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                      CHAPTER XXXV


ELINOR'S curiosity to see Mrs. Ferrars, was satisfied. She had found in
her every thing that could tend to make a farther connection between the
families undesirable. She had seen enough of her pride, her meanness,
and her determined prejudice against herself, to comprehend all the
difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement, and retarded the
marriage of Edward and herself, had he been otherwise free; and she had
seen almost enough to be thankful, for her own sake, that one greater
obstacle preserved her from suffering under any other of Mrs. Ferrars's
creation, preserved her from all dependence upon her caprice, or any
solicitude for her opinion. Or at least, if she did not bring herself
quite to rejoice in Edward's being fettered to Lucy, she determined,
that had Lucy been more amiable, she ought to have rejoiced.

She wondered that Lucy's spirits could be so very much elevated by the
civility of Mrs. Ferrars; that her interest and her vanity should so
very much blind her as to make the attention which seemed only paid her
because she was not Elinor, appear a compliment to herself,- or to allow
her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her, because
her real situation was unknown. But that it was so, had not only been
declared by Lucy's eyes at the time, but was declared over again the
next morning more openly; for at her particular desire Lady Middleton
set her down in Perkeley Street, on the chance of seeing Elinor alone,
to tell her how happy she was.

The chance proved a lucky one; for a message from Mrs. Palmer soon after
she arrived carried Mrs. Jennings away.

"My dear friend," cried Lucy, as soon as they were by themselves, "I
come to talk to you of my happiness. Could anything be so flattering as
Mrs. Ferrars's way of treating me yesterday? So exceeding affable as she
was! You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her; but the very
moment I was introduced, there was such an affability in her behaviour
as really should seem to say, she had quite took a fancy to me. Now was
not it so?- You saw it all; and was not you quite struck with it?"

"She was certainly very civil to you."

"Civil!- Did you see nothing but only civility?- I saw a vast deal more.
Such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me! No pride, no
hauteur, and your sister just the same- all sweetness and affability!"

Elinor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to
own that she had reason for her happiness; and Elinor was obliged to go
on.

"Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement," said she, "nothing
could be more flattering than their treatment of you;- but as that was
not the case-"

"I guessed you would say so," replied Lucy, quickly;- "but there was no
reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did
not, and her liking me is every thing. You shan't talk me out of my
satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no
difficulties at all, to what I used to think. Mrs. Ferrars is a charming
woman, and so is your sister. They are both delightful women, indeed!- I
wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs. Dashwood was!"

To this Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any.

"Are you ill, Miss Dashwood?- you seem low- you don't speak;- sure you
an't well."

"I never was in better health."

"I am glad of it with all my heart; but really you did not look it. I
should be sorry to have you ill; you, that have been the greatest
comfort to me in the world!- Heaven knows what I should have done
without your friendship."

Elinor tried to make a civil answer, though doubting her own success.
But it seemed to satisfy Lucy, for she directly replied,-

"Indeed I am perfectly convinced of your regard for me, and, next to
Edward's love, it is the greatest comfort I have. Poor Edward! But now
there is one good thing, we shall be able to meet, and meet pretty
often, for Lady Middleton's delighted with Mrs. Dashwood, so we shall be
a good deal in Harley Street, I dare say, and Edward spends half his
time with his sister- besides, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Ferrars will
visit now;- and Mrs. Ferrars and your sister were both so good to say,
more than once, they should always be glad to see me. They are such
charming women!- I am sure if ever you tell your sister what I think of
her, you cannot speak too high."

But Elinor would not give her any encouragement to hope that she should
tell her sister. Lucy continued,-

"I am sure I should have seen it in a moment, if Mrs. Ferrars had took
dislike to me. If she had only made me a formal courtesy, for instance,
without saying a word, and never after had took any notice of me, and
never looked at me in a pleasant way- you know what I mean- if I had
been treated in that forbidding sort of way, I should have gave it all
up in despair. I could not have stood it. For where she does dislike, I
know it is most violent."

Elinor was prevented from making any reply to this civil triumph, by the
doors being thrown open, the servant's announcing Mr. Ferrars, and
Edward's immediately walking in.

It was a very awkward moment; and the countenance of each showed that it
was so. They all looked exceedingly foolish; and Edward seemed to have
as great an inclination to walk out of the room again as to advance
farther into it. The very circumstance, in its unpleasantest form, which
they would each have been most anxious to avoid, had fallen on them.
They were not only all three together, but were together without the
relief of any other person. The ladies recovered themselves first. It
was not Lucy's business to put herself forward, and the appearance of
secresy must still be kept up. She could therefore only look her
tenderness, and after slightly addressing him, said no more.

But Elinor had more to do; and so anxious was she, for his sake and her
own, to do it well, that she forced herself, after a moment's
recollection, to welcome him, with a look and manner that were almost
easy, and almost open; and another struggle, another effort still
improved them. She would not allow the presence of Lucy, nor the
consciousness of some injustice towards herself, to deter her from
saying that she was happy to see him, and that she had very much
regretted being from home, when he called before in Berkeley Street. She
would not be frightened from paying him those attentions which, as a
friend and almost a relation, were his due, by the observant eyes of
Lucy, though she soon perceived them to be narrowly watching her.

Her manners gave some re-assurance to Edward, and he had courage enough
to sit down; but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in
a proportion which the case rendered reasonable, though his sex might
make it rare; for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy's, nor
could his conscience have quite the ease of Elinor's.

Lucy, with a demure and settled air, seemed determined to make no
contribution to the comfort of the others, and would not say a word; and
almost every thing that was said proceeded from Elinor, who was obliged
to volunteer all the information about her mother's health, their coming
to town, &c., which Edward ought to have enquired about, but never did.

Her exertions did not stop here; for she soon afterwards felt herself so
heroically disposed as to determine, under pretence of fetching
Marianne, to leave the others by themselves; and she really did it, and
that in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away several minutes on
the landing-place, with the most high-minded fortitude, before she went
to her sister. When that was once done, however, it was time for the
raptures to Edward to cease; for Marianne's joy hurried her into the
drawing-room immediately. Her pleasure in seeing him was like every
other of her feelings, strong in itself, and strongly spoken. She met
him with a hand that would be taken, and a voice that expressed the
affection of a sister.

"Dear Edward!" she cried, "this is a moment of great happiness! This
would almost make amends for every thing?"

Edward tried to return her kindness as it deserved, but before such
witnesses he dared not say half what he really felt. Again they all sat
down, and for a moment or two all were silent; while Marianne was
looking with the most speaking tenderness, sometimes at Edward and
sometimes at Elinor, regretting only that their delight in each other
should be checked by Lucy's unwelcome presence. Edward was the first to
speak, and it was to notice Marianne's altered looks, and express his
fear of her not finding London agree with her.

"Oh, don't think of me!" she replied with spirited earnestness, though
her eyes were filled with tears as she spoke, "don't think of my health.
Elinor is well, you see. That must be enough for us both."

This remark was not calculated to make Edward or Elinor more easy, nor
to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no
very benignant expression.

"Do you like London?" said Edward, willing to say any thing that might
introduce another subject.

"Not at all. I expected much pleasure in it, but I have found none. The
sight of you, Edward, is the only comfort it has afforded; and, thank
Heaven! you are what you always were!"

She paused- no one spoke.

"I think, Elinor," she presently added, "we must employ Edward to take
care of us in our return to Barton. In a week or two, I suppose, we
shall be going; and, I trust, Edward will not be very unwilling to
accept the charge."

Poor Edward muttered something, but what it was, nobody knew, not even
himself. But Marianne, who saw his agitation, and could easily trace it
to whatever cause best pleased herself, was perfectly satisfied, and
soon talked of something else.

"We spent such a day, Edward, in Harley Street yesterday! So dull, so
wretchedly dull! But I have much to say to you on that head, which
cannot be said now."

And with this admirable discretion did she defer the assurance of her
finding their mutual relatives more disagreeable than ever, and of her
being particularly disgusted with his mother, till they were more in
private.

"But why were you not there, Edward? Why did you not come?"

"I was engaged elsewhere."

"Engaged! But what was that, when such friends were to be met?"

"Perhaps, Miss Marianne," cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge on her,
"you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they have no mind
to keep them, little as well as great."

Elinor was very angry, but Marianne seemed entirely insensible of the
sting; for she calmly replied,-

"Not so, indeed; for, seriously speaking, I am very sure that conscience
only kept Edward from Harley Street. And I really believe he has the
most delicate conscience in the world; the most scrupulous in performing
every engagement, however minute, and however it may make against his
interest or pleasure. He is the most fearful of giving pain, of wounding
expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish, of any body I ever
saw. Edward, it is so, and I will say it. What! are you never to hear
yourself praised?- Then you must be no friend of mine; for those who
will accept of my love and esteem must submit to my open commendation."

The nature of her commendation, in the present case, however, happened
to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two thirds of her
auditors, and was so very unexhilarating to Edward, that he very soon
got up to go away.

"Going so soon!" said Marianne; "my dear Edward, this must not be."

And drawing him a little aside, she whispered her persuasion that Lucy
could not stay much longer. But even this encouragement failed, for he
would go; and Lucy, who would have outstayed him, had his visit lasted
two hours, soon afterwards went away.

"What can bring her here so often?" said Marianne, on her leaving them.
"Could not she see that we wanted her gone?- how teazing to Edward!"

"Why so? We were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest known to
him of any. It is but natural that he should like to see her as well as
ourselves."

Marianne looked at her steadily, and said, "You know, Elinor, that this
is a kind of talking which I cannot bear. If you only hope to have your
assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you ought to
recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it. I cannot
descend to be tricked out of assurances that are not really wanted."

She then left the room; and Elinor dared not follow her to say more, for
bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give no
information that would convince Marianne; and painful as the
consequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was
obliged to submit to it. All that she could hope was, that Edward would
not often expose her or himself to the distress of hearing Marianne's
mistaken warmth, nor to the repetition of any other part of the pain
that had attended their recent meeting- and this she had every reason to
expect.

                      CHAPTER XXXVI


WITHIN a few days after this meeting, the newspapers announced to the
world, that the lady of Thomas Palmer, Esq. was safely delivered of a
son and heir; a very interesting and satisfactory paragraph, at least to
all those intimate connections who knew it before.

This event, highly important to Mrs. Jennings's happiness, produced a
temporary alteration in the disposal of her time, and influenced, in a
like degree, the engagements of her young friends; for as she wished to
be as much as possible with Charlotte, she went thither every morning as
soon as she was dressed, and did not return till late in the evening;
and the Misses Dashwood, at the particular request of the Middletons,
spent the whole of every day, in every day, in Conduit Street. For their
own comfort, they would much rather have remained, at least all the
morning, in Mrs. Jennings's house; but it was not a thing to be urged
against the wishes of everybody. Their hours were therefore made over to
Lady Middleton and the two Misses Steele, by whom their company, in
fact, was as little valued as it was professedly sought.

They had too much sense to be desirable companions to the former; and by
the latter they were considered with a jealous eye, as intruding on
their ground, and sharing the kindness which they wanted to monopolise.
Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behaviour to
Elinor and Marianne, she did not really like them at all. Because they
neither flattered herself nor her children, she could not believe them
good-natured; and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them
satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical;
but that did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily
given.

Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the
idleness of one, and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was
ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was
proud to think of, and administer at other times she feared they would
despise her for offering. Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the
three by their presence; and it was in their power to reconcile her to
it entirely. Would either of them only have given her a full and minute
account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr. Willoughby she
would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the best
place by the fire after dinner, which their arrival occasioned. But this
conciliation was not granted; for though she often threw out expressions
of pity for her sister to Elinor, and more than once dropt a reflection
on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne; no effect was produced, but
a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in the latter. An
effort even yet lighter might have made her their friend;- would they
only have laughed at her about the doctor! But so little were they, any
more than the others, inclined to oblige her, that if Sir John dined
from home, she might spend a whole day without hearing any other
raillery on the subject, than what she was kind enough to bestow on
herself.

All these jealousies and discontents, however, were so totally
unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings, that she thought it a delightful thing for
the girls to be together; and generally congratulated her young friends
every night on having escaped the company of a stupid old woman so long.
She joined them sometimes at Sir John's, sometimes at her own house; but
wherever it was, she always came in excellent spirits, full of delight
and importance, attributing Charlotte's well doing to her own care, and
ready to give so exact, so minute a detail of her situation, as only
Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire. One thing did disturb her;
and of that she made her daily complaint. Mr. Palmer maintained the
common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex, of all infants being
alike; and though she could plainly perceive, at different times, the
most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his
relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it; no
persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby
of the same age; nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple
proposition of its being the finest child in the world.

I come now to the relation of a misfortune which about this time befell
Mrs. John Dashwood. It so happened that while her two sisters with Mrs.
Jennings were first calling on her in Harley Street, another of her
acquaintance had dropt in- a circumstance in itself not apparently
likely to produce evil to her. But while the imaginations of other
people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our conduct, and
to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness must in some
measure be always at the mercy of chance. In the present instance, this
last arrived lady allowed her fancy to so far out-run truth and
probability, that on merely hearing the name of the Misses Dashwood, and
understanding them to be Mrs. Dashwood's sisters, she immediately
concluded them to be staying in Harley Street; and this misconstruction
produced, within a day or two afterwards, cards of invitation for them,
as well as for their brother and sister, to a small musical party at her
house; the consequence of which was, that Mrs. John Dashwood was obliged
to submit, not only to the exceedingly great inconvenience of sending
her carriage for the Misses Dashwood, but, what was still worse, must be
subject to all the unpleasantness of appearing to treat them with
attention, and who could tell that they might not expect to go out with
her a second time? The power of disappointing them, it was true, must
always be hers. But that was not enough: for when people are determined
on a mode of conduct which they know to be wrong, they feel injured by
the expectation of anything better from them.

Marianne had now been brought, by degrees, so much into the habit of
going out every day, that it was become a matter of indifference to her
whether she went or not; and she prepared quietly and mechanically for
every evening's engagement, though without expecting the smallest
amusement from any, and very often without knowing, till the last
moment, where it was to take her.

To her dress and appearance she was grown so perfectly indifferent as
not to bestow half the consideration on it, during the whole of her
toilet, which it received from Miss Steele in the first five minutes of
their being together when it was finished. Nothing escaped her minute
observation and general curiosity; she saw everything, and asked
everything; was never easy till she knew the price of every part of
Marianne's dress; could have guessed the number of her gowns altogether
with better judgment than Marianne herself; and was not without hopes of
finding out, before they parted, how much her washing cost per week, and
how much she had every year to spend upon herself. The impertinence of
these kind of scrutinies, moreover, was generally concluded with a
compliment, which, though meant as its douceur, was considered by
Marianne as the greatest impertinence of all; for after undergoing an
examination into the value and make of her gown, the colour of her
shoes, and the arrangement of her hair, she was almost sure of being
told, that "upon her word she looked vastly smart, and she dared to say
she would make a great many conquests."

With such encouragement as this, was she dismissed, on the present
occasion, to her brother's carriage; which they were ready to enter five
minutes after it stopped at the door, a punctuality not very agreeable
to their sister-in-law, who had preceded them to the house of her
acquaintance, and was there hoping for some delay on their part, that
might inconvenience either herself or her coachman.

The events of this evening were not very remarkable. The party, like
other musical parties, comprehended a great many people who had real
taste for the performance, and a great many more who had none at all;
and the performers themselves were, as usual, in their own estimation,
and that of their immediate friends, the first private performers in
England.

As Elinor was neither musical, nor affecting to be so, she made no
scruple of turning her eyes from the grand piano-forte whenever it
suited her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp, and
violincello, would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the room.
In one of these excursive glances she perceived, among a group of young
men, the very he, who had given them a lecture on toothpick-cases, at
Gray's. She perceived him soon afterwards looking at herself, and
speaking familiary to her brother; and had just determined to find out
his name from the latter, when they both came towards her, and Mr.
Dashwood introduced him to her as Mr. Robert Ferrars.

He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow,
which assured her, as plainly as words could have done, that he was
exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy. Happy had
it been for her, if her regard for Edward had depended less on his own
merit, than on the merit of his nearest relations! For then his
brother's bow must have given the finishing stroke to what the
ill-humour of his mother and sister would have begun. But while she
wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that
the emptiness of conceit of the one put her out of all charity with the
modesty and worth of the other. Why they were different, Robert
explained to her himself, in the course of a quarter of an hour's
conversation; for, talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme
gaucherie which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper
society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any
natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education; while
he himself, though probably without any particular, any material
superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school, was
as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man.

"Upon my soul," he added, "I believe it is nothing more; and so I often
tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. 'My dear madam,' I always
say to her, 'you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable,
and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by
my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under
private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only
sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr.
Pratt's, all this would have been prevented.' This is the way in which I
always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her
error."

Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because, whatever might be her
general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not
think of Edward's abode in Mr. Pratt's family, with any satisfaction.

"You reside in Devonshire, I think," was his next observation, "in a
cottage near Dawlish?"

Elinor set him right as to its situation; and it seemed rather
surprising to him, that anybody could live in Devonshire, without living
near Dawlish. He bestowed his hearty approbation, however, on their
species of house.

"For my own part," said he, "I am excessively fond of a cottage; there
is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest,
if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one
myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself
down at any time, and collect a few friends about me, and be happy. I
advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage. My friend
Lord Courtland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice, and
laid before me three different plans of Bonomi's. I was to decide on the
best of them. 'My dear Courtland.' said I, immediately throwing them all
into the fire, 'do not adopt either of them, but by all means build a
cottage.' And that I fancy, will be the end of it.

"Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a
cottage; but this is all a mistake. I was last month at my friend
Elliott's, near Dartford. Lady Elliott wished to give a dance. 'But how
can it be done?' said she: 'my dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is to be
managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten couple;
and where can the supper be?' I immediately saw that there could be no
difficulty in it, so I said, 'My dear Lady Elliott, do not be uneasy.
The dining-parlour will admit eighteen couple with ease; card-tables may
be placed in the drawing-room; the library may be open for tea and other
refreshments; and let the supper be set out in the saloon.' Lady Elliott
was delighted with the thought. We measured the dining-room, and found
it would hold exactly eighteen couple,- and the affair was arranged
precisely after my plan. So that, in fact, you see, if people do but
know how to set about it, every comfort may be as well enjoyed in a
cottage as in the most spacious dwelling." Elinor agreed to it; she did
not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.

As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister,
his mind was equally at liberty to fix on anything else; and a thought
struck him, during the evening, which he communicated to his wife, for
her approbation, when they got home. The consideration of Mrs.
Dennison's mistake, in supposing his sisters their guests, had suggested
the propriety of their being really invited to become such, while Mrs.
Jenning's engagements kept her from home. The expense would be nothing;
the inconvenience not more; and it was altogether an attention which the
delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be requisite to its complete
enfranchisement from his promise to his father. Fanny was startled at
the proposal.

"I do not see how it can be done," said she, "without affronting Lady
Middleton, for they spend every day with her; otherwise I should be
exceedingly glad to do it. You know I am always ready to pay them any
attention in my power, as my taking them out this evening shows. But
they are Lady Middleton's visitors. How can I ask them away from her?"

Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her
objection. They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit
Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the
same number of days to such near relations.

Fanny paused a moment, and then, with fresh vigor, said,-

"My love I would ask them with all my heart, if it was in my power. But
I had just settled within myself to ask the Misses Steele to spend a few
days with us. They are very well behaved, good kind of girls; and I
think the attention is due to them, as their uncle did so very well by
Edward. We can ask your sisters some other year, you know; but the
Misses Steele may not be in town any more. I am sure you will like them;
indeed, you do like them, you know, very much already, and so does my
mother; and they are such favourites with Harry!"

Mr. Dashwood was convinced. He saw the necessity of inviting the Misses
Steele immediately; and his conscience was pacified by the resolution of
inviting his sisters another year; at the same time, however, slily
suspecting that another year would make the invitation needless, by
bringing Elinor to town as Colonel Brandon's wife, and Marianne as their
visitor.

Fanny rejoicing in her escape, and proud of the ready wit that had
procured it, wrote the next morning to Lucy, to request her company and
her sister's, for some days, in Harley Street, as soon as Lady Middleton
could spare them. This was enough to make Lucy really and reasonably
happy. Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for herself; cherishing all
her hopes, and promoting all her views! Such an opportunity of being
with Edward and his family was, above all things, the most material to
her interest, and such an invitation the most gratifying to her
feelings! It was an advantage that could not be too gratefully
acknowledged, nor too speedily made use of; and the visit to Lady
Middleton, which had not before had any precise limits, was instantly
discovered to have been always meant to end in two days' time.

When the note was shown to Elinor, as it was within ten minutes after
its arrival, it gave her, for the first time, some share in the
expectations of Lucy; for such a mark of uncommon kindness, vouchsafed
on so short an acquaintance, seemed to declare that the good-will
towards her arose from something more than merely malice against
herself; and might be brought, by time and address, to do everything
that Lucy wished. Her flattery had already subdued the pride of Lady
Middleton, and made an entry into the close heart of Mrs. John Dashwood;
and these were effects that laid open the probability of greater.

The Misses Steele removed to Harley Street; and all that reached Elinor
of their influence there strengthened her expectation of the event. Sir
John, who called on them more than once, brought home such accounts of
the favour they were in, as must be universally striking. Mrs. Dashwood
had never been so much pleased with any young women in her life, as she
was with them; had given each of them a needle-book made by some
emigrant; called Lucy by her Christian name; and did not know whether
she should ever be able to part with them.

                      CHAPTER XXXVII


MRS. PALMER was so well at the end of a fortnight that her mother felt
it no longer necessary to give up the whole of her time to her; and,
contenting herself with visiting her once or twice a day, returned from
that period to her own home, and her own habits, in which she found the
Misses Dashwood very ready to re-assume their former share.

About the third or fourth morning after their being thus resettled in
Berkley Street, Mrs. Jennings, on returning from her ordinary visit to
Mrs. Palmer, entered the drawing-room, where Elinor was sitting by
herself, with an air of such hurrying importance, as prepared her to
hear something wonderful; and giving her time only to form that idea,
began directly to justify it, by saying,-

"Lord! my dear Miss Dashwood! have you heard the news?"

"No, ma'am. What is it?"

"Something so strange! But you shall hear it all. When I got to Mr.
Palmer's, I found Charlotte quite in a fuss about the child. She was
sure it was very ill- it cried, and fretted, and was all over pimples.
So I looked at it directly, and, 'Lord! my dear,' says I, 'it is nothing
in the world, but the red gum;' and nurse said just the same. But
Charlotte, she would not be satisfied, so Mr. Donovan was sent for; and
luckily he happened to just come in from Harley Street, so he stepped
over directly, and as soon as ever he saw the child, be said just as we
did, that it was nothing in the world, but the red gum, and then
Charlotte was easy. And so, just as he was going away again, it came
into my head, I am sure I do not know how I happened to think of it, but
it came into my head to ask him if there was any news. So upon that, he
smirked, and simpered, and looked grave, and seemed to know something or
other, and at last he said in a whisper, 'For fear any unpleasant report
should reach the young ladies under your care as to their sister's
indisposition, I think it advisable to say, that I believe there is no
great reason for alarm; I hope Mrs. Dashwood will do very well.'"

"What! is Fanny ill?"

