have nothing to say. The soup would be sent round in a
most spiritless manner, wine drank without any smiles
or agreeable trifling, and the venison cut up without
supplying one pleasant anecdote of any former haunch,
or a single entertaining story, about "my friend such a one."
She must try to find amusement in what was passing at the
upper end of the table, and in observing Mr. Rushworth,
who was now making his appearance at Mansfield for the first
time since the Crawfords' arrival. He had been visiting
a friend in the neighbouring county, and that friend
having recently had his grounds laid out by an improver,
Mr. Rushworth was returned with his head full of the subject,
and very eager to be improving his own place in the same way;
and though not saying much to the purpose, could talk
of nothing else. The subject had been already handled
in the drawing-room; it was revived in the dining-parlour.
Miss Bertram's attention and opinion was evidently
his chief aim; and though her deportment showed rather
conscious superiority than any solicitude to oblige him,
the mention of Sotherton Court, and the ideas attached
to it, gave her a feeling of complacency, which prevented
her from being very ungracious.

"I wish you could see Compton," said he; "it is the most
complete thing! I never saw a place so altered in my life.
I told Smith I did not know where I was. The approach _now_,
is one of the finest things in the country: you see the
house in the most surprising manner. I declare, when I
got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison--
quite a dismal old prison."