“At Longstaple!” he replied, with an air of surprise. “No, my mother is in town.”
“I meant,” said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, “to inquire for Mrs. Edward Ferrars.”
She dared not look up;—but her mother and Marianne both turned their eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and, after some hesitation, said—
“Perhaps you mean—my brother—you mean Mrs. — Mrs. Robert Ferrars.”
“ Mrs. Robert Ferrars!” was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an accent of the utmost amazement; and though Elinor could not speak, even her eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice—
“Perhaps you do not know: you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to—to the youngest—to Miss Lucy Steele.”
His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor, who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such agitation as made her hardly know where she was.
“Yes,” said he, “they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish.”
Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked anywhere, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw, or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no