How is the consternation of the party to be described? To the greater number it was a moment of
absolute horror. Sir Thomas in the house! All felt the instantaneous conviction. Not a hope of imposition or mistake was
harboured anywhere. Julia’s looks were an evidence of the fact that made it indisputable; and after the first starts and
exclamations, not a word was spoken for half a minute: each with an altered countenance was looking at some other, and
almost each was feeling it a stroke the most unwelcome, most ill-timed, most appalling! Mr. Yates might consider it only
as a vexatious interruption for the evening, and Mr. Rushworth might imagine it a blessing; but every other heart was
sinking under some degree of self-condemnation or undefined alarm, every other heart was suggesting, “What will become of
us? what is to be done now?” It was a terrible pause; and terrible to every ear were the corroborating sounds of opening
doors and passing footsteps.

Julia was the first to move and speak again. Jealousy and bitterness had been suspended: selfishness was lost in the
common cause; but at the moment of her appearance, Frederick was listening with looks of devotion to Agatha’s narrative,
and pressing her hand to his heart; and as soon as she could notice this, and see that, in spite of the shock of her
words, he still kept his station and retained her sister’s hand, her wounded heart swelled again with injury, and looking
as red as she had been white before, she turned out of the room, saying, “I need not be afraid of appearing
before him.”

Her going roused the rest; and at the same moment the two brothers stepped forward, feeling the necessity of doing
something. A very few words between them were sufficient. The case admitted no difference of opinion: they must go to the
drawing-room directly. Maria joined them with the same intent, just then the stoutest of the three; for the very
circumstance which had driven Julia away was to her the sweetest support. Henry Crawford’s retaining her hand at such a
moment, a moment of such peculiar proof and importance, was worth ages of doubt and anxiety. She hailed it as an earnest
of the most serious determination, and was equal even to encounter her father. They walked off, utterly heedless of Mr.
Rushworth’s repeated question of, “Shall I go too? Had not I better go too? Will not it be right for me to go too?” but
they were no sooner through the door than Henry Crawford undertook to answer the anxious inquiry, and, encouraging him by
all means to pay his respects to Sir Thomas without delay, sent him after the others with delighted haste.

Fanny was left with only the Crawfords and Mr. Yates. She had been quite overlooked by her cousins; and as her own
opinion of her claims on Sir Thomas’s affection was much too humble to give her any idea of classing herself with his
children, she was glad to remain behind and gain a little breathing-time. Her agitation and alarm exceeded all that was
endured by the rest, by the right of a disposition which not even innocence could keep from suffering. She was nearly
fainting: all her former habitual dread of her uncle was returning, and with it compassion for him and for almost every
one of the party on the development before him, with solicitude on Edmund’s account indescribable. She had found a seat,
where in excessive trembling she was enduring all these fearful thoughts, while the other three, no longer under any
restraint, were giving vent to their feelings of vexation, lamenting over such an unlooked-for premature arrival as a
most untoward event, and without mercy wishing poor Sir Thomas had been twice as long on his passage, or were still in
Antigua.

The Crawfords were more warm on the subject than Mr. Yates, from better understanding the family, and judging more
clearly of the mischief that must ensue. The ruin of the play was to them a certainty: they felt the total destruction of
the scheme to be inevitably at hand; while Mr. Yates considered it only as a temporary interruption, a disaster for the
evening, and could even suggest the possibility of the rehearsal being renewed after tea, when the bustle of receiving
Sir Thomas were over, and he might be at leisure to be amused by it. The Crawfords laughed at the idea; and having soon
agreed on the propriety of their walking quietly home and leaving the family to themselves, proposed Mr. Yates’s
accompanying them and spending the evening at the Parsonage. But Mr. Yates, having never been with those who thought much
of parental claims, or family confidence, could not perceive that anything of the kind was necessary; and therefore,
thanking them, said, “he preferred remaining where he was, that he might pay his respects to the old gentleman handsomely
since he was come; and besides, he did not think it would be fair by the others to have everybody run away.”

