ever felt much. For
four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without
being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it
would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained
to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least. It was told
me,--it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose
prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought,
with triumph. This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to
oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most
deeply interested;--and it has not been only once;--I have had her
hopes and exultation to listen to again and again. I have known myself
to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance
that could make me less desire the connection. Nothing has proved him
unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me. I have had
to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of
his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without
enjoying its advantages. And all this has been going on at a time,
when, as you know too well, it has not been my only unhappiness. If
you can think me capable of ever feeling, surely you may suppose that
I have suffered _now._ The composure of mind with which I have brought
myself at present to consider the matter, the consolation that I have
been willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful
exertion; they did not spring up of themselves; they did not occur to
relieve my spirits at first. No, Marianne. _Then_, if I had not been
bound to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely--not
even what I owed to my dearest friends--from openly showing that I was
_very_ unhappy."--

Marianne was quite subdued.

"Oh! Elinor," she cried, "you have made me hate myself for ever. How
barbarous have I been to you!--you, who have been my only comfort, who
have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only
suffering for me! Is this my gratitude? Is this the only return I can
make you? Because your merit cries out upon myself, I have been trying
to do it away."

The tenderest caresses followed this confession. In such a frame of
mind as she was now in, Elinor had no difficulty in obtaining from her
whatever promise she required; and at her request, Marianne engaged
never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of
bitterness;--to meet