{{prxprp199.jpg}} || PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 199 ||

Chapter XLI

The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began.

It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young

ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection

was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still

able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their

employments. Very frequently were they reproached for this

insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was extreme,

and who could not comprehend such hard'heartedness in any

of the family.

'Good Heaven! what is to become of us; What are we to

do?' -- would they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. 'How

can you be smiling so, Lizzy;'

Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered

what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five and twenty

years ago.

T am sure,' said she, T cried for two days together when

Colonel Miller's regiment went away. I thought I should have

broken my heart.'

'I am sure I shall break mine/ said Lydia.

'If one could but go to Brighton!' observed Mrs. Bennet.

'Oh, yes! -- if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so

disagreeable.'

'A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever.'

'And my aunt Philips is sure it would do me a great deal of

good,' added Kitty.

Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually

through Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by

them; but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew

the justice of Mr. Darcy's objections; and never had she before

been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views

of his friend.

 [[199]]