et, my dear Elinor. There is no doubt of your doing exceedingly
well--quite as well, or better, perhaps, all things considered. Has
Colonel Brandon been with you lately?"

Elinor had heard enough, if not to gratify her vanity, and raise her
self-importance, to agitate her nerves and fill her mind;--and she was
therefore glad to be spared from the necessity of saying much in reply
herself, and from the danger of hearing any thing more from her
brother, by the entrance of Mr. Robert Ferrars. After a few moments'
chat, John Dashwood, recollecting that Fanny was yet uninformed of her
sister's being there, quitted the room in quest of her; and Elinor was
left to improve her acquaintance with Robert, who, by the gay
unconcern, the happy self-complacency of his manner while enjoying so
unfair a division of his mother's love and liberality, to the prejudice
of his banished brother, earned only by his own dissipated course of
life, and that brother's integrity, was confirming her most
unfavourable opinion of his head and heart.

They had scarcely been two minutes by themselves, before he began to
speak of Edward; for he, too, had heard of the living, and was very
inquisitive on the subject. Elinor repeated the particulars of it, as
she had given them to John; and their effect on Robert, though very
different, was not less striking than it had been on HIM. He laughed
most immoderately. The idea of Edward's being a clergyman, and living
in a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure;--and when to
that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a
white surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith
and Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.

Elinor, while she waited in silence and immovable gravity, the
conclusion of such folly, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed
on him with a look that spoke all the contempt it excited. It was a
look, however, very well bestowed, for it relieved her own feelings,
and gave no intelligence to him. He was recalled from wit to wisdom,
not by any reproof of hers, but by his own sensibility.

"We may treat it as a joke," said he, at last, recovering from the
affected laugh which had considerably lengthened out the genuine gaiety
of the moment--"but, upon my soul, it is a most serious business. Poor
Edward! he is ruined for ever. I am extremely sorry for it--for I
know him to be a very good-hearted creature; as well-mean