After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming,“Is not this nice?Is not this an agreeable surprise?”
“But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side,”said Jane.
“And we mean to treat you all,”added Lydia,“but you must lend us the money,for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.”Then, showing her purchases―“Look here, I have bought this bonnet.I do not think it is very pretty;but I thought I might as well buy it as not.I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better.”
“Are they indeed!”cried Elizabeth,with the greatest satisfaction.
“She is a great fool for going away,if she liked him.”
“They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer!It would be such a delicious scheme;and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all.Mamma would like to go,too,of all things!Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!”
It was the second week in May,in which the three young ladies set out together from Gracechurch Street for the town of―,in Hertfordshire; and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr.Bennet's carriage was to meet them,they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room upstairs.These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an opposite milliner,watching the sentinel on guard,and dressing a salad and cucumber.