"That is exactly what I said, my dear. 'Lord!' says I, 'is Mrs. Dashwood
ill?' So then it all came out; and the long and the short of the matter,
by all I can learn, seems to be this. Mr. Edward Ferrars, the very young
man I used to joke with you about (but, however, as it turns out, I am
monstrous glad there was never anything in it), Mr. Edward Ferrars, it
seems, has been engaged above this twelvemonth to my cousin Lucy!
There's for you, my dear! And not a creature knowing a syllable of the
matter, except Nancy! Could you have believed such a thing possible?
There is no great wonder in their liking one another; but that matters
should be brought so forward between them, and nobody suspect it! That
is strange! I never happened to see them together, or I am sure I should
have found it out directly. Well, and so this was kept a great secret,
for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, and neither she nor your brother or sister
suspected a word of the matter; till this very morning, poor Nancy, who,
you know, is a well-meaning creature, but no conjurer, popt it all out.
'Lord!' thinks she to herself, 'they are all so fond of Lucy, to be sure
they will make no difficulty about it' and so away she went to your
sister, who was sitting all alone at her carpet-work, little suspecting
what was to come- for she had just been saying to your brother, only
five minutes before, that she thought to make a match between Edward and
some Lord's daughter or other, I forget who. So you may think what a
blow it was to all her vanity and pride. She fell into violent hysterics
immediately, with such screams as reached your brother's ears, as he was
sitting in his own dressing-room down stairs, thinking about writing a
letter to his steward in the country. So up he flew directly, and a
terrible scene took place, for Lucy was come to them by that time,
little dreaming what was going on. Poor soul! I pity her. And I must
say, I think she was used very hardly; for your sister scolded like
fury, and soon drove her into a fainting fit. Nancy, she fell upon her
knees, and cried bitterly; and your brother, he walked about the room,
and said he did not know what to do. Mrs. Dashwood declared they should
not stay a minute longer in the house; and your brother was forced to
down upon his knees, to persuade her to let them stay till they had
packed up their clothes. Then she fell into hysterics again, and he was
so frightened that he would send for Mr. Donavan, and Mr. Donavan found
the house in all this uproar. The carriage was at the door ready to take
my poor cousins away, and they were just stepping in as he came off;
poor Lucy in such a condition, he says, she could hardly walk; and
Nancy, she was almost as bad. I declare, I have no patience with your
sister; and I hope, with all my heart, it will be a match in spite of
her. Lord! what a taking poor Edward will be in, when he hears of it! To
have his love used so scornfully! for they say he is monstrous fond of
her, as well he may. I should not wonder, if he was to be in the
greatest passion!- and Mr. Donavan thinks just the same. He and I, had a
great deal of talk about it; and the best of all is, that he is gone
back again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs.
Ferrars is told of it; for she was sent for, as soon as ever my cousins
left the house, for your sister was sure she would be in hysterics too;
and so she may, for what I care. I have no pity for either of them. I
have no notion of people's making such a to-do about money and
greatness. There is no reason on earth why Mr. Edward and Lucy should
not marry; for I am sure Mrs. Ferrars may afford to do very well by her
son; and though Lucy has next to nothing herself, she knows better than
any body how to make the most of everything; I dare say, if Mrs. Ferrars
would only allow him five hundred a year, she would make as good an
appearance with it as any body else would with eight. Lord! how snug
they might live in such another cottage as yours- or a little bigger-
with two maids, and two men; and I believe I could help them to a
housemaid, for my Betty has a sister out of place, that would fit them
exactly."

Here Mrs. Jennings ceased; and as Elinor had had time enough to collect
her thoughts, she was able to give such an answer, and make such
observations, as the subject might naturally be supposed to produce.
Happy to find that she was not suspected of any extraordinary interest
in it; that Mrs. Jennings (as she had of late often hoped might be the
case) had ceased to imagine her at all attached to Edward; and happy
above all the rest, in the absence of Marianne she felt very well able
to speak of the affair without embarrassment, and to give her judgment,
as she believed, with impartiality on the conduct of every one concerned
in it.

She could hardly determine what her own expectation of its event really
was; though she earnestly tried to drive away the notion of its being
possible to end otherwise at last, than in the marriage of Edward and
Lucy. What Mrs. Ferrars would say and do, though there could not be a
doubt of its nature, she was anxious to hear; and still more anxious to
know how Edward would conduct himself. For him she felt much
compassion;- for Lucy very little- and it cost her some pains to procure
that little;- for the rest of the party none at all.

As Mrs. Jennings could talk on no other subject, Elinor soon saw the
necessity of preparing Marianne for its discussion. No time was to be
lost in undeceiving her, in making her acquainted with the real truth
and in endeavouring to bring her to hear it talked of by others, without
betraying that she felt any uneasiness for her sister, or any resentment
against Edward.

Elinor's office was a painful one. She was going to remove what she
really believed to be her sister's chief consolation, to give such
particulars of Edward as she feared would ruin him for ever in her good
opinion- and to make Marianne, by a resemblance in their situations,
which to her fancy would seem strong, feel all her own disappointment
over again. But unwelcome as such a task must be, it was necessary to be
done, and Elinor therefore hastened to perform it.

She was very far from wishing to dwell on her own feeling or to
represent herself as suffering much, any otherwise than as the
self-command she had practised since her first knowledge of Edward's
engagements might suggest a hint of what was practicable to Marianne.
Her narration was clear and simple; and though it could not be given
without emotion, it was not accompanied by violent agitation, nor
impetuous grief. That belonged rather to the hearer, for Marianne
listened with horror, and cried excessively. Elinor was to be the
comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and
all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure
of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but
of imprudence, was readily offered.

But Marianne for some time would give credit to neither. Edward seemed a
second Willoughby; and acknowledging as Elinor did, that she had loved
him most sincerely, could she feel less than herself! As for Lucy
Steele, she considered her so totally unamiable, so absolutely incapable
of attaching a sensible man, that she could not be persuaded at first to
believe, and afterwards to pardon, any former affection of Edward for
her. She would not even admit it to have been natural; and Elinor left
her to be convinced that it was so, by that which only could convince
her, a better knowledge of mankind.

Her first communication had reached no farther than to state the fact of
the engagement, and the length of time it had existed. Marianne's
feelings had then broken in, and put an end to all regularity of detail;
and for some time all that could be done was to soothe her distress,
lessen her alarms, and combat her resentment. The first question on her
side, which led to farther particulars, was-

"How long has this been known to you, Elinor? has he written to you?"

"I have known it these four months. When Lucy first came to Barton Park,
last November, she told me in confidence of her engagement."

At these words, Marianne's eyes expressed the astonishment which her
lips could not utter. After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed-

"Four months! Have you known of this four months?"

Elinor confirmed it.

"What! while attending me in all my misery, has this been on your heart?
And I have reproached you for being happy!"

"It was not fit that you should then know how much I was the reverse."

"Four months!" cried Marianne again. "So calm! so cheerful! How have you
been supported?"

"By feeling that I was doing my duty. My promise to Lucy obliged me to
be secret. I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint of the
truth; and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in them a
solicitude about me, which it could not be in my power to satisfy."

Marianne seemed much struck.

"I have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother," added
Elinor, "and once or twice I have attempted it; but without betraying my
trust, I never could have convinced you."

"Four months! and yet you loved him!"

"Yes. But I did not love only him; and while the comfort of others was
dear to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much I felt. Now,
I can think and speak of it with little emotion. I would not have you
suffer on my account; for I assure you I no longer suffer materially
myself. I have many things to support me. I am not conscious of having
provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my own, I have borne it
as much as possible without spreading it farther. I acquit Edward of
essential misconduct. I wish him very happy; and I am so sure of his
always doing his duty, that though he may harbour some regret, in the
end he must become so. Lucy does not want sense; and that is the
foundation on which every thing good may be built. And after all,
Marianne, after all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and
constant attachment, and all that can be said of one's happiness
depending entirely on any particular person, it is not meant- it is not
fit- it is not possible that it should be so. Edward will marry Lucy; he
will marry a woman superior in person and understanding to half her sex;
and time and habit will teach him to forget that he ever thought another
superior to her."

"If such is your way of thinking," said Marianne, "if the loss of what
is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your
resolution, your self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be
wondered at. They are brought more within my comprehension."

"I understand you. You do not suppose that I have ever felt much. For
four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without
being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it
would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to
you yet unable to prepare you for it in the least. It was told me- it
was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose prior
engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought, with
triumph. This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to oppose, by
endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most deeply
interested; and it has not been only once; I have had her hopes and
exultation to listen to again and again. I have known myself to be
divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance that
could make me less desire the connection. Nothing has proved him
unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me. I have had to
contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his
mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without
enjoying its advantages. And all this has been going on at a time, when,
as you know too well, it has not been my only unhappiness. If you can
think me capable of ever feeling, surely you may suppose that I have
suffered now. The composure of mind with which I have brought myself at
present, to consider the matter, the consolation that I have been
willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful exertion;
they did not spring up of themselves; they did not occur to relieve my
spirits at first. No, Marianne. Then, if I had not been bound to
silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely not even what I
owed to my dearest friends- from openly showing that I was very
unhappy."

Marianne was quite subdued.

"Oh, Elinor," she cried, "you have made me hate myself for ever. How
barbarous have I been to you!- you, who have been my only comfort, who
have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only
suffering for me! Is this my gratitude? Is this the only return I can
make you? Because your merit cries out upon myself, I have been trying
to do it away."

The tenderest caresses followed this confession. In such a frame of mind
as she was now in, Elinor had no difficulty in obtaining from her
whatever promise she required; and, at her request, Marianne engaged
never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of
bitterness; to meet Lucy without betraying the smallest increase of
dislike to her; and even to see Edward himself, if chance should bring
them together, without any diminution of her usual cordiality. These
were great concessions; but where Marianne felt that she had injured, no
reparation could be too much for her to make.

She performed her promise of being discreet, to admiration. She attended
to all that Mrs. Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an
unchanging complexion, dissented from her in nothing, and was heard
three times to say, "Yes, ma'am." She listened to her praise of Lucy
with only moving from one chair to another; and when Mrs. Jennings
talked of Edward's affection, it cost her only a spasm in her throat.
Such advances towards heroism in her sister, made Elinor feel equal to
anything herself.

The next morning brought a farther trial of it, in a visit from their
brother, who came with a most serious aspect to talk over the dreadful
affair, and bring them news of his wife.

"You have heard, I suppose," said he, with great solemnity, as soon as
he was seated, "of the very shocking discovery that took place under our
roof yesterday."

They all looked their assent; it seemed too awful a moment for speech.

"Your sister," he continued, "has suffered dreadfully. Mrs. Ferrars too-
in short it has been a scene of such complicated distress- but I will
hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us quite
overcome. Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday. But I would
not alarm you too much. Donavan says there is nothing materially to be
apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution equal to
anything. She has borne it all with the fortitude of an angel! She says
she never shall think well of any body again; and one cannot wonder at
it, after being so deceived!- meeting with such ingratitude, where so
much kindness had been shown, so much confidence had been placed! It was
quite out of the benevolence of her heart, that she had asked these
young women to her house; merely because she thought they deserved some
attention, were harmless, well-behaved girls, and would be pleasant
companions; for otherwise we both wished very much to have invited you
and Marianne to be with us, while your kind friend there was attending
her daughter. And now to be so rewarded! 'I wish, with all my heart,'
says poor Fanny, in her affectionate way, 'that we had asked your
sisters instead of them.'"

Here he stopped to be thanked; which being done, he went on.

"What poor Mrs. Ferrars suffered, when first Fanny broke it to her, is
not to be described. While she with the truest affection had been
planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that
he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person!- such a
suspicion could never have entered her head! If she suspected any
prepossession elsewhere, it could not be in that quarter. 'There, to be
sure,' said she, 'I might have thought myself safe.' She was quite in an
agony. We consulted together, however, as to what should be done, and at
last she determined to send for Edward. He came. But I am sorry to
relate what ensued. All that Mrs. Ferrars could say to make him put an
end to the engagement, assisted too, as you may well suppose, by my
arguments, and Fanny's entreaties, was of no avail. Duty, affection,
everything was disregarded. I never thought Edward so stubborn, so
unfeeling before. His mother explained to him her liberal designs, in
case of his marrying Miss Morton; told him she would settle on him the
Norfolk estate, which, clear of land-tax, brings in a good thousand a
year; offered even, when matters grew desperate, to make it twelve
hundred; and in opposition to this, if he still persisted in this low
connection, represented to him the certain penury that must attend the
match. His own two thousand pounds she protested should be his all; she
would never see him again; and so far would she be from affording him
the smallest assistance, that if he were to enter into any profession
with a view of better support, she would do all in her power to prevent
him advancing in it."

Here Marianne, in an ecstasy of indignation, clapped her hands together,
and cried, "Gracious God! can this be possible?"

"Well may you wonder, Marianne," replied her brother, "at the obstinacy
which could resist such arguments as these. Your exclamation is very
natural."

Marianne was going to retort, but she remembered her promises, and
forbore.

"All this, however," he continued, "was urged in vain. Edward said very
little; but what he did say was in the most determined manner. Nothing
should prevail on him to give up his engagement. He would stand to it,
cost him what it might."

"Then," cried Mrs. Jennings with blunt sincerity, no longer able to be
silent, "he has acted like an honest man! I beg your pardon, Mr.
Dashwood, but if he had done otherwise, I should have thought him a
rascal. I have some little concern in the business, as well as yourself,
for Lucy Steele is my cousin; and I believe there is not a better kind
of girl in the world, nor one who more deserves a good husband."

John Dashwood was greatly astonished; but his nature was calm, not open
to provocation; and he never wished to offend any body, especially any
body of good fortune. He therefore replied without any resentment:

"I would by no means speak disrespectfully of any relation of yours,
madam. Miss Lucy Steele is, I dare say, a very deserving young woman;
but in the present case, you know, the connection must be impossible.
And to have entered into a secret engagement with a young man under her
uncle's care, the son of a woman especially of such very large fortune
as Mrs. Ferrars, is, perhaps, altogether a little extraordinary. In
short I do not mean to reflect upon the behaviour of any person whom you
have a regard for, Mrs. Jennings. We all wish her extremely happy; and
Mrs. Ferrars's conduct throughout the whole has been such as every
conscientious, good mother, in like circumstances, would adopt. It has
been dignified and liberal. Edward has drawn his own lot, and I fear it
will be a bad one."

Marianne sighed out her similar apprehension; and Elinor's heart wrung
for the feelings of Edward, while braving his mother's threats, for a
woman who could not reward him.

"Well, sir," said Mrs. Jennings, "and how did it end?"

"I am sorry to say, ma'am, in a most unhappy rupture. Edward is
dismissed for ever from his mother's notice. He left her house
yesterday, but where he is gone, or whether he is still in town, I do
not know; for we of course can make no enquiry."

"Poor young man! and what is to become of him?"

"What, indeed, ma'am! It is a melancholy consideration. Born to the
prospect of such affluence! I cannot conceive a situation more
deplorable. The interest of two thousand pounds how can a man live on
it? And when to that is added the recollection that he might, but for
his own folly, within three months, have been in the receipt of two
thousand five hundred a year (for Miss Morton has thirty thousand
pounds), I cannot picture to myself a more wretched condition. We must
all feel for him; and the more so, because it is totally out of our
power to assist him."

"Poor young man!" cried Mrs. Jennings, "I am sure he should be very
welcome to bed and board at my house; and so I would tell him if I could
see him. It is not fit that he should be living about at his own charge
now, at lodgings and taverns."

Elinor's heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though she
could not forbear smiling at the form of it.

"If he would only have done as well by himself," said John Dashwood, "as
all his friends were disposed to do by him, he might now have been in
his proper situation, and would have wanted for nothing; but as it is,
it must be out of anybody's power to assist him. And there is one thing
more preparing against him, which must be worse than all,- his mother
has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle that
estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward's, on
proper conditions. I left her this morning with her lawyer, talking over
the business."

"Well!" said Mrs. Jennings, "that is her revenge. Every body has a way
of their own. But I don't think mine would be, to make one son
independent because another had plagued me."

Marianne got up and walked about the room.

"Can anything be more galling to the spirit of a man," continued John,
"than to see his younger brother in possession of an estate which might
have been his own? Poor Edward! I feel for him sincerely."

A few minutes more, spent in the same kind of effusion, concluded his
visit; and with repeated assurances to his sisters that he really
believed there was no material danger in Fanny's indisposition, and that
they need not therefore be very uneasy about it, he went away, leaving
the three ladies unanimous in their sentiments on the present occasion,
as far at least as it regarded Mrs. Ferrars's conduct, the Dashwoods',
and Edward's.

Marianne's indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room; and
as her vehemence made reserve impossible in Elinor, and unnecessary in
Mrs. Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique upon the
party.

                      CHAPTER XXXVIII


MRS. JENNINGS was very warm in her praise of Edward's conduct, but only
Elinor and Marianne understood its true merit. They only knew how little
he had had to tempt him to be disobedient, and how small was the
consolation, beyond the consciousness of doing right, that could remain
to him in the loss of friends and fortune. Elinor gloried in his
integrity; and Marianne forgave all his offences in compassion for his
punishment. But though confidence between them was, by this public
discovery, restored to its proper state, it was not a subject on which
either of them were fond of dwelling when alone. Elinor avoided it upon
principle, as tending to fix still more upon her thoughts, by the too
warm, too positive assurances of Marianne, that belief of Edward's
continued affection for herself which she rather wished to do away; and
Marianne's courage soon failed her, in trying to converse upon a topic
which always left her more dissatisfied with herself than ever, by the
comparison it necessarily produced between Elinor's conduct and her own.

She felt all the force of that comparison; but not as her sister had
hoped, to urge her to exertion now; she felt it with all the pain of
continual self-reproach, regretted most bitterly that she had never
exerted herself before; but it brought only the torture of penitence,
without the hope of amendment. Her mind was so much weakened, that she
still fancied present exertion impossible, and therefore it only
dispirited her more.

Nothing new was heard by them, for a day or two afterwards, of affairs
in Harley Street or Bartlett's Buildings. But though so much of the
matter was known to them already, that Mrs. Jennings might have had
enough to do in spreading that knowledge farther, without seeking after
more, she had resolved from the first to pay a visit of comfort and
enquiry to her cousins as soon as she could; and nothing but the
hindrance of more visitors than usual had prevented her going to them
within that time.

The third day succeeding their knowledge of the particulars was so fine,
so beautiful a Sunday, as to draw many to Kensington Gardens, though it
was only the second week in March. Mrs. Jennings and Elinor were of the
number; but Marianne, who knew that the Willoughbys were again in town,
and had a constant dread of meeting them, chose rather to stay at home,
than venture into so public a place.

An intimate acquaintance of Mrs. Jennings joined them soon after they
entered the Gardens; and Elinor was not sorry that by her continuing
with them, and engaging all Mrs. Jennings's conversation, she was
herself left to quiet reflection. She saw nothing of the Willoughbys,
nothing of Edward, and for some time nothing of any body who could by
any chance, whether grave or gay, be interesting to her. But at last she
found herself, with some surprise, accosted by Miss Steele, who, though
looking rather shy, expressed great satisfaction in meeting them; and on
receiving encouragement from the particular kindness of Mrs. Jennings,
left her own party for a short time, to join theirs. Mrs. Jennings
immediately whispered to Elinor,-

"Get it all out of her, my dear. She will tell you any thing, if you
ask. You see I cannot leave Mrs. Clarke."

It was lucky, however, for Mrs. Jennings's curiosity and Elinor's too,
that she would tell any thing without being asked; for nothing would
otherwise have been learnt.

"I am so glad to meet you," said Miss Steele, taking her familiarly by
the arm- "for I wanted to see you of all things in the world." And then
lowering her voice, "I suppose Mrs. Jennings has heard all about it. Is
she angry?"

"Not at all, I believe, with you."

"That is a good thing. And Lady Middleton, is she angry?"

"I cannot suppose it possible that she should."

"I am monstrous glad of it. Good gracious! I have had such a time of it!
I never saw Lucy in such a rage in my life. She vowed at first she would
never trim me up a new bonnet, nor do any thing else for me again, so
long as she lived; but now she is quite come to, and we are as good
friends as ever. Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put in the
feather last night. There now, you are going to laugh at me too.- But
why should not I wear pink ribands? I do not care if it is the Doctor's
favourite colour. I am sure, for my part, I should never have known he
did like it better than any other colour, if he had not happened to say
so. My cousins have been so plaguing me! I declare sometimes I do not
know which way to look before them."

She had wandered away to a subject on which Elinor had nothing to say,
and therefore soon judged it expedient to find her way back again to the
first.

"Well, but Miss Dashwood," speaking triumphantly, "people may say what
they choose about Mr. Ferrars's declaring he would not have Lucy, for it
is no such thing, I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for such
ill-natured reports to be spread abroad. Whatever Lucy might think about
it herself, you know, it was no business of other people to set it down
for certain."

"I never heard any thing of the kind hinted at before, I assure you,"
said Elinor.

"Oh, did not you? But it was said, I know, very well, and by more than
one; for Miss Godby told Miss Sparks, that nobody in their senses could
expect Mr. Ferrars to give up a woman like Miss Morton, with thirty
thousand pounds to her fortune, for Lucy Steele, that had nothing at
all; and I had it from Miss Sparks myself. And besides that, my cousin
Richard said himself, that when it came to the point he was afraid Mr.
Ferrars would be off; and when Edward did not come near us for three
days, I could not tell what to think myself; and I believe in my heart
Lucy gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your brother's
Wednesday, and we saw nothing of him not all Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday and did not know what was become of him. Once Lucy thought to
write to him, but then her spirits rose against that. However, this
morning he came just as we came home from church; and then it all came
out, how he had been sent for Wednesday to Harley Street, and been
talked to by his mother and all of them, and how he had declared before
them all that he loved nobody but Lucy, and nobody but Lucy would he
have. And how he had been so worried by what passed, that as soon as he
had went away from his mother's house, he had got upon his horse, and
rid into the country, somewhere or other; and how he had stayed about at
an inn all Thursday and Friday, on purpose to get the better of it. And
after thinking it all over and over again, he said, it seemed to him as
if, now he had no fortune, and no nothing at all, it would be quite
unkind to keep her on to the engagement, because it must be for her
loss, for he had nothing but two thousand pounds, and no hope of any
thing else; and if he was to go into orders, as he had some thoughts, he
could get nothing but a curacy; and how was they to live upon that? He
could not bear to think of her doing no better, and so he begged, if she
had the least mind for it, to put an end to the matter directly, and
leave him shift for himself. I heard him say all this as plain as could
possibly be. And it was entirely for her sake, and upon her account,
that he said a word about being off, and not upon his own. I will take
my oath he never dropt a syllable of being tired of her, or of wishing
to marry Miss Morton, or any thing like it. But, to be sure, Lucy would
not give ear to such kind of talking; so she told him directly (with a
great deal about sweet and love, you know, and all that- Oh, la! one
can't repeat such kind of things you know)- she told him directly, she
had not the least mind in the world to be off, for she could live with
him upon a trifle, and how little soever he might have, she should be
very glad to have it all, you know, or something of the kind. So then he
was monstrous happy, and talked on some time about what they should do,
and they agreed he should take orders directly, and they must wait to be
married till he got a living. And just then I could not hear any more,
for my cousin called from below to tell me Mrs. Richardson was come in
her coach, and would take one of us to Kensington Gardens; so I was
forced to go into the room and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would
like to go, but she did not care to leave Edward; so I just ran up
stairs and put on a pair of silk stockings and came off with the
Richardsons."

"I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them," said Elinor;
"you were all in the same room together, were you not?"

"No, indeed, not us. La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make love
when any body else is by? Oh, for shame! To be sure you must know better
than that. (Laughing affectedly.) No, no; they were shut up in the
drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at the
door."

"How!" cried Elinor; "have you been repeating to me what you only learnt
yourself by listening at the door! I am sorry I did not know it before;
for I certainly would not have suffered you to give me particulars of a
conversation which you ought not to have known yourself. How could you
behave so unfairly by your sister?"

"Oh, la! there is nothing in that. I only stood at the door, and heard
what I could. And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me;
for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets
together, she never made any bones of hiding in a closet, or behind a
chimney-board, on purpose to hear what we said."

Elinor tried to talk of something else; but Miss Steele could not be
kept beyond a couple of minutes, from what was uppermost in her mind.

"Edward talks of going to Oxford, soon," said she; "but now he is, an't
she? And your brother and sister were not very kind! However, I shan't
say anything against them to you; and to be sure they did send us home
in their own chariot, which was more than I looked for. And for my part,
I was all in a fright for fear your sister should ask us for the
huswifes she had given us a day or two before; but, however, nothing was
said about them, and I took care to keep mine out of sight. Edward have
got some business at Oxford, he says; so he must go there for a time;
and after that, as soon as he can light upon a bishop, he will be
ordained, I wonder what curacy he will get? Good gracious! (giggling as
she spoke) I'd lay my life I know what my cousins will say, when they
hear of it. They will tell me I should write to the Doctor, to get
Edward the curacy of his new living. I know they will; but I am sure I
would not do such a thing for all the world. 'La!' I shall directly, 'I
wonder how you could think of such a thing? I write to the Doctor,
indeed!'"

