this news, which she was quite aware that Lucy had
confided to her merely from jealousy and suspicion, indignant at
Edward's duplicity, though convinced of his genuine attachment to
herself, Elinor resolved not to give pain to her mother and sister by
telling them of the engagement. Indeed, her attention was soon withdrawn
from her own to her sister's love affairs by an invitation which Mrs.
Jennings gave the two girls to spend a few weeks with her in town at her
house near Portman Square, an invitation which was accepted by Marianne
in the hope of seeing Willoughby, and by Elinor with the intention of
looking after Marianne. Mrs. Jennings' party was three days on the road,
and arrived in Berkeley Street at three o'clock in the afternoon, in
time to allow Marianne to write a brief note to Willoughby. But he
failed to appear that evening; and when a loud knock at the door
resulted in Colonel Brandon being admitted instead, she found the shock
of disappointment too great to be borne with calmness, and left the
room.

As it happened, a full week elapsed before she discovered, by finding
his card on the table, that her lover had arrived in town. Even then she
could not see him. He failed to call the next morning, and though
invited to dine on the following day with the Middletons in Conduit
Street, he neglected to put in an appearance. Which strange conduct
moved Marianne to send another note to him; and Elinor to write to her
mother, entreating her to demand from Marianne an account of her real
situation with respect to him.

A meeting between Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby at last took
place at a fashionable party, where the latter greeted the two sisters
with great coldness and reluctance; and a third letter from Marianne,
now frantic with grief, elicited a reply from him in which he announced
his engagement to another lady, "reproached himself for not having been
more guarded in his professions of esteem for Marianne, and returned,
with great regret, the lock of her hair which she had so obligingly
bestowed on him."

A day or two later Colonel Brandon called on Elinor to give her certain
information about Willoughby. He told her that his sudden departure from
Devonshire to London, which had surprised his friends so much, had been
due to an affecting letter he had received from his ward, Miss Williams,
the natural daughter of a beloved sister-in-law. Willoughby had met this
lady--a pretty girl of sixteen--at Ba