Austen Said:

"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 shew 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."

"If I could but know HIS heart, everything would become easy."

"Tell mama,"

"I wish to assure you both,"

"that I see every thing — as you can desire me to do."

"It is a great relief to me — what Elinor told me this morning — I have now heard exactly what I wished to hear." —

"I am now perfectly satisfied, I wish for 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 wish for no change."

"You consider the matter,"

"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?"

"Selfish?"

"do you really think him selfish?"

"The whole of his behaviour,"

"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,"

"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,"

"and I have nothing to regret — nothing but my own folly."

"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."

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 howsever, when they come back, they'd make sure to come and see you."

how she had changed her name since she was in these parts.

"They come straight from town,

Edward would never come near them.

they were probably going down to Mr. Pratt's, near Plymouth.

she was very well;

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;

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,

be settled at Delaford.

some one of their connections in London would write to them to announce the event, and give farther particulars, —

They were all thoughtless or indolent.

"When do you write to Colonel Brandon, ma'am?"

Now she could hear more;

But — it was NOT Colonel Brandon — neither his air — nor his height.

it must be Edward.

it WAS Edward.

"He comes from Mr. Pratt's purposely to see us. I WILL be calm; I WILL be mistress of myself."

she hoped no coolness, no slight, would appear in their behaviour to him; —

"Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?"

"At Longstaple!"

"No, my mother is in town."

"I meant,"

"to inquire for Mrs. EDWARD Ferrars."

"Perhaps you mean — my brother — you mean Mrs. — Mrs. ROBERT Ferrars."

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

"Yes,"

"they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish."

"It was a foolish, idle inclination on my side,"

"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 chuse any 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 everything 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 everything, therefore, I hope, foolish as our engagement was, foolish as it has since in every way been proved, it was not at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable piece of folly."