The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion: not for their sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was no object of love to them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from all restraint; and without aiming at one gratification that would probably have been forbidden by Sir Thomas, they felt themselves immediately at their own disposal, and to have every indulgence within their reach. Fanny's relief, and her consciousness of it, were quite equal to her cousins'; but a more tender nature suggested that her feelings were ungrateful, and she really grieved because she could not grieve. "Sir Thomas, who had done so much for her and her brothers, and who was gone perhaps never to return! that she should see him go without a tear! it was a shameful insensibility." He had said to her, moreover, on the very last morning, that he hoped she might see William again in the course of the ensuing winter, and had charged her to write and invite him to Mansfield as soon as the squadron to which he belonged should be known to be in England. "This was so thoughtful and kind!" and would he only have smiled upon her, and called her "my dear Fanny," while he said it, every former frown or cold address might have been forgotten. 
The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion: not for their sorrow, but for their lack of it. Their father was no object of love to them; his absence was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from all restraint; they felt themselves at their own disposal, and to have every indulgence within their reach.
Fanny's relief was quite equal to her cousins'; but she really grieved because she could not grieve. "Sir Thomas, who had done so much for her, gone perhaps never to return! that she should see him go without a tear! it was a shameful insensibility." He had said to her, on the last morning, that he hoped she might see William again, and had told her to invite him to Mansfield when his squadron was in England. "This was so thoughtful and kind!" and if he had only smiled, and called her "my dear Fanny", every former cold address might have been forgotten. 