ides, "his mother must provide for him sometime or other; but poor
Edward is so cast down by it! Did you not think him dreadful
low-spirited when he was at Barton? He was so miserable when he left
us at Longstaple, to go to you, that I was afraid you would think him
quite ill."

"Did he come from your uncle's, then, when he visited us?"

"Oh, yes; he had been staying a fortnight with us. Did you think he
came directly from town?"

"No," replied Elinor, most feelingly sensible of every fresh
circumstance in favour of Lucy's veracity; "I remember he told us, that
he had been staying a fortnight with some friends near Plymouth." She
remembered too, her own surprise at the time, at his mentioning nothing
farther of those friends, at his total silence with respect even to
their names.

"Did not you think him sadly out of spirits?" repeated Lucy.

"We did, indeed, particularly so when he first arrived."

"I begged him to exert himself for fear you should suspect what was the
matter; but it made him so melancholy, not being able to stay more than
a fortnight with us, and seeing me so much affected.-- Poor fellow!--I
am afraid it is just the same with him now; for he writes in wretched
spirits. I heard from him just before I left Exeter;" taking a letter
from her pocket and carelessly showing the direction to Elinor. "You
know his hand, I dare say, a charming one it is; but that is not
written so well as usual.--He was tired, I dare say, for he had just
filled the sheet to me as full as possible."

Elinor saw that it WAS his hand, and she could doubt no longer. This
picture, she had allowed herself to believe, might have been
accidentally obtained; it might not have been Edward's gift; but a
correspondence between them by letter, could subsist only under a
positive engagement, could be authorised by nothing else; for a few
moments, she was almost overcome--her heart sunk within her, and she
could hardly stand; but exertion was indispensably necessary; and she
struggled so resolutely against the oppression of her feelings, that
her success was speedy, and for the time complete.

"Writing to each other," said Lucy, returning the letter into her
pocket, "is the only comfort we have in such long separations. Yes, I
have one other comfort in his picture, but poor Edward has not even
THAT. If he had but my picture, he says he should be easy. I gave him
a lock of my hair set in a ring when he was at Longstaple last,