Virtue & Virtuosity (ao3)
Mansfield Park & Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Summary: 'Fanny was the mute earth to Mary's leaping fire, the gnarled oak to her fluttering songbird, the mirror-bright millpond to her restless waves. If one could somehow, with propriety, squeeze both ladies into a single body, the resultant heroine would be beyond anything shewn by Mrs. Radcliffe! She might paddle down the Amazon, contest a knotty theological point with the Pope, battle venomous water snakes with a hat pin and a bottle of hartshorn, and sink into a dead faint at the villain’s merest glance, as if he were some species of basilisk!' Or, Mansfield Park meets Northanger Abbey. Written for yuletide 2015

No one who had ever seen Mary Crawford in her youth, could have failed to have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her nearest relations, her own temper and understanding, the disposition of her dearest friends; all were equally propitious. She had the fortune to be orphaned at an interesting age, and to have lost the care of a mother just when she was most in want of a mother’s guidance. Nor were these her only advantages. Her person lacked nothing an observer could desire; and her mind was quite as well developed as her figure. She had imbibed all the information that a select London seminary could offer—which is to say, she could cap a quotation; offer bon mots on any proper topic; discourse sweet nothings in French and Italian; berate the squalid in a landscape; beguile the ears with her performances upon the pianoforte and the harp; sketch portraits whose subjects could be made out after only a very few guesses; diagnose the exact season of an old gown, no matter how cleverly it had been refurbished; and if she had ever chanced to gain any knowledge upon a serious subject, she had the wisdom to conceal it. In short, no accomplishment was lacking that befitted a young lady with a fortune of twenty thousand pounds.