forced to send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour
nearer than your mother. Well, I shall spirit up the Colonel as soon
as I can. One shoulder of mutton, you know, drives another down. If we
_can_ but put Willoughby out of her head!"

"Ay, if we can do that, Ma'am," said Elinor, "we shall do very well
with or without Colonel Brandon." And then rising, she went away to
join Marianne, whom she found, as she expected, in her own room,
leaning, in silent misery, over the small remains of a fire, which,
till Elinor's entrance, had been her only light.

"You had better leave me," was all the notice that her sister received
from her.

"I will leave you," said Elinor, "if you will go to bed." But this,
from the momentary perverseness of impatient suffering, she at first
refused to do. Her sister's earnest, though gentle persuasion,
however, soon softened her to compliance, and Elinor saw her lay her
aching head on the pillow, and as she hoped, in a way to get some
quiet rest before she left her.

In the drawing-room, whither she then repaired, she was soon joined by
Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand.

"My dear," said she, entering, "I have just recollected that I have
some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was
tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. My poor
husband! how fond he was of it! Whenever he had a touch of his old
colicky gout, he said it did him more good than any thing else in the
world. Do take it to your sister."

"Dear Ma'am," replied Elinor, smiling at the difference of the
complaints for which it was recommended, "how good you are! But I have
just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think
nothing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me
leave, I will drink the wine myself."

Mrs. Jennings, though regretting that she had not been five minutes
earlier, was satisfied with the compromise; and Elinor, as she
swallowed the chief of it, reflected, that though its effects on a
colicky gout were, at present, of little importance to her, its
healing powers, on a disappointed heart might be as reasonably tried
on herself as on her sister.

Colonel Brandon came in while the party were at tea, and by his manner
of looking round the room for Marianne, Elinor immediately fancied
that he neither expected nor wished to see her there, and, in short,
that he was already aware of what occas