MANSFIELD PARK

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon with only seven thousand pounds had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park in the county of Northampton and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronets lady with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match and her uncle the lawyer himself allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation; and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.