"Well," said Elinor, "it is a comfort to be prepared against the worst.
You have got your answer ready."

Miss Steele was going to reply on the same subject, but the approach of
her own party made another more necessary.

"Oh, la! here come the Richardsons. I had a vast deal more to say to
you, but I must not stay away from them not any longer. I assure you
they are very genteel people. He makes a monstrous deal of money, and
they keep their own coach. I have not time to speak to Mrs. Jennings
about it myself, but pray tell her I am quite happy to hear she is not
in anger against us, and Lady Middleton the same; and if anything should
happen to take you and your sister away, and Mrs. Jennings should want
company, I am sure we should be very glad to come and stay with her for
as long a time as she likes. I suppose Lady Middleton won't ask us any
more this bout. Good-by; I am sorry Miss Marianne was not here. Remember
me kindly to her. La! if you have not got your spotted muslin on! I
wonder you was not afraid of its being torn."

Such was her parting concern; for after this she had time only to pay
her farewell compliments to Mrs. Jennings, before her company was
claimed by Mrs. Richardson; and Elinor was left in possession of
knowledge which might feed her powers of reflection some time, though
she had learnt very little more than what had been already foreseen and
foreplanned in her own mind. Edward's marriage with Lucy was as firmly
determined on, and the time of its taking place remained as absolutely
uncertain, as she had concluded it would be:- every thing depended,
exactly after her expectation, on his getting that perferment, of which
there seemed not the smallest chance.

As soon as they returned to the carriage, Mrs. Jennings was eager for
information; but as Elinor wished to spread as little as possible
intelligence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she
confined herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as
she felt assured that Lucy, for the sake of her own consequence, would
choose to have known. The continuance of their engagement, and the means
that were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her
communication; and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following
natural remark:-

"Wait for his having a living!- ay, we all know how that will end:- they
will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it, will set down
upon a curacy of fifty pounds a year, with the interest of his two
thousand pounds, and what little matter Mr. Steele and Mr. Pratt can
give her. Then they will have a child every year! and, Lord help 'em!
how poor they will be! I must see what I can give them towards
furnishing their house. Two maids and two men, indeed! as I talked of t'
other day. No, no, they must get a stout girl of all works. Betty's
sister would never do for them now."

The next morning brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from Lucy
herself. It was as follows:-


                          "Bartlett's Building, March.

"I hope my dear Miss Dashwood will excuse the liberty I take of writing
to her; but I know your friendship for me will make you pleased to hear
such a good account of myself and my dear Edward, after all the troubles
we have went through lately, therefore will make no more apologies, but
proceed to say that, thank God! though we have suffered dreadfully, we
are both quite well now, and as happy as we must always be in one
another's love. We have had great trials, and great persecutions, but,
however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge many friends, yourself
not the least among them, whose great kindness I shall always thankfully
remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of it. I am sure you will
be glad to hear, as likewise dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours
with him yesterday afternoon: he would not hear of our parting, though
earnestly did I, as I thought my duty required, urge him to it for
prudence sake, and would have parted for ever on the spot, would he
consent to it; but he said it should never be, he did not regard his
mother's anger, while he could have my affections; our prospects are not
very bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for the best; he
will be ordained shortly; and should it ever be in your power to
recommend him to any body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you
will not forget us; and dear Mrs. Jennings too, trust she will speak a
good word for us to Sir John, or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be
able to assist us.- Poor Anne was much to blame for what she did, but
she did it for the best, so I say nothing; hope Mrs. Jennings won't
think it too much trouble to give us a call, should she come this way
any morning, it would be a great kindness, and my cousins would be proud
to know her.- My paper reminds me to conclude; and begging to be most
gratefully and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John and Lady
Middleton, and the dear children, when you chance to see them, and love
to Miss Marianne,

                                           "I am, &c. &c."


As soon as Elinor had finished it, she performed what she concluded to
be its writer's real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs.
Jennings, who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and
praise.

"Very well indeed!- how prettily she writes!- ay, that was quite proper
to let him be off if he would. That was just like Lucy. Poor soul! I
wish I could get him a living, with all my heart. She calls me dear Mrs.
Jennings, you see. She is a good-hearted girl as ever lived. Very well,
upon my word. That sentence is very prettily turned. Yes, yes, I will go
and see her, sure enough. How attentive she is, to think of every body!-
Thank you, my dear, for showing it me. It is as pretty a letter as ever
I saw, and does Lucy's head and heart great credit."

                      CHAPTER XXXIX


THE MISSES DASHWOOD had now been rather more than two months in town,
and Marianne's impatience to be gone increased every day. She sighed for
the air, the liberty, the quiet of the country; and fancied, that if any
place could give her ease, Barton must do it. Elinor was hardly less
anxious than herself for their removal, and only so much less bent on
its being effected immediately, as that she was conscious of the
difficulties of so long a journey, which Marianne could not be brought
to acknowledge. She began, however, seriously to turn her thoughts
towards its accomplishment; and had already mentioned their wishes to
their kind hostess, who resisted them with all the eloquence of her
good-will, when a plan was suggested, which, though detaining them from
yet a few weeks longer, appeared to Elinor altogether much more eligible
than any other. The Palmers were to remove to Cleveland, about the end
of March, for the Easter holidays; and Mrs. Jennings, with both her
friends, received a very warm invitation from Charlotte to go with them.
This would not, in itself, have been sufficient for the delicacy of Miss
Dashwood; but it was enforced with so much real politeness by Mr. Palmer
himself, as, joined to the very great amendment of his manners towards
them since her sister had been known to be unhappy, induced her to
accept it with pleasure.

When she told Marianne what she had done, however, her first reply was
not very auspicious.

"Cleveland!" she cried, with great agitation. "No I cannot go to
Cleveland."

"You forget," said Elinor gently, "that its situation is not- that it is
not in the neighbourhood of-"

"But it is in Somersetshire. I cannot go into Somersetshire. There,
where I looked forward to going;- no, Elinor, you cannot expect me to go
there."

Elinor would not argue upon the propriety of overcoming such feelings;
she only endeavoured to counteract them by working on others; and
represented it, therefore, as a measure which would fix the time of her
returning to that dear mother, whom she so much wished to see, in a more
eligible, more comfortable manner, than any other plan could do, and
perhaps without any greater delay. From Cleveland, which was within a
few miles of Bristol, the distance to Barton was not beyond one day,
though a long day's journey; and their mother's servant might easily
come there to attend them down; and as there could be no occasion of
their staying above a week at Cleveland, they might now be at home in
little more than three weeks' time. As Marianne's affection for her
mother was sincere, it must triumph with little difficulty, over the
imaginary evils she had started.

Mrs. Jennings was so far from being weary of her that she pressed them
very earnestly to return with her again from Cleveland. Elinor was
grateful for the attention, but it could not alter her design; and their
mother's concurrence being readily gained, every thing relative to their
return was arranged as far as it could be; and Marianne found some
relief in drawing up a statement of the hours that were yet to divide
her from Barton.

"Ah! Colonel, I do not know what you and I shall do without the Misses
Dashwood," was Mrs. Jennings's address to him when he first called on
her, after their leaving her was settled; "for they are quite resolved
upon going home from the Palmers; and how forlorn we shall be when I
come back! Lord! we shall sit and gape at one another as dull as two
cats."

Perhaps Mrs. Jennings was in hopes, by this vigorous sketch of their
future ennui, to provoke him to make that offer, which might give
himself an escape from it; and if so, she had soon afterwards good
reason to think her object gained; for, on Elinor's moving to the window
to take more expeditiously the dimensions of a print, which she was
going to copy for her friend, he followed her to it with a look of
particular meaning, and conversed with her there for several minutes.
The effect of his discourse on the lady, too, could not escape her
observation; for though she was too honorable to listen, and had even
changed her seat, on purpose that she might not hear, to one close by
the piano-forte on which Marianne was playing, she could not keep
herself from seeing that Elinor changed colour, attended with agitation,
and was too intent on what he said to pursue her employment. Still
farther in confirmation of her hopes, in the interval of Marianne's
turning from one lesson to another, some words of the Colonel's
inevitably reached her ear, in which he seemed to be apologising for the
badness of his house. This set the matter beyond a doubt. She wondered,
indeed, at his thinking it necessary to do so; but supposed it to be the
proper etiquette. What Elinor said in reply she could not distinguish,
but judged, from the motion of her lips, that she did not think that any
material objection; and Mrs. Jennings commended her in her heart for
being so honest. They then talked on for a few minutes longer without
her catching a syllable, when another lucky stop in Marianne's
performance brought her these words in the Colonel's calm voice,-

"I am afraid it cannot take place very soon."

Astonished and shocked at so unlover-like a speech, she was almost ready
to cry out, "Lord! what should hinder it?" but checking her desire,
confined herself to this silent ejaculation,-

"This is very strange!- sure he need not wait to be older."

This delay on the Colonel's side, however, did not seem to offend or
mortify his fair companion in the least; for, on their breaking up the
conference soon afterwards, and moving different ways, Mrs. Jennings
very plainly heard Elinor say, and with a voice which showed her to feel
what she said,-

"I shall always think myself very much obliged to you."

Mrs. Jennings was delighted with her gratitude, and only wondered, that,
after hearing such a sentence, the Colonel should be able to take leave
of them, as he immediately did, with the utmost sang-froid, and go away
without making her any reply! She had not thought her old friend could
have made so indifferent a suitor.

What had really passed between them was to this effect.

"I have heard," said he, with great compassion, "of the injustice your
friend Mr. Ferrars has suffered from his family; for, if I understand
the matter right, he has been entirely cast off by them for persevering
in his engagement with a very deserving young woman. Have I been rightly
informed? Is it so?"

Elinor told him that it was.

"The cruelty, the impolitic cruelty," he replied, with great feeling,
"of dividing, or attempting to divide, two young people long attached to
each other, is terrible. Mrs. Ferrars does not know what she may be
doing- what she may drive her son to. I have seen Mr. Ferrars two or
three times in Harley Street, and am much pleased with him. He is not a
young man with whom one can be intimately acquainted in a short time,
but I have seen enough of him to wish him well for his own sake, and as
a friend of yours, I wish it still more. I understand that he intends to
take orders. Will you be so good as to tell him that the living of
Delaford, now just vacant, as I am informed by this day's post, is his,
if he think it worth his acceptance; but that, perhaps, so unfortunately
circumstanced as he is now, it be nonsense to appear to doubt; I only
wish it were more valuable. It is a rectory, but a small one; the late
incumbent, I believe, did not make more than 200l. per annum; and though
it is certainly capable of improvement, I fear not to such an amount as
to afford him a very comfortable income. Such as it is, however, my
pleasure in presenting him to it will be very great. Pray assure him of
it."

Elinor's astonishment at this commission could hardly have been greater
had the Colonel been really making her an offer of his hand. The
preferment, which only two days before she had considered as hopeless
for Edward, was already provided to enable him to marry; and she, of all
people in the world, was fixed on to bestow it! Her emotion was such as
Mrs. Jennings had attributed to a very different cause; but whatever
minor feelings less pure, less pleasing, might have a share in that
emotion, her esteem for the general benevolence, and her gratitude for
the particular friendship, which together prompted Colonel Brandon to
this act, were strongly felt and warmly expressed. She thanked him for
it with all her heart, spoke of Edward's principles and disposition with
that praise which she knew them to deserve; and promised to undertake
the commission with pleasure, if it were really his wish to put off so
agreeable an office to another. But, at the same time, she could not
help thinking that no one could so well perform it as himself. It was an
office, in short, from which, unwilling to give Edward the pain of
receiving an obligation from her, she would have been very glad to be
spared herself; but Colonel Brandon, on motives of equal delicacy,
declining it likewise, still seemed so desirous of its being given
through her means, that she would not, on any account, make farther
opposition. Edward, she believed, was still in town, and fortunately she
had heard his address from Miss Steele. She could undertake, therefore,
to inform him of it, in the course of the day. After this had been
settled, Colonel Brandon began to talk of his own advantage in securing
so respectable and agreeable a neighbour, and then it was that he
mentioned, with regret, that the house was small and indifferent; an
evil which Elinor, as Mrs. Jennings had supposed her to do, made very
light of, at least as far as regarded its size.

"The smallness of the house," said she, "I cannot imagine any
inconvenience to them; for it will be in proportion to their family and
income."

By which the Colonel was surprised to find that she was considering Mr.
Ferrars's marriage as the certain consequence of the presentation; for
he did not suppose it possible that Delaford living could supply such an
income as anybody in his style of life would venture to settle on, and
he said so.

"This little rectory can do no more than make Mr. Ferrars comfortable as
a bachelor; it cannot enable him to marry. I am sorry to say that my
patronage ends with this; and my interest is hardly more extensive. If,
however, by an unforseen chance it should be in my power to serve him
farther, I must think very differently of him from what I now do, if I
am not as ready to be useful to him then as I sincerely wish I could be
at present. What I am now doing, indeed, seems nothing at all, since it
can advance him so little towards what must be his principal, his only
object of happiness. His marriage must still be a distant good; at
least, I am afraid it cannot take place very soon."

Such was the sentence which, when misunderstood, so justly offended the
delicate feelings of Mrs. Jennings; but, after this narration of what
really passed between Colonel Brandon and Elinor, while they stood at
the window, the gratitude expressed by the latter on their parting may
perhaps appear, in general, not less reasonably excited, nor less
properly worded, than if it had arisen from an offer of marriage.

                      CHAPTER XL


"WELL, Miss Dashwood," said Mrs. Jennings, sagaciously smiling, as soon
as the gentleman had withdrawn, "I do not ask you what the Colonel has
been saying to you; for though, upon my honour, I tried to keep out of
hearing, I could not help catching enough to understand his business;
and I assure you I never was better pleased in my life, and I wish you
joy of it with all my heart."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Elinor. "It is a matter of great joy to me, and
I feel the goodness of Colonel Brandon most sensibly. There are not many
men who would act as he has done. Few people who have so compassionate a
heart! I never was more astonished in my life."

"Lord! my dear, you are very modest. I an't the least astonished at it
in the world; for I have often thought, of late, there was nothing more
likely to happen."

"You judged from your knowledge of the Colonel's general benevolence;
but at least you could not forsee that the opportunity would so very
soon occur."

"Opportunity!" repeated Mrs. Jennings. "Oh, as to that, when a man has
once made up his mind to such a thing, somehow or other he will soon
find an opportunity. Well, my dear, I wish you joy of it again and
again; and if ever there was a happy couple in the world, I think I
shall soon know where to look for them."

"You mean to go to Delaford after them, I suppose," said Elinor, with a
faint smile.

"Aye, my dear, that I do, indeed; and as to the house being a bad one, I
do not know what the Colonel would be at, for it is as good a one as
ever I saw."

"He spoke of its being out of repair."

"Well, and whose fault is that? Why don't he repair it?" Who should do
it but himself?

They were interrupted by the servant's coming in to announce the
carriage being at the door; and Mrs. Jennings, immediately preparing to
go, said,-

"Well, my dear, I must be gone before I have had half my talk out. But,
however, we may have it all over in the evening; for we shall be quite
alone. I do not ask you to go with me, for I dare say your mind is too
full of the matter to care for company; and, besides, you must long to
tell your sister all about it."

Marianne had left the room before the conversation began.

"Certainly, ma'am, I shall tell Marianne of it; but I shall not mention
it at present to any body else."

"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Jennings, rather disappointed. "Then you
would not have me tell it to Lucy; for I think of going as far as
Holborn to-day."

"No, ma'am, not even Lucy, if you please. One day's delay will not be
very material; and, till I have written to Mr. Ferrars, I think it ought
not to be mentioned to any body else. I shall do that directly. It is of
importance that no time should be lost with him; for he will of course
have much to do relative to his ordination."

This speech at first puzzled Mrs. Jennings exceedingly. Why Mr. Ferrars
was to have been written to about it in such a hurry she could not
immediately comprehend. A few moments' reflection, however, produced a
very happy idea; and she exclaimed,-

"Oh, ho! I understand you. Mr. Ferrars is to be the man. Well, so much
the better for him. Ay, to be sure, he must be ordained in readiness;
and I am very glad to find things are so forward between you. But, my
dear, is not this rather out of character? Should not the Colonel write
himself? Sure, he is the proper person."

Elinor did not quite understand the beginning of Mrs. Jennings's speech,
neither did she think it worth enquiring into; and therefore only
replied to its conclusion.

"Colonel Brandon is so delicate a man, that he rather wished any one to
announce his intentions to Mr. Ferrars than himself."

"And so you are forced to do it. Well, that is an odd kind of delicacy!
However, I will not disturb you (seeing her preparing to write). You
know your own concerns best. So goodby, my dear. I have not heard of any
thing to please me so well since Charlotte was brought to bed."

And away she went; but returning again in a moment,-

"I have just been thinking of Betty's sister, my dear. I should be very
glad to get her so good a mistress. But whether she would do for a
lady's maid, I am sure I can't tell. She is an excellent housemaid, and
works very well at her needle. However, you will think of all that at
your leisure."

"Certainly, ma'am," replied Elinor, not hearing much of what she said,
and more anxious to be alone than to be mistress of the subject.

How she should begin,- how she should express herself in her note to
Edward,- was now all her concern. The particular circumstances between
them made a difficulty of that which to any other person would have been
the easiest thing in the world; but she equally feared to say too much
or too little, and sat deliberating over her paper, with the pen in her
band, till broken in on by the entrance of Edward himself.

He had met Mrs. Jennings at the door, in her way to the carriage, as he
came to leave his farewell card; and she, after apologising for not
returning herself, had obliged him to enter, by saying that Miss
Dashwood was above, and wanted to speak with him on very particular
business.

Elinor had just been congratulating herself, in the midst of her
perplexity, that however difficult it might be to express herself
properly by letter, it was at least preferable to giving the information
by word of mouth, when her visitor entered, to force her upon this great
exertion of all. Her astonishment and confusion were very great on his
so sudden appearance. She had not seen him before since his engagement
became public, and therefore not since his knowing her to be acquainted
with it; which, with the consciousness of what she had been thinking of,
and what she had to tell him, made her feel particularly uncomfortable
for some minutes. He, too, was much distressed; and they sat down
together in a most promising state of embarrassment. Whether he had
asked her pardon for his intrusion on first coming into the room, he
could not recollect; but, determining to be on the safe side, he made
his apology inform, as soon as he could say any thing, after taking a
chair.

"Mrs. Jennings told me," said he, "that you wished to speak with me, at
least I understood her so,- or I certainly should not have intruded on
you in such a manner; though, at the same time, I should have been
extremely sorry to leave London without seeing you and your sister;
especially as it will most likely be some time- it is not probable that
I should soon have the pleasure of meeting you again. I go to Oxford
to-morrow."

"You would not have gone, however," said Elinor, recovering herself, and
determined to get over what she so much dreaded as soon as possible,
"without receiving our good wishes, even if we had not been able to give
them in person. Mrs. Jennings was quite right in what she said. I have
something of consequence to inform you of, which I was on the point of
communicating by paper. I am charged with a most agreeable office
(breathing rather faster than usual as she spoke). Colonel Brandon, who
was here only ten minutes ago, has desired me to say, that understanding
you mean to take orders, he has great pleasure in offering you the
living of Delaford now just vacant, and only wishes it were more
valuable. Allow me to congratulate you on having so respectable and
well-judging a friend, and to join in his wish that the living- it is
about two hundred a year- were much more considerable, and such as might
better enable you to- as might be more than a temporary accommodation to
yourself- such, in short, as might establish all your views of
happiness."

What Edward felt, as he could not say it himself, it cannot be expected
that any one else should say it for him. He looked all the astonishment
which such unexpected, such unthought of information could not fail of
exciting; but he said only these two words,

"Colonel Brandon!"

"Yes," continued Elinor, gathering more resolution, as some of the worst
was over; "Colonel Brandon means it as a testimony of his concern for
what has lately passed,- for the cruel situation in which the
unjustifiable conduct of your family has placed you,- a concern, which I
am sure Marianne, myself, and all your friends, must share; and,
likewise, as a proof of his high esteem for your general character, and
his particular approbation of your behaviour on the present occasion."

"Colonel Brandon give me a living! Can it be possible?"

"The unkindness of your own relations has made you astonished to find
friendship any where."

"No," replied be, with sudden consciousness, "not to find it in you; for
I cannot be ignorant that to you, to your goodness, I owe it all. I feel
it- I would express it if I could- but, as you well know, I am no
orator."

"You are very much mistaken. I do assure you that you owe it entirely,
at least almost entirely, to your own merit, and Colonel Brandon's
discernment of it. I have had no hand in it. I did not even know, till I
understood his design, that the living was vacant; nor had it ever
occurred to me that he might have had such a living in his gift. As a
friend of mine, of my family, he may, perhaps, indeed I know he has,
still greater pleasure in bestowing it; but, upon my word, you owe
nothing to my solicitation."

Truth obliged her to acknowledge some small share in the action; but she
was at the same time so unwilling to appear as the benefactress of
Edward, that she acknowledged it with hesitation; which probably
contributed to fix that suspicion in his mind which had recently entered
it. For a short time he sat deep in thought, after Elinor had ceased to
speak; at last, and as if it were rather an effort, he said,-

"Colonel Brandon seems a man of great worth and respectability. I have
always heard him spoken of as such, and your brother I know esteems him
highly. He is undoubtedly a sensible man, and in his manners perfectly
the gentleman."

"Indeed," replied Elinor, "I believe that you will find him, on farther
acquaintance, all that you have heard him to be; and as you will be such
very near neighbours (for I understand the parsonage is almost close to
the mansion-house) it is particularly important that he should be all
this."

Edward made no answer; but when she had turned away her head, gave her a
look so serious, so earnest, so uncheerful, as seemed to say, that he
might hereafter wish the distance between the parsonage and the
mansion-house much greater.

"Colonel Brandon, I think, lodges in St. James Street," said he, soon
afterwards, rising from his chair.

Elinor told him the number of the house.

"I must hurry away then, to give him those thanks which you will not
allow me to give you; to assure him that he has made me a very- an
exceedingly happy man."

Elinor did not offer to detain him; and they parted, with a very earnest
assurance on her side of her unceasing good wishes for his happiness in
every change of situation that might befall him; on his, with rather an
attempt to return the same good will, than the power of expressing it.

"When I see him again," said Elinor to herself, as the door shut him
out, "I shall see him the husband of Lucy."

And with this pleasing anticipation she sat down to reconsider the past,
recall the words, and endeavour to comprehend all the feelings of
Edward; and of course, to reflect on her own with discontent.

When Mrs. Jennings came home, though she returned from seeing people
whom she had never seen before, and of whom, therefore, she must have a
great deal to say, her mind was so much more occupied by the important
secret in her possession, than by any thing else, that she reverted to
it again as soon as Elinor appeared.

"Well, my dear," she cried, "I sent you up to the young man. Did not I
do right? And I suppose you had no great difficulty you did not find him
very unwilling to accept your proposal?"

"No, ma'am; that was not very likely."

"Well, and how soon will he be ready? For it seems all to depend upon
that."

"Ready," said Elinor, "I know so little of these kind of forms, that I
can hardly even conjecture as to the time, or the preparation necessary;
but I suppose two or three months will complete his ordination."

"Two or three months!" cried Mrs. Jennings; "Lord! my dear, how calmly
you talk of it; and can the Colonel wait two or three months! Lord bless
me! I am sure it would put me quite out of patience! And though one
would be very glad to do a kindness to poor Mr. Ferrars, I do think it
is not worth while to wait two or three months for him. Sure somebody
else might be found that would do as well; somebody that is in orders
already."

"My dear ma'am," said Elinor, "what can you be thinking of? Why, Colonel
Brandon's only object is to be of use to Mr. Ferrars."

"Lord bless you, my dear! Sure you do not mean to persuade me that the
Colonel only marries you for the sake of giving ten guineas to Mr.
Ferrars!"

