After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence,health, good humour,and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn. Everything wore a happier aspect.The families who had been in town for the winter came back again,and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity;and,by the middle of June,Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears;an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day,unless,by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office,another regiment should be quartered in Meryton.
Elizabeth said no more―but her mind could not acquiesce. The possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly occurred.It would be dreadful!She blushed at the very idea,and thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt than to run such a risk. But against this there were objections;and she finally resolved that it could be the last resource,if her private inquiries to the absence of the family were unfavourably answered.
The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast approaching, and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs.Gardiner,which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent.Mr.Gardiner would be prevented by business from setting out till a fortnight later in July,and must be in London again within a month,and as that left too short a period for them to go so far,and see so much as they had proposed,or at least to see it with the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour,and,according to the present plan,were to go no farther northwards than Derbyshire.In that county there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction.The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock,Chatsworth,Dovedale,or the Peak.