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@@@@@On her father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but he was more negligent of his family, his habits were worse, and his 339 Jane Austen manners coarser, than she had been prepared forHe did not want abilities but he had no curiosity, and no information beyond his profession; he read only the newspaper and the navy-list; he talked only of the dockyard, the harbour, Spithead, and the Motherbank; he swore and he drank, he was dirty and grossShe had never been able to recall anything approaching to tenderness in his former treatment of herselfThere had remained only a general impression of roughness and loudness; and now he scarcely ever noticed her, but to make her the object of a coarse joke Her disappointment in her mother was greater: there she had hoped much, and found almost nothingEvery flattering scheme of being of consequence to her soon fell to the groundPrice was not unkind; but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from her than on the first day of her arrivalThe instinct of nature was soon satisfied, and MrsPrice?s attachment had no other sourceHer heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor affection to bestow on FannyHer daughters never had been much to herShe was fond of her sons, especially of William, but Betsey was the first of her girls whom she had ever much regardedTo her she was most injudiciously indulgent William was her pride; Betsey her darling; and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her maternal solicitude, alternately her worries and her comfortsThese shared her heart: her time was given chiefly to her house and her servantsHer days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; all was busy without getting on, always behindhand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect Of her two sisters, MrsPrice very much more resembled Lady Bertram than MrsShe was a manager by necessity, without any of MrsNorris?s inclination for it, or any of her activity Her disposition was naturally easy and indolent, like Lady Bertram?s; and a situation of similar affluence and do-nothingness would have been much more suited to her capacity than the 340 Mansfield Park exertions and self-denials of the one which her imprudent marriage had placed her inShe might have made just as good a woman of consequence as Lady Bertram, but MrsNorris would have been a more respectable mother of nine children on a small income Much of all this Fanny could not but be sensible ofShe might scruple to make use of the words, but she must and did feel that her mother was a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taught nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement and discomfort from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no conversation, no affection towards herself; no curiosity to know her better, no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for her company that could lessen her sense of such feel