His frank, natural, affectionate smile as he spoke, was tolerably satisfactory, certainly as to his estimate of his own fate; and it is to be hoped the reader is by this time sufficiently well acquainted with Elinor and Harry, to credit his account of the matter. From all we know of both, we are ourselves disposed to believe them very well qualified to pass through life happily together, making the cheerful days pleasanter, and the dark hours less gloomy to each other.
Harry seems to have given up his diplomatic pursuits for the present at least; he remains at home, making himself useful both in private and public life. Last year he and Elinor were at the Rip-Raps, accompanied by Mr. Wyllys and Miss Agnes, and a little family of their own—several engaging, clever, well-trained children. The little girls, without being beauties, are not plain; they are indeed quite as pretty as Jane's daughters; the only ugly face in the young troop belongs to a fine-spirited little fellow, to whom it is of no consequence at all, as he has just discarded his petticoats for ever. Perhaps both father and mother are pleased that such is the case; the feeling would seem to be one of those weaknesses which will linger about every parent's heart. Yet Elinor acknowledges that she is herself a happy woman without beauty; and Harry, loving her as he does for a thousand good reasons, and inclinations, and partialities, sometimes actually believes that he loves her the better for that plain face which appeals to his more generous feelings. Many men will always laugh at an ugly woman, and the idea of loving her; but is it an error in Hazlehurst's biographer to suppose that there are others who, placed in similar circumstances, would feel as Harry felt?
{"the Rip-Raps" = sea resort at Hampton, Virginia; near Old Point Comfort, where Mr. Ellsworth had seen Elinor in Vol. II, Chapter II}