Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate...She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her hand to another...But so it was. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion...she found herself at nineteen, submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new home, a wife, the mistress of a family... Colonel Brandon was now as happy, as all those who best loved him, believed he deserved to be;--in Marianne...her regard and her society restored his mind to animation, and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own happiness in forming his....Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby.
Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his punishment was soon afterwards complete in the voluntary forgiveness of Mrs. Smith, who,...gave him reason for believing that had he behaved with honour towards Marianne, he might at once have been happy and rich. That his repentance of misconduct, which thus brought its own punishment, was sincere, need not be doubted...For Marianne,...he always retained that decided regard which interested him in every thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfection in woman;-- and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.
- Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility, 1811.
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