“your sister's engagement to Mr. Willoughby is very generally known.”

“It cannot be generally known,” returned Elinor, “for her own family do not know it.”

He looked surprised and said, “I beg your pardon, I am afraid my inquiry has been impertinent; but I had not supposed any secrecy intended, as they openly correspond, and their marriage is universally talked of.”

“How can that be? By whom can you have heard it mentioned?”

“By many — by some of whom you know nothing, by others with whom you are most intimate, Mrs.

Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, and the Middletons. But still I might not have believed it, for where the