how do you do, colonel?
the pleasure is all mine, i can asstire you. i trust miss marianne has not caught cold?
of course. the neighbourhood is crawling with my spies.
and since you cannot venture out to nature, nature must be brought to you!
ah! i see mine is not the first offering, nor the most elegant. i am afraid i obtained these from an obliging field.
i suspected as much.
but it is i who am grateful. i have often passed this cottage and grieved for its lonely state--and then the first news i had from lady allen when i arrived was that it was taken. i felt a peculiar interest in the event which nothing can account for but my present delight in meeting you.
who is reading shakespeare's sonnets?
which are your favourites?
let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove--then how does it go?
'that looks on storms'--or is it tempests? let me find it.
it is strange you should be reading them--for, look, i carry this with me always.
till tomorrow! and my pocket sonnets are yours, miss marianne! a talisman against further injury!
good morning, miss dashwood; good morning, colonel.
excellent. i understand you have a particularly fine pianoforte, colonel.
we shall look forward to it!
how do you do?
welcome to our party, miss steele!
or wait till we return and start then--you would not be six hours later.
frailty, thy name is brandon!
why? when he is the kind of man that everyone speaks well of and no one wants to talk to.
which is enough censure in itself.
come, come, mr impudence--i know you and your wicked ways--oh!
come, miss dashwood, reveal your beau, reveal him, i say! let's have no secrets between friends! let me winkle them out of you!
i declare, miss marianne, if i do not have you married to the colonel by teatime, i shall swallow my own bonnet.
as if you could marry such a character.
because he has threatened me with rain when i wanted it fine, he has found fault with the balance of my curricle and i cannot persuade him to buy my brown mare. if it will be of any satisfaction to you, however, to be told i believe his character to be in all other respects irreproachable, i am ready to confess it. and in return for an acknowledgement that must give me some pain. you cannot deny me the privilege.  of disliking him.  as much as i adore.
--this cottage!
now that i will never consent to. not a stone must be added to its walls. were i rich enough, i would instantly pull down combe magna and build it up again in the exact image of that cottage!
especially the fire that smokes! then i might be as happy at combe magna as i have been at barton.
but this place has one claim on my affection which no other can possibly share.
promise me you will never change it.
miss marianne, will you--will you do me the honour of granting me an interview tomorrow--alone?
but there is something very particular i should like to ask you.
thank you. until tomorrow then--miss marianne.
i--forgive me, mrs dashwood. i am sent--that is to say, lady allen has exercised the privilege of riches upon a dependent cousin and is sending me to london.
almost this moment.
you are very kind--but i have no idea of returning immediately to devonshire. i am seldom invited to allenham more than once a year.
my engagements at present are of such a nature--that is--i dare not flatter myself--
it is folly to linger in this manner. i will not torment myself further.
how do you do, miss dashwood?
how is your--family?
how do you do, miss marianne?
yes, i had the pleasure of receiving the information which you were so good as to send me.
thank you--i am most obliged. if you will excuse me, i must return to my party.