Their general fare bore a very different character; and could he have suspected how many privations, besides that of exercise, she endured in her father's house, he would have wondered that her looks were not much more affected than he found them. She was so little equal to Rebecca's puddings and Rebecca's hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with such accompaniments of half-cleaned plates, and not half-cleaned knives and forks, that she was very often constrained to defer her heartiest meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and buns. After being nursed up at Mansfield, it was too late in the day to be hardened at Portsmouth; and though Sir Thomas, had he known all, might have thought his niece in the most promising way of being starved, both mind and body, into a much juster value for Mr. Crawford's good company and good fortune, he would probably have feared to push his experiment farther, lest she might die under the cure.

Could he have suspected how many privations, besides that of exercise, she endured in her father's house, he would have wondered that her looks were not more affected. She was so little equal to Rebecca's puddings and Rebecca's hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with half-cleaned plates, and not even half-cleaned knives and forks, that she very often deferred her heartiest meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and buns. Though Sir Thomas might have thought his niece in the most promising way of being starved into valuing Mr. Crawford's company, he would probably have feared to push his experiment farther, lest she might die under the cure.
