“If you could be assured of that, you think you should be easy.”

“Yes. My peace of mind is doubly involved in it; — for not only is it horrible to suspect a person, who has been what HE has been to ME, of such designs, — but what must it make me appear to myself? — What in a situation like mine, but a most shamefully unguarded affection could expose me to” —

“How then,” asked her sister, “would you account for his behaviour?”

“I would suppose him, — Oh, how gladly would I suppose him, only fickle, very, very fickle.”

Elinor said no more.

She was debating within herself on the eligibility of beginning her story directly, or postponing it till Marianne were in stronger health; —