happy relief to Elinor's spirits, oppressed as they often were by
the clamorous kindness of the others. It was a great comfort to her to
be sure of exciting no interest in _one_ person at least among their
circle of friends: a great comfort to know that there was _one_ who
would meet her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any
anxiety for her sister's health.

Every qualification is raised at times, by the circumstances of the
moment, to more than its real value; and she was sometimes worried
down by officious condolence to rate good-breeding as more
indispensable to comfort than good-nature.

Lady Middleton expressed her sense of the affair about once every day,
or twice, if the subject occurred very often, by saying, "It is very
shocking, indeed!" and by the means of this continual though gentle
vent, was able not only to see the Miss Dashwoods from the first
without the smallest emotion, but very soon to see them without
recollecting a word of the matter; and having thus supported the
dignity of her own sex, and spoken her decided censure of what was
wrong in the other, she thought herself at liberty to attend to the
interest of her own assemblies, and therefore determined (though
rather against the opinion of Sir John) that as Mrs. Willoughby would
at once be a woman of elegance and fortune, to leave her card with her
as soon as she married.

Colonel Brandon's delicate, unobtrusive enquiries were never unwelcome
to Miss Dashwood. He had abundantly earned the privilege of intimate
discussion of her sister's disappointment, by the friendly zeal with
which he had endeavoured to soften it, and they always conversed with
confidence. His chief reward for the painful exertion of disclosing
past sorrows and present humiliations, was given in the pitying eye
with which Marianne sometimes observed him, and the gentleness of her
voice whenever (though it did not often happen) she was obliged, or
could oblige herself to speak to him. _These_ assured him that his
exertion had produced an increase of good-will towards himself, and
_these_ gave Elinor hopes of its being farther augmented hereafter;
but Mrs. Jennings, who knew nothing of all this, who knew only that
the Colonel continued as grave as ever, and that she could neither
prevail on him to make the offer himself, nor commission her to make
it for him, began, at the end of two days, to think that, instead of
Mid-summer, they would not be married till M