“I must ask whether you were surprised?”said Elizabeth.
Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend.
She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each,to be dwelt on farther.
“On the evening before my going to London,”said he,“I made a confession to him,which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great.He had never had the slightest suspicion.I told him, moreover,that I believed myself mistaken in supposing,as I had done,that your sister was indifferent to him;and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated,I felt no doubt of their happiness together.”
“Did you speak from your own observation,”said she,“when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?”
After walking several miles in a leisurely manner,and too busy to know anything about it,they found at last,on examining their watches,that it was time to be at home.