Sense and Sensibility (The Wild and Wanton Edition) by Lauren Lane Page A

and skills, she could not help but react to his being described in such a dull way. She wanted to hear him pronounced, by someone who truly knew him, as the remarkable man who had so capably infiltrated her soul. “But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his pursuits, his talents, and genius?”
    Sir John was rather puzzled.
    “Upon my soul,” said he, “I do not know much about him as to all
that.
But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw. Was she out with him to-day?”
    But Marianne could no more satisfy him as to the colour of Mr. Willoughby’s pointer, than he could describe to her the shades of his mind. She could, in perfect detail, recount the wetness of his mouth, the roughness of his hands against her skin, the erotic pulsing of his manhood as she’d stroked him … but she was fairly certain Sir John would not be interested in hearing all that.
    “But who is he?” said Elinor. “Where does he come from? Has he a house at Allenham?”
    On this point Sir John could give more certain intelligence; and he told them that Mr. Willoughby had no property of his own in the country; that he resided there only while he was visiting the old lady at Allenham Court, to whom he was related, and whose possessions he was to inherit; adding, “Yes, yes, he is very well worth catching I can tell you, Miss Dashwood; he has a pretty little estate of his own in Somersetshire besides; and if I were you, I would not give him up to my younger sister, in spite of all this tumbling down hills. Miss Marianne must not expect to have all the men to herself. Brandon will be jealous, if she does not take care.”
    At this, Marianne took in a sharp swallow of air, ready to let the ludicrousness of Sir John’s statement be known. That she should give up the man of her dreams to her sister! That she should care what old Colonel Brandon would think! It was all so preposterous! But her mother interjected before she could let her outrage be known.
    “I do not believe,” said Mrs. Dashwood, with a good humoured smile, “that Mr. Willoughby will be incommoded by the attempts of either of
my
daughters towards what you call
catching him.
It is not an employment to which they have been brought up. Men are very safe with us, let them be ever so rich. I am glad to find, however, from what you say, that he is a respectable young man, and one whose acquaintance will not be ineligible.”
    At their mother’s proclamation of her daughters being the sort of women who would never intentionally go after a man, both Elinor and Marianne lowered their eyes. Indeed, it was true that they hadn’t been chasing after a fortune, but rather something even more shocking that their mother would surely clutch at her heart and perish on the spot should she ever learn of it.
    “He is as good a sort of fellow, I believe, as ever lived,” repeated Sir John. “I remember last Christmas at a little hop at the park, he danced from eight o’clock till four, without once sitting down.”
    Now
that
was the sort of information Marianne was after. “Did he indeed?” cried she with sparkling eyes, “and with elegance, with spirit?”
    “Yes; and he was up again at eight to ride to covert.”
    “That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue.” She blushed as her memories carried her away once more.
    “Aye, aye, I see how it will be,” said Sir John, “I see how it will be. You will be setting your cap at him now, and never think of poor Brandon.”
    “That is an expression, Sir John,” said Marianne, warmly, “which I particularly dislike. I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit is intended; and ‘setting one’s cap at a man,’ or ‘making a conquest,’ are the most odious of all. Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and if their