not believe she could accept him.

The season and duties which brought Mr. Bertram back to
Mansfield took Mr. Crawford into Norfolk. Everingham could
not do without him in the beginning of September. He went
for a fortnight--a fortnight of such dullness to the Miss
Bertrams as ought to have put them both on their guard,
and made even Julia admit, in her jealousy of her sister,
the absolute necessity of distrusting his attentions,
and wishing him not to return; and a fortnight of sufficient
leisure, in the intervals of shooting and sleeping, to have
convinced the gentleman that he ought to keep longer away,
had he been more in the habit of examining his own motives,
and of reflecting to what the indulgence of his idle vanity
was tending; but, thoughtless and selfish from prosperity
and bad example, he would not look beyond the present moment.
The sisters, handsome, clever, and encouraging, were an
amusement to his sated mind; and finding nothing in Norfolk
to equal the social pleasures of Mansfield, he gladly
returned to it at the time appointed, and was welcomed
thither quite as gladly by those whom he came to trifle with
further.

Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, and doomed
to the repeated details of his day's sport, good or bad,
his boast of his dogs, his jealousy of his neighbours,
his doubts of their qualifications, and his zeal after poachers,
subjects which will not find their way to female feelings
without some talent on one side or some attachment on
the other, had missed Mr. Crawford grievously; and Julia,