the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that she
should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed,
and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and
feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise
to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young
companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his
solitary way to Delaford.

The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her journey
on both, without essential fatigue. Every thing that the most zealous
affection, the most solicitous care could do to render her comfortable,
was the office of each watchful companion, and each found their reward
in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits. To Elinor, the
observation of the latter was particularly grateful. She, who had seen
her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish of
heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to
conceal, now saw with a joy, which no other could equally share, an
apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result as she trusted
of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and
cheerfulness.

As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which every
field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful recollection,
she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her face from their
notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window. But here, Elinor
could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted
Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an
emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity,
and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole of her
subsequent manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to
reasonable exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common
sitting-room, than Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of
resolute firmness, as if determined at once to accustom herself to the
sight of every object with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be
connected.--She said little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness,
and though a sigh sometimes escaped her, it never passed away without
the atonement of a smile. After dinner she would try her piano-forte.
She went to it; but the music on which her eye first rested was an
opera, procured for her by Willoughby, containing some of their
favourite duets,