Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton’s mother, who formed one of the party on the first occasion of the Dashwoods dining at Barton Park, was a good-humoured, fat, elderly woman, who talked a good deal, and seemed very happy, and rather vulgar.  She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and husbands, hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in Sussex, and pretended to see them blush whether they did or not.  In fact, this lady was a born match-maker; and she at once proceeded, by hints here and raillery there, to promote a match between Marianne, aged seventeen, and Colonel Brandon, a grave but sensible bachelor on the wrong side of thirty-five.  Marianne, however, scorned and laughed at the idea, being reasonable enough to allow that a man of five-and-thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite power of enjoyment; and having met with an accident which led to her being carried home by a handsome and vivacious young gentleman called Willoughby, who had a seat called Combe Magna in Somersetshire, she rapidly developed a liking for his society, and as quickly discovered that in regard to music, to dancing, and to books, their tastes were strikingly alike.

“Well, Marianne,” said Elinor, after his first visit, “for one morning I think you have done pretty well.  You have already ascertained Mr. Willoughby’s opinion in almost every matter of importance.  You know what to think of Cowper and Scott; you are aware of his estimating their beauties as he ought; and you have received every assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper.  But how is your acquaintance to be long supported under such extraordinary dispatch of every subject for discourse?  You will soon have exhausted each favourite topic.  Another meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty and second marriages, and then you can have nothing further to ask.”

To this Marianne replied, “Is this fair?  Is this just?  Are my ideas so scanty?  But I see what you mean.  I have been too much at my ease—­too happy, too frank.  I have erred against every commonplace notion of decorum.  I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless, dull and deceitful.  Had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would have been spared.”

From which it will be gathered that Marianne began now to perceive that that desperation which had seized her at sixteen-and-a-half of ever seeing a man who could satisfy her ideas of perfection had been somewhat rash and quite unjustifiable.

II.—­Marianne Dashwood in Love