"I shall very soon think him handsome, Elinor, if I
do not now. When you tell me to love him as a brother,
I shall no more see imperfection in his face, than I now do
in his heart."
Elinor started at this declaration, and was sorry for
the warmth she had been betrayed into, in speaking of him.
She felt that Edward stood very high in her opinion.
She believed the regard to be mutual; but she required
greater certainty of it to make Marianne's conviction
of their attachment agreeable to her. She knew that
what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment,
they believed the next--that with them, to wish was to hope,
and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain the real
state of the case to her sister.
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