hen Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very
awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who
felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a
hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative.

Another pause.

Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own
voice, now said--

"Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?"

"At Longstaple!" he replied, with an air of surprise. "No, my mother
is in town."

"I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "to
inquire for Mrs. _Edward_ Ferrars."

She dared not look up;--but her mother and Marianne both turned their
eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and,
after some hesitation, said,--

"Perhaps you mean--my brother--you mean Mrs.--Mrs. _Robert_ Ferrars."

"Mrs. Robert Ferrars!"--was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an
accent of the utmost amazement;--and though Elinor could not speak,
even _her_ eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He
rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not
knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and
while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to
pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice--

"Perhaps you do not know--you may not have heard that my brother is
lately married to--to the youngest--to Miss Lucy Steele."

His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but
Elinor, who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of
such agitation as made her hardly know where she was.

"Yes," said he, "they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish."

Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as
soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first
she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any
where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw, or
even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a
reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of
Mrs. Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word,
quitted the room, and walked out towards the village, leaving the
others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his
situation, so wonderful and so sudden,--a perplexity which they had no
means of lessening but by their own conjectures.

CHAPTER XLIX

Unaccountable, however, as the cir