All these jealousies and discontents,however,were so totally unsuspected by Mrs Jennings,that she thought it a delightful thing for the girls to be together;and generally congratulated her young friends every night on having escaped the company of a stupid old woman so long.She joined them sometimes at Sir John's,and sometimes at her own house;but wherever it was,she always came in excellent spirits,full of delight and importance,attributing Charlotte's well-doing to her own care,and ready to give so exact,so minute a detail of her situation,as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire.One thing did disturb her;and of that she made her daily complaint.Mr Palmer maintained the common,but unfatherly opinion among his sex,of all infants being alike;and though she could plainly perceive at different times the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides,there was no convincing his father of it;no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age;nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world.
I come now to the relation of a misfortune,which about this time befell Mrs John Dashwood.It so happened that while her two sisters with Mrs Jennings were first calling on her in Harley Street,another of her acquaintance had dropped in-a circumstance in itself not apparently likely to produce evil to her.But while the imaginations of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our conduct,and to decide on it by slight appearances,one's happiness must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance.In the present instance,this last-arrived lady allowed her fancy so far to outrun truth and probability,that on merely hearing the name of the Miss Dashwoods,and understanding them to be Mr Dashwood's sisters,she immediately concluded them to be staying in Harley Street;and this misconstruction produced within a day or two afterwards cards of invitation for them,as well as for their brother and sister,to a small musical party at her house.The consequence of which was,that Mrs John Dashwood was obliged to submit not only to the exceedingly great inconvenience of sending her carriage for the Miss Dashwoods,but,what was still worse,must be subject to all the unpleasantness of appearing to treat them with attention:and who could tell that they might not expect to go out with her a second time?The power of disappointing them,it was true,must always be hers.But that was not enough;for when people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be wrong,they feel injured by the expectation of anything better from them.
Marianne had now been brought by degrees so much into the habit of going out every day,that it was become a matter of indifference to her whether she went or not:and she prepared quietly and mechanically for every evening's engagement,though without expecting the smallest amusement from any,and very often without knowing till the last moment where it was to take her.
To her dress and appearance she was grown so perfectly indifferent,as not to bestow half the consideration on it during the whole of her toilette,which it received from Miss Steele in the first five minutes of their being together when it was finished.Nothing escaped her minute observation and general curiosity;she saw everything,and asked everything;was never easy till she knew the price of every part of Marianne's dress;could have guessed the number of her gowns altogether with better judgment than Marianne herself,and was not without hopes of finding out before they parted,how much her washing cost per week,and how much she had every year to spend upon herself.The impertinence of these kind of scrutinies,moreover,was generally concluded with a compliment,which though meant as its douceur,was considered by Marianne as the greatest impertinence of all;for after undergoing an examination into the value and make of her gown,the colour of her shoes and the arrangement of her hair,she was almost sure of being told that upon ‘her word she looked vastly smart,and she dared to say would make a great many conquests’.
With such encouragement as this,was she dismissed on the present occasion to her brother's carriage;which they were ready to enter five minutes after it stopped at the door,a punctuality not very agreeable to their sister-in-law who had preceded them to the house of her acquaintance,and was there hoping for some delay on their part that might inconvenience either herself or her coachman.
The events of the evening were not very remarkable.The party,like other musical parties,comprehended a great many people who had real taste for the performance,and a great many more who had none at all;and the performers themselves were,as usual,in their own estimation,and that of their immediate friends,the first private performers in England.
As Elinor was neither musical,nor affecting to be so,she made no scruple of turning away her eyes from the grand pianoforte,whenever it suited her,and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp,and a violoncello,would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the room.In one of these excursive glances she perceived among the group of young men,the very he who had given them a lecture on toothpick-cases at Gray's.She perceived him soon afterwards looking at herself,and speaking familiarly to her brother;and had just determined to find out his name from the latter,when they both came towards her,and Mr Dashwood introduced him to her as Mr Robert Ferrars.
