“Not so much as I could wish,sir;but I dare say he may spend half his time here;and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months.”
“And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?”said Mrs. Gardiner.
“And of this place,”thought she,“I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own,and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt.But no,”―recollecting herself―“that could never be;my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them.”
Elizabeth coloured,and said:“A little.”
They descended the hill,crossed the bridge,and drove to the door;and,while examining the nearer aspect of the house,all her apprehension of meeting its owner returned.She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been mistaken.On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper,had leisure to wonder at her being where she was.
“Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?”
Her aunt now called her to look at a picture.She approached and saw the likeness of Mr.Wickham,suspended,amongst several other miniatures, over the mantelpiece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly,how she liked it.The housekeeper came forward,and told them it was a picture of a young gentleman,the son of her late master's steward,who had been brought up by him at his own expense.“He is now gone into the army,”she added;“but I am afraid he has turned out very wild.”