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.