Austen Said:

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 had been misled by the careful, the considerate attention of her daughter, to think the attachment, 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 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.

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.

Now she could hear more;

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

it must be Edward.

it WAS Edward.

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

to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well.

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 —

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.

That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of malice against him in her message by Thomas,

a well-disposed, good-hearted girl, and thoroughly attached to himself.

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 —

Robert's offence would serve no other purpose than to enrich Fanny.

had quite doted upon the worthless hussy, and was now, by all accounts, almost broken-hearted, at Oxford. —

Mrs. Ferrars was the most unfortunate of women — poor Fanny had suffered agonies of sensibility —

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;

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. —

in Miss Morton he would have a woman of higher rank and larger fortune;

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;

one of the happiest couples in the world.

too old to be married, —

as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.