' I cannot
help thinking, in short, that means might have been found.
But now it is all too late. He must be starved, you know;--
that is certain; absolutely starved."
He had just settled this point with great composure,
when the entrance of Mrs. John Dashwood put an end to the
subject.
But though SHE never spoke of it out of her own family,
Elinor could see its influence on her mind, in the something
like confusion of countenance with which she entered,
and an attempt at cordiality in her behaviour to herself.
She even proceeded so far as to be concerned to find
that Elinor and her sister were so soon to leave town,
as she had hoped to see more of them;--an exertion
in which her husband, who attended her into the room,
and hung enamoured over her accents, seemed to distinguish
every thing that was most affectionate and graceful.
CHAPTER 42
One other short call in Harley Street, in which Elinor
received her brother's congratulations on their travelling
so far towards Barton without any expense, and on Colonel
Brandon's being to follow them to Cleveland in a day or two,
completed the intercourse of the brother and sisters
in town;--and a faint invitation from Fanny, to come
to Norland whenever it should happen to be in their way,
which of all things was the most unlikely to occur,
with a more warm, though less public, assurance, from John
to Elinor, of the promptitude with which he should come
to see her at Delaford, was all that foretold any meeting
in the country.
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