The deception could not continue after this; and an explanation
immediately took place, by which both gained considerable amusement for
the moment, without any material loss of happiness to either; for Mrs.
Jennings only exchanged one form of delight for another, and still
without forfeiting her expectation of the first.

"Ay, ay, the parsonage is but a small one," said she, after the first
ebullition of surprise and satisfaction was over, "and very likely may
be out of repair; but to hear a man apologising, as I thought, for a
house that to my knowledge has five sitting rooms on the ground-floor,
and I think the housekeeper told me could make up fifteen beds! and to
you, too, that had been used to live in Barton cottage! It seems quite
ridiculous. But, my dear, we must touch up the Colonel to do some thing
to the parsonage, and make it comfortable for them, before Lucy goes to
it."

"But Colonel Brandon does not seem to have any idea of the living's
being enough to allow them to marry."

"The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; because he has two thousand a year
himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less. Take my word for
it, that, if I am alive, I shall be paying a visit at Delaford Parsonage
before Michaelmas; and I am sure I shan't go if Lucy an't there."

Elinor was quite of her opinion, as to the probability of their not
waiting for any thing more.

                      CHAPTER XLI


EDWARD, having carried his thanks to Colonel Brandon, proceeded with his
happiness to Lucy; and such was the excess of it by the time he reached
Bartlett's Buildings, that she was able to assure Mrs. Jennings, who
called on her again the next day with her congratulations, that she had
never seen him in such spirits before in her life.

Her own happiness, and her own spirits, were at least very certain; and
she joined Mrs. Jennings most heartily in her expectation of their being
all comfortably together in Delaford Parsonage before Michaelmas. So far
was she, at the same time, from any backwardness to give Elinor that
credit which Edward would give her, that she spoke of her friendship for
them both with the most gratefull warmth, was ready to own all their
obligation to her, and openly declared that no exertion for their good
on Miss Dashwood's part, either present or future, would ever surprise
her, for she believed her capable of doing any thing in the world for
those she really valued. As for Colonel Brandon, she was not only ready
to worship him as a saint, but was, moreover, truly anxious that he
should be treated as one in all wordly concerns; anxious that his tithes
should be raised to the utmost; and scarcely resolved to avail herself,
at Delaford, as far as she possibly could, of his servants, his
carriage, his cows, and his poultry.

It was now above a week since John Dashwood had called in Berkely
Street, and as since that time no notice had been taken by them of his
wife's indisposition, beyond one verbal enquiry, Elinor began to feel it
necessary to pay her a visit. This was an obligation, however, which not
only opposed her own inclination, but which had not the assistance of
any encouragement from her companions. Marianne, not contented with
absolutely refusing to go herself, was very urgent to prevent her
sister's going at all; and Mrs. Jennings, though her carriage was always
at Elinor's service, so very much disliked Mrs. John Dashwood, that not
even her curiosity to see how she looked after the late discovery, nor
her strong desire to affront her by taking Edward's part, could overcome
her unwillingness to be in her company again. The consequence was, that
Elinor set out by herself to pay a visit, for which no one could really
have less inclination, and to run the risk of a tete-a-tete with a woman
whom neither of the others had so much reason to dislike.

Mrs. Dashwood was denied; but before the carriage could turn from the
house, her husband accidentally came out. He expressed great pleasure in
meeting Elinor, told her that he had been just going to call in Berkely
Street, and, assuring her that Fanny would be very glad to see her,
invited her to come in.

They walked up stairs in to the drawing-room. Nobody was there.

"Fanny is in her own room, I suppose," said he: "I will go to her
presently, for or am sure she will not have the least objection in the
world to seeing you. Very far from it, indeed. Now especially there
cannot be- but, however, you and Marianne were always great favourites.
Why, would not Marianne come?"

Elinor made what excuse she could for her.

"I am not sorry to see you alone," he replied, "for I have a good deal
to say to you. This living of Colonel Brandon's- can it be true? has he
really given it to Edward? I heard it yesterday by chance, and was
coming to you on purpose to enquire farther about it."

"It is perfectly true. Colonel Brandon has given the living of Delaford
to Edward."

"Really! Well, this is very astonishing!- no relationship!- no
connection between them!- and now that livings fetch such a price!- what
was the value of this?"

"About two hundred a year."

"Very well- and for the next presentation to a living of that value-
supposing the late incumbent to have been old and sickly, and likely to
vacate it soon- he might have got, I dare say- fourteen hundred pounds.
And how came he not to have settled that matter before this person's
death? Now, indeed, it would be too late to sell it; but a man of
Colonel Brandon's sense! I wonder he should be so improvident in a point
of such common, such natural, concern! Well, I am convinced that there
is a vast deal of inconsistency in almost every human character. I
suppose, however- on recollection- that the case may probably be this.
Edward is only to hold the living till the person to whom the Colonel
has really sold the presentation is old enough to take it. Ay, ay, that
is the fact, depend upon it."

Elinor contradicted it, however, very positively; and by relating that
she had herself been employed in conveying the off from Colonel Brandon
to Edward, and, therefore, must understand the terms on which it was
given, obliged him to submit to her authority.

"It is truly astonishing!" he cried, after hearing what she said: "what
could be the Colonel's motive?"

"A very simple one,- to be of use to Mr. Ferrars."

"Well, well; whatever Colonel Brandon may be, Edward is a very lucky
man. You will not mention the matter to Fanny, however; for though I
have broke it to her, and she bears it vastly well, she will not like to
hear it much talked of."

Elinor had some difficulty here to refrain from observing, that she
thought Fanny might have borne with composure an acquisition of wealth
to her brother, by which neither she nor her child could be possibly
improverished.

"Mrs. Ferrars," added he, lowering his voice to the tone becoming so
important a subject, "knows nothing about it at present; and I believe
it will be best to keep it entirely concealed from her as long as may
be. When the marriage takes place, I fear, she must hear of it all."

"But why should such precaution be used? Though it is not to be supposed
that Mrs. Ferrars can have the smallest satisfaction in knowing that her
son has money enough to live upon, for that must be quite out of the
question; yet why, upon her late behaviour, is she supposed to feel at
all? She has done with her son,- she cast him off for ever, and has made
all those over whom she had any influence cast him off likewise. Surely,
after doing so, she cannot be imagined liable to any impression of
sorrow or of joy on his account; she cannot be interested in any thing
that befalls him. She would not be so weak as to throw away the comfort
of a child, and yet retain the anxiety of a parent!"

"Ah! Elinor," said John, "your reasoning is very good; but it is founded
on ignorance of human nature. When Edward's unhappy match takes place,
depend upon it, his mother will feel as much as if she had never
discarded him; and, therefore, every circumstance that may accelerate
that dreadful event must be concealed from her as much as possible. Mrs.
Ferrars can never forget that Edward is her son."

"You surprise me; I should think it must nearly have escaped her memory
by this time."

"You wrong her exceedingly. Mrs. Ferrars is one of the most affectionate
mothers in the world."

Elinor was silent.

"We think now," said Mr. Dashwood, after a short pause, "of Robert's
marrying Miss Morton."

Elinor, smiling at the grave and decisive importance of her brother's
tone, calmly replied,-

"The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair."

"Choice! how do you mean?"

"I only mean that I suppose, from your manner of speaking, it must be
the same to Miss Morton whether she marry Edward or Robert."

"Certainly, there can be no difference; for Robert will now, to all
intents and purposes, be considered as the eldest son; and, as to any
thing else, they are both very agreeable young men: I do not know that
one is superior to the other."

Elinor said no more, and John was also for a short time silent. His
reflections ended thus:-

"Of one thing, my dear sister," kindly taking her hand, and speaking in
an awful whisper, "I may assure you; and I will do it, because I know it
must gratify you. I have good reason to think- indeed I have it from the
best authority, or I should not repeat it; for otherwise it would be
very wrong to say any thing about it,- but I have it from the very best
authority, not that I ever precisely heard Mrs. Ferrars say it herself,
but her daughter did, and I have it from her,- that, in short, whatever
objections there might be against a certain- a certain connection, you
understand me,- it would have been far preferable to her,- it would not
have given her half the vexation that this does. I was exceedingly
pleased to hear that Mrs. Ferrars considered it in that light; a very
gratifying circumstance, you know, to us all. 'It would have been beyond
comparison,' she said, 'the least evil of the two; and she would be glad
to compound now for nothing worse.' But, however, all that is quite out
of the question,- not to be thought of, or mentioned. As to any
attachment, you know, it never could be: all that is gone by. But I
thought I would just tell you of this, because I knew how much it must
please you. Not that you have any reason to regret, my dear Elinor:
there is no doubt of your doing exceedingly well,- quite as well, or
better, perhaps, all things considered. Has Colonel Brandon been with
you lately?"

Elinor had heard enough, if not to gratify her vanity and raise her
self-importance, to agitate her nerves and fill her mind; and she was,
therefore, glad to be spared from the necessity of saying much in reply
herself, and from the danger of hearing any thing more from her brother,
by the entrance of Mr. Robert Ferrars. After a few moments' chat, John
Dashwood, recollecting that Fanny was yet uninformed of her sister's
being there, quitted the room in quest of her; and Elinor was left to
improve her acquaintance with Robert, who, by the gay unconcern, the
happy self-complacency of his manner, while enjoying so unfair a
division of his mother's love and liberality, to the prejudice of his
banished brother, earned only by his own dissipated course of life and
that brother's integrity, was confirming her most unfavourable opinion
of his head and heart.

They had scarcely been two minutes by themselves, before he began to
speak of Edward; for he, too, had heard of the living and was very
inquisitive on the subject. Elinor repeated the particulars of it, as
she had given them to John; and their effect on Robert, though very
different, was not less striking than it had been on him. He laughed
most immoderately. The idea of Edward's being a clergyman, and living in
a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure; and when to that
was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a white
surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith and
Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.

Elinor, while she waited in silence and immovable gravity the conclusion
of such folly, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed on him with
a look that spoke all the contempt it excited. It was a look, however,
very well bestowed; for it relieved her own feelings, and gave no
intelligence to him. He was recalled from wit to wisdom, not by any
reproof of hers, but by his own sensibility.

"We may treat it as a joke," said he, at last, recovering from the
affected laugh which had considerably lengthened out the genuine gaiety
of the moment; "but, upon my soul, it is a most serious business. Poor
Edward! he is ruined for ever. I am extremely sorry for it; for I know
him to be a very good-hearted creature,- as well-meaning a fellow,
perhaps, as any in the world. You must not judge of him, Miss Dashwood,
from your slight acquaintance. Poor Edward! His manners are certainly
not the happiest in nature. But we are not all born, you know, with the
same powers,- the same address. Poor fellow! to see him in a circle of
strangers! To be sure it was pitiable enough; but, upon my soul, I
believe he bas as good a heart as any in the kingdom; and I declare and
protest to you, I never was so shocked in my life as when it all burst
forth. I could not believe it. My mother was the first person who told
me of it; and I, feeling myself called on to act with resolution,
immediately said to her,- 'My dear madam, I do not know what you may
intend to do on the occasion; but as for myself, I must say, that if
Edward does marry this young woman, I never will see him again.' That
was what I said immediately. I was most uncommonly shocked, indeed. Poor
Edward! he has done for himself completely,- shut himself out for ever
from all decent society! But, as I directly said to my mother, I am not
in the least surprised at it; from his style of education, it was always
to be expected. My poor mother was half frantic."

"Have you ever seen the lady?"

"Yes; once, while she was staying in this house, I happened to drop in
for ten minutes; and I saw quite enough of her; the merest awkward
country girl, without style, or elegance, and almost without beauty. I
remember her perfectly. Just the kind of girl I should suppose likely to
captivate poor Edward. I offered immediately, as soon as my mother
related the affair to me, to talk to him myself, and dissuade him from
the match; but it was too late then, I found, to do any thing; for,
unluckily, I was not in the way at first, and knew nothing of it till
after the breach had taken place, when, it was not for me, you know, to
interfere. But, had I been informed of it a few hours earlier, I think
it is most probable that something might have been hit on. I certainly
should have represented it to Edward in a very strong light. 'My dear
fellow,' I should have said, 'consider what you are doing. You are
making a most disgraceful connection, and such a one as your family are
unanimous in disapproving.' I cannot help thinking, in short, that means
might have been found; but now it is all too late. He must be starved,
you know, that is certain; absolutely starved."

He had just settled this point with great composure, when the entrance
of Mrs. John Dashwood put an end to the subject. But though she never
spoke of it out of her own family, Elinor could see its influence on her
mind in the something like confusion of countenance with which she
entered, and an attempt at cordiality in her behaviour to herself. She
even proceeded so far as to be concerned to find that Elinor and her
sister were so soon to leave town, as she had hoped to see more of them;
an exertion in which her husband, who attended her into the room, and
hung enamoured over her accents, seemed to distinguish every thing that
was most affectionate and graceful.

                      CHAPTER XLII


ONE other short call in Harley Street, in which Elinor received her
brother's congratulations on their travelling so far towards Barton
without any expense, and on Colonel Brandon's being to follow them to
Cleveland in a day or two, completed the intercourse of the brother and
sisters in town; and a faint invitation from Fanny, to come to Norland
whenever it should happen to be in their way, which of all things was
the most unlikely to occur, with a more warm, though less public,
assurance, from John to Elinor, of the promptitude with which he should
come to see her at Delaford, was all that foretold any meeting in the
country.

It amused her to observe that all her friends seemed determined to send
her to Delaford; a place, in which, of all others, she would now least
choose to visit, or wish to reside; for not only was it considered as
her future home by her brother and Mrs. Jennings, but even Lucy, when
they parted, gave her a pressing invitation to visit her there.

Very early in April and tolerably early in the day, the two parties from
Hanover Square and Berkeley Street set out from their respective homes,
to meet, by appointment, on the road. For the convenience of Charlotte
and her child, they were to be more than two days on their journey; and
Mr. Palmer, travelling more expeditiously with Colonel Brandon, was to
join them at Cleveland soon after their arrival.

Marianne, few as had been her hours of comfort in London, and eager as
she had long been to quit it, could not, when it came to the point, bid
adieu to the house in which she had for the last time enjoyed those
hopes, and that confidence, in Willoughby, which were now extinguished
for ever, without great pain. Nor could she leave the place in which
Willoughby remained, busy in new engagements, and new schemes, in which
she could have no share, without shedding many tears.

Elinor's satisfaction, at the moment of removal, was more positive. She
had no such object for her lingering thoughts to fix on; she left no
creature behind, from whom it would give her a moment's regret to be
divided for ever; she was pleased to be free herself from the
persecution of Lucy's friendship; she was grateful for bringing her
sister away unseen by Willoughby since his marriage; and she looked
forward with hope to what a few months of tranquility at Barton might do
towards restoring Marianne's peace of mind, and confirming her own.

Their journey was safely performed. The second day brought them into the
cherished, or the prohibited, county of Somerset; for as such was it
dwelt on by turns in Marianne's imagination; and in the forenoon of the
third they drove up to Cleveland.

Cleveland was a spacious, modern-built house, situated on a sloping
lawn. It had no park, but the pleasure-grounds were tolerably extensive;
and, like every other place of the same degree of importance, it had its
open shrubbery, and closer wood walk; a road of smooth gravel, winding
round a plantation, led to the front; the lawn was dotted over with
timber; the house itself was under the guardianship of the fir, the
mountain-ash, and the acacia, and a thick screen of them altogether,
interspersed with tall Lombardy poplars, shut out the offices.

Marianne entered the house with a heart swelling with emotion from the
consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty
from Combe Magna; and before she had been five minutes within its walls,
while the others were busily helping Charlotte to show her child to the
housekeeper, she quitted it again, stealing away through the winding
shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a distant
eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering over a wide
tract of country to the southeast, could fondly rest on the farthest
ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their summits Combe
Magna might be seen.

In such moments of precious, of invaluable misery, she rejoiced in tears
of agony to be at Cleveland; and as she returned by a different circuit
to the house, feeling all the happy privilege of country liberty, of
wandering from place to place in free and luxurious solitude, she
resolved to spend almost every hour of every day, while she remained
with the Palmers, in the indulgence of such solitary rambles.

She returned just in time to join the others, as they quitted the house,
on an excursion through its more immediate premises; and the rest of the
morning was easily whiled away in lounging round the kitchen garden,
examining the bloom upon its walls, and listening to the gardener's
lamentations upon blights,- in dawdling through the greenhouse, where
the loss of her favourite plants, unwarily exposed, and nipped by the
lingering frost, raised the laughter of Charlotte,- and in visiting her
poultry-yard, where, in the disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid, by
hens forsaking their nests, or being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid
decrease of a promising young brood, she found fresh sources of
merriment.

The morning was fine and dry, and Marianne, in her plan of employment
abroad, had not calculated for any change of weather during their stay
at Cleveland. With great surprise, therefore, did she find herself
prevented, by a settled rain, from going out again after dinner. She had
depended on a twilight walk to the Grecian temple, and perhaps all over
the grounds, and an evening merely cold or damp would not have deterred
her from it; but a heavy and settled rain even she could not fancy dry
or pleasant weather for walking.

Their party was small, and the hours passed quietly away. Mrs. Palmer
had her child, and Mrs. Jennings her carpet-work; they had talked of the
friends they had left behind; arranged Lady Middleton's engagements, and
wondered whether Mr. Palmer and Colonel Brandon would get farther than
Reading that night. Elinor, however little concerned in it, joined in
their discourse; and Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in
every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in
general, soon procured herself a book.

Nothing was wanting on Mrs. Palmer's side that constant and friendly
good humour could do, to make them feel themselves welcome. The openness
and heartiness of her manner more than atoned for that want of
recollection and elegance which made her often deficient in the forms of
politeness; her kindness, recommended by so pretty a face, was engaging;
her folly, though evident was not disgusting, because it was not
conceited; and Elinor could have forgiven every thing but her laugh.

The two gentlemen arrived the next day to a very late dinner, affording
a pleasant enlargement of the party, and a very welcome variety to their
conversation, which a long morning of the same continued rain had
reduced very low.

Elinor had seen so little of Mr. Palmer, and in that little had seen so
much variety in his address to her sister and herself, that she knew not
what to expect to find him in his own family. She found him, however,
perfectly the gentleman in his behaviour to all his visitors, and only
occasionally rude to his wife and her mother; she found him very capable
of being a pleasant companion, and only prevented from being so always,
by too great an aptitude to fancy himself as much superior to people in
general, as he must feel himself to be to Mrs. Jennings and Charlotte.
For the rest of his character and habits, they were marked, as far as
Elinor could perceive, with no traits at all unusual in his sex and time
of life. He was nice in his eating, uncertain in his hours; fond of his
child, though affecting to slight it; and idled away the mornings at
billiards, which ought to have been devoted to business. She liked him,
however, upon the whole, much better than she had expected, and in her
heart was not sorry that she could like him no more; not sorry to be
driven by the observation of his epicurism, his selfishness, and his
conceit, to rest with complacency on the remembrance of Edward's
generous temper, simple taste, and diffident feelings.

Of Edward, or at least of some of his concerns, she now received
intelligence from Colonel Brandon, who had been into Dorsetshire lately;
and who, treating her at once as the disinterested friend of Mr.
Ferrars, and the kind of confidant of himself, talked to her a great
deal of the parsonage at Delaford, described its deficiencies, and told
her what he meant to do himself towards removing them. His behaviour to
her in this, as well as in every other particular, his open pleasure in
meeting her after an absence of only ten days, his readiness to converse
with her, and his deference for her opinion, might very well justify
Mrs. Jennings's persuasion of his attachment, and would have been
enough, perhaps, had not Elinor still, as from the first, believed
Marianne his real favourite, to make her suspect it herself. But as it
was, such a notion had scarcely ever entered her head, except by Mrs.
Jennings's suggestion; and she could not help believing herself the
nicest observer of the two: she watched his eyes, while Mrs. Jennings
thought only of his behaviour; and while his looks of anxious solicitude
on Marianne's feeling, in her head and throat, the beginning of a heavy
cold, because unexpressed by words, entirely escaped the latter lady's
observation,- she could discover in them the quick feelings, and
needless alarm of a lover.

Two delighted twilight walks on the third and fourth evenings of her
being there, not merely on the dry gravel of the shrubbery, but all over
the grounds, and especially in the most distant parts of them, where
there was something more of wildness than in the rest, where the trees
were the oldest, and the grass was the longest and wettest, had-
assisted by the still greater imprudence of sitting in her wet shoes and
stockings- given Marianne a cold so violent as, though for a day or two
trifled with or denied, would force itself by increasing ailments on the
concern of every body, and the notice of herself. Prescriptions poured
in from all quarters, and as usual, were all declined. Though heavy and
feverish, with a pain in her limbs, and a cough, and a sore throat, a
good night's rest was to cure her entirely; and it was with difficulty
that Elinor prevailed on her, when she went to bed, to try one or two of
the simplest of the remedies.

                      CHAPTER XLIII


MARIANNE got up the next morning at her usual time; to every enquiry
replied that she was better, and tried to prove herself so, by engaging
in her accustomary employments. But a day spent in sitting shivering
over the fire with a book in her hand, which she was unable to read, or
in lying, weary and languid, on a sofa, did not speak much in favour of
her amendment; and when, at last, she went early to bed, more and more
indisposed, Colonel Brandon was only astonished at her sister's
composure, who, though attending and nursing her the whole day, against
Marianne inclination, and forcing proper medicines on her at night,
trusted, like Marianne, to the certainty and efficacy of sleep, and felt
no real alarm.

A very restless and feverish night, however, disappointed the
expectation of both; and when Marianne, after persisting in rising,
confessed herself unable to sit up, and returned voluntarily to her bed,
Elinor was very ready to adopt Mrs. Jennings's advice, of sending for
the Palmers' apothecary.

He came, examined his patient, and though encouraging Miss Dashwood to
expect that a very few days would restore her sister to health, yet, by
pronouncing her disorder to have a putrid tendency, and allowing the
word "infection" to pass his lips, gave instant alarm to Mrs. Palmer, on
her baby's account. Mrs. Jennings, who had been inclined from the first
to think Marianne's complaint more serious than Elinor, now looked very
grave on Mr. Harris's report, and confirming Charlotte's fears and
caution, urged the necessity of her immediate removal with the infant;
and Mr. Palmer, though treating their apprehensions as idle, found the
anxiety and importunity of his wife too great to be withstood. Her
departure, therefore, was fixed on; and within an hour after Mr.
Harris's arrival, she set off, with her little boy and his nurse, for
the house of a near relation of Mr. Palmer's, who lived a few miles on
the other side of Bath; whither her husband promised, at her earnest
entreaty, to join her in a day or two; and whither she was almost
equally urgent with her mother to accompany her. Mrs. Jennings, however,
with a kindness of heart which made Elinor really love her, declared her
resolution of not stirring from Cleveland as long as Marianne remained
ill, and of endeavouring, by her own attentive care, to supply to her
the place of the mother she had taken her from; and Elinor found her, on
every occasion, a most willing and active helpmate, desirous to share in
all her fatigues, and often, by her better experience in nursing, of
material use.

Poor Marianne, languid and low from the nature of her malady, and
feeling herself universally ill, could no longer hope that to-morrow
would find her recovered; and the idea of what to-morrow would have
produced, but for this unlucky illness, made every ailment severe; for
on that day they were to have begun their journey home; and attended the
whole way by a servant of Mrs. Jennings, were to have taken their mother
by surprise on the following forenoon. The little she said was all in
lamentation of this inevitable delay; though Elinor tried to raise her
spirits, and make her believe, as she then really believed herself, that
it would be a very short one.

