] It's so cruel that our reading ends this week like this:

] "The bustle in the vestibule, as she passed along an inner lobby, assured her that they were already in the house. She rushed forwards towards the drawing-room -- she entered it, -- and saw only Willoughby."

] Quite the cliffhanger. (-;

Definitely a page turner. :-) In a short section on S&S: "The suggestion that people may be substituted for one another is developed in a series of misrecognition scenes: Marianne, in her passionate eagerness to see her beloved Willoughby, twice mistakes another man for him, first as Edward Ferrars approaches on horseback, and then when Brandon arrives at the door of Mrs. Jennings' house in London; Elinor [will] wrongly identify [someone in the upcoming chapters and] waiting for her mother to arrive at Marianne's bedside, she goes to the door to find 'only Willoughby' instead. ...When considered as candidates for marriage and possible sole heirs of their mother's fortune, sober Edward Ferrars and his silly brother Robert become indistinguishable: as she disowns one and then the other, their own mother can barely tell the difference between them:

'Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by resuscitation of Edward, she had one again.'" (LOL)