Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/78

 "They all looked their assent; it seemed too awful a moment for speech.

"'Your sister,' he continued, 'has suffered dreadfully; Mrs. Ferrars, too—in short, it has been a scene of such complicated distress—but I will hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us quite overcome. Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday. But I would not alarm you too much. Donovan says there is nothing materially to be apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution equal to anything. She has borne it all with the fortitude of an angel! She says she never shall think well of anybody again; and one cannot wonder at it, after being so deceived—meeting with such ingratitude where so much kindness had been shown, so much confidence had been placed! It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart that she had asked these young women to her house, merely because she thought they deserved some attention, were harmless well-behaved girls, and would be pleasant companions; for, otherwise, we both wished very much to have invited you and Marianne to be with us, while your kind friend there was attending her daughter. And now to be so rewarded! "I wish with all my heart," says poor Fanny in her affectionate way, "that we had asked your sisters instead of them."'

"Here he stopped to be thanked, which being done, he went on:

"'What poor Mrs. Ferrars suffered when Fanny first broke it to her is not to be described. While she, with the truest affection, had been planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person? Such a suspicion could never have entered