A Modern Day Sense and Sensibility: An Adaptation of Jane Austen's Classic by Kaitlin Saunders Page A

student accountant, has already turned in her two weeks’ notice and her last day will be this Thursday,”Brandon once again broached Ellie’s employment, “How would you like to start Friday?”
    That was three days away. “Sounds perfect,” Ellie confirmed. She was actually looking forward to her first shift.
    Brandon smiled, nodding his head with pleased satisfaction. “Well, then,” he said, extending his hand, “welcome aboard.”
    Ellie eagerly shook his hand in return and thanked him before exiting the hotel. Whispering a thankful prayer as she started her mother’s Volvo, Ellie put the car in gear, eager to share the good news with her family.

Over the next couple of months, the girls kept themselves busy with their jobs and various projects around the apartments. Although she worked twenty hours a week at Brandon’s hotel, Ellie occasionally handled Mrs. Jennings’s accounts and often assisted her sisters with their duties on weekends. The first of many assignments was helping Margaret paint the shutters. The former shade of paint, most likely a pale violet, was faded and cracking. After scraping off as much of the old base as they could, the sisters had to apply two coats of the white paint Mrs. Jennings supplied them with before the shutters looked pristine again. Meanwhile, Marianne busied herself with mowing the large lawn shared by the apartments. As she grunted past Mrs. Jennings, who was gardening nearby, she muttered angry words at the antique mower. Not only did it feel as if it weighed a ton, but the mower enjoyed pestering her by veering right. Mrs. Jennings, although sympathetic and intent on purchasing a new lawn mower for Marianne next week, chuckled to herself. These three young women brought so much joy to her life! And not only joy, but renters, too. As the appearance of the apartments began to improve with the girls’ help, people began responding to the newly-cleaned “VACANCIES” sign posted at the complex’s entryway. At the rate things were going, Mrs. Jennings was hopeful the entire complex, twelveapartments in total, would be completely filled in a matter of weeks.
    During this time, Ellie checked her email and the mailbox religiously, hoping for any communication from Edward. When they’d said their goodbyes, Edward promised to visit. But it had been months and he still hadn’t made an appearance. Finding herself growing silently desperate, Ellie checked both outlets daily. Every afternoon after she arrived home from work, the first thing she did was check the mail. And on Saturdays, Ellie eagerly awaited the postal truck’s two o’clock appointment with her mailbox. Checking email only left her equally disappointed. With every passing day that brought no communication from Edward, Ellie began to doubt more and more that he had even cared at all. If he wrote to her, that meant he was thinking about her, right? So no visit and no letter meant . . . he didn’t care? All of this emotional stress was taking a toll on Ellie’s health, and increasingly she found herself withdrawing from her family, preferring to be alone—and she didn’t like that. Picking herself up, Ellie mentally began to brace herself for heartbreak.
    Yet every girl’s heart is allowed a relapse now and then, and late one evening, Ellie decided to see just what the internet could reveal concerning Edward and what kept him too busy to write or come and visit. Yes, he had promised her nothing, but the connection had been too real to pass up as just friendship. Sneaking out of her bedroom, Ellie had chosen to go about her snooping mission after everyone went to bed. The computer was in the living room, in plain sight for all to see—and Ellie didn’t relish the idea of anyone catching her looking up her “secret crush.”
    Turning on the computer, Ellie typed “Edward Ferrars” as quietly as she could into the Google search field and waited for the results to display. A second later, several pictures