is
something much more pleasing in his countenance. There was always a
something,--if you remember,--in Willoughby's eyes at times, which I
did not like."

Elinor could _not_ remember it;--but her mother, without waiting for
her assent, continued--

"And his manners, the Colonel's manners are not only more pleasing to
me than Willoughby's ever were, but they are of a kind I well know to
be more solidly attaching to Marianne. Their gentleness, their
genuine attention to other people, and their manly unstudied
simplicity is much more accordant with her real disposition, than the
liveliness--often artificial, and often ill-timed of the other. I am
very sure myself, that had Willoughby turned out as really amiable, as
he has proved himself the contrary, Marianne would yet never have been
so happy with _him_ as she will be with Colonel Brandon."

She paused. Her daughter could not quite agree with her, but her
dissent was not heard, and therefore gave no offence.

"At Delaford, she will be within an easy distance of me," added Mrs.
Dashwood, "even if I remain at Barton; and in all probability,--for I
hear it is a large village,--indeed there certainly _must_ be some
small house or cottage close by, that would suit us quite as well as
our present situation."

Poor Elinor!--here was a new scheme for getting her to Delaford!--but
her spirit was stubborn.

"His fortune too!--for at my time of life you know, everybody cares
about _that_;--and though I neither know nor desire to know, what it
really is, I am sure it must be a good one."

Here they were interrupted by the entrance of a third person, and
Elinor withdrew to think it all over in private, to wish success to
her friend, and yet in wishing it, to feel a pang for Willoughby.

CHAPTER XLVI

Marianne's illness, though weakening in its kind, had not been long
enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength,
and her mother's presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to
enable her to remove, within four days after the arrival of the
latter, into Mrs. Palmer's dressing-room. When there, at her own
particular request, for she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to
him for fetching her mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her.

His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and in
receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was
such, as, in Elinor's conjecture, must arise from something more