“He opened his whole heart to me yesterday as we travelled. It came out quite unawares, quite undesignedly. I, you may well believe, could talk of nothing but my child;⁠—he could not conceal his distress; I saw that it equalled my own, and he, perhaps thinking that mere friendship, as the world now goes, would not justify so warm a sympathy; or rather, not thinking at all, I suppose, giving way to irresistible feelings, made me acquainted with his earnest, tender, constant, affection for Marianne. He has loved her, my Elinor, ever since the first moment of seeing her.”

Here, however, Elinor perceived, not the language, not the professions of Colonel Brandon, but the natural embellishments of her mother’s active fancy, which fashioned everything delightful to her as it chose.