"In this affair it can only do harm; more so
perhaps than in many cases of a similar kind, for it
has been attended by circumstances which, for the sake
of every one concerned in it, make it unfit to become
the public conversation. I must do THIS justice to
Mr. Willoughby--he has broken no positive engagement
with my sister."

"Law, my dear! Don't pretend to defend him.
No positive engagement indeed! after taking her all
over Allenham House, and fixing on the very rooms they
were to live in hereafter!"

Elinor, for her sister's sake, could not press the
subject farther, and she hoped it was not required of her
for Willoughby's; since, though Marianne might lose much,
he could gain very little by the enforcement of the real truth.
After a short silence on both sides, Mrs. Jennings,
with all her natural hilarity, burst forth again.

"Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill-wind,
for it will be all the better for Colonel Brandon.
He will have her at last; aye, that he will. Mind me,
now, if they an't married by Mid-summer. Lord! how he'll
chuckle over this news! I hope he will come tonight.
It will be all to one a better match for your sister.
Two thousand a year without debt or drawback--except
the little love-child, indeed; aye, I had forgot her;
but she may be 'prenticed out at a small cost, and then
what does it signify? Delaford is a nice place, I can