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served the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable

of enlarging the mind of his wife.

When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure,

she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the

regiment. Their parties abroad were less varied than before;

and at home she had a mother and sister, whose constant

repinings at the dulness of everything around them threw a

real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty

might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the

disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from

whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was

likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance by a

situation of such double danger as a watering-place and a

camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been

sometimes found before, that an event to which she had

looked forward with impatient desire, did not, in taking place,

bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was

consequently necessary to name some other period for the

commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on

which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again

enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the

present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour

to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts: it

was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours

which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made

inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme

every part of it would have been perfect.

'But it is fortunate,' thought she, 'that I have something

to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my

disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with

me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I

may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure

realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can

never be successful; and general disappointment is only

warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation.'

When Lydia went away she promised to write very often

and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters

were always long expected, and always very short. Those to

her mother contained little else than that they were just re-

turned from the library, where such and such officers had

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