Elinor had seen so little of Mr. Palmer, and in that
little had seen so much variety in his address to her
sister and herself, that she knew not what to expect
to find him in his own family. She found him, however,
perfectly the gentleman in his behaviour to all his visitors,
and only occasionally rude to his wife and her mother;
she found him very capable of being a pleasant companion,
and only prevented from being so always, by too great
an aptitude to fancy himself as much superior to people
in general, as he must feel himself to be to Mrs. Jennings
and Charlotte. For the rest of his character and habits,
they were marked, as far as Elinor could perceive,
with no traits at all unusual in his sex and time of life.
He was nice in his eating, uncertain in his hours;
fond of his child, though affecting to slight it;
and idled away the mornings at billiards, which ought
to have been devoted to business. She liked him, however,
upon the whole, much better than she had expected, and in
her heart was not sorry that she could like him no more;--
not sorry to be driven by the observation of his Epicurism,
his selfishness, and his conceit, to rest with complacency
on the remembrance of Edward's generous temper, simple taste,
and diffident feelings.

Of Edward, or at least of some of his concerns,
she now received intelligence from Colonel Brandon,
who had been into Dorsetshire lately; and who,
treating her at once as the disinterested friend
of Mr. Ferrars, and the kind of confidant of himself,
talked to her a great deal of the parsonage at Delaford,