th, and, after a guilty intimacy,
had abandoned her. Colonel Brandon had gone to her rescue and to fight a
bloodless duel with her betrayer.

_III.--Matrimonial Intrigues_

One day Elinor and Marianne were at Gray's, in Sackville Street,
carrying on a negotiation for the exchange of a few old-fashioned jewels
belonging to their mother, when they came upon their half-brother, Mr.
John Dashwood. He paid a visit to Mrs. Jennings the next day, and came
with a pretence of an apology for his wife not coming, too. To his
sisters his manners, though calm, were perfectly kind; to Mrs. Jennings
most attentively civil; and on Colonel Brandon coming in soon after
himself, he eyed him with a curiosity that seemed to say that he only
wanted to know him to be rich to be equally civil to _him_. After
staying with them half an hour, he asked Elinor to walk with him to
Conduit Street, and to introduce him to Sir John and Lady Middleton; and
as soon as they were out of the house he began to make inquiries about
Colonel Brandon. Which inquiries having elicited the satisfactory
information that the gentleman had a good property at Delaford Park, in
Dorsetshire, Mr. Dashwood--indifferent to his sister's disclaimers
--proceeded to congratulate her on the prospect of a very respectable
establishment in life, to insist that the objections to a prior
attachment on her side were not insurmountable, and to inform her
that the object of that attachment--Mr. Edward Ferrars--was likely to be
married to Miss Morton, a peer's daughter, with thirty thousand pounds
of her own.

Mrs. John Dashwood had so much confidence in her husband's judgment that
she waited the very next day on both Mrs. Jennings and her daughter. She
found the former by no means unworthy her notice, and the latter one of
the most charming women in the world. The attraction was mutual, for
Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood.

There was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides, which
mutually attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an
insipid propriety of demeanour and a general want of understanding.
Indeed, the Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons
that, though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined
to give them a dinner; and soon after their acquaintance began, invited
them to dine at Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house
for three months. Mrs. Jennings and the Misses Dashwoo