Page:Austen - Sense and Sensibility, vol. III, 1811.djvu/190

 as capable of anything—What I felt was dreadful!—My resolution was soon made, and at eight o’clock this morning I was in my carriage. Now you know all.”

Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain—Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expence of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring necessity,