Austen Said:

"I am sure I should have seen it in a moment, if Mrs. Ferrars had took a 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."

she was happy to see him,

she had very much regretted being from home, when he called before in Berkeley Street.

"Dear Edward!"

"this is a moment of great happiness! — This would almost make amends for every thing?"

"Oh, don't think of me!"

"don't think of MY health. Elinor is well, you see. That must be enough for us both."

"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!"

"I think, Elinor,"

"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."

"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."

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

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

"Perhaps, Miss Marianne,"

"you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they have no mind to keep them, little as well as great."

"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."

"Going so soon!"

"my dear Edward, this must not be."

Lucy could not stay much longer.

"What can bring her here so often?"

"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."

"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."

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 —

he was exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy.

Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for her, herself; cherishing all her hopes, and promoting all her views!

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 every thing 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.

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

"What! is Fanny ill?"

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.

would ruin him for ever in her good opinion,

feel all her own disappointment over again.

she HAD loved him most sincerely,

so totally unamiable, so absolutely incapable of attaching a sensible man,

"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."

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

"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!" —

"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."

"I have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother,"

"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 now 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,"

"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 shewing that I was VERY unhappy." —

"Oh! Elinor,"