The next day produced little or no alteration in the state of the
patient; she certainly was not better, and, except that there was no
amendment, did not appear worse. Their party was now farther reduced;
for Mr. Palmer, though very unwilling to go, as well from real humanity
and good-nature as from a dislike of appearing to be frightened away by
his wife, was persuaded at last, by Colonel Brandon, to perform his
promise of following her; and while he was preparing to go, Colonel
Brandon himself, with a much greater exertion, began to talk of going
likewise. Here, however, the kindness of Mrs. Jennings interposed most
acceptably; for to send the Colonel away while his love was in so much
uneasiness on her sister's account would be to deprive them both, she
thought, of every comfort; and, therefore, telling him at once that his
stay at Cleveland was necessary to herself that she should want him to
play at piquet of an evening, while Miss Dashwood was above with her
sister, &c., she urged him so strongly to remain, that he, who was
gratifying the first wish of his own heart by a compliance, could not
long even affect to demur; especially as Mrs. Jennings's entreaty was
warmly seconded by Mr. Palmer, who seemed to feel a relief to himself in
leaving behind him a person so well able to assist or advise Miss
Dashwood in any emergency.

Marianne was, of course, kept in ignorance of all these arrangements.
She knew not that she had been the means of sending the owners of
Cleveland away, in about seven days from the time of their arrival. It
gave her no surprise that she saw nothing of Mrs. Palmer; and as it gave
her likewise no concern, she never mentioned her name.

Two days passed away from the time of Mr. Palmer's departure; and her
situation continued, with little variation, the same. Mr. Harris, who
attended her every day, still talked boldly of a speedy recovery; and
Miss Dashwood was equally sanguine; but the expectation of the others
was by no means so cheerful. Mrs. Jennings had determined, very early in
the seizure, that Marianne would never get over it; and Colonel Brandon,
who was chiefly of use in listening to Mrs. Jennings's forebodings, was
not in a state of mind to resist their influence. He tried to reason
himself out of fears, which the different judgment of the apothecary
seemed to render absurd; but the many hours of each day in which he was
left entirely alone were but too favourable for the admission of every
melancholy idea; and he could not expel from his mind the persuasion
that he should see Marianne no more.

On the morning of the third day, however, the gloomy anticipations of
both were almost done away; for when Mr. Harris arrived, he declared his
patient materially better. Her pulse was much stronger, and every
symptom more favourable than on the preceding visit. Elinor, confirmed
in every pleasant hope, was all cheerfulness; rejoicing that, in her
letters to her mother, she had pursued her own judgment rather than her
friend's, in making very light of the indisposition which delayed them
at Cleveland; and almost fixing on the time when Marianne would be able
to travel.

But the day did not close so auspiciously as it began. Towards the
evening Marianne became ill again, growing more heavy, restless, and
uncomfortable than before. Her sister, however, still sanguine, was
willing to attribute the change to nothing more than the fatigue of
having sat up to have her bed made; and carefully administering the
cordials prescribed, saw her, with satisfaction, sink at last into a
slumber, from which she expected the most beneficial effects. Her sleep,
though not so quiet as Elinor wished to see it, lasted a considerable
time; and anxious to observe the result of it herself, she resolved to
sit with her during the whole of it. Mrs. Jennings, knowing nothing of
any change in the patient, went unusually early to bed; her maid, who
was one of the principal nurses, was recreating herself in the
housekeeper's room, and Elinor remained alone with Marianne.

The repose of the latter became more and more disturbed, and her sister,
who watched, with unremitting attention, her continual change of
posture, and heard the frequent but inarticulate sounds of complaint
which passed her lips, was almost wishing to rouse her from so painful a
slumber, when Marianne, suddenly awakened by some accidental noise in
the house, started hastily up, and, with feverish wildness, cried out,-

"Is mamma coming?"

"Not yet," cried the other, concealing her terror, and assisting
Marianne to lie down again; "but she will be here, I hope, before it is
long. It is a great way, you know, from hence to Barton."

"But she must not go round by London," cried Marianne, in the same
hurried manner. "I shall never see her, if she goes by London."

Elinor perceived, with alarm, that she was not quite herself, and, while
attempting to soothe her, eagerly felt her pulse. It was lower and
quicker than ever. And Marianne, still talking wildly of mamma, her
alarm increased so rapidly, as to determine her on sending instantly for
Mr. Harris, and despatching a messenger to Barton for her mother. To
consult with Colonel Brandon on the best means of effecting the latter
was a thought which immediately followed the resolution of its
performance; and as soon she had rung up the maid to take her place by
her sister, she hastened down to the drawing-room, where she knew he was
generally to be found at a much later hour than the present.

It was no time for hesitation. Her fears and her difficulties were
immediately before him. Her fears, he had, no courage, no confidence, to
attempt the removal of: he listened to them in silent despondence; but
her difficulties were instantly obviated; for, with a readiness that
seemed to speak the occasion, and the service pre-arranged in his mind,
he offered himself as the messenger who should fetch Mrs. Dashwood.
Elinor made no resistance that was not easily overcome. She thanked him
with brief, though fervent gratitude; and while he went to hurry off his
servant with a message to Mr. Harris, and an order for post-horses
directly, she wrote a few lines to her mother.

The comfort of such a friend at that moment as Colonel Brandon,- or such
a companion for her mother,- how gratefully was it felt! a companion
whose judgment would guide, whose must relieve, and whose friendship
might soothe her! As far as the shock of such a summons could be
lessened to her, his presence, his manners, his assistance, would lessen
it.

He, meanwhile, whatever he might feel, acted with all the firmness of a
collected mind, made every necessary arrangement with the utmost
despatch, and calculated with exactness the time in which she might look
for his return. Not a moment was lost in delay of any kind. The horses
arrived, even before they were expected; and Colonel Brandon only
pressing her hand with a look of solemnity, and a few words spoken too
low to reach her ear, hurried into the carriage. It was then about
twelve o'clock, and she returned to her sister's apartment to wait for
the arrival of the apothecary, and to watch by her the rest of the
night. It was a night of almost equal suffering to both. Hour after hour
passed away in sleepless pain and delirium on Marianne's side, and in
the most cruel anxiety on Elinor's, before Mr. Harris appeared. Her
apprehensions once raised paid by their excess for all her former
security; and the servant who sat up with her, for she would not allow
Mrs. Jennings to be called, only tortured her more, by hints of what her
mistress had always thought.

Marianne's ideas were still, at intervals, fixed incoherently on her
mother; and whenever she mentioned her name it gave a pang to the heart
of poor Elinor, who, reproaching herself for having trifled with so many
days of illness, and wretched for some immediate relief, fancied that
all relief might soon be in vain, that every thing had been delayed too
long, and pictured to herself her suffering mother arriving too late to
see this darling child, or to see her rational.

She was on the point of sending again for Mr. Harris, or if he could not
come, for some other advice, when the former- but not till after 5
o'clock- arrived. His opinion, however, made some little amends for his
delay; for though acknowledging a very unexpected and unpleasant
alteration in his patient, he would not allow the danger to be material,
and talked of the relief which a fresh mode of treatment must procure,
with a confidence which, in a lesser degree, was communicated to Elinor.
He promised to call again in the course of three or four hours; and left
both the patient and her anxious attendant more composed than he had
found them.

With strong concern, and with many reproaches for not being called to
their aid, did Mrs. Jennings hear in the morning of what had passed. Her
former apprehensions, now with greater reason restored, left her no
doubt of the event; and though trying to speak comfort to Elinor, her
conviction of her sister's danger would not allow her to offer the
comfort of hope. Her heart was really grieved. The rapid decay, the
early death of a girl so young, so lovely as Marianne, must have struck
a less interested person with concern. On Mrs. Jennings's compassion she
had other claims. She had been for three months her companion, was still
under her care, and she was known to have been greatly injured, and long
unhappy. The distress of her sister, too, particularly a favourite, was
before her; and as for their mother, when Mrs. Jennings considered that
Marianne might probably be to her what Charlotte was to herself, her
sympathy in her sufferings was very sincere.

Mr. Harris was punctual in his second visit; but he came to be
disappointed in his hopes of what the last would produce. His medicines
had failed; the fever was unabated; and Marianne only more quiet- not
more herself- remained in a heavy stupor. Elinor, catching all, and more
than all, his fear in a moment, proposed to call in further advice. But
he judged it unnecessary: he had still something more to try, some more
fresh application, of whose success he was as confident as the last; and
his visit concluded with encouraging assurances which reached the ear
but could not enter the heart of Miss Dashwood. She was calm, except
when she thought of her mother; but she was almost hopeless; and in this
state she continued till noon, scarcely stirring from her sister's bed,
her thoughts wandering from one image of grief, one suffering friend to
another; and her spirits oppressed to the utmost by the conversation of
Mrs. Jennings, who scrupled not to attribute the severity and danger of
this attack to the many weeks of previous indisposition which Marianne's
disappointment had brought on. Elinor felt all the reasonableness of the
idea, and it gave fresh misery to her reflections.

About noon, however, she began- but with a caution- a dread of
disappointment which for some time kept her silent even to her friend-
to fancy, to hope she could perceive a slight amendment in her sister's
pulse: she waited, watched, and examined it again and again; and at
last, with an agitation more difficult to bury under exterior calmness
than all her foregoing distress, ventured to communicate her hopes. Mrs.
Jennings, though forced, on examination, to acknowledge a temporary
revival, tried to keep her young friend from indulging a thought of its
continuance; and Elinor, coming over every injunction of distrust, told
herself likewise not to hope. But it was too late. Hope had already
entered; and feeling all its anxious flutter, she bent over her sister
to watch- she hardly knew for what. Half an hour passed away, and the
favourable symptom yet blessed her. Others even arose to confirm it. Her
breath, her skin, her lips, all flattered Elinor with signs of
amendment; and Marianne fixed her eyes on her with a rational, though
languid, gaze. Anxiety and hope now oppressed her in equal degrees, and
left her no moment of tranquillity till the arrival of Mr. Harris at
four o'clock; when his assurances, his felicitations on a recovery in
her sister even surpassing his expectation, gave her confidence,
comfort, and tears of joy.

Marianne was in every respect materially better; and he declared her
entirely out of danger. Mrs. Jennings, perhaps satisfied with the
partial justification of her forebodings which had been found in their
late alarm, allowed herself to trust in his judgment, and admitted, with
unfeigned joy, and soon with unequivocal cheerfulness, the probability
of an entire recovery.

Elinor could not be cheerful. Her joy was of a different kind, and led
to any thing rather than to gaiety. Marianne, restored to life, health,
friends, and to her doting mother, was an idea to fill her heart with
sensations of exquisite comfort, and expand it in fervant gratitude; but
it lead to no outward demonstrations of joy, no words, no smiles. All
within Elinor's breast was satisfaction, silent and strong.

She continued by the side of her sister, with little intermission, the
whole afternoon; calming every fear, satisfying every enquiry of her
enfeebled spirits, supplying every succour, and watching almost every
look and every breath. The possibility of a relapse would, of course, in
some moments, occur to remind her of what anxiety was; but when she saw,
on her frequent and minute examination, that every symptom of recovery
continued, and saw Marianne at six o'clock sink into a quiet, steady,
and to all appearance comfortable, sleep, she silenced every doubt.

The time was now drawing on when Colonel Brandon might be expected back.
At ten o'clock, she trusted, or at least not much later, her mother
would be relieved from the dreadful suspense in which she must now be
travelling towards them. The Colonel, too!- perhaps scarcely less an
object of pity! Oh! how slow was the progress of time which yet kept
them in ignorance!

At seven o'clock, leaving Marianne still sweetly asleep, she joined Mrs.
Jennings in the drawing-room to tea. Of breakfast she had been kept by
her fears, and of dinner by their sudden reverse, from eating much; and
the present refreshment. therefore, with such feelings of content as she
brought to it, was particularly welcome. Mrs. Jennings would have
persuaded her, at its conclusion, to take some rest before her mother's
arrival, and allow her to take her place by Marianne; but Elinor had no
sense of fatigue, no capability of sleep at that moment about her, and
she was not to be kept away from her sister an unnecessary instant. Mrs.
Jennings, therefore, attending her up stairs into the sick chamber, to
satisfy herself that all continued right, left her there again to her
charge and her thoughts, and retired to her own room to write letters
and sleep.

The night was cold and stormy. The wind roared round the house, and the
rain beat against the windows; but Elinor, all happiness within,
regarded it not. Marianne slept through every blast; and the travellers,
they had a rich reward in store, for every present inconvenience.

The clock struck eight. Had it been ten, Elinor would have been
convinced that at the moment she heard a carriage driving up to the
house; and so strong was the persuasion that she did, in spite of the
almost impossibility of their being already come, that she moved into
the adjoining dressing-closet and opened a window shutter, to be
satisfied of the truth. She instantly saw that her ears had not deceived
her. The flaring lamps of a carriage were immediately in view. By their
uncertain light she thought she could discern it to be drawn by four
horses; and this, while it told the excess of her poor mother's alarm,
gave some explanation to such unexpected rapidity.

Never in her life had Elinor found it so difficult to be calm as at that
moment. The knowledge of what her mother must be feeling as the carriage
stopped at the door- of her doubt- her dread- perhaps her despair!- and
of what she had to tell! with such knowledge it was impossible to be
calm. All that remained to be done was to be speedy; and, therefore,
staying only till she could leave Mrs. Jennings's maid with her sister,
she hurried down stairs.

The bustle in the vestibule, as she passed along an inner lobby, assured
her that they were already in the house. She rushed to the drawing-room:
she entered it- and saw only Willoughby.

                      CHAPTER XLIV


ELINOR, starting back with a look of horror at the sight of him, obeyed
the first impulse of her heart in turning instantly to quit the room;
and her hand was already on the lock, when its action was suspended by
his hastily advancing, and saying, in a voice rather of command than
supplication-

"Miss Dashwood, for half an hour- for ten minutes- I entreat you to
stay."

"No, sir," she replied with firmness, "I shall not stay. Your business
cannot be with me. The servants, I suppose, forgot to tell you that Mr.
Palmer was not in the house."

"Had they told me," he cried with vehemence, "that Mr. Palmer and all
his relations were at the devil, it would not have turned me from the
door. My business is with you, and only you."

"With me!"- in the utmost amazement- "well, sir, be quick- and if you
can, less violent."

"Sit down, and I will be both."

She hesitated; she knew not what to do. The possibility of Colonel
Brandon's arriving and finding her there came across her. But she had
promised to hear him; and her curiosity no less than her honor was
engaged. After a moment's recollection, therefore, concluding that
prudence required dispatch, and that her acquiescence would best promote
it, she walked silently towards the table, and sat down. He took the
opposite chair; and for half a minute not a word was said by either.

"Pray be quick, sir," said Elinor, impatiently; "I have no time to
spare."

He was sitting in an attitude of deep meditation, and seemed not to hear
her.

"Your sister," said he, with abruptness, a moment afterwards, "is out of
danger. I heard it from the servant. God be praised! But is it true? Is
it really true?"

Elinor would not speak. He repeated the enquiry with yet greater
eagerness.

"For God's sake tell me, is she out of danger, or is she not?"

"We hope she is."

He rose up, and walked across the room.

"Had I known as much half an hour ago;- but since I am here," speaking
with a forced vivacity as he returned to his seat,- "what does it
signify? For once, Miss Dashwood- it will be the last time, perhaps- let
us be cheerful together. I am in a fine mood for gaiety. Tell me
honestly," a deeper glow overspreading his cheeks, "do you think me most
a knave or a fool?"

Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to
think that be must be in liquor;- the strangeness of such a visit, and
of such manners, seemed no otherwise intelligible; and with this
impression she immediately rose, saying,-

"Mr. Willoughby, I advise you, at present, to return to Combe. I am not
at leisure to remain with you longer. Whatever your business may be with
me, will it be better recollected and explained to-morrow."

"I understand you," he replied, with an expressive smile, and a voice
perfectly calm; "yes, I am very drunk. A pint of porter with my cold
beef at Marlborough was enough to overset me."

"At Marlborough!" cried Elinor, more and more at a loss to understand
what he would be at.

"Yes,- I left London this morning at eight o'clock, and the only ten
minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a
nunchion at Marlborough."

The steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he
spoke, convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might
bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she
said, after a moment's recollection,-

"Mr. Willoughby, you ought to feel, and I certainly do that after what
has passed, your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon
my notice, requires a very particular excuse. What is it than you mean
by it?"

"I mean," said he, with serious energy, "if I can, to make you hate me
one degree less than you do now. I mean to offer some kind of
explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart
to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a
blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like

"Is this the real reason of your coming?"

"Upon my soul it is," was his answer, with a warmth which brought all
the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and, in spite of herself, made
her think him sincere.

"If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne does, she
has long forgiven you."

"Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone. "Then she has forgiven me
before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on
more reasonable grounds. Now will you listen to me?"

Elinor bowed her assent.

"I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and
thoughtfulness on his own, "how you may have accounted for my behaviour
to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me.
Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me,- it is worth the trial,
however,- and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate
in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the
acquaintance, than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to
remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your
sister's lovely person, and interesting manners, could not but please
me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first was of a kind- it is
astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what she was, that my
heart should have been so insensible! But at first, I must confess, my
vanity only was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness, thinking only
of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had always been too
much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every means in my
power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design of returning
her affection."

Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most
angry contempt, stopped him, by saying:-

"It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me
to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any
thing. Do not let me be pained by hearing anything more on the subject."

"I insist on you hearing the whole of it," he replied. "My fortune was
never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of
associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since
my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and
though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free, yet
that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for
some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a
woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a
thing to be thought of; and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty, which
no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can
ever reprobate too much- I was acting in this manner, trying to engage
her regard, without a thought of returning it. But one thing may be said
for me: even in that horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the
extent of the injury I meditated, because I did not then know what it
was to love. But have I ever known it? Well may it be doubted; for, had
I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to
avarice? or what is more, could I have sacrificed hers? But I have done
it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society
would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to
affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing."

"You did, then," said Elinor, a little softened, "believe yourself at
one time attached to her?"

"To have resisted such attractions, to have withstood such tenderness!
Is there a man on earth who could have done it? Yes, I found myself, by
insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my
life were what I spent with her when I felt my intentions were strictly
honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even then, however, when fully
determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed myself most
improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of doing it, from an
unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my circumstances were so
greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here- nor will I stop for you to
expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling
to engage my faith where my honour was already bound. The event has
proved that I was a cunning fool, providing with great circumspection
for a possible opportunity of making myself contemptible and wretched
for ever. At last, however, my resolution was taken; and I had
determined, as soon as I could engage her alone, to justify the
attentions I had so invariably paid her, and openly assure her of an
affection which I had already taken such pains to display. But in the
interim- in the interim of the very few hours that were to pass before I
could have an opportunity of speaking with her in private- a
circumstance occurred- an unlucky circumstance- to ruin all my
resolution, and with it all my comfort. A discovery took place,"- here
he hesitated and looked down. "Mrs. Smith had somehow or other been
informed, I imagine by some distant relation, whose interest it was to
deprive me of her favour, of an affair, a connection- but I need not
explain myself farther," he added, looking at her with an heightened
colour and an enquiring eye- "your particular intimacy- you have
probably heard the whole story long ago."

"I have," returned Elinor, colouring likewise, and hardening her heart
anew against any compassion for him, "I have heard it all; and how you
will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business I
confess is beyond my comprehension."

"Remember," cried Willoughby, "from whom you received the account. Could
it be an impartial one? I acknowledge that her situation and her
character ought to have been respected by me. I do not mean to justify
myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I have
nothing to urge- that because she was injured she was irreproachable,
and because I was a libertine, she must be a saint. If the violence of
her passions, the weakness of her understanding- I do not mean, however,
to defend myself. Her affection for me deserved better treatment; and I
often, with great self-reproach, recall the tenderness which, for a very
short time, had the power of creating any return. I wish- I heartily
wish it had never been. But I have injured more than herself; and I have
injured one, whose affection for me (may I say it?) was scarcely less
warm than hers; and whose mind- oh, how infinitely superior!"

"Your indifference, however, towards that unfortunate girl- I must say
it, unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well be-
your indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her. Do not
think yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of
understanding on her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours.
You must have known, that while you were enjoying yourself in
Devonshire, pursuing fresh schemes, always gay, always happy, she was
reduced to the extremest indigence."

"But, upon my soul, I did not know it," he warmly replied: "I did not
recollect that I had omitted to give her my direction; and common sense
might have told her how to find it out."

"Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?"

"She taxed me with the offence at once, and my confusion may be guessed.
The purity of her life, the formality of her notions, her ignorance of
the world- every thing was against me. The matter itself I could not
deny, and vain was every endeavour to soften it. She was previously
disposed, I believe, to doubt the morality of my conduct in general, and
was, moreover, discontented with the very little attention, the very
little portion of my time that I had bestowed on her in my present
visit. In short, it ended in a total breach. By one measure I might have
saved myself. In the height of her morality, good woman! she offered to
forgive the past, if I would marry Eliza. That could not be; and I was
formally dismissed from her favour and her house. The night following
this affair- I was to go the next morning- was spent by me in
deliberating on what my future conduct should be. The struggle was
great, but it ended too soon. My affection for Marianne, my thorough
conviction of her attachment to me- it was all insufficient to outweigh
that dread of poverty, or get the better of those false ideas of the
necessity of riches, which I was naturally inclined to feel; and
expensive society had increased. I had reason to believe myself secure
of my present wife, if I chose to address her, and I persuaded myself to
think that nothing else in common prudence remained for me to do. A
heavy scene, however, awaited me before I could leave Devonshire: I was
engaged to dine with you on that very day; some apology was therefore
necessary for my breaking this engagement. But whether I should write
this apology, or deliver it in person, was a point of long debate. To
see Marianne I felt would be dreadful; and I even doubted whether I
could see her again and keep to my resolution. In that point, however, I
undervalued my own magnanimity, as the event declared; for I went, I saw
her, and saw her miserable, and left her miserable; and left her hoping
never to see her again."

"Why did you call, Mr. Willoughby?" said Elinor, reproachfully; "a note
would have answered every purpose. Why was it necessary to call?"

"It was necessary to my own pride. I could not bear to leave the country
in a manner that might lead you, or the rest of the neighbourhood, to
suspect any part of what had really passed between Mrs. Smith and
myself, and I resolved, therefore, on calling at the cottage, in my way
to Honiton. The sight of your dear sister, however, was really dreadful;
and, to heighten the matter, I found her alone. You were all gone, I do
not know where. I had left her only the evening before, so fully, so
firmly resolved within my self on doing right! A few hours were to have
engaged her to me for ever; and I remember how happy, how gay were my
spirits, as I walked from the cottage to Allenham, satisfied with
myself, delighted with every body? But in this, our last interview of
friendship, I approached her with a sense of guilt that almost took from
me the power of dissembling. Her sorrow, her disappointment, her deep
regret, when I told her that I was obliged to leave Devonshire so
immediately- I never shall forget it- united, too, with such reliance,
such confidence in me! Oh, God! what a hard-hearted rascal I was!"

They were both silent for a few moments. Elinor first spoke.

"Did you tell her that you should soon return?"

"I do not know what I told her," he replied, impatiently; "less than was
due to the past beyond a doubt, and in all likelihood much more than was
justified by the future. I cannot think of it. It won't do. Then came
your dear mother to torture me farther, with all her kindness and
confidence. Thank Heaven! it did torture me. I was miserable. Miss
Dashwood, you cannot have an idea of the comfort it gives me to look
back on my own misery. I owe such a grudge to myself for the stupid,
rascally folly of my own heart, that all my past sufferings under it are
only triumph and exultation to me now. Well, I went, left all that I
loved, and went to those to whom, at best, I was only indifferent. My
journey to town- travelling with my own horses, and therefore so
tediously- no creature to speak to- my own reflections so cheerful- when
I looked forward every thing so inviting!- when I looked back at Barton,
the picture so soothing!- oh, it was a blessed journey!"

He stopped.

"Well, sir," said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew impatient for
his departure, "and this is all?"

"All!- no:- have you forgot what passed in town? That infamous letter?
Did she show it you?"

"Yes, I saw every note that passed."

"When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did, for I was in
town the whole time), what I felt is, in the common phrase, not to be
expressed; in a more simple one, perhaps too simple to raise my emotion,
my feelings were very, very painful. Every line, every word, was- in the
hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would forbid-
a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in town was, in the same
language, a thunderbolt. Thunderbolts and daggers! what a reproof would
she have given me! Her taste, her opinions- I believe they are better
known to me than my own, and I am sure they are dearer."

