Chapter 37 - Part 11 - Sense and Sensibility

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 Ferris suffered when first Fanny 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 her head. If she suspected any pre-possession elsewhere, it could not be in that quarter. There, to be sure, said she, I might have thought myself safe. She was quite in an agony. We consulted together, however, as to what should be done, and at last she determined to send for Edward. He came, but I am sorry to relate what ensued. All that Miss Ferris could say to make him put an end to the engagement, assisted, too, as you may well suppose by my arguments and Fanny's entreaties, was of no avail. Duty, affection—everything was disregarded. I never thought Edward so stubborn, so unfeeling before. His mother explained to him her liberal designs in case of his marrying Miss Morton, told him she would settle on him the Norfolk estate which, clear of land-tax, brings in a good thousand a year, offered even when matters grew desperate to make it twelve hundred, and in opposition to this, if he still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain penury that must attend the match. His own two thousand pounds, she protested, should be his all. She would never see him again, and so far she would be from affording him the smallest assistance that, if it were to enter into any profession with a view of better support, she would have to pay a fine.