aracter," said Elinor, "as an excellent man, is
well established."

"I know it is," replied her mother seriously, "or after such a
warning, I should be the last to encourage such affection, or even to
be pleased by it. But his coming for me as he did, with such active,
such ready friendship, is enough to prove him one of the worthiest of
men."

"His character, however," answered Elinor, "does not rest on _one_ act
of kindness, to which his affection for Marianne, were humanity out of
the case, would have prompted him. To Mrs. Jennings, to the
Middletons, he has been long and intimately known; they equally love
and respect him; and even my own knowledge of him, though lately
acquired, is very considerable; and so highly do I value and esteem
him, that if Marianne can be happy with him, I shall be as ready as
yourself to think our connection the greatest blessing to us in the
world. What answer did you give him? Did you allow him to hope?"

"Oh! my love, I could not then talk of hope to him or to myself.
Marianne might at that moment be dying. But he did not ask for hope or
encouragement. His was an involuntary confidence, an irrepressible
effusion to a soothing friend, not an application to a parent. Yet
after a time I _did_ say, for at first I was quite overcome, that if
she lived, as I trusted she might, my greatest happiness would lie in
promoting their marriage; and since our arrival, since our delightful
security, I have repeated it to him more fully, have given him every
encouragement in my power. Time, a very little time, I tell him, will
do everything; Marianne's heart is not to be wasted for ever on such a
man as Willoughby. His own merits must soon secure it."

"To judge from the Colonel's spirits, however, you have not yet made
him equally sanguine."

"No. He thinks Marianne's affection too deeply rooted for any change
in it under a great length of time, and even supposing her heart again
free, is too diffident of himself to believe, that with such a
difference of age and disposition he could ever attach her. There,
however, he is quite mistaken. His age is only so much beyond hers as
to be an advantage, as to make his character and principles
fixed;--and his disposition, I am well convinced, is exactly the very
one to make your sister happy. And his person, his manners too, are
all in his favour. My partiality does not blind me; he certainly is
not so handsome as Willoughby--but at the same time, there