lorable. The interest of two thousand pounds--how can a man live on
it?--and when to that is added the recollection, that he might, but for
his own folly, within three months have been in the receipt of two
thousand, five hundred a-year (for Miss Morton has thirty thousand
pounds,) I cannot picture to myself a more wretched condition. We must
all feel for him; and the more so, because it is totally out of our
power to assist him."

"Poor young man!" cried Mrs. Jennings, "I am sure he should be very
welcome to bed and board at my house; and so I would tell him if I
could see him. It is not fit that he should be living about at his own
charge now, at lodgings and taverns."

Elinor's heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though she
could not forbear smiling at the form of it.

"If he would only have done as well by himself," said John Dashwood,
"as all his friends were disposed to do by him, he might now have been
in his proper situation, and would have wanted for nothing. But as it
is, it must be out of anybody's power to assist him. And there is one
thing more preparing against him, which must be worse than all--his
mother has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle
THAT estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward's, on
proper conditions. I left her this morning with her lawyer, talking
over the business."

"Well!" said Mrs. Jennings, "that is HER revenge. Everybody has a way
of their own. But I don't think mine would be, to make one son
independent, because another had plagued me."

Marianne got up and walked about the room.

"Can anything be more galling to the spirit of a man," continued John,
"than to see his younger brother in possession of an estate which might
have been his own? Poor Edward! I feel for him sincerely."

A few minutes more spent in the same kind of effusion, concluded his
visit; and with repeated assurances to his sisters that he really
believed there was no material danger in Fanny's indisposition, and
that they need not therefore be very uneasy about it, he went away;
leaving the three ladies unanimous in their sentiments on the present
occasion, as far at least as it regarded Mrs. Ferrars's conduct, the
Dashwoods', and Edward's.

Marianne's indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room; and
as her vehemence made reserve impossible in Elinor, and unnecessary in
Mrs. Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique up