that the object of that attachment--Mr. Edward Ferrars--was likely to be
married to Miss Morton, a peer's daughter, with thirty thousand pounds
of her own.

Mrs. John Dashwood had so much confidence in her husband's judgment that
she waited the very next day on both Mrs. Jennings and her daughter. She
found the former by no means unworthy her notice, and the latter one of
the most charming women in the world. The attraction was mutual, for
Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood.

There was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides, which
mutually attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an
insipid propriety of demeanour and a general want of understanding.
Indeed, the Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons
that, though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined
to give them a dinner; and soon after their acquaintance began, invited
them to dine at Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house
for three months. Mrs. Jennings and the Misses Dashwood were invited
likewise, and so were Colonel Brandon, as a friend of the young ladies,
and the Misses Steele, as belonging to the Middleton party in Conduit
Street. They were to meet Mrs. Ferrars.

Mrs. Ferrars turned out to be a little, thin woman, upright even to
formality in her figure, and serious even to sourness in her aspect. Her
complexion was sallow, and her features small, without beauty, and
naturally without expression; but a lucky contraction of the brow had
rescued her countenance from the disgrace of insipidity by giving it the
strong characters of pride and ill-nature. She was not a woman of many
words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the
number of her ideas; of the few syllables which did escape her, not one