e will marry a woman superior in person and
understanding to half her sex; and time and habit will teach him to
forget that he ever thought another superior to HER."--

"If such is your way of thinking," said Marianne, "if the loss of what
is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your
resolution, your self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be
wondered at.--They are brought more within my comprehension."

"I understand you.--You do not suppose that I have ever felt much.--For
four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without
being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it
would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to
you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least.-- It was told
me,--it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose
prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought,
with triumph.-- This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to
oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most
deeply interested;--and it has not been only once;--I have had her
hopes and exultation to listen to again and again.-- I have known
myself to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one
circumstance that could make me less desire the connection.--Nothing
has proved him unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to
me.-- I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and
the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an
attachment, without enjoying its advantages.-- And all this has been
going on at a time, when, as you know too well, it has not been my only
unhappiness.-- If you can think me capable of ever feeling--surely you
may suppose that I have suffered NOW. The composure of mind with which
I have brought myself at present to consider the matter, the
consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of
constant and painful exertion;--they did not spring up of
themselves;--they did not occur to relieve my spirits at first.-- No,
Marianne.--THEN, if I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing
could have kept me entirely--not even what I owed to my dearest
friends--from openly shewing that I was VERY unhappy."--

Marianne was quite subdued.--

"Oh! Elinor," she cried, "you have made me hate myself for ever.--How
barbarous have I been to you!--you, who have been my only comfort, who
have borne with me