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riages, and servants. She was busily searching through the

neighbourhood for a proper situation for her daughter; and,

without knowing or considering what their income might

be, rejected many as deficient in size and importance.

'Haye Park might do,' said she, 'if the Gouldings would

quit it, or the great house at Stoke, if the drawing-room

were larger; but Ashworth is too far off. I could not bear

to have her ten miles from me; and as for Purvis Lodge, the

attics are dreadful.'

Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption

while the servants remained. But when they had with-

drawn, he said to her, 'Mrs. Bennet, before you take any,

or all of these houses, for your son and daughter, let us

come to a right understanding. Into _one_ house in this

neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will

not encourage the imprudence of either, by receiving them

at Longbourn.'

A long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet

was firm: it soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found,

with amazement and horror, that her husband would not

advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He pro-

tested that she should receive from him no mark of affection

whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly com-

prehend it. That his anger could be carried to such a point

of inconceivable resentment as to refuse his daughter a

privilege, without which her marriage would scarcely seem

valid, exceeded all that she could believe possible. She was

more alive to the disgrace which her want of new clothes

must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of

shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight

before they took place.

Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from

the distress of the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy

acquainted with their fears for her sister; for since her

marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to

the elopement, they might hope to conceal its unfavourable

beginning from all those who were not immediately on the

spot.

She had no fear of its spreading farther through his

means. There were few people on whose secrecy she would

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