Austen Said:

"Indeed,"

"I have NOT forgotten it."

"Good heavens!"

"could it be — could Willoughby!" —

"This is beyond every thing!"

"I have been more pained,"

"by her endeavors to acquit him than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have you,"

"ever seen Mr. Willoughby since you left him at Barton?"

"What? have you met him to — "

"Is she still in town?"

"No, I do not think we shall."

"You are very good. My sister will be equally sorry to miss the pleasure of seeing you; but she has been very much plagued lately with nervous head-aches, which make her unfit for company or conversation."

"Excellent indeed. Their attention to our comfort, their friendliness in every particular, is more than I can express."

"Yes; he has very good property in Dorsetshire."

"Me, brother! what do you mean?"

"I believe about two thousand a year."

"Indeed I believe you,"

"but I am very sure that Colonel Brandon has not the smallest wish of marrying ME."

"Is Mr. Edward Ferrars,"

"going to be married?"

"Your expenses both in town and country must certainly be considerable; but your income is a large one."

"More than you think it really and intrinsically worth."

"Certainly,"

"and assisted by her liberality, I hope you may yet live to be in easy circumstances."

"Where is the green-house to be?"

"Nothing at all, I should rather suppose; for she has only her jointure, which will descend to her children."

"And do you not think it more likely that she should leave it to her daughters, than to us?"

"But she raises none in those most concerned. Indeed, brother, your anxiety for our welfare and prosperity carries you too far."

"She is not well, she has had a nervous complaint on her for several weeks."

"She was certainly very civil to you."

"Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement,"

"nothing could be more flattering than their treatment of you; — but as that was not the case" —

"I never was in better health."

"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."

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

"What! is Fanny ill?"

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

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

"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."

"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." —

"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." —

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

"I cannot suppose it possible that she should."

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

"I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them,"

"you were all in the same room together, were not you?"

"How!"

"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?"