Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/82

 The sisters are anxious now to leave London, but have to pay a visit on their way home to Mrs. Palmer, Mrs. Jennings' other daughter; and the whole of this visit might, I venture to think, have been omitted with advantage to the story. Marianne is taken ill there; Elinor and Mrs. Jennings remain alone to nurse her, as everyone else is afraid of infection. The illness increases so alarmingly that Mrs. Dashwood is sent for; and then Willoughby, who is already married, hears that Marianne is dying. In an agony of remorse at his late conduct to her, and of misery at his own position, he makes his way to Elinor to palliate as far as possible, his conduct, and to implore Marianne's forgiveness. His wretchedness softens Elinor into granting him a hearing; but, as a matter of fact, she had much better not have done so, nor should such a girl as she was have allowed him to tell her all he does about his past life, and about the woman he has married, even though its object is to soothe Marianne by letting her know how sincerely he had loved her. When Marianne recovers—as, of course, she does; nobody of interest ever dies in Jane Austen's novels—and returns to her own home with her sister, she is comforted by knowing that her love was not bestowed without return, and her high principle makes, her resolve to occupy her mind so thoroughly as to drive out all remembrance of the past. Her energetic schemes for doing this, and improving herself, are told with all Jane Austen's gentle finished satire. "'I know we shall be happy. I know the summer will pass happily away. I mean never to be later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall divide every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own