Elinor's heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of this
extraordinary conversation, was now softened again; yet she felt it her
duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last.

"This is not right, Mr. Willoughby. Remember that you are married.
Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear."

"Marianne's note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in
former days- that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been
separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of faith
in the constancy of mine as ever- awakened all my remorse. I say
awakened, because time and London, business and dissipation, had in some
measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened villain,
fancying myself indifferent to her, and choosing to fancy that she too
must have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past
attachment as a mere idle, trifling business; shrugging up my shoulders
in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach, overcoming every
scruple, by secretly saying now and then, 'I shall be heartily glad to
hear she is well married.' But this note made me know myself better. I
felt that she was infinitely dearer to me than any other woman in the
world, and that I was using her infamously. But every thing was then
just settled between Miss Grey and me. To retreat was impossible. All
that I had to do was to avoid you both. I sent no answer to Marianne,
intending by that to preserve myself from her farther notice; and for
some time I was even determined not to call in Berkeley Street; but at
last, judging it wiser to affect the air of a cool, common acquaintance
than anything else, I watched you all safely out of the house one
morning, and left my name."

"Watched us out of the house!"

"Even so. You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you, how
often I was on the point of falling in with you. I have entered many a
shop to avoid your sight as the carriage drove by. Lodging as I did in
Bond Street, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a glimpse
of one or other of you; and nothing but the most constant watchfulness
on my side, a most invariably prevailing desire to keep out of your
sight, could have separated us so long. I avoided the Middletons as much
as possible, as well as every body else who was likely to prove an
acquaintance in common. Not aware of their being in town, however, I
blundered on Sir John, I believe, the first day of his coming, and the
day after I had called on Mrs. Jennings. He asked me to a party, a dance
at his house in the evening. Had he not told me as an inducement that
you and your sister were to be there, I should have felt it too certain
a thing to trust myself near him. The next morning brought another short
note from Marianne- still affectionate, open, artless, confiding-
everything that could make my conduct most hateful. I could not answer
it. I tried- but could not frame a sentence. But I thought of her, I
believe, every moment of the day. If you can pity me, Miss Dashwood,
pity my situation as it was then. With my head and heart full of your
sister, I was forced to play the happy lover to another woman! Those
three or four weeks were worse than all. Well, at last, as I need not
tell you, you were forced on me; and what a sweet figure I cut! what an
evening of agony Willoughby was! Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one
side, calling me such a tone! Oh, God! holding out her hand to me,
asking me for an explanation, with those bewitching eyes fixed in such
speaking solicitude on my face! and Sophia, jealous as the devil on the
other, looking all that was- Well, it does not signify; it is over now.
Such an evening! I ran away from you all as soon as I could; but not
before I had seen Marianne's sweet face as white as death. That was the
last, last look I ever had of her; the last manner in which she appeared
to me. It was a horrid sight! yet when I thought of her to-day as really
dying, it was a kind of comfort to me to imagine that I knew exactly how
she would appear to those who saw her last in this world. She was before
me, constantly before me, as I travelled, in the same look and hue."

A short pause of mutual thoughtfulness succeeded. Willoughby first
rousing himself, broke it thus:-

"Well, let me make haste and be gone. Your sister is certainly better,
certainly out of danger?"

"We are assured of it."

"Your poor mother, too! doting on Marianne."

"But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter: have you any thing to
say about that?"

"Yes, yes, that in particular. Your sister wrote to me again, you know,
the very next morning. You saw what she said. I was breakfasting at the
Ellisons',- and her letter, with some others, was brought to me there
from my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia's eye before it caught
mine;- and its size, the elegance of the paper, the handwriting
altogether, immediately gave her a suspicion. Some vague report had
reached her before of my attachment to some young lady in Devonshire,
and what had passed within her observation the preceding evening had
marked who the young lady was, and made her more jealous than ever.
Affecting that air of playfulness, therefore, which is delightful in a
woman one loves, she opened the letter directly, and read its contents.
She was well paid for her impudence. She read what made her wretched.
Her wretchedness I could have borne, but her passion- her malice- at all
events it must be appeased. And, in short, what do you think of my
letter-writing? delicate- tender- truly feminine- was it not?"

"Your wife! The letter was in your own hand-writing."

"Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as I
was ashamed to put my name to. The original was all her own- her own
happy thoughts and gentle diction. But what could I do? We were engaged,
every thing in preparation, the day almost fixed- but I am talking like
a fool. Preparation! Day! In honest words, her money was necessary to
me; and in a situation like mine any thing was to be done to prevent a
rupture. And after all, what did it signify to my character, in the
opinion of Marianne and her friends, in what language my answer was
couched? It must have been only to one end. My business was to declare
myself a scoundrel; and whether I did it with a bow or a bluster was of
little importance. 'I am ruined for ever in their opinion,' said I to
myself: 'I am shut out for ever from their society; they already think
me an unprincipled fellow; this letter will only make them think me a
blackguard one.' Such were my reasonings as, in a sort of desperate
carelessness, I copied my wife's words, and parted with the last relics
of Marianne. Her three notes,- unluckily they were all in my pocketbook,
or I should have denied their existence, and hoarded them for ever- I
was forced to put them up, and could not even kiss them. And the lock of
hair- that, too, I had always carried about me in the same pocket-book,
which was now searched by madam with the most ingratiating virulence,-
the dear lock, all, every memento was torn from me."

"You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby; very blamable," said Elinor; while
her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion; "you
ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister.
You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a
claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She must be
attached to you, or she would not have married you. To treat her with
unkindness, to speak of her slightingly, is no atonement to Marianne;
nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience."

"Do not talk to me of my wife," said he with a heavy sigh; "she does not
deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we
married. Well, married we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be
happy, and afterwards returned to town to be gay. And now do you pity
me, Miss Dashwood? Or have I said all this to no purpose? Am I,- be it
only one degree,- am I less guilty in your opinion than I was before? My
intentions were not always wrong. Have I explained away any part of my
guilt?"

"Yes, you have certainly removed something- a little. You have proved
yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You have
proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly know- the
misery that you have inflicted- I hardly know what could have made it
worse."

"Will you repeat to your sister, when she is recovered, what I have been
telling you? Let me be a little lightened, too, in her opinion as well
as in yours. You tell me that she has forgiven me already. Let me be
able to fancy that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present
feelings, will draw from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more
gentle, less dignified, forgiveness. Tell her of my misery and my
penitence;- tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her; and, if
you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever."

"I will tell her all that is necessary to what may comparatively be
called your justification. But you have not explained to me the
particular reason of your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness."

"Last night, in Drury Lane lobby, I ran against Sir John Middleton; and
when he saw who I was, for the first time these two months, he spoke to
me. That he had cut me ever since my marriage, I had seen without
surprise or resentment. Now, however, his good-natured, honest, stupid
soul, full of indignation against me, and concern for your sister, could
not resist the temptation of telling me what he knew ought to, though
probably he did not think it would, vex me horridly. As bluntly as he
could speak it, therefore, he told me that Marianne Dashwood was dying
of a putrid fever at Cleveland- a letter that morning received from Mrs.
Jennings declared her danger most imminent- the Palmers are all gone off
in a fright, &c. I was too much shocked to be able to pass myself off as
insensible even to the undiscerning Sir John. His heart was softened in
seeing mine suffer; and so much of his ill-will was done away, that when
we parted, he almost shook me by the hand while he reminded me of an old
promise about a pointer puppy. What I felt on hearing that your sister
was dying, and dying, too, believing me the greatest villain upon earth,
scorning, hating me in her latest moments- for how could I tell what
horrid projects might not have been imputed? One person I was sure would
represent me as capable of any thing. What I felt was dreadful! My
resolution was soon made, and at eight o'clock this morning I was in my
carriage. Now you know all."

Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the
irreparable injury which too early an independence, and its consequent
habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the
character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and
talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling,
affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain-
extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity
while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had
involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its
offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty
propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.
The attachment, from which against honor, against feeling, against every
better interest, he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer
allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the sake of
which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely
to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable
nature. From a reverie of this kind she was recalled at the end of some
minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing himself from a reverie at least
equally painful, started up in preparation for going, and said-

"There is no use in staying here; I must be off."

"Are you going back to town?"

"No- to Combe Magna. I have business there; from thence to town in a day
or two. Good-by."

He held out his hand. She could not refuse to give him hers: he pressed
it with affection.

"And you do think something better of me than you did?" said he, letting
it fall, and leaning against the mantel-piece, as if forgetting he was
to go.

Elinor assured him that she did; that she forgave, pitied, wished him
well- was even interested in his happiness- and added some gentle
counsel as to the behavior most likely to promote it. His answer was not
very encouraging.

"As to that," said he, "I must rub through the world as well as I can.
Domestic happiness is out of the question. If, however, I am allowed to
think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it may
be the means- it may put me on my guard- at least it may be something to
live for. Marianne, to be sure, is lost to me for ever. Were I even by
any blessed chance at liberty again-"

Elinor stopped him with a reproof.

"Well," he replied, "once more good-by. I shall now go away and live in
dread of one event."

"What do you mean?"

"Your sister's marriage."

"You are very wrong. She can never be more lost to you than she is now."

"But she will be gained by some one else. And if that some one should be
the very he whom, of all others, I could least bear- but I will not stay
to rob myself of all your compassionate good-will, by showing that where
I have most injured I can least forgive. Good-by- God bless you!"

And with these words he almost ran out of the room.

                      CHAPTER XLV


ELINOR, for some time after he left her, for some time even after the
sound of his carriage had died away, remained too much oppressed by a
crowd of ideas, widely differing in themselves, but of which sadness was
the general result, to think even of her sister.

Willoughby- he whom only half an hour ago she had abhorred as the most
worthless of men- Willoughby, in spite of all his faults, excited a
degree of commiseration for the sufferings produced by them, which made
her think of him as now separated for ever from her family, with a
tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion, as she soon acknowledged
within herself, to his wishes than to his merits. She felt that his
influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not
in reason to have weight: by that person of uncommon attraction, that
open, affectionate, and lively manner, which it was no merit to possess;
and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even
innocent to indulge. But she felt that it was so, long, long before she
could feel his influence less.

When at last she returned to the unconscious Marianne, she found her
just awaking, refreshed by so long and sweet a sleep to the extent of
her hopes. Elinor's heart was full. The past, the present, the future,
Willoughby's visit, Marianne's safety, and her mother's expected
arrival, threw her altogether into an agitation of spirits which kept
off every indication of fatigue, and made her only fearful of betraying
herself to her sister. Short was the time, however, in which that fear
could affect her; for within half an hour after Willoughby's leaving the
house, she was again called down stairs by the sound of another
carriage. Eager to save her mother from every unnecessary moment's
horrible suspense, she ran immediately into the hall, and reached the
outward door just in time to receive and support her as she entered it.

Mrs. Dashwood, whose terror as they drew near the house had produced
almost the conviction of Marianne's being no more, had no voice to
enquire after her, no voice even for Elinor: but she, waiting neither
for salutation nor enquiry, instantly gave the joyful relief; and her
mother, catching it with all her usual warmth, was in a moment as much
overcome by her happiness as she had been before by her fears. She was
supported into the drawing-room between her daughter and her friend; and
there, shedding tears of joy, though still unable to speak, embraced
Elinor again and again, turning from her at intervals to press Colonel
Brandon's hand, with a look which spoke at once her gratitude, and her
conviction of his sharing with herself in the bliss of the moment. He
shared it, however, in a silence even greater than her own.

As soon as Mrs. Dashwood had recovered herself, to see Marianne was her
first desire; and in two minutes she was with her beloved child,
rendered dearer to her than ever by absence, unhappiness, and danger.
Elinor's delight, as she saw what each felt in the meeting, was only
checked by an apprehension of its robbing Marianne of farther sleep: but
Mrs. Dashwood could be calm, could be even prudent, when the life of a
child was at stake; and Marianne, satisfied in knowing her mother was
near her, and conscious of being too weak for conversation, submitted
readily to the silence and quiet prescribed by every nurse around her.
Mrs. Dashwood would sit up with her all night; and Elinor, in compliance
with her mother's entreaty, went to bed. But the rest, which one night
entirely sleepless, and many hours of the most wearing anxiety seemed to
make requisite, was kept off by irritation of spirits. Willoughby, "poor
Willoughby," as she now allowed herself to call him, was constantly in
her thoughts: she would not but have heard his vindication for the
world, and now blamed, now acquitted herself for having judged him so
harshly before. But her promise of relating it to her sister was
invariably painful. She dreaded the performance of it, dreaded what its
effect on Marianne might be; doubted whether, after such an explanation,
she could ever be happy with another; and for a moment wished Willoughby
a widower. Then, remembering Colonel Brandon, reproved herself, felt
that to his sufferings and his constancy, far more than to his rival's,
the reward of her sister was due, and wished any thing rather than Mrs.
Willoughby's death.

The shock of Colonel Brandon's errand at Barton had been much softened
to Mrs. Dashwood by her own previous alarm; for so great was her
uneasiness about Marianne, that she had already determined to set out
for Cleveland on that very day without waiting for any further
intelligence, and had so far settled her journey before his arrival,
that the Careys were then expected every moment to fetch Margaret away,
as her mother was unwilling to take her where there might be infection.

Marianne continued to mend every day; and the brilliant cheerfulness of
Mrs. Dashwood's looks and spirits proved her to be, as she repeatedly
declared herself, one of the happiest women in the world. Elinor could
not hear the declaration, nor witness its proofs, without sometimes
wondering whether her mother ever recollected Edward. But Mrs. Dashwood,
trusting to the temperate account of her own disappointment, which
Elinor had sent her, was led away by the exuberance of her joy to think
only of what would increase it. Marianne was restored to her, from a
danger in which, as she now began to feel, her own mistaken judgment in
encouraging the unfortunate attachment to Willoughby had contributed to
place her; and in her recovery she had yet another source of joy,
unthought of by Elinor. It was thus imparted to her, as soon as any
opportunity of private conference between them occurred.

"At last we are alone. My Elinor, you do not yet know all my happiness.
Colonel Brandon loves Marianne. He has told me so himself."

Her daughter, feeling by turns both pleased and pained, surprised and
not surprised, was all silent attention.

"You are never like me, dear Elinor, or I should wonder at your
composure now. Had I sat down to wish for any possible good to my
family, I should have fixed on Colonel Brandon's marrying one of you, as
the object most desirable; and I believe Marianne will be the most happy
with him of the two."

Elinor was half inclined to ask her reason for thinking so, because
satisfied that none, founded on an impartial consideration of their age,
characters, or feelings, could be given: but her mother must always be
carried away by her imagination, on any interesting subject; and,
therefore, instead of an enquiry, she passed it off with a smile.

"He opened his whole heart to me yesterday as we travelled. It came out
quite unawares, quite undesignedly. I, you may well believe, could talk
of nothing but my child:- he could not conceal his distress; I saw that
it equalled my own; and he, perhaps thinking that mere friendship, as
the world now goes, would not justify so warm a sympathy; or rather, not
thinking at all, I suppose, giving way to irresistible feelings, made me
acquainted with his earnest, tender, constant, affection for Marianne.
He has loved her, my Elinor, ever since the first moment of seeing her."

Here, however, Elinor perceived, not the language, not the professions
of Colonel Brandon, but the natural embellishments of her mother's
active fancy, which fashioned every thing delightful to her as it chose.

"His regard for her, infinitely surpassing any thing that Willoughby
ever felt or feigned, as much more warm, as more sincere or constant,
whichever we are to call it, has subsisted through all the knowledge of
dear Marianne's unhappy prepossession for that worthless young man! and
without selfishness, without encouraging a hope! could he have seen her
happy with another. Such a noble mind! such openness, such sincerity! No
one can be deceived in him."

"Colonel Brandon's character," said Elinor, "as an excellent man, is
well established."

"I know it is," replied her mother, seriously, "or, after such a
warning, I should be the last to encourage such affection, or even to be
pleased by it. But his coming for me, as he did, with such active, such
ready friendship, is enough to prove him one of the worthiest of men."

"His character, however," answered Elinor, "does not rest on one act of
kindness, to which his affection for Marianne, were humanity out of the
case, would have prompted him. To Mrs. Jennings, to the Middletons, he
has been long and intimately known: they equally love and respect him;
and even my own knowledge of him, though lately acquired, is very
considerable; and so highly do I value and esteem him, that if Marianne
can be happy with him, I shall be as ready as yourself to think our
connection the greatest blessing to us in the world. What answer did you
give him? Did you allow him to hope?"

"Oh, my love! I could not then talk of hope to him or to myself.
Marianne might, at that moment, be dying. But he did not ask for hope,
or encouragement. His was an involuntary confidence, an irrepressible
effusion to a soothing friend, not an application to a parent. Yet,
after a time, I did say, for, at first, I was quite overcome, that if
she lived, as I trusted she might, my greatest happiness would lie in
promoting their marriage; and since our arrival, since our delightful
security, I have repeated it to him more fully, have given him every
encouragement in my power. Time, a very little time, I tell him, will do
every thing; Marianne's heart is not to be wasted for ever on such a man
as Willoughby. His own merits must soon secure it."

"To judge from the Colonel's spirits, however, you have not yet made him
equally sanguine."

"No. He thinks Marianne's affection too deeply rooted for any change in
it under a great length of time; and even supposing her heart again
free, is too diffident of himself to believe, that with such a
difference of age and disposition he could ever attach her. There,
however, he is quite mistaken. His age is only so much beyond hers as to
be an advantage, as to make his character and principles fixed; and his
disposition, I am well convinced, is exactly the very one to make your
sister happy. And his person, his manners, too, are all in his favour.
My partiality does not blind me: he certainly is not so handsome as
Willoughby; but, at the same time, there is something much more pleasing
in his countenance. There was always a something, if you remember, in
Willoughby's eyes at times, which I did not like."

Elinor could not remember it; but her mother, without waiting for her
assent, continued:

"And his manners, the Colonel's manners are not only more pleasing to me
than Willoughby's ever were, but they are of a kind I well know to be
more solidly attaching to Marianne. Their gentleness, their genuine
attention to other people, and their manly unstudied simplicity, is much
more accordant with her real disposition than the liveliness, often
artificial, and often ill-timed of the other. I am very sure myself,
that had Willoughby turned out as really amiable, as he has proved
himself the contrary, Marianne would yet never have been so happy with
him as she will be with Colonel Brandon."

She paused. Her daughter could not quite agree with her; but her dissent
was not heard, and therefore gave no offence.

"At Delaford, she will be within an easy distance of me," added Mrs.
Dashwood, "even if I remain at Barton; and in all probability- for I
hear it is a large village- indeed there certainly must be some small
house or cottage close by, that would suit us quite as well as our
present situation."

Poor Elinor!- here was a new scheme for getting her to Delaford!- but
her spirit was stubborn.

"His fortune too!- for at my time of life, you know, every body cares
about that;- and though I neither know, nor desire to know, what it
really is, I am sure it must be a good one."

Here they were interrupted by the entrance of a third person; and Elinor
withdrew to think it all over in private, to wish success to her friend,
and yet, in wishing it, to feel a pang for Willoughby.

                      CHAPTER XLVI


MARIANNE'S illness, though weakening in its kind, had not been long
enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength, and
her mother's presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to enable her
to remove, within four days after the arrival of the latter, into Mrs.
Palmer's dressing-room. When there, at her own particular request, for
she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to him for fetching her
mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her.

His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and in
receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was such
as, in Elinor's conjecture, must arise from something more than his
affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to
others; and she soon discovered, in his melancholy eye and varying
complexion as he looked at her sister, the probable recurrence of many
past scenes of misery to his mind, brought back by that resemblance
between Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now strengthened by
the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining weakness; and
the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation.

Mrs. Dashwood, not less watchful of what passed than her daughter, but
with a mind very differently influenced, and therefore watching to very
different effect, saw nothing in the Colonel's behaviour but what arose
from the most simple and self-evident sensations, while in the actions
and words of Marianne she persuaded herself to think that something more
than gratitude already dawned.

At the end of another day or two, Marianne growing visibly stronger
every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood, urged equally by her own and her
daughter's wishes, began to talk of removing to Barton. On her measures
depended those of her two friends: Mrs. Jennings could not quit
Cleveland during the Dashwoods stay; and Colonel Brandon was soon
brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there as
equally determinate, if not equally indispensable. At his and Mrs.
Jennings's united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to
accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better
accommodation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint
invitation of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active good-nature
made her friendly and hospitable for other people as well as herself,
engaged with pleasure to redeem it by a visit at the cottage, in the
course of a few weeks.

The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after taking
so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so earnestly
grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to her own
heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and bidding
Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was carefully
assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that she
should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed,
and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and
feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise
to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young
companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his solitary
way to Delaford.

The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her journey
on both without essential fatigue. Every thing that the most zealous
affection, the most solicitous care, could do to render her comfortable,
was the office of each watchful companion, and each found their reward
in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits. To Elinor, the
observation of the latter was particularly grateful. She, who had seen
her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish of
heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to
conceal, now saw with a joy, which no other could equally share, an
apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result, as she trusted,
of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and
cheerfulness.

As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which every
field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful recollection,
she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her face from their
notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window. But here, Elinor could
neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted Marianne
from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an emotion too
natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity, and in its
unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole of her subsequent
manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to reasonable
exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common sittingroom, than
Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of resolute firmness, as
if determined at once to accustom herself to the sight of every object
with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be connected. She said
little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness; and though a sigh
sometimes escaped her, it never passed away without the atonement of a
smile. After dinner she would try her piano-forte. She went to it; but
the music on which her eye first rested was an opera, procured for her
by Willoughby, containing some of their favourite duets, and bearing on
its outward leaf her own name in his hand-writing. That would not do.
She shook her head, put the music aside, and after running over the keys
for a minute, complained of feebleness in her fingers, and closed the
instrument again; declaring, however, with firmness, as she did so, that
she should in future practice much.

The next morning produced no abatement in these happy symptoms. On the
contrary, with a mind and body alike strengthened by rest she looked and
spoke with more genuine spirit, anticipating the pleasure of Margaret's
return, and talking of the dear family party which would then be
restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the only
happiness worth a wish.

"When the weather is settled, and I have recovered my strength," said
she, "we will take long walks together every day. We will walk to the
farm at the edge of the down, and see how the children go on; we will
walk to Sir John's new plantations at Barton Cross, and the Abbeyland;
and we will often go the old ruins of the Priory, and try to trace its
foundations as far as we are told they once reached. I know we shall be
happy. I know the summer will pass happily away. I mean never to be
later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall divide
every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan, and am
determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own library is too
well known to me, to be resorted to for any thing beyond mere amusement.
But there are many works well worth reading at the Park; and there are
others of more modern production, which I know I can borrow of Colonel
Brandon. By reading only six hours a day, I shall gain in the course of
a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to
want."

Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this; though
smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her to the
extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining now at work in
introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and
virtuous self-control. Her smile, however, changed to a sigh when she
remembered that promise to Willoughby was yet unfulfilled, and feared
she had that to communicate which might again unsettle the mind of
Marianne, and ruin, at least for a time, this fair prospect of busy
tranquillity. Willing therefore to delay the evil hour, she resolved to
wait till her sister's health were more secure, before she appointed it.
But the resolution was made only to be broken.

Marianne had been two or three days at home before the weather was fine
enough for an invalid like herself to venture out. But at last a soft,
genial morning appeared, such as might tempt the daughter's wishes and
the mother's confidence; and Marianne, leaning on Elinor's arm, was
authorised to walk as long as she could without fatigue, in the lane
before the house.

The sisters set out at a pace, slow as the feebleness of Marianne in an
exercise hitherto untried since her illness required; and they had
advanced only so far beyond the house as to admit a full view of the
hill, the important behind, when pausing with her eyes turned towards
it, Marianne calmly said,-

"There, exactly there," pointing with one hand, "on that projecting
mound, there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby."

Her voice sunk with the word, but presently reviving she added,-

"I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the spot!
Shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor?" hesitatingly it was said.
"Or will it be wrong? I can talk of it now, I hope, as I ought to do."

