Austen Said:

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

&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

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."

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 honour, 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.

"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 bye."

"And you DO think something better of me than you did?"—

she did; — that she forgave, pitied, wished him well — was even interested in his happiness —

"As to that,"

"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 — "

"Well," —

"once more good bye. 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 goodwill, by shewing that where I have most injured I can least forgive. Good bye, — God bless you!"

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,

now separated for ever from her family, with a tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion,

— to his wishes than to his merits.

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.

it was so, long, long before she could feel his influence less.

"poor Willoughby,"

to HIS sufferings and his constancy far more than to his rival's, the reward of her sister was due,

whether her mother ever recollected Edward.

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,

"Colonel Brandon's character,"

"as an excellent man, is well established."

"His character, however,"

"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?"

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

was such, as,

must arise from something more than his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to others;

an apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result as she trusted of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and cheerfulness.

That would not do. —

she should in future practice much.

"When the weather is settled, and I have recovered my strength,"

"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 twelve-month a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want."

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.

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.

"There, exactly there," —

"on that projecting mound, — there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby."

"I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the spot! — shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor?" —

"Or will it be wrong? — I can talk of it now, I hope, as I ought to do." —

"As for regret,"