"Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure
will do you good."

Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination
placed before her a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness
and contrition, explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory,
convincing; and instantly followed by Willoughby himself,
rushing eagerly into the room to inforce, at her feet,
by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances of his letter.
The work of one moment was destroyed by the next.
The hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome,
was before her; and, in the acuteness of the disappointment
which followed such an ecstasy of more than hope,
she felt as if, till that instant, she had never suffered.

The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within
her reach in her moments of happiest eloquence,
could have expressed; and now she could reproach her
only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with
passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely
lost on its object, that after many expressions of pity,
she withdrew, still referring her to the letter of comfort.
But the letter, when she was calm enough to read it,
brought little comfort. Willoughby filled every page.
Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and relying
as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused
by Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater
openness towards them both; and this, with such tenderness
towards her, such affection for Willoughby, and such
a conviction of their future happiness in each other,