Page 135 of Hard Home

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They got back to Longbourn very late for dinner, and Mrs. Bennet said a great many things about it, and Kitty said that they must have walked to Stevenage; and Jane looked once at her sister across the table and then looked down at her plate and did not say one word for the rest of the evening, and was so obviously, radiantly certain that Elizabeth had to leave the room twice.

Mr. Darcy asked to see Mr. Bennet in the morning.

He wrote three letters that night at Netherfield, and the longest of them was to a girl of sixteen and a half in Derbyshire,and it took him four hours, and there was nothing softened in it anywhere.

Chapter Fifty-Four

She told Jane that night.

Jane, who could believe anything of anybody, could not believe this; and it took a quarter of an hour and a great deal of laughing on both sides before she would.

"Good Heaven! can it be really so! Yet now I must believe you," cried Jane. "My dear, dear Lizzy, I would — I do congratulate you — but are you certain? forgive the question — are you quite certain that you can be happy with him?"

"There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already, that we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased, Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?"

"Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do any thing rather than marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do?"

"Oh, yes! You will only think I feelmorethan I ought to do, when I tell you all."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, I must confess, that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am afraid you will be angry."

"My dearest sister, nowbeserious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?"

"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley."

Another entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment.

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Mr. Darcy came at ten the next morning and went into the library, and the door was shut for fifty minutes.

Elizabeth sat in the small parlor and did a great deal of work upon a piece of muslin which had to be unpicked afterwards.

At five to eleven the library door opened and Mr. Darcy came out, and looked across the hall at her, and did not smile, and inclined his head very slightly; and then Hill came and said that Mr. Bennet would be glad to see Miss Elizabeth.

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Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious.

"Lizzy," said he, "what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?"

How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give; but they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy.

"Or in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you happy?"

"Have you any other objection," said Elizabeth, "than your belief of my indifference?"

"None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him."

"I do like him," she replied, with tears in her eyes; "I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms."

"Lizzy," said her father, "I have given him my consent. He is the kind of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse any thing which he condescended to ask. I now give it toyou, if you are resolved on having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeingyouunable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about."

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