“I am sorry for that. At her time of life, anything of an illness destroys the bloom forever! Hers has been a very short one! She was as handsome a girl last September, as I ever saw⁠—and as likely to attract the men. There was something in her style of beauty, to please them particularly. I remember Fanny used to say that she would marry sooner and better than you did; not but what she is exceedingly fond of you , but so it happened to strike her. She will be mistaken, however. I question whether Marianne now , will marry a man worth more than five or six hundred a year, at the utmost, and I am very much deceived if you do not do better. Dorsetshire! I know very little of Dorsetshire; but, my dear Elinor, I shall be exceedingly glad to know more of it; and I think I can answer for your having Fanny and myself among the earliest and best pleased of your visitors.”