ou can talk of nothing but
beaux;--you will make Miss Dashwood believe you think of nothing
else." And then to turn the discourse, she began admiring the house
and the furniture.

This specimen of the Miss Steeles was enough. The vulgar freedom and
folly of the eldest left her no recommendation, and as Elinor was not
blinded by the beauty, or the shrewd look of the youngest, to her want
of real elegance and artlessness, she left the house without any wish
of knowing them better.

Not so the Miss Steeles. They came from Exeter, well provided with
admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton, his family, and all his
relations, and no niggardly proportion was now dealt out to his fair
cousins, whom they declared to be the most beautiful, elegant,
accomplished, and agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom
they were particularly anxious to be better acquainted. And to be
better acquainted therefore, Elinor soon found was their inevitable
lot, for as Sir John was entirely on the side of the Miss Steeles,
their party would be too strong for opposition, and that kind of
intimacy must be submitted to, which consists of sitting an hour or
two together in the same room almost every day. Sir John could do no
more; but he did not know that any more was required: to be together
was, in his opinion, to be intimate, and while his continual schemes
for their meeting were effectual, he had not a doubt of their being
established friends.

To do him justice, he did every thing in his power to promote their
unreserve, by making the Miss Steeles acquainted with whatever he knew
or supposed of his cousins' situations in the most delicate
particulars,--and Elinor had not seen them more than twice, before the
eldest of them wished her joy on her sister's having been so lucky as
to make a conquest of a very smart beau since she came to Barton.

"'Twill be a fine thing to have her married so young to be sure," said
she, "and I hear he is quite a beau, and prodigious handsome. And I
hope you may have as good luck yourself soon,--but perhaps you may
have a friend in the corner already."

Elinor could not suppose that Sir John would be more nice in
proclaiming his suspicions of her regard for Edward, than he had been
with respect to Marianne; indeed it was rather his favourite joke of
the two, as being somewhat newer and more conjectural; and since
Edward's visit, they had never dined together without his drinking to
her best affec