he_ was not there--and she sat down, equally
ill-disposed to receive or communicate pleasure. After they had been
assembled about an hour, Mr. Palmer sauntered towards the Miss
Dashwoods to express his surprise on seeing them in town, though
Colonel Brandon had been first informed of their arrival at his house,
and he had himself said something very droll on hearing that they were
to come.

"I thought you were both in Devonshire," said he.

"Did you?" replied Elinor.

"When do you go back again?"

"I do not know." And thus ended their discourse.

Never had Marianne been so unwilling to dance in her life, as she was
that evening, and never so much fatigued by the exercise. She
complained of it as they returned to Berkeley Street.

"Aye, aye," said Mrs. Jennings, "we know the reason of all that very
well; if a certain person who shall be nameless, had been there, you
would not have been a bit tired: and to say the truth it was not very
pretty of him not to give you the meeting when he was invited."

"Invited!" cried Marianne.

"So my daughter Middleton told me, for it seems Sir John met him
somewhere in the street this morning." Marianne said no more, but
looked exceedingly hurt. Impatient in this situation to be doing
something that might lead to her sister's relief, Elinor resolved to
write the next morning to her mother, and hoped by awakening her fears
for the health of Marianne, to procure those inquiries which had been
so long delayed; and she was still more eagerly bent on this measure
by perceiving after breakfast on the morrow, that Marianne was again
writing to Willoughby, for she could not suppose it to be to any other
person.

About the middle of the day, Mrs. Jennings went out by herself on
business, and Elinor began her letter directly, while Marianne, too
restless for employment, too anxious for conversation, walked from one
window to the other, or sat down by the fire in melancholy meditation.
Elinor was very earnest in her application to her mother, relating all
that had passed, her suspicions of Willoughby's inconstancy, urging
her by every plea of duty and affection to demand from Marianne an
account of her real situation with respect to him.

Her letter was scarcely finished, when a rap foretold a visitor, and
Colonel Brandon was announced. Marianne, who had seen him from the
window, and who hated company of any kind, left the room before he
entered it. He looked more than usually grave, a