whose amusement he felt himself bound to contribute,
he wished to engage them for both.

"You MUST drink tea with us to night," said he,
"for we shall be quite alone--and tomorrow you must
absolutely dine with us, for we shall be a large party."

Mrs. Jennings enforced the necessity. "And who knows
but you may raise a dance," said she. "And that will
tempt YOU, Miss Marianne."

"A dance!" cried Marianne. "Impossible! Who is to dance?"

"Who! why yourselves, and the Careys, and Whitakers
to be sure.--What! you thought nobody could dance
because a certain person that shall be nameless is gone!"

"I wish with all my soul," cried Sir John,
"that Willoughby were among us again."

This, and Marianne's blushing, gave new suspicions
to Edward. "And who is Willoughby?" said he, in a low voice,
to Miss Dashwood, by whom he was sitting.

She gave him a brief reply. Marianne's countenance
was more communicative. Edward saw enough to comprehend,
not only the meaning of others, but such of Marianne's
expressions as had puzzled him before; and when their
visitors left them, he went immediately round her, and said,
in a whisper, "I have been guessing. Shall I tell you
my guess?"

"What do you mean?"

"Shall I tell you."

"Certainly."

"Well then; I guess that Mr. Willoughby hunts."

Marianne was surprised and confused, yet she could
not help smiling at the quiet archness of his manner,
and after a moment's silence, said,

"Oh, Edward! How can you?--But the time will come
I hope...I am sure you will like him."

"I do not doubt it," replied he, rather astonished
at her earnestness and warmth; for had he not imagined it
to be a joke for the good of her acquaintance in general,
founded only on a something or a nothing between Mr. Willoughby
and herself, he would not have ventured to mention it.



CHAPTER 19


Edward remained a week at the cottage; he was earnestly
pressed by Mrs. Dashwood to stay longer; but, as if he
were bent only on self-mortification, he seemed resolved
to be gone when his enjoyment among his friends was at
the height. His spirits, during the last two or three days,
though still very unequal, were greatly improved--he grew
more and more partial to the house and environs--never
spoke of going away without a sigh--declared his time
to be wholly disengaged--even doubted to what place he
should go when he left them--but still, go he must.
Never had any week passed so quickly--he could hardly
believe it to be gone. He said so repeatedly; other things
he said too, which marked the turn of his feelings and gave
the lie to his actions. He had no pleasure at Norland;
he detested being in town; but either to Norland or London,
he must go. He valued their kindness beyond any thing,
and his greatest happiness was in being with them.
Yet, he must leave them at the end of a week, in spite
of their wishes and his own, and without any restraint
on his time.

Elinor placed all that was astonishing in this
way of acting to his mother's account; and it was
happy for her that he had a mother whose character
was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general
excuse for every thing strange on the part of her son.
Disappointed, however, and vexed as she was, and sometimes
displeased with his uncertain behaviour to herself,
she was very well disposed on the whole to regard his actions
with all the candid allowances and generous qualifications,
which had been rather more painfully extorted from her,
for Willoughby's service, by her mother. His want of spirits,
of openness, and of consistency, were most usually
attributed to his want of independence, and his better
knowledge of Mrs. Ferrars's disposition and designs.
The shortness of his visit, the steadiness of his purpose
in leaving them, originated in the same fettered inclination,
the same inevitable necessity of temporizing with his mother.
The old well-established grievance of duty against will,
parent against child, was the cause of all. She would have
been glad to know when these difficulties were to cease,
this opposition was to yield,--when Mrs. Ferrars would


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