Elinor tenderly invited her to be open.

"As for regret," said Marianne, "I have done with that, as far as he is
concerned. I do not mean to talk to you of what my feelings have been
for him, but what they are now. At present, if I could be satisfied on
one point, if I could be allowed to think that he was not always acting
a part, not always deceiving me; but above all, if I could be assured
that he never was so very wicked as my fears have sometimes fancied him,
since the story of that unfortunate girl-"

She stopped. Elinor joyfully treasured her words as she answered,-

"If you could be assured of that, you think you should be easy."

"Yes. My peace of mind is doubly involved in it; for not only is it
horrible to suspect a person, who has been what he has been to of such
designs, but what must it make me appear to myself? What, in a situation
like mine, but a most shamefully unguarded affection could expose me
to-"

"How then," asked her sister, "would you account for his behaviour?"

"I would suppose him- oh, how gladly would I suppose him!- only fickle,
very, very fickle."

Elinor said no more. She was debating within herself on the eligibility
of beginning her story directly, or postponing it till Marianne were in
stronger health; and they crept on for a few minutes in silence.

"I am not wishing him too much good," said Marianne at last, with a
sigh, "when I wish his secret reflections may be no more unpleasant than
my own. He will suffer enough in them."

"Do you compare your conduct with his?"

"No. I compare it with what it ought to have been; I compare it with
yours."

"Our situations have borne little resemblance."

"They have borne more than our conduct. Do not, my dearest Elinor, let
your kindness defend what I know your judgment must censure. My illness
has made me think. It has given me leisure and calmness for serious
recollection. Long before I was enough recovered to talk, I was
perfectly able to reflect. I considered the past: I saw in my own
behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last autumn,
nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of kindness
to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my sufferings, and
that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me to the grave. My
illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by myself by such
negligence of my own health, as I had felt, even at the time, to be
wrong. Had I died, it would have been self-destruction. I did not know
my danger till the danger was removed; but with such feelings as these
reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery,- wonder that the very
eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for atonement to my God,
and to you all, did not kill me at once. Had I died, in what peculiar
misery should I have left you, my nurse, my friend, my sister! You, who
had seen all the fretful selfishness of my latter days; who had known
all the murmurings of my heart! How should I have lived in your
remembrance! My mother, too! How could you have consoled her! I cannot
express my own abhorrence of myself. Whenever I looked towards the past,
I saw some duty neglected, or some failing indulged. Every body seemed
injured by me. The kindness, the unceasing kindness, of Mrs. Jennings, I
had repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers,
the Steeles, to every common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and
unjust; with a heart hardened against their merits, and a temper
irritated by their very attention. To John, to Fanny, yes, even to them,
little as they deserve, I had given less than their due. But you, you
above all, above my mother, had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew
your heart and its sorrows; yet to what did it influence me?- not to any
compassion that could benefit you or myself. Your example was before me;
but to what avail? Was I more considerate of you and your comfort? Did I
imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by taking any part
in those offices of general complaisance or particular gratitude which
you had hitherto been left to discharge alone? No; not less when I knew
you to be unhappy, than when I had believed you at ease, did I turn away
from every exertion of duty or friendship; scarcely allowing sorrow to
exist but with me, regretting only that heart which had deserted and
wronged me, and leaving you, for or I professed an unbounded affection,
to be miserable for my sake."

Here ceased the rapid flow of her self-reproving spirit; and Elinor,
impatient to soothe, though too honest to flatter, gave her instantly
that praise and support which her frankness and her contrition so well
deserved. Marianne pressed her hand and replied,-

"You are very good. The future must be my proof. I have laid down my
plan, and if I am capable of adhering to it, my feelings shall be
governed and my temper improved. They shall no longer worry others, nor
torture myself. I shall now live solely for my family. You, my mother,
and Margaret, must henceforth be all the world to me; you will share my
affections entirely between you. From you, from my home, I shall never
again have the smallest incitement to move; and if I do mix in other
society, it will be only to show that my spirit is humbled, my heart
amended, and that I can practise the civilities, the lesser duties of
life, with gentleness and forbearance. As for Willoughby, to say that I
shall soon, or that I shall ever forget him, would be idle. His
remembrance can be overcome by no change of circumstances or opinions.
But it shall be regulated, it shall be checked by religion, by reason,
by constant employment."

She paused- and added, in a low voice, "If I could but know his heart,
every thing would become easy."

Elinor, who had now been for some time reflecting on the propriety or
impropriety of speedily hazarding her narration, without feeling at all
nearer decision than at first, heard this; and perceiving that as
reflection did nothing resolution must do all, soon found herself
leading to the fact.

She managed the recital, as she hoped, with address; prepared her
anxious listener with caution; related simply and honestly the chief
points on which Willoughby grounded his apology; did justice to his
repentance, and softened only his protestations of present regard.
Marianne said not a word. She trembled: her eyes were fixed on the
ground; and her lips became whiter than even sickness had left them. A
thousand enquiries sprung up from her heart, but she dared not urge one.
She caught every syllable with panting eagerness: her hand, unknowingly
to herself, closely pressed her sister's, and tears covered her cheeks.

Elinor, dreading her being tired, led her towards home; and till they
reached the door of the cottage, easily conjecturing what her curiosity
must be, though no question was suffered to speak it, talked of nothing
but Willoughby, and their conversation together; and was carefully
minute in every particular of speech and look, where minuteness could be
safely indulged. As soon as they entered the house, Marianne, with a
kiss of gratitude, and these two words just articulate through her
tears, "Tell mamma," withdrew from her sister, and walked slowly up
stairs. Elinor would not attempt to disturb a solitude so reasonable as
what she now sought; and with a mind anxiously prearranging its results,
and a resolution of reviving the subject again, should Marianne fail to
do it, she turned into the parlour to fulfill her parting injunction.

                      CHAPTER XLVII


MRS. DASHWOOD did not hear, unmoved, the vindication of her former
favourite. She rejoiced in his being cleared from some part of his
imputed guilt; she was sorry for him; she wished him happy. But the
feelings of the past could not be recalled. Nothing could restore him
with a faith unbroken, a character unblemished, to Marianne. Nothing
could do away the knowledge of what the latter had suffered through his
means, nor remove the guilt of his conduct towards Eliza. Nothing could
replace him, therefore, in her former esteem, nor injure the interests
of Colonel Brandon.

Had Mrs. Dashwood, like her daughter, heard Willoughby's story from
himself,- had she witnessed his distress, and been under the influence
of his countenance and his manner,- it is probable that her compassion
would have been greater. But it was neither in Elinor's power, nor in
her wish, to rouse such feelings in another, by her retailed
explanation, as had at first been called forth in herself. Reflection
had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of
Willoughby's deserts; she wished, therefore, to declare only the simple
truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his character,
without any embellishment of tenderness to lead the fancy astray.

In the evening, when they were all three together, Marianne began
voluntarily to speak of him again; but that it was not without an
effort, the restless, unquiet thoughtfulness in which she had been for
some time previously sitting, her rising colour, as she spoke, and her
unsteady voice, plainly showed.

"I wish to assure you both," said she, "that I see every thing as you
can desire me to do."

Mrs. Dashwood would have interrupted her instantly with soothing
tenderness, had not Elinor, who really wished to hear her sister's
unbiassed opinion, by an eager sign, engaged her silence. Marianne
slowly continued,-

"It is a great relief to me, what Elinor told me this morning; I have
now heard exactly what I wished to hear." For some moments her voice was
lost; but recovering herself, she added, and with greater calmness than
before,- "I am now perfectly satisfied, I wish no change. I never could
have been happy with him, after knowing, as sooner or later I must have
known, all this. I should have had no confidence, no esteem. Nothing
could have done it away to my feelings."

"I know it, I know it," cried her mother. "Happy with a man of libertine
practices! With one who so injured the peace of the dearest of our
friends, and the best of men! No- my Marianne has not a heart to be made
happy with such a man! Her conscience would have felt all that the
conscience of her husband ought to have felt."

Marianne sighed, and repeated, "I wish for no change."

"You consider the matter," said Elinor, "exactly as a good mind and a
sound understanding must consider it; and I dare say you perceive, as
well as myself, not only in this, but in many other circumstances,
reason enough to be convinced that your marriage must have involved you
in many certain troubles and disappointments, in which you would have
been poorly supported by an affection, on his side, much less certain.
Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness is
acknowledged even by himself; and his whole conduct declares, that
self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands, and your
inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought
on distresses which would not be the less grievous to you, from having
been entirely unknown and unthought of before. Your sense of honour and
honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation, to
attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible: and, perhaps,
as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort, you might
have been suffered to practice it, but beyond that and how little could
the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin which had begun
before your marriage? beyond that, had you endeavoured, however
reasonably, to abridge his enjoyments, is it not to be feared, that
instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to consent to it, you would
have lessened your own influence on his heart, and made him regret the
connection which had involved him in such difficulties?"

Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word "selfish" in a tone
that implied, "Do you really think him selfish?"

"The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor, "from the beginning to the
end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness
which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when
his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which
finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or his own ease,
was, in every particular, his ruling principle."

"It is very true. My happiness never was his object."

"At present," continued Elinor, "he regrets what he has done. And why
does he regret it? Because he finds it has not answered towards himself.
It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed- he
suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only that he has
married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself. But does it
follow that had he married you, he would have been happy? The
inconveniences would have been different. He would then have suffered
under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are removed, he now
reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of whose temper he could
make no complaint, but he would have been always necessitous- always
poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank the innumerable
comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance,
even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a wife."

"I have not a doubt of it," said Marianne; "and I have nothing to
regret- nothing but my own folly."

"Rather say your mother's imprudence, my child," said Mrs. Dashwood:
"she must be answerable."

Marianne would not let her proceed; and Elinor, satisfied that each felt
their own error, wished to avoid any survey of the past that might
weaken her sister's spirits; she, therefore, pursuing the first subject,
immediately continued-

"One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the
story- that all Willoughby's difficulties have arisen from the first
offence against virtue, in his behaviour to Eliza Williams. That crime
has been the origin of every lesser one, and of all his present
discontents."

Marianne assented most feelingly to the remark; and her mother was led
by it to an enumeration of Colonel Brandon's injuries and merits, warm
as friendship and design could unitedly dictate. Her daughter did not
look, however, as if much of it were heard by her.

Elinor, according to her expectation, saw, on the two or three following
days, that Marianne did not continue to gain strength as she had done;
but while her resolution was unsubdued, and she still tried to appear
cheerful and easy, her sister could safely trust to the effect of time
upon her health.

Margaret returned, and the family were again all restored to each other,
again quietly settled at the cottage; and if not pursuing their usual
studies with quite so much vigour as when they first came to Barton, at
least planning a vigorous prosecution of them in future.

Elinor grew impatient for some tidings of Edward. She had heard nothing
of him since her leaving London, nothing new of his plans, nothing
certain even of his present abode. Some letters had passed between her
and her brother, in consequence of Marianne's illness; and in the first
of John's there had been this sentence:- "We know nothing of our
unfortunate Edward, and can make no enquiries on so prohibited a
subject, but conclude him to be still at Oxford;" which was all the
intelligence of Edward afforded her by the correspondence; for his name
was not even mentioned in any of the succeeding letters. She was not
doomed, however, to be long in ignorance of his measures.

Their man-servant had been sent one morning to Exeter, on business; and
when, as he waited at table, he had satisfied the enquiries of his
mistress as to the event of his errand, this was his voluntary
communication-

"I suppose you know, ma'am, that Mr. Ferrars is married?"

Marianne gave a violent start, fixed her eyes upon Elinor, saw her
turning pale, and fell back in her chair in hysterics. Mrs. Dashwood,
whose eyes, as she answered the servant's enquiry, had intuitively taken
the same direction, was shocked to perceive by Elinor's countenance, how
much she really suffered; and, in a moment afterwards, alike distressed
by Marianne's situation, knew not on which child to bestow her principal
attention.

The servant, who saw only that Miss Marianne was taken ill, had sense
enough to call one of the maids, who, with Mrs. Dashwood's assistance,
supported her into the other room. By that time, Marianne was rather
better; and her mother, leaving her to the care of Margaret and the
maid, returned to Elinor, who, though still much disordered, had so far
recovered the use of her reason and voice as to be just beginning an
enquiry of Thomas, as to the source of his intelligence. Mrs. Dashwood
immediately took all that trouble on herself; and Elinor had the benefit
of the information without the exertion of seeking it.

"Who told you that Mr. Ferrars was married, Thomas?"

"I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma'am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady
too, Miss Steele as was. They was stopping in a chaise at the door of
the New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the
Park to her brother, who is one of the post-boys. I happened to look up
as I went by the chaise, and so I see directly it was the youngest Miss
Steele, so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and
enquired after you, ma'am, and the young ladies, especially Miss
Marianne, and bid me I should give her compliments and Mr. Ferrars's,
their best compliments and service, and how sorry they was they had not
time to come on and see you; but they was in a great hurry to go
forwards, for they was going further down for a little while, but
however when they come back, they'd make sure to come and see you."

"But did she tell you she was married, Thomas?"

"Yes, ma'am. She smiled, and said how she had changed her name since she
was in these parts. She was always a very affable and free-spoken young
lady, and very civil behaved. So, I made free to wish her joy."

"Was Mr. Ferrars in the carriage with her?"

"Yes, ma'am, I just see him leaning back in it, but he did not look up:
he never was a gentleman much for talking."

Elinor's heart could easily account for his not putting himself forward;
and Mrs. Dashwood probably found the same explanation.

"Was there no one else in the carriage?"

"No, ma'am, only they two."

"Do you know where they came from?"

"They come straight from town, as Miss Lucy- Mrs. Ferrars told me."

"And are they going farther westward?"

"Yes, ma'am, but not to bide long. They will soon be back again, and
then they'd be sure and call here."

Mrs. Dashwood now looked at her daughter; but Elinor knew better than to
expect them. She recognised the whole of Lucy in the message, and was
very confident that Edward would never come near them. She observed in a
low voice, to her mother, that they were probably going down to Mr.
Pratt's, near Plymouth.

Thomas's intelligence seemed over. Elinor looked as if she wished to
hear more.

"Did you see them off, before you came away?"

"No, ma'am- the horses were just coming out, but I could not bide any
longer; I was afraid of being late."

"Did Mrs. Ferrars look well?"

"Yes, ma'am, she said how she was very well; and to my mind she was
always a very handsome young lady- and she seemed vastly contented."

Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other question; and Thomas and the
table-cloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed.
Marianne had already sent to say, that she should eat nothing more. Mrs.
Dashwood's and Elinor's appetites were equally lost; and Margaret might
think herself very well off that, with so much uneasiness as both her
sisters had lately experienced, so much reason as they had often had to
be careless of their meals, she had never been obliged to go without her
dinner before.

When the dessert and the wine were arranged, and Mrs. Dashwood and
Elinor were left by themselves, they remained long together in a
similarity of thoughtfulness and silence. Mrs. Dashwood feared to hazard
any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation. She now found that
she had erred in relying on Elinor's representation of herself; and
justly concluded that every thing had been expressly softened at the
time, to spare her from an increase of unhappiness, suffering as she
then had suffered for Marianne. She found that she had been misled by
the careful, the considerate attention of her daughter, to think the
attachment of which once she had so well understood, much slighter in
reality than she had been wont to believe, or than it was now proved to
be. She feared that under this persuasion she had been unjust,
inattentive, nay, almost unkind, to her Elinor; that Marianne's
affliction, because more acknowledged, more immediately before her, had
too much engrossed her tenderness, and led her away to forget that in
Elinor she might have a daughter suffering almost as much, certainly
with less self-provocation and greater fortitude.

                      CHAPTER XLVIII


ELINOR now found the difference between the expectation of an unpleasant
event, however certain the mind may be told to consider it, and
certainty itself. She now found that, in spite of herself, she had
always admitted a hope, while Edward remained single, that something
would occur to prevent his marrying Lucy; that some resolution of his
own, some mediation of friends, or some more eligible opportunity of
establishment for the lady, would arise to assist the happiness of all.
But he was now married; and she condemned her heart for the lurking
flattery which so much heightened the pain of the intelligence.

That he should be married soon, before (as she imagined) he could be in
orders, and consequently before he could be in possession of the living,
surprised her a little at first; but she soon saw how likely it was that
Lucy, in her self-provident care, in her haste to secure him, should
overlook every thing but the risk of delay. They were married,- married
in town,- and now hastening down to her uncle's. What had Edward felt on
being within four miles from Barton,- on seeing her mother's servant,-
on hearing Lucy's message!

They would soon, she supposed, be settled at Delaford:- Delaford, that
place in which so much conspired to give her an interest; which she
wished to be acquainted with, and yet desired to avoid. She saw them in
an instant in their parsonage-house: saw in Lucy the active, contriving
manager; uniting at once a desire of smart appearance with the utmost
frugality, and ashamed to be suspected of half her economical practices;
pursuing her own interest in every thought; courting the favour of
Colonel Brandon, of Mrs. Jennings, and of every wealthy friend. In
Edward, she knew not what she saw, nor what she wished to see. Happy or
unhappy, nothing pleased her: she turned away her head from every sketch
of him.

Elinor flattered herself that some one of their connections in London
would write to them to announce the event, and give farther particulars;
but day after day passed off, and brought no letter, no tidings. Though
uncertain that any one were to blame, she found fault with every absent
friend. They were all thoughtless or indolent.

"When do you write to Colonel Brandon, ma'am?" was an enquiry which
sprung from the impatience of her mind to have something going on.

"I wrote to him, my love, last week, and rather expect to see than to
hear from him again. I earnestly pressed his coming to us, and should
not be surprised to see him walk in to-day, or to-morrow, or any day."

This was gaining something,- something to look forward to. Colonel
Brandon must have some information to give.

Scarcely had she so determined it, when the figure of a man on horseback
drew her eyes to the window. He stopped at their gate. It was a
gentleman,- it was Colonel Brandon himself. Now she could hear more, and
she trembled in expectation of it. But it was not Colonel Brandon;
neither his air nor his height. Were it possible, she must say it must
be Edward. She looked again. He had just dismounted: she could not be
mistaken,- it was Edward. She moved away, and sat down. "He comes from
Mr. Pratt's purposely to see us. I will be calm,- I will be mistress of
myself."

In a moment she perceived that the others were likewise aware of the
mistake. She saw her mother and Marianne change colour,- saw them look
at herself, and whisper a few sentences to each other. She would have
given the world to be able to speak, and to make them understand that
she hoped no coolness, no slight, would appear in their behaviour to
him; but she had no utterance, and was obliged to leave all to their own
discretion.

Not a syllable passed aloud. They all waited in silence for the
appearance of their visitor. His footsteps were heard along the gravel
path: in a moment he was in the passage, and in another he was before
them.

His countenance, as he entered the room, was not too happy, even for
Elinor. His complexion was white with agitation; and he looked as if
fearful of his reception, and conscious that he merited no kind one.
Mrs. Dashwood, however, conforming, as she trusted, to the wishes of
that daughter, by whom she then meant, in the warmth of her heart, to be
guided in every thing, met with a look of forced complacency, gave him
her hand, and wished him joy.

He coloured, and stammered out an unintelligible reply. Elinor's lips
had moved with her mother's; and, when the moment of action was over,
she wished that she had shaken hands with him too. But it was then too
late; and, with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again,
and talked of the weather.

Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight, to conceal her
distress; and Margaret, understanding some part, but not the whole of
the case, thought it incumbent on her to be dignified, and therefore
took a seat as far from him as she could, and maintained a strict
silence.

When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very
awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who felt
obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a hurried
manner, he replied in the affirmative.

Another pause.

Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own
voice, now said,-

"Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?"

"At Longstaple!" he replied, with an air of surprise. "No; my mother is
in town."

"I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "to enquire
for Mrs. Edward Ferrars."

She dared not look up; but her mother and Marianne both turned their
eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and,
after some hesitation, said,-

"Perhaps you mean my brother: you mean Mrs.- Mrs. Robert Ferrars."

"Mrs. Robert Ferrars!" was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an
accent of the utmost amazement; and though Elinor could not speak, even
her eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He rose from
his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to
do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there; and, while spoiling both
them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said,
in a hurried voice,-

"Perhaps you do not know: you may not have heard that my brother is
lately married to- to the youngest- to Miss Lucy Steele."

His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor,
who sat, with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such
agitation as made her hardly know where she was.

"Yes," said he: "they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish."

Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room; and, as
soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she
thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any where,
rather than at her, saw her away, and perhaps saw, or even heard, her
emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no
remarks, no enquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood could
penetrate; and at last, without saying a word, left the room, and walked
out towards the village, leaving the others in the greatest astonishment
and perplexity on a change in his situation so wonderful and so sudden,-
a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own
conjectures.

                      CHAPTER XLIX


UNACCOUNTABLE, however, as the circumstances of his release might appear
to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to what
purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined by
all;- for after experiencing the blessings of one imprudent engagement,
contracted without his mother's consent, as he had already done for more
than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in the failure of
that than the immediate contraction of another.

His errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one. It was only to ask
Elinor to marry him; and considering that he was not altogether
inexperienced in such a question, it might be strange that he should
feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did, so much in
need of encouragement and fresh air.

How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however, how
soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he
expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly
told. This only need be said;- that when they all sat down to table at
four o'clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his
lady, engaged her mother's consent, and was not only in the rapturous
profession of the lover, but, in the reality of reason and truth, one of
the happiest of men. His situation indeed was more than commonly joyful.
He had more than the ordinary triumph of accepted love to swell his
heart, and raise his spirits. He was released, without any reproach to
himself, from an entanglement which had long formed his misery, from a
woman whom he had long ceased to love; and elevated at once to that
security with another, which he must have thought of almost with
despair, as soon as he had learned to consider it with desire. He was
brought, not from doubt or suspense, but from misery to happiness; and
the change was openly spoken in such a genuine, flowing, grateful
cheerfulness, as his friends had never witnessed in him before.

His heart was now open to Elinor; all its weaknesses, all its errors
confessed, and his first boyish attachment to Lucy treated with all the
philosophic dignity of twenty-four.

"It was a foolish, idle inclination on my side," said he, "the
consequence of ignorance of the world, and want of employment. Had my
brother given me some active profession when I was removed at eighteen
from the care of Mr. Pratt, I think, nay, I am sure, it would never have
happened; for though I left Longstaple with what I thought, at the time,
a most unconquerable preference for his niece, yet, had I then had any
pursuit, any object to engage my time and keep me at a distance from her
for a few months, I should very soon have outgrown the fancied
attachment, especially by mixing more with the world, as in such case I
must have done. But instead of having any thing to do, instead of having
any profession chosen for me, or being allowed to choose myself, I
returned home to be completely idle; and for the first twelvemonth
afterwards I had not even the nominal employment, which belonging to the
university would have given me, for I was not entered at Oxford till I
was nineteen. I had therefore nothing in the world to do, but to fancy
myself in love; and as my mother did not make my home in every respect
comfortable, as I had no friend, no companion in my brother, and
disliked new acquaintance, it was not unnatural for me to be very often
at Longstaple, where I always felt myself at home, and was always sure
of a welcome; and accordingly I spent the greatest part of my time there
from eighteen to nineteen: Lucy appeared every thing that was amiable
and obliging. She was pretty too- at least I thought so then; and I had
seen so little of other women, that I could make no comparisons, and see
no defects. Considering every thing, therefore, I hope, foolish as our
engagement was, foolish as it has since in every way proved, it was not
at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable piece of folly."

The change which a few hours had wrought in the minds and the happiness
of the Dashwoods, was such- so great- as promised them all the
satisfaction of a sleepless night. Mrs. Dashwood, too happy to be
comfortable, knew not how to love Edward, nor praise Elinor enough, how
to be enough thankful for his release without wounding his delicacy, nor
how at once to give them leisure for unrestrained conversation together,
and yet enjoy, as she wished, the sight and society of both.

Marianne could speak her happiness only by tears. Comparisons would
occur- regrets would arise; and her joy, though sincere as her love for
her sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language.

