Open weather will keep the sportsmen at Barton. Marianne is suddenly cheerful. Frosts will soon set in. Perhaps it may freeze tonight. She watches the wind, the sky, and her muff, and finds frost in the brightness of every fire. About a week on, Willoughby's card is on the table. He has been here while they were out. She escapes upstairs with it. The next day she stays behind, and he does not come again. A note is brought in. For me, she cries, and it is for Mrs Jennings. Is she expecting a letter? Yes, a little, not much. You have no confidence in me, Elinor says. The reproach, Marianne answers, sits oddly on someone who has confidence in no one. Their situations are alike. Elinor has nothing to tell because she does not communicate. Marianne has nothing to tell because she conceals nothing. Elinor cannot answer that. She is not at liberty to.
At Lady Middleton's, Sir John has got up a ball of eight or nine couple, two violins, and a side-board. Too slight, his wife thinks, for elegance in London. Mr Palmer says he thought the sisters were both in Devonshire, and there the talk ends. Marianne looks once round the room. Willoughby is not in it. She has never been so unwilling to dance, nor so tired. Mrs Jennings knows why. A certain person, who shall be nameless, was invited. Sir John met him in the street that morning. Marianne looks exceedingly hurt.
The next day Elinor writes to her mother, and sees Marianne writing again to the only person it can be for. Colonel Brandon is announced. Marianne leaves before he enters. After a silence he asks when he is to congratulate Elinor on a brother. The engagement to Mr Willoughby is very generally known. It cannot be, she says, for her own family do not know it. He had not supposed any secrecy. They openly correspond, and the marriage is talked of by Mrs Jennings, Mrs Palmer, and the Middletons. He might have gone on doubting, except that the servant who let him in had a letter in his hand, to Mr Willoughby, in Marianne's writing. He came to inquire, and was convinced before he asked. Is everything finally settled? He has no right, and no chance of succeeding. Elinor knows too little of the terms, and too much of her sister's affection, to leave him hope. To shield Marianne, she says more than she really knew or believed. Of the mutual affection she has no doubt. The correspondence does not astonish her. He wishes Marianne all imaginable happiness, and wishes Willoughby may endeavour to deserve her, and he goes. Will the extra she added, past what the family knows, be the version that is repeated?
