t had passed, when she found every doubt, every solicitude
removed, compared her situation with what so lately it had been,--saw
him honourably released from his former engagement,--saw him instantly
profiting by the release, to address herself and declare an affection
as tender, as constant as she had ever supposed it to be,--she was
oppressed, she was overcome by her own felicity; and happily disposed
as is the human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the
better, it required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits,
or any degree of tranquillity to her heart.

Edward was now fixed at the cottage at least for a week;--for whatever
other claims might be made on him, it was impossible that less than a
week should be given up to the enjoyment of Elinor's company, or
suffice to say half that was to be said of the past, the present, and
the future;--for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of
incessant talking will despatch more subjects than can really be in
common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is
different. Between _them_ no subject is finished, no communication is
even made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.

Lucy's marriage, the unceasing and reasonable wonder among them all,
formed of course one of the earliest discussions of the lovers;--and
Elinor's particular knowledge of each party made it appear to her in
every view, as one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable
circumstances she had ever heard. How they could be thrown together,
and by what attraction Robert could be drawn on to marry a girl, of
whose beauty she had herself heard him speak without any
admiration,--a girl too already engaged to his brother, and on whose
account that brother had been thrown off by his family--it was beyond
her comprehension to make out. To her own heart it was a delightful
affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her
reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.

Edward could only attempt an explanation by supposing, that, perhaps,
at first accidentally meeting, the vanity of the one had been so
worked on by the flattery of the other, as to lead by degrees to all
the rest. Elinor remembered what Robert had told her in Harley Street,
of his opinion of what his own mediation in his brother's affairs
might have done, if applied to in time. She repeated it to Edward.

"_That_ was exactly like Robert," was his immediate observat