Fanny was just beginning to collect herself, and to feel that if she staid longer behind it might seem disrespectful,
when this point was settled, and being commissioned with the brother and sister’s apology, saw them preparing to go as
she quitted the room herself to perform the dreadful duty of appearing before her uncle.

Too soon did she find herself at the drawing-room door; and after pausing a moment for what she knew would not come,
for a courage which the outside of no door had ever supplied to her, she turned the lock in desperation, and the lights
of the drawing-room, and all the collected family, were before her. As she entered, her own name caught her ear. Sir
Thomas was at that moment looking round him, and saying, “But where is Fanny? Why do not I see my little Fanny?”— and on
perceiving her, came forward with a kindness which astonished and penetrated her, calling her his dear Fanny, kissing her
affectionately, and observing with decided pleasure how much she was grown! Fanny knew not how to feel, nor where to
look. She was quite oppressed. He had never been so kind, so very kind to her in his life. His manner seemed
changed, his voice was quick from the agitation of joy; and all that had been awful in his dignity seemed lost in
tenderness. He led her nearer the light and looked at her again — inquired particularly after her health, and then,
correcting himself, observed that he need not inquire, for her appearance spoke sufficiently on that point. A fine blush
having succeeded the previous paleness of her face, he was justified in his belief of her equal improvement in health and
beauty. He inquired next after her family, especially William: and his kindness altogether was such as made her reproach
herself for loving him so little, and thinking his return a misfortune; and when, on having courage 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 centre 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 shew 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
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 labouring to be important where nothing was wanted but tranquillity and silence. Would Sir Thomas have consented to
eat, she might have gone to the housekeeper with troublesome directions, and insulted the footmen with injunctions of
despatch; 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.”

“Well, then, Lady Bertram, suppose you speak for tea directly; suppose you hurry Baddeley a little; he seems
behindhand to-night.” She carried this point, and Sir Thomas’s narrative proceeded.

At length there was a pause. His immediate communications were exhausted, and it seemed enough to be looking joyfully
around him, now at one, now at another of the beloved circle; but the pause was not long: in the elation of her spirits
Lady Bertram became talkative, and what were the sensations of her children upon hearing her say, “How do you think the
young people have been amusing themselves lately, Sir Thomas? They have been acting. We have been all alive with
acting.”

“Indeed! and what have you been acting?”

“Oh! they’ll tell you all about it.”

“The all will soon be told,” cried Tom hastily, and with affected unconcern; “but it is not worth while to
bore my father with it now. You will hear enough of it to-morrow, sir. We have just been trying, by way of doing
something, and amusing my mother, just within the last week, to get up a few scenes, a mere trifle. We have had such
incessant rains almost since October began, that we have been nearly confined to the house for days together. I have
hardly taken out a gun since the 3rd. Tolerable sport the first three days, but there has been no attempting anything
since. The first day I went over Mansfield Wood, and Edmund took the copses beyond Easton, and we brought home six brace
between us, and might each have killed six times as many, but we respect your pheasants, sir, I assure you, as much as
you could desire. I do not think you will find your woods by any means worse stocked than they were. I never saw
Mansfield Wood so full of pheasants in my life as this year. I hope you will take a day’s sport there yourself, sir,
soon.”

For the present the danger was over, and Fanny’s sick feelings subsided; but when tea was soon afterwards brought in,
and Sir Thomas, getting up, said that he found that he could not be any longer in the house without just looking into his
own dear room, every agitation was returning. He was gone before anything had been said to prepare him for the change he
must find there; and a pause of alarm followed his disappearance. Edmund was the first to speak —

“Something must be done,” said he.

“It is time to think of our visitors,” said Maria, still feeling her hand pressed to Henry Crawford’s heart, and
caring little for anything else. “Where did you leave Miss Crawford, Fanny?”

Fanny told of their departure, and delivered their message.

“Then poor Yates is all alone,” cried Tom. “I will go and fetch him. He will be no bad assistant when it all comes
out.”

