thoughtful and considerate; especially if I give them a hint, as I
certainly will. For my part, I think the less that is said about such
things, the better, the sooner 'tis blown over and forgot. And what
does talking ever do you know?"

"In this affair it can only do harm; more so perhaps than in many
cases of a similar kind, for it has been attended by circumstances
which, for the sake of every one concerned in it, make it unfit to
become the public conversation. I must do _this_ justice to Mr.
Willoughby--he has broken no positive engagement with my sister."

"Law, my dear! Don't pretend to defend him. No positive engagement
indeed! after taking her all over Allenham House, and fixing on the
very rooms they were to live in hereafter!"

Elinor, for her sister's sake, could not press the subject farther,
and she hoped it was not required of her for Willoughby's; since,
though Marianne might lose much, he could gain very little by the
enforcement of the real truth. After a short silence on both sides,
Mrs. Jennings, with all her natural hilarity, burst forth again.

"Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill wind, for it will be
all the better for Colonel Brandon. He will have her at last; aye,
that he will. Mind me, now, if they an't married by Mid-summer. Lord!
how he'll chuckle over this news! I hope he will come tonight. It will
be all to one a better match for your sister. Two thousand a year
without debt or drawback--except the little love-child, indeed; aye, I
had forgot her; but she may be 'prenticed out at a small cost, and
then what does it signify? Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you;
exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and
conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered
with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in
one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were
there! Then, there is a dovecote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a
very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for;
and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile
from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit
up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the
carriages that pass along. Oh! 'tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in
the village, and the parsonage-house within a stone's throw. To my
fancy, a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are