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hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies of

Rosings.

'But,' he added, 'you will of course wish to have your

humble respects delivered to them, with your grateful thanks

for their kindness to you while you have been here.'

Elizabeth made no objection: the door was then allowed

to be shut, and the carriage drove off.

'Good gracious!' cried Maria, after a few minutes silence,

'it seems but a day or two since we first came! and yet how

many things have happened!'

'A great many, indeed,' said her companion, with a sigh.

'We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking

tea there twice! How much I shall have to tell!'

Elizabeth privately added, 'And how much I shall have to

conceal.'

Their journey was performed without much conversation,

or any alarm; and within four hours of their leaving Huns-

ford they reached Mr. Gardiner's house, where they were to

remain a few days.

Jane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of

studying her spirits, amidst the various engagements which

the kindness of her aunt had reserved for them. But Jane

was to go home with her, and at Longbourn there would be

leisure enough for observation.

It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could

wait even for Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr.

Darcy's proposals. To know that she had the power of re-

vealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must,

at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own

vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a

temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered, but

the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent

of what she should communicate, and her fear, if she once

entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating some-

thing of Bingley, which might only grieve her sister further.

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