To the theatre he went, and reached it just in time to witness the first meeting of his father and his friend. Sir
Thomas had been a good deal surprised to find candles burning in his room; and on casting his eye round it, to see other
symptoms of recent habitation and a general air of confusion in the furniture. The removal of the bookcase from before
the billiard-room door struck him especially, but he had scarcely more than time to feel astonished at all this, before
there were sounds from the billiard-room to astonish him still farther. Some one was talking there in a very loud accent;
he did not know the voice — more than talking — almost hallooing. He stepped to the door, rejoicing at that moment in
having the means of immediate communication, and, opening it, found himself on the stage of a theatre, and opposed to a
ranting young man, who appeared likely to knock him down backwards. At the very moment of Yates perceiving Sir Thomas,
and giving perhaps the very best start he had ever given in the whole course of his rehearsals, Tom Bertram entered at
the other end of the room; and never had he found greater difficulty in keeping his countenance. His father’s looks of
solemnity and amazement on this his first appearance on any stage, and the gradual metamorphosis of the impassioned Baron
Wildenheim into the well-bred and easy Mr. Yates, making his bow and apology to Sir Thomas Bertram, was such an
exhibition, such a piece of true acting, as he would not have lost upon any account. It would be the last — in all
probability — the last scene on that stage; but he was sure there could not be a finer. The house would close with the
greatest eclat.

There was little time, however, for the indulgence of any images of merriment. It was necessary for him to step
forward, too, and assist the introduction, and with many awkward sensations he did his best. Sir Thomas received Mr.
Yates with all the appearance of cordiality which was due to his own character, but was really as far from pleased with
the necessity of the acquaintance as with the manner of its commencement. Mr. Yates’s family and connexions were
sufficiently known to him to render his introduction as the “particular friend,” another of the hundred particular
friends of his son, exceedingly unwelcome; and it needed all the felicity of being again at home, and all the forbearance
it could supply, to save Sir Thomas from anger on finding himself thus bewildered in his own house, making part of a
ridiculous exhibition in the midst of theatrical nonsense, and forced in so untoward a moment to admit the acquaintance
of a young man whom he felt sure of disapproving, and whose easy indifference and volubility in the course of the first
five minutes seemed to mark him the most at home of the two.

Tom understood his father’s thoughts, and heartily wishing he might be always as well disposed to give them but
partial expression, began to see, more clearly than he had ever done before, that there might be some ground of offence,
that there might be some reason for the glance his father gave towards the ceiling and stucco of the room; and that when
he inquired with mild gravity after the fate of the billiard-table, he was not proceeding beyond a very allowable
curiosity. A few minutes were enough for such unsatisfactory sensations on each side; and Sir Thomas having exerted
himself so far as to speak a few words of calm approbation in reply to an eager appeal of Mr. Yates, as to the happiness
of the arrangement, the three gentlemen returned to the drawing-room together, Sir Thomas with an increase of gravity
which was not lost on all.

“I come from your theatre,” said he composedly, as he sat down; “I found myself in it rather unexpectedly. Its
vicinity to my own room — but in every respect, indeed, it took me by surprise, as I had not the smallest suspicion of
your acting having assumed so serious a character. It appears a neat job, however, as far as I could judge by
candlelight, and does my friend Christopher Jackson credit.” And then he would have changed the subject, and sipped his
coffee in peace over domestic matters of a calmer hue; but Mr. Yates, without discernment to catch Sir Thomas’s meaning,
or diffidence, or delicacy, or discretion enough to allow him to lead the discourse while he mingled among the others
with the least obtrusiveness himself, would keep him on the topic of the theatre, would torment him with questions and
remarks relative to it, and finally would make him hear the whole history of his disappointment at Ecclesford. Sir Thomas
listened most politely, but found much to offend his ideas of decorum, and confirm his ill-opinion of Mr. Yates’s habits
of thinking, from the beginning to the end of the story; and when it was over, could give him no other assurance of
sympathy than what a slight bow conveyed.

