“Very true;and if I had my will,we should.But my dear Lydia,I don't at all like your going such a way off.Must it be so?”
“I should like it beyond anything!”said her mother.
They came.The family were assembled in the breakfast room to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet as the carriage drove up to the door;her husband looked impenetrably grave;her daughters,alarmed,anxious,uneasy.
“Well, mamma,”said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast room,“and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck.They must all go to Brighton.That is the place to get husbands.What a pity it is, mamma,we did not all go.”
“Ah!Jane,I take your place now,and you must go lower,because I am a married woman.”
“I thank you for my share of the favour,”said Elizabeth;“but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands.”
There was no want of discourse.The bride and her mother could neither of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near Elizabeth, began inquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood, with a good humoured ease which she felt very unable to equal in her replies.They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world.