{{prxprp252.jpg}} || 252 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ||

condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters,

if they could be of use to us.'

'She had hater have stayed at home,' cried Elizabeth; 'perhaps

she r.Y-vif well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot

sec too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible;

condolence, insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance,

and be satisfied.'

She then proceeded to inquire into the measures which her

father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery

of his daughter.

'He meant, I believe,' replied Jane, 'to go to Epsom, the place

where they last changed horses, see the postilions, and try if

any thing could be made out from them. His principal object

must be to discover the number of the hackney coach which took

them from Clapham. It had come with a fare from London;

and as he thought the circumstance of a gentleman and lady's

removing from one carriage into another, might be remarked, he

meant to make inquiries at Clapham. If he could anyhow

discover at what house the coachman had before set down his

fare, he determined to make inquiries there, and hoped it might

not be impossible to find out the stand and number of the coach.

I do not know of any other designs that he had formed; but he

was in such a hurry to be gone, and his spirits so greatly dis-??

composed, that I had difficulty in finding out even so much

as this.'

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