But Elinor,- how are her feelings to be described? From the moment of
learning that Lucy was married to another, that Edward was free, to the
moment of his justifying the hopes which had so instantly followed, she
was every thing by turns but tranquil. But when the second moment had
passed, when she found every doubt, every solicitude removed, compared
her situation with what so lately it had been,- saw him honourably
released from his former engagement,- saw him instantly profiting by the
release, to address herself and declare an affection as tender, as
constant as she had ever supposed it to be,- she was oppressed, she was
overcome by her own felicity; and happily disposed as is the human mind
to be easily familiarised with any change for the better, it required
several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of
tranquillity to her heart.

Edward was now fixed at the cottage at least for a week; for whatever
other claims might be made on him, it was impossible that less than a
week should be given up to the enjoyment of Elinor's company, or suffice
to say half that was to be said of the past, the present, and the
future; for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of incessant
talking will despatch more subjects than can really be in common between
any two rational creatures, yet, with lovers it is different. Between
them no subject is finished, no communication is even made, till it has
been made at least twenty times over.

Lucy's marriage, the unceasing and reasonable wonder among them all,
formed of course one of the earliest discussions of the lovers; and
Elinor's particular knowledge of each party made it appear to her, in
every view, as one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable
circumstances she had ever heard. How they could be thrown together, and
by what attraction Robert could be drawn on to marry a girl, of whose
beauty she had herself heard him speak without any admiration- a girl,
too, already engaged to his brother, and on whose account that brother
had been thrown off by his family- it was beyond her comprehension to
make out. To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her
imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her
judgment, it was quite a puzzle.

Edward could only attempt an explanation by supposing, that, perhaps, at
first accidentally meeting, the vanity of the one had been so worked on
by the flattery of the other, as to lead by degrees to all the rest.
Elinor remembered what Robert had told her in Harley Street, of his
opinion of what his own mediation in his brother's affairs might have
done, if applied to in time. She repeated it to Edward.

"That was exactly like Robert," was his immediate observation. "And
that," he presently added, "might perhaps be in his head when the
acquaintance between them first began. And Lucy, perhaps, at first might
think only of procuring his good offices in my favour. Other designs
might afterward arise."

How long it had been carrying on between them, however, he was equally
at a loss with herself to make out; for at Oxford, where he had remained
for choice ever since his quitting London, he had had no means of
hearing of her but from herself, and her letters to the very last were
neither less frequent nor less affectionate than usual. Not the smallest
suspicion, therefore, had ever occurred to prepare him for what
followed; and when at last it burst on him in a letter from Lucy
herself, he had been for sometime, he believed, half stupefied between
the wonder, the horror, and the joy of such a deliverance. He put the
letter into Elinor's hands.


  "DEAR SIR,

"Being very sure I have long lost your affections. I have thought myself
at liberty to bestow my own on another, and have no doubt of being as
happy with him as I once used to think I might be with you; but I scorn
to accept a hand while the heart was another's. Sincerely wish you happy
in your choice, and it shall not be my fault if we are not always good
friends, as our near relationship now makes proper. I can safely say I
owe you no ill-will, and am sure you will be too generous to do us any
ill offices. Your brother has gained my affections entirely; and as we
could not live without one another, we are just returned from the altar,
and are now on our way to Dawlish for a few weeks; which place your dear
brother has great curiosity to see, but thought I would first trouble
you with these few lines, and shall always remain,

     "Your sincere well-wisher, friend, and sister,

                            "LUCY FERRARS.


"I have burnt all your letters, and will return your picture the first
opportunity. Please to destroy my scrawls- but the ring with my hair you
are very welcome to keep."


Elinor read and returned it without any comment.

"I will not ask your opinion of it as a composition," said Edward. "For
worlds would not I have had a letter of hers seen by you in former days.
In a sister it is bad enough, but in a wife! how I have blushed over the
pages of her writing and I believe I may say that since the first half
year of our foolish business this is the only letter I ever received
from her, of which the substance made me any amends for the defect of
the style."

"However it may have come about," said Elinor, after a pause, "they are
certainly married; and your mother has brought on herself a most
appropriate punishment. The independence she settled on Robert, through
resentment against you, has put it in his power to make his own choice;
and she has actually been bribing one son with a thousand a year to do
the very deed which she disinherited the other for intending to do. She
will hardly be less hurt, I suppose, by Robert's marrying Lucy, than she
would have been by your marrying her."

"She will be more hurt by it, for Robert always was her favourite. She
will be more hurt by it, and on the same principle will forgive him much
sooner."

In what state the affair stood at present between them Edward knew not,
for no communication with any of his family had yet been attempted by
him. He had quitted Oxford within four-and-twenty hours after Lucy's
letter arrived, and with only one object before him, the nearest road to
Barton, had had no leisure to form any scheme of conduct, with which
that road did not hold the most intimate connection. He could do nothing
till he were assured of his fate with Miss Dashwood; and by his rapidity
in seeking that fate, it is to be supposed, in spite of the jealousy
with which he had once thought of Colonel Brandon, in spite of the
modesty with which he rated his own deserts, and the politeness with
which he talked of his doubts, he did not, upon the whole, expect a very
cruel reception. It was his business, however, to say that he did, and
he said it very prettily. What he might say on the subject a twelvemonth
after must be referred to the imagination of husbands and wives.

That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of
malice against him in her message by Thomas, was perfectly clear to
Elinor; and Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her character,
had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost meanness of wanton
ill-nature. Though his eyes had been long opened, even before his
acquaintance with Elinor began, to her ignorance and a want of
liberality in some of her opinions, they had been equally imputed, by
him, to her want of education; and till her last letter reached him, he
had always believed her to be a well-disposed, good-hearted girl, and
thoroughly attached to himself. Nothing but such a persuasion could have
prevented his putting an end to an engagement, which, long before the
discovery of it laid him open to his mother's anger, had been a
continual source of disquiet and regret to him.

"I thought it my duty," said he, "independent of my feelings, to give
her the option of continuing the engagement or not, when I was renounced
by my mother, and stood to all appearance without a friend in the world
to assist me. In such a situation as that, where there seemed nothing to
tempt the avarice or the vanity of any living creature, how could I
suppose, when she so earnestly, so warmly insisted on sharing my fate,
whatever it might be, that anything but the most disinterested affection
was her inducement? And even now, I cannot comprehend on what motive she
acted, or what fancied advantage it could be to her, to be fettered to a
man for whom she had not the smallest regard, and who had only two
thousand pounds in the world. She could not foresee that Colonel Brandon
would give me a living."

"No; but she might suppose that something would occur in your favour;
that your own family might in time relent. And at any rate, she lost
nothing by continuing the engagement, for she has proved that it
fettered neither her inclination nor her actions. The connection was
certainly a respectable one, and probably gained her consideration among
her friends; and, if nothing more advantageous occurred, it would be
better for her to marry you than be single."

Edward was, of course, immediately convinced that nothing could have
been more natural than Lucy's conduct, nor more self-evident than the
motive of it.

Elinor scolded him, harshly as ladies always scold the imprudence which
compliments themselves for having spent so much time with them at
Norland, when he must have felt his own inconstancy.

"Your behaviour was certainly very wrong," said she; "because, to say
nothing of my own conviction, our relations were all led away by it to
fancy and expect what, as you were then situated, could never be."

He could only plead an ignorance of his own heart, and a mistaken
confidence in the force of his engagement.

"I was simple enough to think, that because my faith was plighted to
another, there could be no danger in my being with you; and that the
consciousness of my engagement was to keep my heart as safe and sacred
as my honour. I felt that I admired you, but I told myself it was only
friendship; and till I began to make comparisons between yourself and
Lucy, I did not know how far I was got. After that, I suppose, I was
wrong in remaining so much in Sussex; and the arguments with which I
reconciled myself to the expediency of it were no better than these:-
The danger is my own; I am doing no injury to anybody but myself."

Elinor smiled, and shook her head.

Edward heard with pleasure of Colonel Brandon's being expected at the
cottage, as he really wished, not only to be better acquainted with him,
but to have an opportunity of convincing him, that he no longer resented
his giving him the living of Delaford. "Which, at present," said he,
"after thanks so ungraciously delivered as mine were on the occasion, he
must think I have never forgiven him for offering."

Now he felt astonished himself that he had never yet been to the place.
But so little interest had be taken in the matter, that he owed all his
knowledge of the house, garden, and glebe, extent of the parish,
condition of the land, and rate of the tithes, to Elinor herself, who
had heard so much of it from Colonel Brandon, and heard it with so much
attention, as to be entirely mistress of the subject.

One question after this only remained undecided between them; one
difficulty only was to be overcome. They were brought together by mutual
affection, with the warmest approbation of their real friends; their
intimate knowledge of each other seemed to make their happiness certain,
and they only wanted something to live upon. Edward had two thousand
pounds, and Elinor one, which, with Delaford living, was all that they
could call their own; for it was impossible that Mrs. Dashwood should
advance anything; and they were neither of them quite enough in love to
think that three hundred and fifty pounds a year would supply them with
the comforts of life.

Edward was not entirely without hopes of some favourable change in his
mother towards him; and on that he rested for the residue of their
income. But Elinor had no such dependence; for, since Edward would still
be unable to marry Miss Morton, and his choosing herself had been spoken
of in Mrs. Ferrars's flattering language as only a lesser evil than his
choosing Lucy Steele, she feared that Robert's offence would serve no
other purpose than to enrich Fanny.

About four days after Edward's arrival Colonel Brandon appeared, to
complete Mrs. Dashwood's satisfaction, and to give her the dignity of
having, for the first time since her living at Barton, more company with
her than her house would hold. Edward was allowed to retain the
privilege of first comer, and Colonel Brandon, therefore, walked every
night to his old quarters at the Park; from whence he usually returned
in the morning, early enough to interrupt the lover's first tete-a-tete
before breakfast.

A three weeks' residence at Delaford, where, in his evening hours at
least, he had little to do but to calculate the disproportion between
thirty-six and seventeen, brought him to Barton in a temper of mind
which needed all the improvement in Marianne's looks, all the kindness
of her welcome, and all the encouragement of her mother's language, to
make it cheerful. Among such friends, however, and such flattery, he did
revive. No rumour of Lucy's marriage had yet reached him: he knew
nothing of what had passed; and the first hours of his visit were
consequently spent in hearing and in wondering. Everything was explained
to him by Mrs. Dashwood; and he found fresh reason to rejoice in what he
had done for Mr. Ferrars, since eventually it promoted the interest of
Elinor.

It would be needless to say, that the gentlemen advanced in the good
opinion of each other, as they advanced in each other's acquaintance,
for it could not be otherwise. Their resemblance in good principles and
good sense, in disposition and manner of thinking, would probably have
been sufficient to unite them in friendship, without any other
attraction; but their being in love with two sisters, and two sisters
fond of each other, made that mutual regard inevitable and immediate,
which might otherwise have waited the effect of time and judgment.

The letters from town, which a few days before would have made every
nerve in Elinor's body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read
with less emotion that mirth. Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the wonderful
tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting girl, and pour
forth her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she was sure, had
quite doted upon the worthless hussy, and was now, by all accounts,
almost brokenhearted, at Oxford. "I do think," she continued, "nothing
was ever carried on so sly; for it was but two days before Lucy called
and sat a couple of hours with me. Not a soul suspected anything of the
matter, not even Nancy, who, poor soul! came crying to me the day after,
in a great fright for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, as well as not knowing how
to get to Plymouth; for Lucy, it seems, borrowed all her money before
she went off to be married, on purpose, we suppose, to make a show with,
and poor Nancy had not seven shillings in the world; so I was very glad
to give her five guineas to take her down to Exeter, where she thinks of
staying three or four weeks with Mrs. Burgess, in hopes, as I tell her,
to fall in with the Doctor again. And I must say that Lucy's crossness
not to take them along with them in the chaise is worse than all. Poor
Mr. Edward I cannot get him out of my head, but you must send for him to
Barton, and Miss Marianne must try to comfort him."

Mrs. Dashwood's strains were more solemn. Mrs. Ferrars was the most
unfortunate of women- poor Fanny had suffered agonies of sensibility-
and he considered the existence of each, under such a blow, with
grateful wonder. Robert's offence was unpardonable, but Lucy's was
infinitely worse. Neither of them were ever again to be mentioned to
Mrs. Ferrars; and even, if she might hereafter be induced to forgive her
son, his wife should never be acknowledged as her daughter, nor be
permitted to appear in her presence. The secrecy with which everything
had been carried on between them was rationally treated as enormously
heightening the crime, because, had any suspicion of it occurred to the
others, proper measures would have been taken to prevent the marriage;
and he called on Elinor to join with him in regretting that Lucy's
engagement with Edward had not rather been fulfilled, than that she
should thus be the means of spreading misery farther in the family. He
thus continued:-

"Mrs. Ferrars has never yet mentioned Edward's name, which does not
surprise us; but, to our great astonishment, not a line has been
received from him on the occasion. Perhaps, however, he is kept silent
by his fear of offending; and I shall, therefore, give him a hint, by a
line to Oxford, that his sister and I both think a letter of proper
submission from him, addressed perhaps to Fanny, and by her shown to her
mother, might not be taken amiss; for we all know the tenderness of Mrs.
Ferrars's heart, and that she wishes for nothing so much as to be on
good terms with her children."

This paragraph was of some importance to the prospects and conduct of
Edward. It determined him to attempt a reconciliation, though not
exactly in the manner pointed out by their brother and sister.

"A letter of proper submission!" repeated he; "would they have me beg my
mother's pardon for Robert's ingratitude to her, and breach of honour to
me? I can make no submission. I am grown neither humble nor pentinent by
what has passed. I am grown very happy; but that would not interest. I
know of no submission that is proper for me to make."

"You may certainly ask to be forgiven," said Elinor, "because you have
offended; and I should think you might now venture so far as to profess
some concern for having ever formed the engagement which drew on you
your mother's anger."

He agreed that he might.

"And when she has forgiven you, perhaps a little humility may be
convenient while acknowledging a second engagement, almost as imprudent
in her eyes as the first."

He had nothing to urge against it, but still resisted the idea of a
letter of proper submission; and, therefore, to make it easier to him,
as he declared a much greater willingness to make mean concessions by
word of mouth than on paper, it was resolved that, instead of writing to
Fanny, he should go to London, and personally entreat her good offices
in his favour. "And if they really do interest themselves," said
Marianne, in her new character of candour, "in bringing about a
reconciliation, I shall think that even John and Fanny are not entirely
without merit."

After a visit on Colonel Brandon's side of only three or four days, the
two gentlemen quitted Barton together. They were to go immediately to
Delaford, that Edward might have some personal knowledge of his future
home, and assist his patron and friend in deciding on what improvements
were needed to it; and from thence, after staying there a couple of
nights, he was to proceed on his journey to town.

                      CHAPTER L


AFTER a proper resistance on the part of Mrs. Ferrars, just so violent
and so steady as to preserve her from that reproach which she always
seemed fearful of incurring, the reproach of being too amiable, Edward
was admitted to her presence, and pronounced to be again her son.

Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of
her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward,
a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of
Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the
resuscitation of Edward, she had one again.

In spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, he did not
feel the continuance of his existence secure till he had revealed his
present engagement; for the publication of that circumstance, he feared,
might give a sudden turn to his constitution, and carry him off as
rapidly as before. With apprehensive caution, therefore, it was
revealed; and he was listened to with unexpected calmness. Mrs. Ferrars
at first reasonably endeavoured to dissuade him from marrying Miss
Dashwood, by every argument in her power; told him, that in Miss Morton
he would have a woman of higher rank and larger fortune; and enforced
the assertion, by observing that Miss Morton was the daughter of a
nobleman with thirty thousand pounds, while Miss Dashwood was only the
daughter of a private gentleman with no more than three; but when she
found that, though perfectly admitting the truth of her representation,
he was by no means inclined to be guided by it, she judged it wisest,
from the experience of the past, to submit; and, therefore, after such
an ungracious delay as she owed to her own dignity, and as served to
prevent every suspicion of good-will, she issued her decree of consent
to the marriage of Edward and Elinor.

What she would engage to do towards augmenting their income was next to
be considered; and here it plainly appeared, that though Edward was now
her only son, he was by no means her eldest; for while Robert was
inevitably endowed with a thousand pounds a year, not the smallest
objection was made against Edward's taking orders for the sake of two
hundred and fifty at the utmost; nor was anything promised either for
the present or in future, beyond the ten thousand pounds, which had been
given with Fanny.

It was as much, however, as was desired, and more than was expected, by
Edward and Elinor; and Mrs. Ferrars herself, by her shuffling excuses,
seemed the only person surprised at her not giving more.

With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them,
they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the
living but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with an
eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making considerable
improvements; and after waiting some time for their completion,- after
experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments and delays; from the
unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen,- Elinor, as usual, broke
through the first positive resolution, of not marrying till every thing
was ready; and the ceremony took place in Barton church early in the
autumn.

The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the
mansion-house; from whence they could superintend the progress of the
parsonage, and direct every thing as they liked on the spot; could
choose papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep. Mrs. Jennings's
prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for
she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their parsonage by
Michaelmas; and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really
believed, one of the happiest couples in the world. They had, in fact,
nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne,
and rather better pasturage for their cows.

They were visited on their first settling by almost all their relations
and friends. Mrs. Ferrars came to inspect the happiness which she was
almost ashamed of having authorised; and even the Dashwoods were at the
expense of a journey from Sussex to do them honour.

"I will not say that I am disappointed, my dear sister," said John, as
they were walking together one morning before the gates of Delaford
House, "that would be saying too much; for certainly you have been one
of the most fortunate young women in the world, as it is. But, I
confess, it would give me great pleasure to call Colonel Brandon
brother. His property here, his place, his house,- every thing is in
such respectable and excellent condition! And his woods,- I have not
seen such timber any where in Dorsetshire as there is now standing in
Delaford Hanger! And though, perhaps, Marianne may not seem exactly the
person to attract him, yet I think it would altogether be advisable for
you to have them now frequently staying with you; for, as Colonel
Brandon seems a great deal at home, nobody can tell what may happen;
for, when people are much thrown together, and see little of any body
else,- and it will always be in your power to set her off to advantage,
and so forth. In short, you may as well give her a chance: you
understand me."

But though Mrs. Ferrars did come to see them, and always treated them
with the make-believe of decent affection, they were never insulted by
her real favor and preference. That was due to the folly of Robert, and
the cunning of his wife and it was earned by them before many months had
passed away. The selfish sagacity of the latter, which had at first
drawn Robert into the scrape, was the principal instrument of his
deliverance from it; for her respectful humility, assiduous attentions,
and endless flatteries, as soon as the smallest opening was given for
their exercise, reconciled Mrs. Ferrars to his choice, and reestablished
him completely in her favor.

The whole of Lucy's behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which
crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance
of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however its
progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every
advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and
conscience. When Robert first sought her acquaintance, and privately
visited her in Bartlett's Buildings, it was only with the view imputed
to him by his brother. He merely meant to persuade her to give up the
engagement; and as there could be nothing to overcome but the affection
of both, he naturally expected that one or two interviews would settle
the matter. In that point, however, and that only, he erred; for though
Lucy soon gave him hopes that his eloquence would convince her in time,
another visit, another conversation, was always wanted to produce this
conviction. Some doubts always lingered in her mind when they parted,
which could only be removed by another half hour's discourse with
himself. His attendance was by this means secured, and the rest followed
in course. Instead of talking of Edward, they came gradually to talk
only of Robert,- a subject on which he had always more to say than on
any other, and in which she soon betrayed an interest even equal to his
own; and, in short, it became speedily evident to both, that he had
entirely supplanted his brother. He was proud of his conquest, proud of
tricking Edward, and very proud of marrying privately without his
mother's consent. What immediately followed is known. They passed some
months in great happiness at Dawlish; for she had many relations and old
acquaintances to cut- and he drew several plans for magnificent
cottages; and from thence returning to town procured the forgiveness of
Mrs. Ferrars, by the simple expedient of asking it, which, at Lucy's
instigation, was adopted. The forgiveness, at first, indeed, as was
reasonable, comprehended only Robert; and Lucy, who had owed his mother
no duty and therefore could have transgressed none, still remained some
weeks longer unpardoned. But perseverance in humility of conduct and
messages, in self-condemnation for Robert's offence, and gratitude for
the unkindness she was treated with, procured her in time the haughty
notice which overcame her by its graciousness, and led soon afterwards,
by rapid degrees, to the highest state of affection and influence. Lucy
became as necessary to Mrs. Ferrars as either Robert or Fanny; and while
Edward was never cordially forgiven for having once intended to marry
her, and Elinor, though superior to her in fortune and birth, was spoken
of as an intruder, she was in everything considered, and always openly
acknowledged, to be a favourite child. They settled in town, received
very liberal assistance from Mrs. Ferrars, were on the best terms
imaginable with the Dashwoods; and, setting aside the jealousies and
ill-will continually subsisting between Fanny and Lucy, in which their
husbands of course took a part, as well as the frequent domestic
disagreements between Robert and Lucy themselves, nothing could exceed
the harmony in which they all lived together.

What Edward had done to forfeit the right of eldest son might have
puzzled many people to find out; and what Robert had done to succeed to
it might have puzzled them still more. It was an arrangement, however,
justified in its effects, if not in its cause; for nothing ever appeared
in Robert's style of living or of talking to give a suspicion of his
regretting the extent of his income, as either leaving his brother too
little, or bringing himself too much; and if Edward might be judged from
the ready discharge of his duties in every particular, from an
increasing attachment to his wife and his home, and from the regular
cheerfulness of his spirits, he might be supposed no less contented with
his lot, no less free from every wish of an exchange.

Elinor's marriage divided her as little from her family as could well be
contrived, without rendering the cottage at Barton entirely useless, for
her mother and sisters spent much more than half their time with her.
Mrs. Dashwood was acting on motives of policy as well as pleasure in the
frequency of her visits at Delaford; for her wish of bringing Marianne
and Colonel Brandon together was hardly less earnest, though rather more
liberal than what John had expressed. It was now her darling object.
Precious as was the company of her daughter to her, she desired nothing
so much as to give up its constant enjoyment to her valued friend; and
to see Marianne settled at the mansion-house was equally the wish of
Edward and Elinor. They each felt his sorrows, and their own
obligations, and Marianne, by general consent, was to be the reward of
all.

With such a confederacy against her- with a knowledge so intimate of his
goodness- with a conviction of his fond attachment to herself, which at
last, though long after it was observable to everybody else- burst on
her- what could she do?

Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to
discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her
conduct, her most favourite maxims. She was born to overcome an
affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment
superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her
hand to another!- and that other, a man who had suffered no less than
herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years before,
she had considered too old to be married,- and who still sought the
constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!

But so it was. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible
passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting,
instead of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only
pleasures in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and
sober judgment she had determined on, she found herself at nineteen
submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new
home, a wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village.

Colonel Brandon was now as happy as all those who best loved him
believed he deserved to be: in Marianne he was consoled for every past
affliction: he regard and her society restored his mind to animation,
and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own
happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of each
observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole
heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once
been to Willoughby.

Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his
punishment was soon afterwards complete, in the voluntary forgiveness of
Mrs. Smith, who, by stating his marriage with a woman of character as
the source of her clemency, gave him reason for believing that had he
behaved with honour towards Marianne he might at once have been happy
and rich. That his repentance of misconduct, which thus brought its own
punishment, was sincere, need not be doubted; nor that he long thought
of Colonel Brandon with envy, and of Marianne with regret. But that he
was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted an
habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be
depended on- for he did neither. He lived to exert, and frequently to
enjoy himself. His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home
always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in
sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic
felicity.

For Marianne, however, in spite of his incivility in surviving her loss,
he always retained that decided regard which interested him in every
thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfection in
woman; and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in after-days
as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.

Mrs. Dashwood was prudent enough to remain at the cottage without
attempting a removal to Delaford; and, fortunately for Sir John and Mrs.
Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an age
highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being supposed
to have a lover.

Between Barton and Delaford there was that constant communication which
strong family affection would naturally dictate; and among the merits
and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the
least considerable, that, though sisters, and living almost within sight
of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves,
or producing coolness between their husbands.



                      THE END