After a resistance just violent enough to save her from the reproach of being too amiable, Mrs Ferrars pronounces Edward her son again. For a fortnight, once Robert had been annihilated as well, she had no son at all. Edward does not feel the continuance of his existence secure until the new engagement is told. She argues Miss Morton, a nobleman's daughter with thirty thousand pounds, against Miss Dashwood, a private gentleman's daughter with no more than three thousand. He admits the truth of it and will not be guided by it. After an ungracious delay, she consents. Robert remains endowed with a thousand a year. No objection is made to Edward's taking orders for two hundred and fifty at the utmost, and nothing is promised beyond the ten thousand pounds which had been given with Fanny. It is as much as they desired, and more than they expected. She alone seems surprised she has not given more.
They have only to wait for the house. Colonel Brandon is improving it, eager for Elinor's accommodation, and the workmen are slow. She breaks her resolution not to marry until everything is ready. The ceremony is in Barton church early in the autumn. Mrs Jennings visits the parsonage by Michaelmas and believes them one of the happiest couples in the world. They have nothing to wish for but Colonel Brandon's marriage to Marianne, and rather better pasturage for the cows. John would be glad to call Colonel Brandon brother. The timber in Delaford Hanger is the finest he has seen in Dorsetshire, and Elinor may as well give Marianne a chance. Mrs Ferrars's real favour is earned by Lucy. Robert had meant only to persuade her to give Edward up. One more half hour was always required, until they talked of Robert, and he was proud of the trick. Forgiveness was got by asking. Edward is never cordially forgiven for having once intended to marry Lucy. Lucy is the favourite child.
What Edward did to forfeit the right of eldest son might puzzle many people, and what Robert did to succeed to it might puzzle them more. Marianne, by general consent, is to be his reward. His attachment, plain to everyone else long before, at last bursts on her. At nineteen she gives her hand to the man she had thought, two years before, too old to be married, who still seeks the safeguard of a flannel waistcoat. Her whole heart becomes, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby. Willoughby cannot hear of the marriage without a pang. Mrs Smith forgives him because he has married a woman of character, and so gives him reason to believe that honour toward Marianne might have left him both happy and rich. He does not die of a broken heart. He lives to enjoy himself, and in his horses and his dogs he finds no small domestic felicity, while Mrs Brandon remains his secret standard of perfection. Mrs Dashwood stays at the cottage. Margaret has reached an age highly suitable for dancing. Between Barton and Delaford, the sisters live almost within sight of each other, without disagreement between themselves or coolness between their husbands. Will the welcome that makes him a son again still be called equal, while the younger son keeps the thousand a year?
