His business in Antigua had latterly been prosperously rapid, and he
came directly from Liverpool, having had an opportunity of making his passage thither in a private vessel,
instead of waiting for the packet; and all the little particulars of his proceedings and events, his arrivals
and departures, were most promptly delivered, as he sat by Lady Bertram and looked with heartfelt
satisfaction on the faces around him interrupting himself more than once, however, to remark on his
good fortune in finding them all at home coming unexpectedly as he did all collected together exactly
as he could have wished, but dared not depend on. Mr. Rushworth was not forgotten; a most friendly
reception and warmth of hand-shaking had already met him, and with pointed attention he was now
included in the objects most intimately connected with Mansfield. There was nothing disagreeable in Mr.
Rushworth's appearance, and Sir Thomas was liking him already.
By not one of the circle was he listened to with such unbroken unalloyed enjoyment as by his wife, who
was really extremely happy to see him, and whose feelings were so warmed by his sudden arrival, as to
place her nearer agitation than she had been for the last twenty years. She had been almost fluttered for
a few minutes, and still remained so sensibly animated as to put away her work, move Pug from her side,
and give all her attention and all the rest of her sofa to her husband. She had no anxieties for anybody to
cloud her pleasure; her own time had been irreproachably spent during his absence; she had done a great
deal of carpet work and made many yards of fringe; and she would have answered as freely for the good
conduct and useful pursuits of all the young people as for her own. It was so agreeable to her to see him
again, and hear him talk, to have her ear amused and her whole comprehension filled by his narratives,
that she began particularly to feel how dreadfully she must have missed him, and how impossible it would
have been for her to bear a lengthened absence.
Mrs. Norris was by no means to be compared in happiness to her sister. Not that she was incommoded
by many fears of Sir Thomas's disapprobation when the present state of his house should be known, for
her judgment had been so blinded, that except by the instinctive caution with which she had whisked
away Mr. Rushworth's pink satin cloak as her brother-in-law entered, she could hardly be said to show
any sign of alarm; but she was vexed by the manner of his return. It had left her nothing to do. Instead of
being sent for out of the room, and seeing him first, and having to spread the happy news through the
house, Sir Thomas, with a very reasonable dependence perhaps on the nerves of his wife and children,
had sought no confidant but the butler, and had been following him almost instantaneously into the
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drawing-room. Mrs. Norris felt herself defrauded of an office on which she had always depended,
whether his arrival or his death were to be the thing unfolded; and was now trying to be in a bustle
without having anything to bustle about, and laboring to be important where nothing was wanted but
tranquillity and silence. Would Sir Thomas have consented to eat, she might have gone to the
house-keeper with troublesome directions, and insulted the footmen with injunctions of dispatch; but Sir
Thomas resolutely declined all dinner; he would take nothing, nothing till tea came he would rather wait
for tea. Still Mrs. Norris was at intervals urging something different, and in the most interesting moment of
his passage to England, when the alarm of a French privateer was at the height, she burst through his
recital with the proposal of soup. "Sure, my dear Sir Thomas, a basin of soup would be a much better
thing for you than tea. Do have a basin of soup."
Sir Thomas could not be provoked. "Still the same anxiety for everybody's comfort, my dear Mrs.
Norris," was his answer. "But indeed I would rather have nothing but tea."
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