A Horse for Marianne — Sense and Sensibility

The horse is accepted before anyone counts the stable. The next morning Marianne tells Elinor, with the greatest delight, that Willoughby has given her a horse he bred himself in Somersetshire, exactly fit to carry a woman. She accepted at once. It was not in her mother's plan to keep any horse. A servant would need another, and a servant to ride it, and a stable after that. Marianne calls the expense a trifle. Any horse would do for the servant. A shed would do for the stable. Mama would never object. Then Elinor doubts the propriety of so large a gift from a man so lately known. That is too much. Marianne says intimacy is not decided by time. It is decided by disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient for some people, and seven days are more than enough for others. She would feel more impropriety in taking a horse from her brother John, whom she hardly knows though they lived together for years, than from Willoughby.

Elinor stops arguing the acquaintance. Opposition would only attach Marianne more firmly to her own opinion. An appeal to their mother does what the argument could not. The inconveniences would fall on that indulgent parent. Marianne promises not to mention the offer, and to tell Willoughby it must be declined. She keeps her word the same day. Elinor hears the disappointment in a low voice. The reasons make further entreaty impossible. Then, still low, he says the horse is still hers, though she cannot use it now. He will keep it only till she can claim it. When she leaves Barton for a more lasting home, Queen Mab shall receive her. Elinor hears the whole sentence, and the first name. From that moment she does not doubt that they are engaged. The only surprise is that tempers so frank left their friends to discover it by accident.

The next day Margaret reports what she saw after tea, when the others had left the room. Willoughby took Marianne's scissors, cut off a long lock of her hair, kissed it, folded it in white paper, and put it into his pocket-book. Elinor cannot withhold belief. That evening Mrs. Jennings demands the name of Elinor's particular favourite. Margaret says she must not tell, then that he is of no profession, then, when Marianne insists there is no such person, that his name begins with an F. Lady Middleton observes that it rains very hard. Colonel Brandon follows her onto the rain. Willoughby opens the piano. The name falls. Elinor does not recover so easily. Will anyone say the name that begins with an F, or only the name of the horse she cannot use?