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wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and that, if he marry prudently,

his wife may teach him. I thought him very sly; -- he hardly ever

mentioned your name. But slyness seems the fashion. Pray forgive

me if I have been very presuming, or at least do not punish me so far,

as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy till I have

been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice little pair of

ponies, would be the very thing. But I must write no more. The

children have been wanting me this half hour.

'Your's, very sincerely,

'M. Gardiner.'

The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter cf

spirits, in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure

or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled sus-

picions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy

might have been doing to forward her sister's match, which she

had feared to encourage, as an exertion of goodness too great to

be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the

pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to

be true! He had followed them purposely to town, he had

taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on

such a research; in which supplication had been necessary to

a woman whom he must abominate and despise, and where he

was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason with, persuade,

and finally bribe, the man whom he always most wished to

avoid and whose very name it was punishment to him to pro'

nounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither

regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper, that he had done it

for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other consider

dons, and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient,

when required to depend on his affection for her, for a woman

who had already refused him, as able to overcome a sentiment so

natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. --

Brother-in-law of Wickham! -- Every kind of pride must revolt

niorf the connection. He had to be sure done much. She

was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason

for his interference, which asked no extraordinary stretch of

belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong;

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