“This was, in fact, the origin of our acting,” said Tom, after a moment’s thought. “My friend Yates brought
the infection from Ecclesford, and it spread — as those things always spread, you know, sir — the faster, probably, from
your having so often encouraged the sort of thing in us formerly. It was like treading old ground again.”

Mr. Yates took the subject from his friend as soon as possible, and immediately gave Sir Thomas an account of what
they had done and were doing: told him of the gradual increase of their views, the happy conclusion of their first
difficulties, and present promising state of affairs; relating everything with so blind an interest as made him not only
totally unconscious of the uneasy movements of many of his friends as they sat, the change of countenance, the fidget,
the hem! of unquietness, but prevented him even from seeing the expression of the face on which his own eyes were fixed —
from seeing Sir Thomas’s dark brow contract as he looked with inquiring earnestness at his daughters and Edmund, dwelling
particularly on the latter, and speaking a language, a remonstrance, a reproof, which he felt at his heart. Not
less acutely was it felt by Fanny, who had edged back her chair behind her aunt’s end of the sofa, and, screened from
notice herself, saw all that was passing before her. Such a look of reproach at Edmund from his father she could never
have expected to witness; and to feel that it was in any degree deserved was an aggravation indeed. Sir Thomas’s look
implied, “On your judgment, Edmund, I depended; what have you been about?” She knelt in spirit to her uncle, and her
bosom swelled to utter, “Oh, not to him! Look so to all the others, but not to him!”

Mr. Yates was still talking. “To own the truth, Sir Thomas, we were in the middle of a rehearsal when you arrived this
evening. We were going through the three first acts, and not unsuccessfully upon the whole. Our company is now so
dispersed, from the Crawfords being gone home, that nothing more can be done to-night; but if you will give us the honour
of your company to-morrow evening, I should not be afraid of the result. We bespeak your indulgence, you understand, as
young performers; we bespeak your indulgence.”

“My indulgence shall be given, sir,” replied Sir Thomas gravely, “but without any other rehearsal.” And with a
relenting smile, he added, “I come home to be happy and indulgent.” Then turning away towards any or all of the rest, he
tranquilly said, “Mr. and Miss Crawford were mentioned in my last letters from Mansfield. Do you find them agreeable
acquaintance?”

Tom was the only one at all ready with an answer, but he being entirely without particular regard for either, without
jealousy either in love or acting, could speak very handsomely of both. “Mr. Crawford was a most pleasant, gentleman-like
man; his sister a sweet, pretty, elegant, lively girl.”

Mr. Rushworth could be silent no longer. “I do not say he is not gentleman-like, considering; but you should tell your
father he is not above five feet eight, or he will be expecting a well-looking man.”

Sir Thomas did not quite understand this, and looked with some surprise at the speaker.

“If I must say what I think,” continued Mr. Rushworth, “in my opinion it is very disagreeable to be always rehearsing.
It is having too much of a good thing. I am not so fond of acting as I was at first. I think we are a great deal better
employed, sitting comfortably here among ourselves, and doing nothing.”

Sir Thomas looked again, and then replied with an approving smile, “I am happy to find our sentiments on this subject
so much the same. It gives me sincere satisfaction. That I should be cautious and quick-sighted, and feel many scruples
which my children do not feel, is perfectly natural; and equally so that my value for domestic tranquillity, for
a home which shuts out noisy pleasures, should much exceed theirs. But at your time of life to feel all this, is a most
favourable circumstance for yourself, and for everybody connected with you; and I am sensible of the importance of having
an ally of such weight.”

Sir Thomas meant to be giving Mr. Rushworth’s opinion in better words than he could find himself. He was aware that he
must not expect a genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with better notions than his
elocution would do justice to, he intended to value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to
smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but by looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly
pleased with Sir Thomas’s good opinion, and saying scarcely anything, he did his best towards preserving that good
opinion a little longer.