Mansfield Park

is the avenue?  The house fronts the east, I perceive.
The avenue, therefore, must be at the back of it.
Mr. Rushworth talked of the west front."

"Yes, it is exactly behind the house; begins at a little
distance, and ascends for half a mile to the extremity
of the grounds.  You may see something of it here--
something of the more distant trees.  It is oak entirely."

Miss Bertram could now speak with decided information
of what she had known nothing about when Mr. Rushworth
had asked her opinion; and her spirits were in as happy
a flutter as vanity and pride could furnish, when they drove
up to the spacious stone steps before the principal entrance.



CHAPTER IX

Mr. Rushworth was at the door to receive his fair lady;
and the whole party were welcomed by him with due attention.
In the drawing-room they were met with equal cordiality
by the mother, and Miss Bertram had all the distinction
with each that she could wish.  After the business
of arriving was over, it was first necessary to eat,
and the doors were thrown open to admit them through one
or two intermediate rooms into the appointed dining-parlour,
where a collation was prepared with abundance and elegance.
Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well.
The particular object of the day was then considered.
How would Mr. Crawford like, in what manner would he chuse,
to take a survey of the grounds?  Mr. Rushworth mentioned
his curricle.  Mr. Crawford suggested the greater desirableness
of some carriage which might convey more than two.
"To be depriving themselves of the advantage of other eyes
and other judgments, might be an evil even beyond the loss
of present pleasure."

Mrs. Rushworth proposed that the chaise should be taken also;
but this was scarcely received as an amendment:  the young
ladies neither smiled nor spoke.  Her next proposition,
of shewing the house to such of them as had not been
there before, was more acceptable, for Miss Bertram was
pleased to have its size displayed, and all were glad
to be doing something.

The whole party rose accordingly, and under Mrs. Rushworth's
guidance were shewn through a number of rooms, all lofty,
and many large, and amply furnished in the taste of fifty
years back, with shining floors, solid mahogany, rich damask,
marble, gilding, and carving, each handsome in its way.
Of pictures there were abundance, and some few good,
but the larger part were family portraits, no longer
anything to anybody but Mrs. Rushworth, who had been at
great pains to learn all that the housekeeper could teach,
and was now almost equally well qualified to shew the house.
On the present occasion she addressed herself chiefly
to Miss Crawford and Fanny, but there was no comparison
in the willingness of their attention; for Miss Crawford,
who had seen scores of great houses, and cared for none
of them, had only the appearance of civilly listening,
while Fanny, to whom everything was almost as interesting
as it was new, attended with unaffected earnestness to all
that Mrs. Rushworth could relate of the family in former times,
its rise and grandeur, regal visits and loyal efforts,
delighted to connect anything with history already known,
or warm her imagination with scenes of the past.

The situation of the house excluded the possibility
of much prospect from any of the rooms; and while Fanny
and some of the others were attending Mrs. Rushworth,
Henry Crawford was looking grave and shaking his head
at the windows.  Every room on the west front looked
across a lawn to the beginning of the avenue immediately
beyond tall iron palisades and gates.

Having visited many more rooms than could be supposed to be
of any other use than to contribute to the window-tax, and
find employment for housemaids, "Now," said Mrs. Rushworth,
"we are coming to the chapel, which properly we ought
to enter from above, and look down upon; but as we
are quite among friends, I will take you in this way,
if you will excuse me."

They entered.  Fanny's imagination had prepared her
for something grander than a mere spacious, oblong room,
fitted up for the purpose of devotion:  with nothing more
striking or more solemn than the profusion of mahogany,
and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge
of the family gallery above.  "I am disappointed,"
said she, in a low voice, to Edmund.  "This is not
my idea of a chapel.  There is nothing awful here,
nothing melancholy, nothing grand.  Here are no aisles,
no arches, no inscriptions, no banners.  No banners,
cousin, to be 'blown by the night wind of heaven.'
No signs that a 'Scottish monarch sleeps below.'"

"You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built,
and for how confined a purpose, compared with the old
chapels of castles and monasteries.  It was only for