{{prxprp206.jpg}} || 206 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ||

Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety

of her father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it

with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affeo

donate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she

could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual

breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing

his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly

reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now, the

disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a

marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so

ill-judged a direction of talents; talents which, rightly used, might

at least have preserved 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 dul^

ness of every thing 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 consc

quently necessary to name some other period for the commence

ment 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.

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