The first week of their return was soon gone.The second began. It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton,and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace.The dejection was almost universal.The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat,drink,and sleep,and pursue the usual course of their employments.Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia,whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family.
Their affectionate mother shared all their grief;she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years ago.
“Oh,yes!―if one could but go to Brighton!But papa is so disagreeable.”
“I am sure,”said she,“I cried for two days together when Colonel Miller's regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart.”
“Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public place or other,and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances.”